[Peace-discuss] NYT Editorial on Venzuela, with commentary

[David Green]

NYT Editorial from Dec. 10th. Parenthetical comments
have been added:

     The kind of lucky breaks President Hugo Chávez of
Venezuela has been getting lately (living in a country
with lots of oil, which we need for our cars) could
tempt even a modest man - and Mr. Chávez is no modest
man (he challenges U.S. power)- to dream grandiose
dreams (such as helping the poor of his country, and
of ours). High oil prices (partly a result of
exploitation by American oil companies), a terminally
inept opposition (they couldn’t overthrow him with a
military coup, supported by Bush and the NY Times),
and the Bush administration's scandalous neglect of
its Western Hemisphere neighbors (they haven’t been
able to ram through another free trade agreement) have
left the field wide open for Mr. Chávez to bully
people at home (provide them with education and
healthcare), buy friends abroad (by providing cheaper
oil for poor people) and annoy Washington at every
turn (not support U.S. imperialism). 


     Since first taking office (being elected) in
1999, Mr. Chávez has pushed through a new Constitution
that lets him rule as a quasi dictator (he is
supported by an elected legislature, but opposed by
the Venezuelan corporate media). He has marginalized
Congress, undermined judicial independence and
prosecuted political opponents (who tried to violently
overthrow him). By tightening control of the national
oil company (it is a state-owned company, and he is
the elected President), he has been able to use high
world oil prices (which U.S. oil companies love and
exacerbate) to increase funds for popular social
programs for the poor, making him electorally
unassailable (how dare a politician do things to be
popular—especially among poor people?). That dangerous
concentration of power (so much more concentrated than
the neocons in Washington, who can lie their way into
war and use the most powerful army in history when
doing so) will most likely worsen after last Sunday's
Congressional election, in which parties allied to Mr.
Chávez won every one of the 167 seats. The opposition
can blame only itself because it boycotted the polls
even after its demands for stricter ballot secrecy
were met. (Should Chavez give the opposition a few
seats anyway just to appease the NY Times?)


     That petulant idiocy (even the opposition in
Latin countries are idiots—after all they’re all
Latin) frustrated regional diplomats (American
surrogates) who had pressed the secrecy demand on the
opposition's behalf, and it mystified and
disenfranchised Venezuelan voters who had wanted a
choice at the polls (to choose to protect their
privileges). Even without the boycott, pro-Chávez
parties would have won a majority. But now not a
single opposition voice will be heard in Congress, and
Mr. Chávez is free to do whatever he likes (such as
pursue a progressive agenda that provides a “bad
example” to other countries that simply cannot be
tolerated).


     A month earlier, at the Summit of the Americas in
Argentina, Mr. Chávez cavorted (while not even landing
on an aircraft carrier) before crowds of
anti-Washington (anti corporate globalization,
antiwar) protesters and networked with his fellow
Latin American presidents (wouldn’t “networking” be
the purpose of such a meeting?). He is hoping that
either Argentina or Brazil will sell him a nuclear
reactor, a step that would be a very bad idea
considering Venezuela's burgeoning friendship with
Iran and the excessive indulgence Caracas has shown
toward Iranian nuclear ambitions (the Axis of evil
clearly is missing a member since our invasion of
Iraq, and Venezuela might fit the bill—the NYT can’t
seek any lower than this one sentence, especially
considering the Judy Miller affair). 
Meanwhile, Washington's hemispheric influence
(hegemony) continues to dwindle (be challenged),
partly because President Bush has not been attentive
enough to Mexico on immigration, Brazil on
agricultural subsidies and Argentina on debt
restructuring (hasn’t found a way to develop cosmetic
solutions to deep-seated problems rooted in American
hegemony that silence dissent while satisfying elites
in all countries).


     The United States should not further feed Mr.
Chávez's ego (this is all about personal
pathology--only Latin American leaders have
egos—American leaders have ideals and interests) and
give him more excuses for demagogy (a word best
applied to leaders of countries that challenge the
U.S.—those that don’t are “charismatic”) by treating
him as clumsily as it has treated his hero and role
model, Fidel Castro (the remnants of McCarthyism,
playing the remnant of anti-communism for all it’s
worth, with shameless hyperbole), for the past four
and a half decades (during which the U.S. has been
terrorizing Cuba, which can protect its citizens from
hurricanes, while the U.S. cannot). Instead,
Washington needs to compete more deftly and actively
(really put the screws on) with Mr. Chávez for
regional influence (because it can’t get away with
overthrowing him or murdering him as it would have
already done in the past), and look for ways to work
with the hemisphere's other democracies (countries
that do what the U.S. tells them to) to revive the
multiparty competitive democracy (that used to be
controlled by the rich) that has now just about ceased
to exist in Venezuela (because rich Venezuelans, like
rich Americans, don’t like democracy when the people
don’t allow them to rule as they wish, so they've
picked up their pieces and gone home). 



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