Chavez: Castro wannabe
Stifling dissent in the media; making deals with ne'er-do-wells like Ahmadinejad of Iran and Castro of Cuba; stirring up hatred at America (with poor diplomatic results — see 'Bush is the devil' UN speech — and backward progress in, say, Colombia, as a result of hostility and petty stubbornness); performing possibly illegal actions to hold on to power; virtually stating himself as president for life; kicking out any company he doesn't like. These are the actions of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. He has also misused his country's abundant oil resources, often for his own political gain, something we've also seen with Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Russia (natural gas for the lattermost).
Hailed as an anti-American imperialism and crusader against evil foreign capitalism by the far left, and the epitome of anti-Americanism and collectivist populism in Latin America by the right, Chavez, reelected late last year, has continued his so-called Bolivarian socialist revolution with little concern for democracy.
...and he has followers
Chavez, a follower of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, has his own populist allies in Latin America, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Evo Moralas of Bolivia. Ortega made a paranoid and extreme speech against what he sees as US neoimperialism and the imposition of harmful capitalism — of course, like his Venezuelan pal he paints himself as his country's savior from that evil — at the UN, although Chavez was absent after the events of last year (the aforementioned calling Bush the 'devil'). Ortega, quite the radical, also spoke in defense of North Korea of all despotic regimes, defending its right to nukes!
How are these anti-American populists getting elected, one might ask? The failure of post-colonial governments, still largely dominated by the rich and controlled by America and Europe is one reason. The US's meddling in the Cold War did not help either. As moderate alternatives to people like Chavez spring up across the (should-be) flourishing region, one hopes they still stand a chance against their power-hungry rivals. It is time for America to be more fair with its neighbors too.
Thursday, 27 September 2007
Chavez makes 'socialism' into authoritarianism
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2 comments:
Man Clearthought,
In a country such as ours, with the history of the idiots we have elected to office, you have to think things look bleak for these less developed nations. We have all the advantages of technology and a free but maybe biased press and we can't seem to make intelligent decisions at the voting booth. It's a scary world my friend.
Thanks for the comment, Red Hog.
The irrationality of voters (see this post) is one of the draw backs of democracy. When faced with issues that inspire fear or great passion, that irrationality increases. It is because of that we need good education for the masses and experts holding specialized offices that have all-too-often been filled with political appointees (e.g. Brown of FEMA). We see this lack of merit appointments especially in the American system.
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