Hugo Chavez is an interesting individual, a large anti-Bush proponent, pushing hard to be on the UN Security Council (which seems quite likely), and famous for pushing Bolivarianism. Also, since his speech last week at the UN where he pushed Noam Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival,” this book is now #1 on Amazon’s Best Seller list.
While I see much benefit from his stances, I support his loud criticism of Bush and the administration.
What do others think of this man, this movement? Is it worth the time, or just more propaganda?
Miguel de Icaza talks about him sometimes:
http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2006/Sep-22.html
His complaints about the veto are crap. The veto is the only system of checks on what the security council does. The countries that have the vetos are the known good countries from WWII. You could make the argument that other countries should be granted a veto or that the vetos should rotate–like seats on the council do. That has some merit, just getting rid of the veto is not tenable solution.
Hugo himself seems to suffer from the problems that many of the anti-bush folks do, mainly that he doesn’t like what the bush administration does, but does not offer much in workable alternatives. (Yes just not going into iraq, would have been nice, however we are there now, just up and leaving is not a viable alternative to what we are doing now) The also seem to frequent reports of his brutal rule at home. How he ignores or does nothing to help the very people he claims to represent.
I think that he and the arab countries that claim to hate the USA so much should put their money were their views stand and stop selling us oil. At present he makes a great deal of noise, but doesn’t actually acomplish anything.
I just recently read about the last years of history of Venezuela and was quite impressed about what they reached — especially the bolivar constitution, which seems to be the most democratic and modern constitution that ever existed.
The sad thing is that in Europe (and probably in the US even more) we only hear about Chavez and Venezuela being a dictator (which is not true) and being against the US (which is true, but is not the only point).
I am really positive about the development “down there” and hope there’ll be no intelligence agency trying to stop that movement.
He is not a dictator, in fact he survived a U.S. backed coup de’etat because of his extensive popular support.
Except for some serious and not very mainstream publications (2 in my count), no one covers the Venezuelan situation as a that of a democratic republic, with a democratic president (this fact is indeed confirmed by Jimmy Carter, who was an observer in the recent popular poll for confirmation of the president) and depict him as an autoritarian dictator.
This is because he unaligned Venezuale with the interests of the U.S. and took back the sovereignty of his country. He is, without a doubt, a reference for all the really cherish freedom.
Chavez is not a dictator, and anybody who claims he is is either wildly misinformed or less than honest.
But on the other hand, he is one of the worst kind of politicians that democracy ever produces. He has turned Venezuela from one of the best functioning economies in South America to a third wold country where even the electricity doesn’t work anymore, all with a strong public support because he is always providing his people with scapegoats and promises of swift improvements. Much like Adolf Hitler, Chavez uses the fact that his voters want to blame a third party for their problems, and that his voters are poorly educated to do things that are not really in his voters best interest, though they may sound like good ideas. The comparison stops there, however, there has never been any evidence of either warmongering or antisemitism in Chavez politics.
The existance of politicians like Chavez is unfortunate, but I strongly agree with the statement above by ‘Flavio’ that “[Chavez] is, without a doubt, a reference for all the really cherish freedom.” If a people is to be truly free to make their own choices, they must be free to sometimes make bad choices. Chavez is the embodiment of a peoples right to flush themselves down the toilet and take the rest of their country with them.
Ok, that is fair enough. I really enjoy hearing what you all have to say about Chavez. I agree that this is still freedom and he is not a savior by any means.