Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

Noam Chomsky and Hugo Chavez. No More BFF

July 5th, 2011

Lefty anarchist intellectual Noam Chomsky used to be Venezuelan strongman president Hugo Chavez' most uncritically adoring fan. He cited the soldier-turned-politician as a driving force for improving equality and reducing poverty in Latin America. In return, Chavez plugged Chomsky's books at the United Nations.

But as the buffoonish politician's health declines, he finds his clever old friend is finally starting to notice and speak out about what most obververs of Latin American politics picked up on years ago.

An excerpt from the Guardian: Noam Chomsky on Venezuela – the transcript

RC: With Hugo Chávez in Cuba the last several weeks a lot of people are saying this shows there is too much reliance on one man because everything appears to have almost stopped in his absence, at least in the political sphere. What's your take? Is there too much reliance on one man and his charisma?

NC: Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against. Whether it's over too far in that direction in Venezuela I'm not sure but I think perhaps it is.

RC: What makes you say
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Is There Life On Mars?

March 22nd, 2011

No. Capitalism and imperialism killed it, according to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Also, the West is attacking Libya for its water reserves.

"I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.

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Hugo Chavez, Sean Penn And Dr. Evil

March 6th, 2011

The world is very much reassured that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is taking American actor Sean Penn's advice under consideration. But shouldn't we all be at least a little worried that Chavez is also hanging out with the likes of Dr. Evil?

Seriously. 31 seconds into the Reuters clip. Check it out.More >>

21st Century Socialism in Venezuela Halted?

September 30th, 2010

hugo chavez venezuelan politics political opposition democracy Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is now on his back foot. Can he be topped by a popular movement?

The Latin American socialist demagogue is now facing concerted resistance from opposition parties that formerly boycotted the political hyena. And as it turns out, Venezuelan democracy may have a little life left. Chavez' constant propaganda can't cover up the fact that the economy is in ruins (even as billions of dollars worth of Russian arms deals went through to help fight an American invasion no one thinks will never actually come). And Chavez' handouts to bribe the poor have not done anything to lift the poor out of poverty. He has only perpetuated a permanent unemployed underclass.

Now he's paying for it. Joel D. Hirst in the Huffington post reports on the startling change in Venezuelan politics:

Yesterday's National Assembly Election, with 66% voter turnout, saw the opposition's Table for Democratic Unity (MUD) gain 61 seats (with several more still being counted), a number that would have been significantly higher were it not for the 2009 reform of the electoral law.

These
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Venezuela As A Failed State

August 25th, 2010

Hugo Chavez Venezuela politics murder Socialist Bolivarian revolution Long ago in my student days, my political science professor drew a squiggly map of the world on the blackboard. He elaborated on the topics we would be discussing that year, pointing to various spots the map around the Middle East, Africa, China, Russia and Southeast Asia. He drew lines from North America and Western Europe, adding more details as he went, muttering random thoughts about the Cold War, dictators and international terrorism.

About 15 minutes into the introductory talk, he paused, realized he'd forgotten to draw South America. He hastily drew a clumsy blob in the general vicinity of where it was supposed to be, noting with a shrug that "we wouldn't be focusing on that part of the world too much, anyway. When it comes to international relations, it doesn't really matter." And that was that. So much for the 400 million salsa-dancing non-entities below the Panama Canal.

Even today, Venezuela, like much of South America, gets short shrift when it comes to how North Americans see the world. Venezuelan Dictator (er, President) Hugo Chavez can fulminate on...More >>

Hugo Chavez Film Bombs in Venezuela

July 4th, 2010

As political propaganda films go, Oliver Stone's sycophantic pean to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, South of the Border, is an unmitigated failure.

Chavez has undermined democracy and the rule of law in his country. In the tradition of modern tyrants everywhere, he has shut down media outlets that show the slightest opposition to his regime. He has packed the civil service with apparatchiks and made loyalty to his own political brand the key metric for hiring and firing. And he has utterly wrecked the Venezuelan economy, including even the oil industry from which he sucks out cash to finance his Bolivarian revolution.

For all this, Chavez is not direct military threat to the USA. Russian-bought T-72 tanks with Venezuelan markings will not be rolling into Washington anytime in the conceivable future. The threat has been indirect, as a Castro-lite regime attempts to influence the development of a wider South American socialist bloc of countries.

Oliver Stone's flick overlooks Chavez' failings and presents him and other Latin American socialist leaders as visionaries and heroes. But nobody is buying it; least of all, the people Chavez keeps under his boot.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that "Despite round-the-clock promotion on...More >>