So, there's a lot of hyperventilation on "Captain Capitalism" Aaron Clarey's website about Hugo Chavez. And that's sort of understandable because it's the strangest thing that the tinpot leader of a poor country should have become such a player internationally, a kind of proxy for America-bashing fools. I mean, the guy should be sort of a nonentity, and (at least until his legislature gave him new powers a couple weeks back) he's not even so much a dictator as a crude government bully and is hardly among the planet's worst such - so something is way screwed up that anyone pays so much attention to the guy.
But I don't get the repeated assertions that somehow Chavez is the darling of the American left. You can't find any love for Chavez in mainstream left-wing papers like the New Republic or the American Prospect. Even the Nation doesn't have much good to say about Chavez. Mainstream left-wing sources don't much like the guy and even the most repulsive of far left writers like those at Daily Kos seem to've gotten the whole thing about right, for a long time. Then again, liberal sources don't seem to care much about Chavez: it's the right-wingers who write so much about him.
Which suddenly makes sense, right? I mean, Latin America is now full of countries which have decided that the bits of financial aid Chavez doles out are worth more than any support from America (the sole exception, for obvious reasons, being Colombia). Even the President of Chile is willing to support Chavez' anti-US bid for a Security Council seat - and that's bad. And it's a gift, not from the left, but the right, which basically doesn't seem to have a Latin America policy. Which, in fact, got excited and sat on its hands during a coup d'etat, which really brought Chavez to prominence (this seems to be the only time I can find a lot of left-wing support for Chavez: when writers bashed the administration for failing to condemn the coup. Problem for the Clarey Crew is, the right came around to agreeing with them.) Because frankly, no amount of oil money should be enough to convince anybody in Latin America that the US isn't interested enough in the place, to be worth courting.
So suddenly I get this brilliant idea: maybe he's nationalized the right wing turkeys somehow? I mean, he gets all his press from the Aaron Clareys of the world. And they're the ones who seem to've decided that they just don't give a rip about the American sphere of influence in South America. So maybe he's made them all property of the Venezuelan government somehow? One moronic comment from Pat Robertson, means another round of international junkets for Hugo.
Well, we won't stand for that, Hugo! Free Aaron Clarey! Let our people go! We're wise to your little game.
[Not that there aren't topics about which those silly leftists and turncoat rightists go on and on about that Aaron never seems to consider interesting: like say prisoner abuse....]
3 comments:
Your nuts thinking of venuzuala as a poor country.
Is the average citizen poor?? probably. is the country??? oh no.
Look up military spending by this country and you will be amazed, rivals the US. Look at the oil production and sales. Look at gas prices, and compare to 15 years ago.
Chavez is a kid with a pea shooter who thinks it is a cannon who will mess up the whole region.
Let's see now, the latest figures I can find that look good are 2004, when Venezuela spent about $1 1/2 bn on arms, but they say now it's up to about $4 bn.
Uh, yeah, colin. Rivals the US. Fight the socialist power, man, good for you.
But, hey, stewpid -- the "off by two orders of magnitude statement of fact" meets the level of dumb we try to keep in the comments here. Now, if you can throw in some more puerile personal attacks on us and our families in defense of a bigot, you'll be back in full form!
Post a Comment