Send in the tanks! (Chavez)

Praktik said:
To be honest, a lot of things they write about deserve outrage - but it can cause one to lose their rational, detached perspective on things.

The real issue here is those rationalizations: their history, their promotion, the degree to which they are shared by leadership. They coincide quite nicely with the crass needs of the nation-state such as access to resources, profit and maintenance of a sphere of influence. This perhaps explains their success, since worldviews and politics that negatively affect those interests never really seem to rise to dominance.


Likely not. While I share your sentiment Randfan that most of the American leadership were not so crass and hearltless as alleged, the results of their decisions were certainly horrendous and sometimes even contrary to the self-interest they were protecting (such as the installation of the Shah).

The main problem is not the "evilness" of the individuals making the decisions, but the ideas in their heads that cause them to make decisions with evil outcomes.
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In this post your are condemning American actions.

Praktik said:
What do I think of his funding the FARC? Classic power politics, and in the self-interest of Venezuela after all, who shares a border with a country replete with well-armed ideologically opposed paramilitaries (or paras in the local parlance) and a government funded heavily by a hostile power (America).

What I think would be strange is if he DIDN'T have links to the FARC - it would be a strange exception to the history of power politics and the way countries seek to protect their self-interest.

Does the FARC do bad things? Of course. Are they responsible for atrocities? No doubt. But its not as if they exist in a vaccuum - they are a natural product of a decades long civil war and larger ideological conflict - involving apalling atrocities committed on both sides.

This may be caricatured as "moral relativism" by the 101 Keyboard Brigade but to the rational it comes off as more as a reality-based analysis of the situation at hand, instead of what I would call "selective moral blindness" in the case of individuals who whitewash the crimes of the Columbian government and their links to brutal and heartless right-wing paramilities because FARC fits nicely into a classic binary Cold War formulation wherein the crimes of socialist/communist entities are given priority for outraged condemnation while the crimes of entities aligned against the "reds" are whitewashed and/or rationalized away.
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In this post you are condoning similar (if not worse) Venezualan actions.

I find that hard to reconcile.
 
Matteo Martini said:
The elections were free and fair.
Chavez has won them.

That is the only point that matters, IMHO
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Given that he threatened people that if they voted against him he would send the army in against them the election was hardly free or fair.

That said, if you think that winning an election renders the government immune to criticism why have you spent so long criticising the US government? Surely the only point that matters is that Bush twice won free and fair elections?
 
gtc said:
Given that he threatened people that if they voted against him he would send the army in against them the election was hardly free or fair.
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I do not know if Chavez`s words were really reported accurately.
Still, there were other parties to vote for, right?
Read this article from the economist, were do they speak about not-free and not-fair elections?
http://www.economist.com/world/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12698932

gtc said:
That said, if you think that winning an election renders the government immune to criticism why have you spent so long criticising the US government? Surely the only point that matters is that Bush twice won free and fair elections?
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I have never criticized the American election system, even if the elections of 2000 were not fair (Gore should have won Florida).
 
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Childlike Empress said:
edit: @dudalb

Wrong.

Now explain to us how Chavez, who is president of a country which happens to have the thirteenth national vote under his rule today, is a dictator, dudalb. I'm listening.
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Heck, they had "votes" under Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He always got between 99% and 100%, but there were "votes."
 
JihadJane said:
I have read your claims to be a "Socialist" before and never been able to match your rhetoric with any socialism I know of.

In what way was Chavez UNFAIRLY elected?
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So...my belief in Marxist theory IN PART as being the best possible method for a nation to treat its subjects makes me not a Socialist?

Strange. The fact that I am pretty anti-capitalist, to the extent that I disagree with allowing, for example, privatised healthcare or power to even exist makes me...what?

I am a democratic socialist. Just because you have never been exposed to degrees of socialism does not mean I am a liar. I study political philosophy, it is, for want of a better word, my "job".

Tell me, what Socialism do you know? Here's a hint, The USSR was not socialist, and neither was China. Cuba was modelled on the USSR, and Vietnam on a combination of USSR and China. Laos is like Vietnam. (If someone does not follow Socialist doctrine, they aren't a Socialist, no matter how much they claim they are. This means you, Stalin and Mao.)
 
Mark,

It's difficult to remember every post but I think you have been fairly consistent in your rhetoric. I've no problem accepting that you are a socialist. I think, and I could be wrong, JJ is making a no true Scotsman argument.

FTR: I came here virulently anti-socialist and anti-Marxist but I've gained a good deal of respect for both since then. Much thanks BTW to Victor Dalenchenko who doesn't post here anymore. Also, and thanks to George Orwell, a hero of American conservatives, who it turns out was a socialist. Go figure. :)
 
I find it courageous to "admit" to be a Socialist and partial beliver of Marx.
Especially considering how Marx and Socialism is regarded here.

But how i understood Mark so far, he is a socialist, but not one of the extreme ones, what is a good thing :)

And i hope he is wrong about Chavez.
I put allot of faith in Chavez and Morales, and hope that those 2 man do not let down the people in their country that put even more faith in them.
 
Bush twice won free and fair elections
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there was alot more debate about the fairness and correctness of the 2000 Election in the USA than any of Chavez elections.
 
gtc said:
In this post your are condemning American actions.

In this post you are condoning similar (if not worse) Venezualan actions.

I find that hard to reconcile.
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Not really. Especially if I believe that the Venezuelan actions stem from similar ideas of protecting national self-interest, and of being a force for the best kind of political solution for the Venezuelan people and South America generally. I have no doubt that nearly all Venezuelan decision makers responsible for linking up with the FARC believe those things.

Bear in mind that I was attempting to explain how America could come to make decisions that deleteriously affected so many without being the caricature of evil asserted by the outraged. Seems to me my posts have been consistent in that my "defense of Chavez" rested on a similar approach.
 
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Praktik said:
Not really. Especially if I believe that the Venezuelan actions stem from similar ideas of protecting national self-interest, and of being a force for the best kind of political solution for the Venezuelan people and South America generally. I have no doubt that nearly all Venezuelan decision makers responsible for linking up with the FARC believe those things.

Bear in mind that I was attempting to explain how America could come to make decisions that deleteriously affected so many without being the caricature of evil asserted by the outraged. Seems to me my posts have been consistent in that my "defense of Chavez" rested on a similar approach.
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That is how I took your post.

If you view The United State's actions in Latin America and the Mid-East, in an intellectually honest fashion I think you must conclude that regardless of motive there have been very serious negative consequences for the people of those nations.

I don't think America's intent toward Latin America and the Mid-East was malicious. I think it was based, at various times, on faulty assumptions and racist thought. However, one could argue that a number of the decisions were in fact in America's best interest and that at various times there was a high degree of likelihood that the people would have been harmed either way. The most destructive and malicious force in the 20th century was without doubt so-called Communism. 100 million people were murdered or they starved to death. Death by starvation was often intentional (see Stalin's Purges AKA Soviet Holocaust) many unintentionally (see Mao's Great Leap Forward.) Looking back at North Korea and Pol Pot who marched @ 1,000,000 people into a field and shot them to death you've got to admit that there was some justification to have a healthy concern for this new ideology sweeping the world. I think the policy was in part due to the thinking that the evil we know and can influence, "fascism" is better than the evil we don't know and can't influence *"communism".

I don't blame those who suffered as a result of America's involvement for their hatred of America. I only hope they can look past their emotion to judge America's actions based on all of the facts and not simply cherry picked ones.

*I'm not interested in a semantical debate. I'm happy to concede that what Mao, Stalin et al called Communism isn't what Marx envisioned. I think Marx's theories are too a large degree fatally flawed but we can argue that someplace else.
 
Childlike Empress said:
edit: I was indeed mistaken when i said that the license ran for six years. It was a twenty year license issued in 1987.
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RandFan said:
No reason to justify closing them down.
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I've corrected a mistake i've made. What is wrong with that? And for the umptiest time, the station was not closed.

I have to delay my critique of the PBS documentary, have to re-read something before and had a busy weekend.

But i wanted to forward this, Chavez talked to CNN journalist Patricia Janiot during a press conference last week:

El Presidente said:
"That Chavez threatened to bring out the tanks! You saw it, Patricia, right?" ... "CNN said it?" ... "You said it, but taking it out of context, which is one of the problems with you all! It was totally taken out of context." ... "I think that you are a good journalist, and I believe that you are an honest woman, but I think that you are a victim of the speed that you all have there, of talking to the world and telling them things." ... "But you must take responsibility. In order to say something so serious as that, you should say ‘wait a minute, find the complete declaration for me'...you committed the serious error of decontextualization and of manipulation" ... "What I said was that, in a situation where the opposition won state governor positions and tried to convert states into bases for coup plotting, violence and (separatism), well I would have to bring tanks into the street. I said it like that, Patricia, I ask it of you, in honour of the truth and morality. But I never threatened to bring out tanks if we lost."
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more: “Please, tell the truth, if they let you"
 
Do the JREF Chavez supporters think it is acceptable for your name to made public on a list that shows all those that voted against the govt and then that list stops you getting credit at the bank or leads to you being discriminated against for employment?

A simple yes or no will do.

Do you think it is fair that if you work hard all your life to provide a house and land for your family and future generations that Chavez can come and take half of it and move in people from the slums?

Again, a simple yes or no.

I get my news from people who live in Venezuela and also people who have moved out but still have family there. I do not get my info from "western biased media". How can I be being mislead?

IMO if he spent less time trying to antagonise the US and more time actually helping his people there would not be such a brouhaha about him.
 
CE said:
Now explain to us how Chavez, who is president of a country which happens to have the thirteenth national vote under his rule today, is a dictator, dudalb. I'm listening.
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In reply to above

Puppycow said:
Heck, they had "votes" under Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He always got between 99% and 100%, but there were "votes."
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In reply to above

MM said:
What has this to do with Venezuela and the US?
And with the discussion of this thread?
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Please tell me you are joking? Is english your first langauge?
 
funk de fino said:
Do the JREF Chavez supporters think it is acceptable for your name to made public on a list that shows all those that voted against the govt and then that list stops you getting credit at the bank or leads to you being discriminated against for employment?

A simple yes or no will do.

Do you think it is fair that if you work hard all your life to provide a house and land for your family and future generations that Chavez can come and take half of it and move in people from the slums?

Again, a simple yes or no.

I get my news from people who live in Venezuela and also people who have moved out but still have family there. I do not get my info from "western biased media". How can I be being mislead?

IMO if he spent less time trying to antagonise the US and more time actually helping his people there would not be such a brouhaha about him.
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I also know a Familiy in Venezuela there they hate Chavez, oc they do, they belong to the upper class.

btw, you got evidence about that list? Or is it such a urban legend or a story from a chainmail ?
 
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funk de fino said:
Do the JREF Chavez supporters think it is acceptable for your name to made public on a list that shows all those that voted against the govt and then that list stops you getting credit at the bank or leads to you being discriminated against for employment?

A simple yes or no will do.

Do you think it is fair that if you work hard all your life to provide a house and land for your family and future generations that Chavez can come and take half of it and move in people from the slums?

Again, a simple yes or no.

I get my news from people who live in Venezuela and also people who have moved out but still have family there. I do not get my info from "western biased media". How can I be being mislead?

IMO if he spent less time trying to antagonise the US and more time actually helping his people there would not be such a brouhaha about him.
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The many many elections in Venezuela actually show that Chavez is doing a good job according to the majority or the Venezuelan people.

The poeple did not want his new Bolivarian Constitution, but however they did not vote him out of office.

Chavez is the Perisdent that is elected by the majority of the people, most people do like most of the things Chavez is doing.

I am happy for the Venezuelan people to have a President that they feel is representing them.
Freedom of Press and Democracy are working fine in Venezuela, no mather how hard we westerners try to twist that.
 
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