NEW STATESMAN: HUGO CHAVEZ

POSTED BY: Howard
UPDATED: Saturday, November 5, 2005 03:55
VIEWED: 5692
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HOWARD

Sunday, October 9, 2005 1:17 PM

A WORD ABOUT THE RESPONSES TO THIS POST: It is very interesting how certain persons are only capable of responding to such an intelligent and very well informed article (written by a well regarded journalist and commentator) with insults of a personal nature against me (not even against the author but against me for posting it). They have no capacity for civil discourse.

Here is an excellent article about Hugo Chavez from the magazine NEW STATESMAN:

Hugo Chavez - showing the US who's master
Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Monday 10th October 2005

Venezuela's president is rarely seen by foreigners for what he is: one of the world's most popular and democratic politicians. His strength may yet bring his downfall. By Hugh O'Shaughnessy in Caracas

''Oh," said an acquaintance in a rather surprised voice, "so you take a reasonably favourable view of Hugo Chavez." "Well, yes," I stammered, "he was elected to office fairly, he's popular and he's trying to reform a once-moribund society."

A few days earlier, I had been in an ante-room at the square, white Miraflores Palace in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. I was chatting with one of President Chavez's secretaries, who was abruptly called away. "Back soon," he said. I knew what that meant and, after an hour or two chatting to the staff, I left. Would I never see the man of mixed race who was so despised by the whites and near-whites of Venezuela, but who was making so many tongues wag all over the western hemisphere?

I needn't have worried: the full Chavez experience was around the corner. He had summoned a meeting of the Organisation of American States (OAS), a generator of hot air based in Washington, DC. He wanted this glove puppet of the United States to create a social charter for the hemisphere and start doing something about its startling inequalities. So, the following day we trooped over to the tropical splendour of the Hilton hotel to watch and hear a powerful personality in full flow. The ideas and plans tumbled out like sparks off a grinding wheel - the people of Latin America given the right to eat as well as vote; cheap oil for the poor of the US; free literacy classes and free eyecare for everyone in the western hemisphere; an international referendum on US sanctions against Cuba; the replacement of the OAS by something that would reflect Latin rather than US interests . . .

Watching him perform, one realised he was not only younger, but more vigorous, concrete and coherent than his friend and mentor Fidel Castro. The Cuban leader (whom I have met sev-eral times) is, after all, in his twilight years. Next day, there was Chavez on IAlo, Presidente!, his regular Sunday television show. Then he reappeared to give Jesse Jackson a medal. On each occasion the ideas poured out, jostling each other for attention.

Perhaps it's because Hugo Chavez will never use one word when a thousand will do and his rhetoric is not very British; perhaps it's because he was a paratroop colonel and likes to wear a plum-coloured beret; perhaps it's because he takes a dim view of the US not shared by some European bien-pensants; perhaps it is merely because he is a practitioner in the deeply devalued discipline of Latin American politics. For whatever reason, foreigners rarely see Chavez for what he is: one of the most popular and powerful political figures in the western hemisphere, seeking to build a basic welfare state on democratic foundations. He won 56 per cent of the vote in the 1998 multi-party presidential elections; then the new constitution he proposed was approved in December 1999 by 72 per cent of the vote; then he won a new six-year mandate in 2000 with 59 per cent; then he won a referendum last year, again with 59 per cent. Now he faces multi-party elections in December 2006.

Since he was first elected, Chavez has kept the voters' loyalty and begun forcing through reforms that economists in European governments, at the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund merely write about, but never expect to see put into practice. He can afford to do it. With

EYETOOTH

Saturday, October 15, 2005 11:41 PM

Thanks for the hagiographic SPAM, asshole. This is half a step away from the Jew-counterbait thread in troll country.

LOGGERHEAD

Sunday, October 16, 2005 1:18 AM

I am from Venezuela.

You are an idiot.

EYETOOTH

Sunday, October 16, 2005 1:46 AM

Your post is ambiguous to whom you're referring, meaning that either you're a Chavez fanboi or hater. Actually living under his regime, you've presumably seen the effects of him stripping the government of accountability, creating paralell institutions under his direct control, and generally preparing the country to be raped in the derierre once oil prices drop. Depending on whether you're one or the other you see these developments in a good or bad light.

HOWARD

Sunday, October 16, 2005 1:54 AM

What you describe would be quite accurate if
one was talking about the Bush Administration
and its corporate cronies because in fact
that is what they are doing to the USA.
That is the portion of the USA that belongs
to ordinary people. Stripping it for the rich
as in what is going down in New Orleans right
now.

EYETOOTH

Sunday, October 16, 2005 2:10 AM

That's one stuuuupid response. And you're one ineffective troll.

Now, please, someone send this guy's threads where they belong.

HOWARD

Sunday, October 16, 2005 2:14 AM

It is only "STUPID" to you because
of your vast ignorance and could not care
less disregard for the truth and evidence.

You presume that if you do not know something
it is therefore not happening.

How stupid is that!

EYETOOTH

Sunday, October 16, 2005 2:39 AM

No. It's "STUUUUUPID" because...

...c'mon, you can guess...

...George Bush and his administration's shenanegans weren't the topic at hand. At all.

This is my last swipe at the dead horse: you are a retard, or troll, or (most likely) both. Move along.

LOGGERHEAD

Sunday, October 16, 2005 12:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by eyetooth:
Your post is ambiguous to whom you're referring

Sorry, eyetooth. You're right, it was ambiguous. I should have been clearer.

Howard is an idiot.

SEVENPERCENT

Sunday, October 16, 2005 2:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by loggerhead:
Quote:
Originally posted by eyetooth:
Your post is ambiguous to whom you're referring

Sorry, eyetooth. You're right, it was ambiguous. I should have been clearer.

Howard is an idiot.

Why? If he is, let him have it logically and with some thought out points (which I did the other day in his Israel thread, find it and have a look if you want - look for bold titles, that's Howard's schtick). You lived there, and you disagree, you should have several good reasons. This is a more polite forum, where we talk to each other, not Fark or SomethingAwful, where it's one line attacks for wit (contrary to Gregg.'s and my spat the other day over James Bond, I was in a snit that day anyway, and so was he I think).

If you are calling someone an idiot, be prepared to back it up. If not, the troll? It's you.

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He looked bigger when I couldn't see him.

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