Chavez a dictator?

[Guerrilla22]

In this month's issue of Foreign Policy (yeah the magazine put out by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) there is an article by Javier Corrales, an associate proffesor at Amherst College. I would post the article, but you need to subscribe to the web site in order to download it.

In the article Corrales accuses Chavez of being a dictator, who is steadily consolidating power. He sites the crackdown on the media and the "land grabs" by the state and for increasing state ownership. Amongst other things.

while this guy is obviously motivated by Chavez's rejection of neo-liberalism an contempt for the current US administration, this is hardly the first time these charges have been made against chavez. What is your opinion on Chavez, is he consolidating too much power, do you trust he is leading Venezuela in the right direction?

[violencia.Proletariat]

I dont expect anything great from him. He is against "free trade" obviously, Venezuelan bourgeoisie cant make money that way. Hopefully he will bring Venezuela into modern capitalism.

[FeArANDLoAtHiNg]

Americans don't have a right to call Chavez a dictator as his election was more legitimate than Bush's. He does seem to be making moves toward what could become a dictatorship, but he still seems to be genuinely helping the people of Venezuela for the most part. His country has oil and he's a leftist so the U.S. will never look at him through an unbiased lens.

[metalero]

I haven't read the original article, nor I know this guy Javier Corrales. But sincerely speaking, this seems to be the same kind of criticism that comes from petty buorgoise intellectuals. From what you wrote here, I can even say the article is rather childish, there is some objective critics he could do related to the bureocracy emerging that could block the road to working class emancipation, which is right now the most important thing to deal in venezuela. Calling Chavez a "dictator" based on the power he's taken away from the rich elite and transferred to working class organizations, such as communities, new workers federation, misiones, etc, and from the shy agrarian reform he's carrying out only reflects the nature and the class these intellectuals serve.

[which doctor]

Hugo Chavez is not a dictator, but he is no socialist hero either. However, we should still support him for resisting US imperialism, modernizing Venezuela, and helping the poor of Venezuela. The US will never view him favorly because he doesn't fit in with the US agenda. Do not expect communism just yet from South America. For the most part they are backwards countries, not ready for communism yet.

[Scottish_Militant]

He must be the most elected "dictator" in the world...

[Xvall]

In the article Corrales accuses Chavez of being a dictator, who is steadily consolidating power. He sites the crackdown on the media and the "land grabs" by the state and for increasing state ownership. Amongst other things.

I wonder if Mr. Corrales realizes that by these standards pretty much every leading authority figure of every country in the world is a dictator?

[Guerrilla22]

He also criticzed Chavez for "implementing a new constituiton that eliminated the senate, thus eliminating one barrier to pushing his agenda through."

Here's my trouble with that: the constitution of '99 actually increased the Venezuelan government from 3 branches to 5, thus making it more difficult to pass something through, it would seem to me. He also accuses Chavez of implementing the constitution himself, which is shit because the constitution of '99 was passed through a national referendum.

I think I will write a letter in response to foreign policy, I'll post it on here when I'm finished. ;)

[cccpcommie]

i like him..hes a comrade building socialism..im happy bolivia will now be socialist too

[bolshevik butcher]

Hardly a dictator. He's probably the leader in the world with the most dmeocratic amndates. Think how many elections he's won. Also think of all the power in venezuela that isnt in his hands. The workers councils for one, and workers controlled factories are on the increase.

[Atlas Swallowed]

It is better for the state to have the land or multi-national corporations that act only as a parasite? Should be Carnegie International Peace for Corporate Exploitation. That was wonderful of long dead robber baron Andrew Carnegie to have endowments to promote his evil thinking long after death.

[Clarksist]

In the article Corrales accuses Chavez of being a dictator, who is steadily consolidating power. He sites the crackdown on the media and the "land grabs" by the state and for increasing state ownership. Amongst other things.


Mmkay. That's all you need to be a dictator?

Bush's regime is cracking down on the media through tighter FCC regulations, public land is now being able to be "grabbed" by corporations to build shopping malls, and we are in a war which has had a constantly changing agenda since we began years ago.

Hmmmmmmmmm...

Who's the dictator?

[Guerrilla22]

Who's the dictator?

Apparently anyone Latin American leader who opposes freet trade agreements and nationalizes resources to prevent US companies from upping their profit margins.

[*PRC*Kensei]

even if they call him a dictator, let him be one... he's left !. dicrtator means he will stay..so it will stay left...thats good.

[bolshevik butcher]

Originally posted by Atlas [email protected] 8 2006, 04:16 AM
It is better for the state to have the land or multi-national corporations that act only as a parasite? Should be Carnegie International Peace for Corporate Exploitation. That was wonderful of long dead robber baron Andrew Carnegie to have endowments to promote his evil thinking long after death.
Just thought I'd add here that it's the peasants themselves genereally that control the land, and form collectives. There have beenseveral instances of peasant siezing land as well, with support from the government. Unfortunatley peasants have been killed as a result of this in places, by land owners goons.

[DoomedOne]

He's not making moves toward dictatorship, just toward single partyship or rulership by the majority.

He holds free speech very dear, something Castro could never do when he became powerful. Though I disagree with rulership by the mjority, it is the easiest way to quickly progress a nation forward, and as long as poorest 80% of the nation agree with him its still proof he's working in favor of the proletariat.

[Reuben]

Originally posted by *PRC*[email protected] 8 2006, 11:25 AM
even if they call him a dictator, let him be one... he's left !. dicrtator means he will stay..so it will stay left...thats good.
ha\haahahahahahahahahaha


thats one of the funniest posts i have ever seen

[Morpheus]

The US government calls every foreign leader they don't like a "dictator." It's just crap used to demonize their opponets.

[bolshevik butcher]

Yeh, ironically enough any leader that submits himself to washingtons a freedom lover, jsut think of the great people like Pinochet or hte Columbian government or Fox that they support.

It's paticularly ironic in Chavez' case.

[1984]

Originally posted by Fist of [email protected] 7 2006, 05:22 AM
Hugo Chavez is not a dictator, but he is no socialist hero either. However, we should still support him for resisting US imperialism, modernizing Venezuela, and helping the poor of Venezuela. The US will never view him favorly because he doesn't fit in with the US agenda. Do not expect communism just yet from South America. For the most part they are backwards countries, not ready for communism yet.
South American countries are still in a semi-colony condition, and the people doesn&#39;t help that either - In Brazil, at least, I feel there&#39;s still a "submission unconsiouness" from the people that, among other things, let our mother language to be each day more "infected" with pointless anglicisms and a general lack of proper investiments made on national industry (both state and private), yet everybody puts their hands on their chest to sing the national anthem on a World Cup game... <_< and the whole country stops. :angry: I got a tatoo because of this, but that&#39;s another story... :rolleyes:

So Chavez should just be applaused for his state/public services policies and struggle against imperialism.

[Janus]

Hugo Chavez has been elected by a clear majority in both the 2000 and 2004 elections so far. If Corrales considers that dictatorship then I suppose that Chavez is. The US also has a knack for supporting actual dictators such as Somoza and Pinochet in the past so I&#39;m not surprised if their definition of dictatorship is a bit warped.

[deak]

i have family in venezuala and i can tell you that this kind of crap has been being said about chavez since his first LANDSLIDE election. the bottom line is that Venezuala was a very corrupt government when Chavez took office, he is attempting to better the common man, and to do so he is having to spit in the eyes of many officials and agencies that have been corrupt and capatalistic in nature long before he was in power. this horse shit is always propogated by US backed studies and the capatalists of the nations. Just look at how the CIA helped distribute propoganda in Haiti stating that Aristide was mentally insane and shit like that. Now, don&#39;t get me wrong, I don&#39;t give Chavez a free pass to do as he wishes, but it&#39;ll take more than a little US slander for me to decide whether what Chavez is doing is possitive or negative. It&#39;ll take facts&#33;

[deak]

For the most part they are backwards countries

Get out of this forum with that shit&#33;

[Fidelbrand]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12 2006, 04:12 PM

For the most part they are backwards countries

Get out of this forum with that shit&#33;
Why? He was simply refering to Marxist historical materialism. No offence in all I guess.

[deak]

Hugo Chavez is not a dictator, but he is no socialist hero either. However, we should still support him for resisting US imperialism, modernizing Venezuela, and helping the poor of Venezuela. The US will never view him favorly because he doesn&#39;t fit in with the US agenda. Do not expect communism just yet from South America. For the most part they are backwards countries, not ready for communism yet.

not to try and produce arguments or beat dead horses, but nowhere in this statement are there any types of qualifications suggesting materialism or anything like that. all that is written is saying that they are backwards and thus not ready for communism. I would prefer not to have to imagine what was intended by the statement and try and work out justifications for statements that pretty much just seem, well BULLSHIT and antagonistic. I&#39;m sure looking back that the poster didn&#39;t mean it in a racist or whatever way, it just rubbed me wrong. Anyways, it wasn&#39;t my intention to give people a lesson in being politically correct with their posts, it just struck me rather egotistical.

[Fidelbrand]

Then maybe you can say Marx is egotistical, since he indeed propose or purport that countries need to reach their fullest prudctive capacities in capitalism, in order to know capitalism&#39;s genuine and evil flaws. (?)

[deak]

Then maybe you can say Marx is egotistical, since he indeed propose or purport that countries need to reach their fullest prudctive capacities in capitalism, in order to know capitalism&#39;s genuine and evil flaws. (?)

I&#39;m happy that you memorized some Marx that you can sling around at completely innapropriate times but I don&#39;t believe it was Marx that called South American countries backwards, but a person named Fist of Blood. I don&#39;t know exactly where you got the impression that I was talking about Marx at all; possibly you are begining to suffer from John Birch style paranoia and have begun seeing Marx behind your toilet. AND, to answer your question, IF MARX came out and suggested he felt certain countries or cultures were BACKWARDS I WOULD call him an egotistical bastard. Again, if you read my last post you would see that I made concessions that I didn&#39;t believe that Fist of Blood said that in a contemptuos or racsist way only that I may have read it that way being that oppressors have always tended to justify their oppression by suggesting that the oppressed are backwards or savages.

[ZACKist]

I don&#39;t know a whole lot about the details of situation with Chavez and all, but I will say this: If the bourgeois press makes criticisms of such things as "land reforms" --ie, land getting taken from the few bourgeois/oppresive-landowners and being given to the many proletariat-- performed by a leadership with socialist intents, it&#39;s in actuality a good thing for the vast majority of that nations peasentry/proletarian population. It is only natural that the bourgeois press would be opposed to taking the power and land from the few to give to the many.

[ZACKist]

deak: We are all comrades and should not argue with each other in such petty ways. The comment made of the "backwardness" to South America to me seems to suggest it in a government/ecomnomical sense --not a cultural or ethnic one. I think it would be fair to allow comrade FoB to explain his comment before we get too upset with one another.

[deak]

BAH, that&#39;s what I already said.


I&#39;m sure looking back that the poster didn&#39;t mean it in a racist or whatever way, it just rubbed me wrong.


Again, if you read my last post you would see that I made concessions that I didn&#39;t believe that Fist of Blood said that in a contemptuos or racsist way only that I may have read it that way being that oppressors have always tended to justify their oppression by suggesting that the oppressed are backwards or savages.

I&#39;m not upset at FoB in anyway (not that he&#39;d care if I were) as I admitted that I probably just took it the wrong way. So we can end this silliness with my formal retraction of the comment -- Washington Post style.


<strike>
Get out of this forum with that shit&#33;</strike>

[WUOrevolt]

Foreign Policy Fantasies About Venezuela

By Mark Weisbrot

Thanks to Josh Eidelson for pointing out some of the flaws in Foreign Policy’s latest (January/February 2006) cover story, “Hugo Boss: “How Chavez is refashioning dictatorship for a democratic age.” The article is much worse than Eidelson describes it, as will be seen below. The idea that Venezuela is a dictatorship is absurd, as anyone who has been there in the last six years can attest to. All you have to do is go there, turn on the TV and listen to denunciations of the government on the biggest TV stations, pick up the biggest newspapers and see the same – in fact the media plays a non-journalistic oppositional role in politics that would not be allowed in most European democracies. Even in the United States, the long-lapsed Fairness Doctrine would quickly be brought back, if our media ever got to one-tenth the level of partisan political activity exhibited by Venezuela’s major broadcast and print media, which make Fox news look impeccably “fair and balanced” by comparison.

Let me correct one error in Eidelson’s description, which he may have gotten from the Foreign Policy article, before proceeding: the government of Venezuela has not been “keeping public databases on citizens&#39; votes.” All voting is by secret ballot in Venezuela, and there is no record anywhere of any individual’s vote. What he might be referring to is the names of people who signed a petition to recall President Chavez in 2004. These petitions are a matter of public record, as similar petitions generally are in the United States; and in fact not only the government, but Sumate, the U.S.-funded opposition group that organized the recall effort, also kept a record of these signers. A legislator subsequently made the names of signers public, causing considerable controversy.

Now for some of the mistakes in the Foreign Policy piece by Javier Corrales:

“Chavez is “now approaching a decade in office.” [p.33] Hugo Chavez took office in February of 1999. I have never seen anyone round up to 10 from a number just under 7. Perhaps the subtitle of this article should have been “Refashioning Arithmetic for an Innumerate Age.”

“the poor do not support him [Chavez] en masse.” [p.35] This can be refuted by any recent poll, as well as by opposition pollsters themselves. Chavez’ recent approval ratings have ranged from 65 to 77 percent. Where does this support come from? The upper classes? Perhaps this is another arithmetic problem. Also, a look at the results of the August 2004 referendum, which Chavez won by 59-41 percent, shows one of the most polarized voting patterns in the hemisphere, with poor areas voting overwhelmingly for Chavez and the richer areas voting overwhelmingly against him.

“Chavez has failed to improve any meaningful measure of poverty, education, and equity.” [p.35] As I noted in a prior post: The official poverty rate now stands at 38.5 percent, but that counts only cash income. For example, if the United States were to abolish food stamps and Medicaid, poor people here would be much worse off. Similarly, the subsidized food and free health care now available in Venezuela have significantly increased living standards among the poor. More than 40 percent of the country buys subsidized food, and millions of poor people have access to free health care that was previously unavailable. If these are taken into account, the measured poverty rate would drop well below 30 percent.

The poverty rate when Chavez took office, in the first quarter of 1999, was 42.8 percent. So there is a meaningful measure of poverty reduction, especially if non-cash benefits are taken into account. Also, the government declared in October that 1.48 million Venezuelans have been taught to read as a result of a massive literacy drive that began in 2003. Although there is so far no independent verification of the number, even if it turned out to be significantly overestimated, there is no doubt that a very large number of Venezuelans (total population: 25 million) have learned to read under the program.

“Following the 2004 recall referendum, in which Chavez won 58 percent of the vote, the opposition fell into a coma, shocked not so much by the results as by the ease with which international observers condoned the Electoral Council’s flimsy audit of the results.” [p. 39] Actually, according to all news reports at the time, they were shocked by the results; they announced that the referendum was stolen, and most of the opposition continues to maintain this position. There was nothing “flimsy” about the audit, and there is no more doubt about the results of this referendum than there is that Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale by a similar margin in 1984. I have explained this in a previous post, and in a paper refuting alleged statistical evidence of fraud, and so will not belabor the point here. Also, the Carter Center and the OAS did not simply “condone” an audit by the Venezuelan Electoral Council but were closely involved in the audit as observers and verified the results.

Corrales’ attempt to raise doubts about the referendum result is particularly disturbing in light of recent events in Venezuela. Most of the opposition parties boycotted the Venezuelan Congressional elections three weeks ago, on December 4. “We had a problem with the Venezuelan opposition, which assured us that they would not withdraw from the [electoral] process if certain conditions were met. These were met and despite this, they withdrew,” said Jose Miguel Insulza, head of the OAS, just this week.

The opposition’s primary argument for boycotting elections is that they cannot “trust” the electoral process, based on the conspiracy theory, widely held by the opposition in Venezuela, that the recall referendum was stolen.

Thus, with their own polls showing that they would win about 30 percent of the Congress, they opted for a long-term strategy of destabilization – to try to de-legitimize the government rather than participate in an open and transparent, democratic electoral process that was once again certified as such by international observers, this time including a 160-member team representing the European Union. Such has been the problem for several years: with the brief exception of the August 2004 referendum, wherein the opposition leadership temporarily agreed to play by the rules of democracy – until they lost the vote -- they had previously tried to overthrow the government by means of several oil strikes (one particularly economically devastating in 2002-2003) and a military coup in April 2002, which was supported by the Bush Administration.

The Bush Administration also appears to be at least tacitly supportive of the opposition leaders’ decision this month to withdraw from electoral politics altogether. In its zeal to create an imaginary “dictatorship” in Venezuela, the Foreign Policy article ignores this anti-democratic role of the opposition, supported by Washington. It is also worth noting that the opposition can pursue such tactics that would have no chance of success in most other democracies because it still controls most of the Venezuelan media.

The editors of Foreign Policy chimed in with a box [p.38] about Chavez accusing him of “meddling in the internal politics of his neighbors” – Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Nicaragua, and even Mexico. They neglect to mention that no evidence has yet surfaced for the allegations listed. Also, if Chavez is “meddling” inside Brazil and Colombia, it seems odd that he has such good relations with both of their presidents, who are at opposite ends of the political spectrum. Perhaps they do not appreciate the “threat” that this “dictator” poses to their countries and the region.

There is little evidence that Venezuela today is less democratic than it has ever been, and in fact by most standard political science measures it is more democratic. Venezuela&#39;s main governance problem is not a weakening of democracy but a failure to improve the rule of law, a problem that it shares with the region. Contrary to the images conveyed by the Bush Administration and Foreign Policy magazine, the Venezuelan state is not an authoritarian or autocratic state but a weak state, including the executive branch. That is why the main victims of political repression in Venezuela in recent years have not been from the opposition – even the leaders of the April 2002 coup against Chavez, who would have been convicted, imprisoned, and possibly executed in the United States, are almost all still at large. The real victims of political repression are pro-Chavez peasants organizing for land reform in the countryside. Many have been killed, often by hired assassins, sometimes for simply asserting their rights under the law. Impunity is rampant in Venezuela: the state at many levels does not have the capacity to enforce the law, often even against murderers.

In any case there is much more in this article that is inaccurate, grossly exaggerated, or misleading – in fact that describes most of the piece. But rather than wasting more space on this, readers may want to write to the editors of Foreign Policy and ask them why they printed something like this. And rather than just printing a 300-word letter, will they ever allow the publication of an article on Venezuela from a different point of view, one that better reflects not only the view of most Venezuelans, but most of this hemisphere? This is unlikely, but it is worth asking them why such an article would be forbidden. It would presumably have to be of much higher quality than the present one and more accurate, not necessarily pro-Chavez, but something that respects democracy, even when poor people repeatedly elect a government that the U.S. State Department doesn’t like.

http://www.arsn.ca/bolivarian_corner/bolivarian102.htm