The Danger of Hugo Chávez's Successful Socialism
By Ted Rall
04/09/06 "ICH" -- -- When the hated despots of nations like
Saudi Arabia and Kazakhstan loot their countries' treasuries,
transfer their oil wealth to personal Swiss bank accounts and
use the rest to finance (in the House of Saud's case) terrorist
extremists, American politicians praise them as trusted friends
and allies. But when a democratically elected populist president
uses Venezuela's oil profits to lift poor people out of poverty,
they accuse him of pandering.
As the United States and Europe continue their shift toward a
Darwinomic model where rapacious corporations accrue bigger and
bigger profits while workers become poorer and poorer, the
socialist economic model espoused by President Hugo Chávez has
become wildly popular among Latin Americans tired of watching
corrupt right-wing leaders enrich themselves at their expense.
Left-of-center governments have recently won power in Argentina,
Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. Chávez's
uncompromising rhetoric matches his politics, but what's really
driving the American government and its corporate masters crazy
is that he has the cash to back it up.
In their desperate frenzy to destroy Chávez, state-controlled
media is resorting to some of the most transparently and
hilariously hypocritical talking points ever. In the April 4th
New York Times Juan Forero repeated the trope that Chávez's use
of oil revenues is unfair--even cheating somehow: "With
Venezuela's oil revenues rising 32 percent last year," the paper
exclaimed, "Mr. Chávez has been subsidizing samba parades in
Brazil, eye surgery for poor Mexicans and even heating fuel for
poor families from Maine to the Bronx to Philadelphia. By some
estimates, the spending now surpasses the nearly $2 billion
Washington allocates to pay for development programs and the
drug war in western South America."
Chávez, the story continued, is poised to become "the next Fidel
Castro, a hero to the masses who is intent on opposing every
move the United States makes, but with an important advantage."
Heavens be! A rich country using its wealth to spread influence
abroad! What God would permit such an abomination? Notice, by
the way, that the United States funds "development programs."
Oh, and it's a "drug war"--not a bombing campaign against
leftist insurgents who oppose South America's few remaining pro-U.S.
right-wing regimes.
Quoted by the Times--which editorialized in favor of and ran
flattering profiles of the right-wing oligarchs who attempted to
overthrow Chávez in a 2002 coup attempt--is "critic" John
Negroponte, whose day job happens to be as Bush's Director of
National Intelligence. Negroponte complained that Chávez is
"spending considerable sums involving himself in the political
and economic life of other countries in Latin America and
elsewhere, this despite the very real economic development and
social needs of his own country."
Pot, kettle, please discuss the $1 billion a week we're wasting
on Iraq while people die for lack of medical care and schools
fall apart right here in America. Maybe Chávez should have found
a better use for the money he spent on Rio's Carnival parade. On
the other hand, at least it didn't go to bombs and torture
camps.
Televangelist Pat Robertson's 2005 call to assassinate Chávez
was criticized only mildly by establishment media, and primarily
on the basis that murdering heads of state violates a U.S. law.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice accuses Chávez of a "Latin
brand of populism that has taken countries down the drain."
Which ones? Certainly not Venezuela itself, where a
double-digit-GDP boom leads the region and new houses, $10
billion per year is banked for future anti-poverty programs and
schools are sprouting like weeds.
Loaded language unworthy of a junior high school newspaper is
the norm in coverage of the Venezuelan president. "Chavez
insists his government is democratic and accuses Washington of
conspiring against him," the San Jose Mercury-News wrote on
April 3rd. Why the "insists"? No international observer doubts
that Venezuela, where the man who won the election gets to be
president, is at least as democratic as the United States. The
2002 coup plotters gathered beforehand at the White House.
Surely the Merc could grant Chávez's "accusation" as fact. The
paper continued: "He says the United States was behind a
short-lived 2002 coup, an allegation that U.S. officials
reject." He also happens to be right, though it's hard to tell
by reading that sentence.
Eighty-two percent of Venezuelans think Chávez is doing a good
job. That's more than twice the approval rating by Americans of
Bush. He roundly defeated an attempt to recall him. So why is
Washington lecturing Caracas?
"The [Venezuelan] government is making billions of dollars [from
its state oil company] and spending them on houses, education,
medical care," notes CNN. And--gasp--people's lives are
improving.
What if the rest of us noticed? No wonder Chávez has to go.
Ted Rall is the editor of "Attitude 3: The New Subversive Online
Cartoonists," an anthology of webcartoons which will be
published in May.
© 2006 Ted Rall
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