Chavez isn't Ahmadinejad, Iran isn't Venezuela. Venezuela isn't Bolivia or Ecuador, Iran isn't Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan under the Taliban.
There's a huge difference between Venezuela and Iran with respect to personal liberty, for example. Obviously. There is very little repression in Venezuela. There is significant repression in Iran. That is an important difference. As I have made clear before and am happy to make clear again, I do not run with those who dismiss issues of personal liberty, here or elsewhere. Nonetheless, with respect to the matter at hand - the relationship of the government to the majority of the population with respect to the provision of basic services - there are significant points in common between Venezuela and Iran. In Venezuela before 1998 and in Iran before 1979, the majority of people experienced governments that felt weak obligation to deliver basic services to the majority of the population. In Venezuela after 1998 and in Iran after 1979, that is no longer the case. In both countries, there is a history among a significant part of the opposition of indifference and even hostility to the idea that the government should provide basic services to the majority. And I think in the case of Iran, that is evidenced by the example of well-off people saying that the government is "buying votes" by making payments to poor people. In North America and Western Europe, there is now a 70 year history of some kind of social democracy, where the government is expected to provide basic services to the majority of the population, an expectation that significantly endures even when "the Right" is in power. A lot of people in the world have never experienced that revolution. So, in considering parts of the world where that is often the case, it is relevant to note where it is and isn't the case, regardless of whether we like or dislike the governments concerned in other ways. On Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 7:01 PM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > me: >>> FWIW, a friend of mine from Iran suggests that the Ahmadinejad >>> government's giving of direct payments to peasants and other poor >>> people is a way of buying votes! > > Robert Naiman wrote: >> Yeah, for years the opposition in Venezuela said the same thing: the >> government's social programs are a way of "buying the votes" of poor >> people. > > that's true, but we should be careful not to put Chávez and > Ahmadinejad in the same category. > -- > Jim Devine / It's time to Occupy the New Year! > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
