Steve Diamond wrote: > MP is right to ask us to focus on substance instead of name calling. My view > is that Chavez fits comfortably in a long line of authoritarian figures in > the developing world.
Why was Chavez more "authoritarian" than, say, Obama? After all, Chavez was president of Venezuela because he was _elected_. As I understand it, the Chavistas have made sure that a larger segment of the Venezuelan electorate actually participated in elections than under previous governments. Every known government has been "authoritarian" to some degree, as far as I can tell. What kind of government would you like to see running Venezuela, Steve? Is it time to set up a Paris-style Commune? > Some here in the US support either because they agree > with the authoritarian views of these figures or movements or because they > naively assume that supporting such figures or movements will constrain > reactionary dimensions of US foreign policy. It's not a matter of constraining what _we_ think of as the reactionary dimensions of US foreign policy. The Chavez government defended Venezuela against what a majority of the people there (as represented by their elected government) thought of as imperial attacks, including an attempted US-supported coup. (By the way, such a coup is very "authoritarian.") > I think we should defend the > sovereignty of countries like Venezuela or Cuba Who is better at defending the sovereignty of Venezuela than Venezuelans? Steve, do you think that the government you'd choose to run Venezuela would do a better job than Chavez's government in this? How would it do so? > but not fall into the trap > of assuming that means we must support people like Hugo or Fidel or Daniel. "Daniel"? Ortega? this anachronism makes your message sound like it's a tape from the 1980s, being replayed for the umpteenth time. Likely an 8-track, with no new empirical content. By the way, unlike Castro and Ortega (during the Sandinista revolution), Chavez was elected. He was lucky enough to live in a place that allowed elections. > Instead we should argue for the extension of democratic rights to all. Of course, but Chavez did a damn good job of this, especially when you defined "democratic rights" broadly to include economic matters. Most poorer countries with oil revenues (including the pre-Chavez Venezuela) bottle up those bucks in the hands of the elite. The Chavez government made sure that poorer folks received a lot of those "dollar votes" or the benefits of them (health care, housing, etc.) One mistake that the "anti-anti-imperialist" left (e.g., some of the followers of the late Hal Draper) has made is that they moralistically blame "third world" leaders for the socio-economic constraints that prevent the attainment of true democratic rights for all.[*] Of course, those governments sometimes make those constraints worse, but we have to be conscious of the constraints before rushing to judgment. It's good to at least _try_ to do "concrete analysis of concrete conditions" (to steal a phrase from some old bald guy). [*] I'm thinking of an article long ago in AGAINST THE CURRENT which (in essence) blamed the Sandinistas for the fact that Nicaragua lacked a Western European-style social-democratic government. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
