In Venezuela, obstacles to 21st Century socialism

[DuaneBidoux]

Source: Reuters

CARACAS (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez's ambitious project to bring "21st Century socialism" to Venezuela is running into obstacles -- easy cash, corruption and an expanding class of citizens who are growing rich by exploiting economic distortions.

Chavez promised a revolution when he won his first election in 1998. Since his third election victory in December, he has pledged to accelerate Venezuela's transformation into a society where a "new man" is free of selfish urges and devoted to the common good.



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN1920864020070620

---

Perhaps Reuters is indeed part of the capitalistic imperialistic Western press but I still get nervous anytime any government of any persuasion says they are going to create "a new man free of selfish urges" (or a "new man" of any persuasion for that matter).

Some of the greatest evils in human history started with a government's determination to change human nature en masse.

[Cleita]

1. I keep saying this and I will say this again.

It's not our place to judge Chavez or his words. He is a legitimately and democratically elected leader of his country not ours. It is up to the people of Venezuela to decide whether or not they want him to continue to be their President in the future at their next election. If he screws up they will unelect him. That is the democratic process. We can't go around deciding whom we like and don't like around the world and staging coups, and assassinating their elected leaders when it suits us.

[Igel]

7. We *can* go around deciding who we don't like; to

foreswear judgment is to foreswear any sort of sovereignty in our foreign policy. But that doesn't entail staging coups or carrying out assassinations. Other countries' citizens decide if they like *, and some have even committed the apparently egregious sin of wanting him voted out of power; the arrogance of the French.

On the other hand, that's their right. Freedom of speech and all that.

[bemildred]

8. Yeah, all the "this just cannot possibly work" people need to STFU too.

Whatever Chavez is, he does not bear the slightest resemblance to Lenin, Trotsky or Stalin. He has been amazingly gentle with his political opposition, and that in itself shows a level of political sophistication that is extraordinary. He may or not fail, but his failure is likely to look much better most successes, for the simple reason that he at least aims high.

[Psephos]

10. People who don't agree "need" to STFU. Hmm, already sounds Stalinist to me. n/t

[bemildred]

13. Yeah I'm definitely a Stalinist.

Or maybe a Fascist, I'm not sure which it is, but it's bad.
And I'm definitely the only guy on DU that ever said anybody should shutup.
:puke:

[Psephos]

14. Don't go all touchy-feely on us now, my man. Keep that lip stiff.

A precise observer would notice I that alluded to your statement, not you.

I do find it ironic that you're so sensitive all of a sudden, when moments before you were happily telling others with a different opinion they "need" to "shut the fuck up."

Bemildred, you're smarter than that. I've seen lots of posts where you've been insightful, witty, and persuasive. That fits you a lot better than this authoritarian hat.

My two hundredths of a dollar...

[bemildred]

15. A precise observer would observe that you used the word "stalinist".

I guess you feel that is just some sort of dispassionate observation?
Like only the commies ever tried to shut anyone up?

When you engage in that sort of name calling, don't expect me to buy any
crap from you about your intellectual merits. Just because you didn't violate
Godwin's Law, don't think you get off with calling someone Stalinist.

I get sick of the endless stream of negative drivel written about Chavez,
and if I want to tell them to shutup with it, I will, and I don't have to
put up with some weasel calling me a Stalinist because of it. (Notice I didn't
really call you a weasel there.)

[Psephos]

18. Your serve is great, but your return backhand needs some work :-)

I'm not a dogmatist when it comes to Chavez. Back in the day I was a big fan. Now, I see things that make me less of a fan. I'm not for him, not against him at this point. Quite willing to see how it all plays out - unlike the dogmatists who already own all the truth in advance.

"I get sick of the endless stream of negative drivel written about Chavez, and if I want to tell them to shutup with it, I will."

By all means, by all means. I'm not trying to suppress other's viewpoints. The corollary to what you said, of course, is that if I want to note that telling people on DU they "need" to "shut the fuck up" about Chavez sounds a bit authoritarian, I will, too.

People are getting awful touchy about Chavez lately. Hmmm...might be a pony in there somewhere.

"...and I don't have to put up with some weasel calling me a Stalinist because of it"

lol I've been called worse, by better.

[bemildred]

19. Blah blah blah blah ...

When someone uses the word Stalinist to mean telling someone to shutup, there are three possibilities I can see:

a.) He/she is repeating something they heard elsewhere without understanding.
b.) He/she is deliberately misusing the term in order to attack someone else with it.
c.) He/she knows nothing about Stalin or Stalinism.

You can take your pick, but I really thought I was doing you a favor by assuming it wasn't a) or c).

[Judi Lynn]

16. bemildred, I suspected as much! Speaking for myself, I'd rather be a colonist than a Stalinist!

Also, better dead than red!

Whatever happened to labeling everyone who's not screaming reactionary a "Marxist?" Looks as if that one has fallen out of use, just when it had become such a popular word to bandy about, to avoid sounding like an idiot by calling people "pinkos."

Those same oligarchists in Venezuela need to thank their lucky stars Chavez is not like their own beloved, but impeached President Carlos Andres Perez who wildly raised the cost of transportation for Venezuelans, then, when they came into the streets to protest, instructed his military to mow them down, and brought in the national tragedy known as "El Caracazo" in 1989.

http://www.aldeaeducativa.com.nyud.net:8090/images/caracazo04.jpg http://photos1.blogger.com.nyud.net:8090/img/170/5439/320/caracazo2.jpg http://servicioskoinonia.org.nyud.net:8090/martirologio/fotos/f425.jpg http://www.soberania.org.nyud.net:8090/Images/caracazo_2.jpg
http://www.soberania.org.nyud.net:8090/Images/caracazo_4.jpg http://www.soberania.org.nyud.net:8090/Images/carlos_andres_perez.jpg

This is the way the Venezuelan oligarchy handled dissent, and the little gnome who did it.

[DuaneBidoux]

20. It is the right of anyone who wishes to judge anyone they wish.

As long as it stops before action takes place to impede their rights to do the same.

Perhaps it is coincidence that the words Chavez uses are the very words virtually everyone of the world's worst tyrants used at the beginnings of their reigns.

But you are most definitely right about one thing: as of now Chavez is the democratically elected leader of Chavez--and that should be respected.

[rayofreason]

2. Meet the new man...

...same as the old man.


Or as my friends in the days of Soviet socialism used to say "In Capitalism Man exploits Man. In Socialism it is exactly the opposite."

[Briar]

17. Sounds like a line from

Ninotchka!

[Flanker]

3. Some of the greatest evils in human history started

By governments themselves, are you leary of them too?

Frankly government initiatives during the civil rights movement at least managed to marginalize open racism by creating a new man. Not to mention always putting republicans on their toes ;)

[angstlessk]

4. So the civil rights movement was evil because most still held

racist views??? GOOD MAYBE SLAVERY IS BETTER SINCE WE WILL ALL FEEL SORRY FOR SLAVES?

[Flanker]

5. I think you missed the point

Generally governments trying to end racism, homophobia etc are attempting to create a new man, is that wrong?

[Igel]

9. By and large, that's not the government's intent. At least

not the US government's original intent--it's hard to speak for all the employees, Congressfolk, and whoever's in the White House. The intent was to limit actions, not thoughts. One can be as racist as he wants, and hate those of different skin hue, religious, country of origin, etc., etc., but if he doesn't act on his hate the law and the government don't care.

Unlike some in the Soviet Union, who were arrested and sometimes sentenced to hard labor for 'anti-Soviet views'--nothing more than hinting, through actions and inaction, through expressions or--horrors--even words, that they didn't like the then-current Soviet tyrant. *They* wanted to create a new man, and it's probably where Chavez gets this particular piece of rhetoric--perhaps through the intermediary of Castro or some other person who knows best how people should live and think, perhaps directly from the Great Cockroach (sorry, Chukovsky) himself.

Now peer pressure, that's an entirely different thing--and it's a rather strong force, whether it's condemning girls for getting pregnant out of wedlock or condemning people for using offensive words. But government doesn't control peer pressure, and, IMO, that's a good thing.

[ProudDad]

6. That article is a standard right-wing bullshit hit piece

filled with 1/4 truths, opinions (from a RIGHT-WING CATHOLIC ECONOMIST) and a couple of anecdotes about individuals who "prove the point".

Total BULLSHIT.

President Chavez is trying to create a system that caters to the best in people instead of the worst. What a horrible idea...not worth trying, right? :sarcasm:

Of course, rampant metastacized corporate cowboy capitalism works so f*cking well, don't it?

[Judi Lynn]

11. Your post reminded me of an article I discovered yesterday:

~snip~
Disinformation and outright falsehoods broadcast in countries like Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico become fake virtual news that is then broadcast as if it were real in the imperial centres of North America, Europe and the Pacific. This in turn is made to produce a re-confected virtual reality that is then retailed back as the basic premise of news analysis by international corporate news outlets to media in the original source countries. The process not only validates the original propaganda but itself tends to generate yet more fake virtual news to feed the cycle.

Self-perpetuating and vicious, thoroughly disingenuous and totally political, this cycle is probably the single most important perception management mechanism for promoting Americanism. The cycle's purpose is to subordinate the interests of all the peoples of the Americas, and beyond, to the aims of the United States' plutocrat corporate elite and their allies. This all-pervasive perception management production line is at work constantly, almost everywhere in Latin America, but is especially noticeable in countries where governments develop strategies contrary to the policies of the US government, its European and Pacific allies and their respective multinational corporations.

The aggressive politicization of corporate media outlets and their disinformation output is an established fact throughout Latin America. Freedom of speech is regularly hijacked, given a brutal working over in corporate editorial conference rooms and then thrown back out onto the airwaves and the printed page. The corporate media make-over varies from country to country. In Venezuela, corporate editorial-brutalized freedom of speech gets dressed up as a victim of State repression. In Mexico and Colombia, it appears as the endlessly harrassed public good under threat from popular movements exercising basic rights but branded as vicious terrorists. The same corporate gangsterism is at work in Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua. It both serves and feeds dominant local corporate political options. Currently, Nicaragua is an especially good example of this phenomenon.
(snip/...)

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=20&ItemID=13115

[eridani]

12. But you aren't "nervous" about 700+ people hacked up with chainsaws?

That's what's in Columbia's mass graves, and their president openly supports death squads. Anything like that happening recently in Venezuela?

[DuaneBidoux]

21. Some of the biggest atrocities started as responses to others.

Soviet communism started as a response to horrid crimes committed by the authoritarian Czar's in front of them. But in the end, it wasn't an improvement.

I am nervous and uncomforable with all governments that practice repression. I don't really care what they call themselves or in whose name they practice that repression.

[eridani]

23. Yet communism worked out fine in Kerala, and up to a point in China

--and it actually started out pretty well in the Soviet Union as well. You know what a "soviet" is, no? It's a workers' council that runs a factory. When Lenin made them illegal unless they subordinated themselves to the state, it was all downhill from there.

After China took over all the land from large landlords, the communists redistributed the land to individual peasants, with the result that food production per acre skyrocketed. That lasted from about 1950 to 1956, when they went with forced collectivization and everything went to hell from there.

Kerala, whose first communist government was elected in 1958, learned from those bad examples and had the basic good sense just to redistribute the land to individual families, set limits on the amount of land any one family could own, and leave it at that. It also helped that there were two major rival communist parties and a number of smaller ones, so there was never any danger of a one-party state.

Taiwan also had excellent results with its Land to the Tiller program. Taiwan was a dictatorship until fairly recently, but has been able to democratize.

So far, Venezuela is looking a lot more like Kerala and Taiwan than the Soviet Union or China. Compared to death squad ruled Columbia, there isn't anything remotely like repression there.

The neocons and the DLC corporate thugs are bothered by Venezuela and not Columbia, though. Why do you suppose that is?

[Judi Lynn]

24. The chainsaw wielding, machete slashing death squads are absolutely no problem at all

to the Republicans.

You just don't ever hear them condemning wiping out entire villages, men, women, children, old people, rounding up some of them, saving them in rooms to use, one at a time to train recruits how to torture and dismember living Colombian campesinos in memorable ways which will terrorize any possible survivors who are fleeing into the countryside.

When did we ever hear any of these idiots condemning the Iraq death squads or police boring holes into the heads of prisoners? It doesn't happen. I think they vicariously love the thought of being able to torture and murder people with no retribution. It appeals to their unbelievably ugly natures.

They also don't seem to mind that Colombian death squads have been hired by Venezuelan opposition to bring their special gifts to slaughter Venezuelans, either, like the ones who have been caught over there, near Caracas who have testified and revealed what the hell they were doing there.

Those of us who take the time to do our research are completely aware of how bent the people are who insist the U.S. has a right to control the lives and governments of people in Latin America. They will lie, mock, ridicule, explode on message boards, throw tantrums around the clock to attempt to shout down the people who know the truth just because they are little tyrants themselves and driven mad at the thought former victims are learning to stand up on their own, regardless of the revenge people like _Bush ALWAYS seek against anyone who challenges their stollen, immoral authority.

I'm glad to see people are starting to see through them. Couldn't happen a moment too soon.

[Prophet 451]

22. Well, that didn't take long

I've noticed that whenever the words "Venezuala" or "Chavez" are in a thread title around here, the thread quickly fills up with the instinctive Chavez haters on one side and the Chavez fanboys on the other.

Personally, I quite like Chavez. Got a few questions over some of his actions and speeches but hell, you'd expect that with any politician, I don't even agree with Kucinich or Gore on everything.

[eridani]

25. Agreed. According to Yes Magazine--

--Venezuela is planning a pipeline over some ecologically sensitive areas, and lots of indigenous groups are opposed. Sounds like a bad idea to me, but you have to expect some policy clunkers from just about any government.