Hugo Chavez is dead, his legacy will linger

It can't be denied he was a flawed man. By the end, it became all too clear that Hugo Chavez was a bad administrator. One could even say he behaved tyranically, seduced by power and tripped up by his own machismo. But I think what remained true to the end was he truly cared about social justice.

He began with the best of intentions and surely his people loved him. Chavez was the champion of the mestizo, Venezuela's shockingly poor underclass. He was one of them. He empowered them. He gave them a voice. He lifted them a little from undeserved, grinding poverty. They re-elected him in a democratic process more than once.

The wealth holders, the upper class -- native and foreign -- who had until then so freely exploited the country's treasures, hated him for his egalitarian policies. He disrupted their stranglehold on power. And again, he was a very imperfect man. He made a lot of mistakes. Still, on the balance, he was a better man at heart than many of his critics.

Addendum: You have to go the foreign press to find out, but proof his people loved Chavez. The wealthy Venezuelans who loathed him, to their credit, are lying low and allowing the people space for public mourning.

It's always the throwaway post...

By Libby

Word up friends. Do not compare Chavez to George Bush unless you want to spend a lot of time defending your position. It happens every time I post about Hugo and yet I'm always surprised that people don't see how a tin horn despot like Chavez is acting less criminally than our own president. I keep waiting for horrified realization, but I get indignation. Go figure.

On the bright side, it's been an interesting debate.

I'm a totalitarian?

I love my critics. I figure if they're reduced to attacking me personally instead of refuting my points, I'm doing my job pretty well. Occasionally one stands out though and I have to give the lifetime achievement award for most voluminous and creative arguments against what I didn't say to Lee at Postpolitical in a post his friend Lance at Second Hand Conjecture finds brilliant...

In this take down of the Libby Spencer smearing Manny Lopez. It also has one of the better analysis of the totalitarian mindset I have read in a while. A must read.

Maybe Lance believes that, or maybe he's just mad at me for blaming him for Lee's other post but if anybody can read the few short grafs I wrote -- follow the links to my comments at The Reaction -- and come to the same conclusions as to my politics and my point, please explain it to me.

As far as I can see they're both still engaging in the same conduct they're accusing me of, that being smearing the critic -- me -- to avoid addressing the points of the argument. It appears to me that neither of them are Venezuelan nor do they spend much time there, however they continue to dismiss the views of those who do live under Chavez' rule as inconsequential and beneath consideration. For myself, I find it rather amusing to be called a communist and a totalitarian for pointing out that alternative views exist.

If you read my comments at The Reaction, you can see they ignored my apology to the extent that I made a declarative statement on Manny's social background. I certainly had no intent to smear Manny, I happen to like the guy, and I should have said he was espousing the oligarchy's talking points without implying he was one himself. But otherwise I stand by my posts and in fact, let's just try that little thought exercise these two guys refuse to address. It works no matter who is pitching the anti-Chavez line. Lee said in this last post:

For a fuller breakfast, is Libby willing to trade her right to freedom of press, for one where criticism of the president is criminalized? Is she willing to trade a liberal society for a paramilitary cult, so that she has a cheaper health service?

For the record, I am disturbed by Hugo's censoring of the Venezuelan opposition press however, I'm more concerned that our own president censors our press. And Lee might want to ask Brett Bursey, or the Denver Three or the schoolteachers who were ejected from a public rally for wearing t-shirts that simply said "Protect our civil liberties" before he condemns another sovereign leader for criminalizing dissent.

If he wants to talk about press suppression, perhaps he could explain why the White House is so willing to vigorously pursue press leaks that expose their malfeasance and yet conduct no investigation into leaks from within the White House that compromised national security, despite our president's assurances that he welcomed investigation into the matter and falsely assured us no one in his administration was responsible.

And if we're to speak of a "paramilitary cult", perhaps Lee would like to address the White House ploy to negate Posse Comitatus.

In October 2006, Bush signed into law the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Quietly slipped into the law at the last minute, at the request of the Bush administration, were sections changing important legal principles, dating back 200 years, which limit the U.S. government's ability to use the military to intervene in domestic affairs. These changes would allow Bush, whenever he thinks it necessary, to institute martial law--under which the military takes direct control over civilian administration.

I'm sure you get the point, so I'm done with this little spat. I find it hard to take critics whose arguments rest on ad hominem attacks all that seriously and I'm not going to waste my time defending Chavez when his own countrymen are willing to do so. If you have a burning interest in the question, I suggest you read this comment at the Detroit News from Nestor, who apparently lives there and underscores the few points I did make.

As for Lee and Lance, I'd respectfully suggest they leave Chavez bashing to Venezuelans and focus their considerable efforts on the disintegration of democracy in our own country.

Don't make me defend Chavez

By Libby

This is choice. Lance Lee at Postpolitical disses me for a comment I made at The Reaction on Michael's post about Hugo Chavez.

Libby Spencer (who blogs at Michael’s blog as well as with Manny at The Detroit News), had chimed in with perfunctory criticism of Chavez, weighted with subtle apologies for the purposes of his deeds. In so doing, Libby’s views represent the bad side of the American Left, which I was earlier praising Mr. Stickings’ views at the expense of.

In reading her remarks, notice how she almost immediately turns the attention away from Chavez and Venezuela and onto his critics, seeking to delegitimize them.

Now if you actually follow his links to my comment, you will see he's done the exact same thing he's accusing me of doing. He smears me to distract attention from my links to Charles Hardy, who has lived for decades in Venezuela and offers an opposing view to Manny.

Since you have to go through some kind of tiresome registration to offer a response at Lance's blog, I'm just going to post my response here. I did not and still do not have any specific knowledge about Manny's background but he is espousing the view of the oligarchy whose organizations are being underwritten to some extent by US interests. [And by the way, as far as I know the funding organization is a GOP front for Bush.]

My remarks were not meant to defend Chavez but merely to point out that there is an alternative view to Manny's that I believe deserves to be heard.

My support for Chavez has softened in the last couple of years and frankly I don't follow the politics there like I used to. I've been focused on Iraq and there's simply not enough time in my day to stay on top of every front. But I met Charles Hardy and a few other Venezuelan journalists at a ten day conference several years ago. They lived through the one day coup in the early 2000s and had a hand in ending it.

Their stories were inspiring. This was truly what democracy looks like. Chavez was elected from a real life grass roots movement; one that bubbled up from the very bottom of their society and took back their government without receiving any funding from monied interests. Whatever Chavez has done wrong, what he did right was deliver on his promise to his people. The truly poor are better off now than they were under the former rule of the oligarchy.

That's why Chavez was elected and why he continues to enjoy the support of the majority of Venezuelans. Hugo's arrogance notwithstanding, I'm not so sure Bolivar wouldn't be proud of what Chavez has accomplished. And I still suggest you read Manny's interview and just as a thought exercise, substitute the word Bush for Chavez and see if it doesn't read like a history of the last six years of the Bush administration.