Demagogue, Heal Thineself, Serve Thy Country
Old leftist sympathies die hard. It's tough for an old leftie like me not to see the romance in a defiant hero of the poor and the downtrodden of this earth. But the righteous thunder of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is wearing a trifle thin of late. His very public feud with the United States, its values and its influence in the world at large begins to smack of opportunism and his personal venom in describing the U.S. capitalist system as "diabolic" is odd, coming from a man whose country, with one of the world's largest oil reserves is yet contradictorily host to a penurious population.A population, withal, that is struggling not only with endemic poverty but with a staggering crime rate where abductions for ransom run rampant throughout society, and one never knows when one will meet one's fate through a clumsy criminal act gone awry. Mr. Chavez has much, much to do to aid his ailing society. To blame the influence of the United States and its capitalist system for the ills of his own country is stretching facts more than a tad. But this ploy does fit into his ongoing and very public tantrum against the giant in his hemisphere.
Mr. Chavez takes great pride in offering his own very peculiar kind of solutions to other Latin American areas suffering state insolvency, overall poverty and endemic crime.
While it seems that fully half the citizens of Venezuela live in poverty, despite their country's fabulous oil wealth, Hugo Chavez's attention turns in a most avuncular manner to assisting his regional cousin states. For someone who avers to detest capitalism and all its attendant ills, he is undertaking personally to distribute the wealth of his country by investing billions of dollars of oil revenue in Argentina (to relieve that country's debt), in Brazil (oil tanker investment), in Mexico providing eye surgery for poor Mexicans, and, as a very special poke in the eye, in the United States, providing home-heating oil for poor Americans.
He is ignoring the plight of the poor and the needy within Venezuela. While the crime rate soars in his country he eschews responsibility to bring about reform and beef up law and order, instead happily vilifying U.S.-imported capitalism, which has ostensibly been the cause of making his country "sick". Who says the left cannot produce insane dictators posing as their countries' saviours? North Korea, move over.
Three siblings from a wealthy family with Venezuelan-Canadian citizenship are abducted in Caracas, and later found murdered. In response throngs of Venezuelans gather in anger at the deadly lawlessness which has overtaken their country, demanding the government recognize a need for law and security. Yet instead of motivating this man into launching a crackdown on crime and related police corruption in his country he takes to his bully pulpit and blames U.S. capitalism for his country's state of affairs.
He trumpets his vibrant anti-Americanism as an antidote to his own frail response to his peoples' needs, to the delighted delectation of his supporters within his own country and those of nearby Latin American countries who share his disdain for the United States, as well as other countries abroad who share his ravening lunacy. He has polished relations with Iran in seeking nuclear technology advice from that pariah state. He has provided refuge to FARC whose criminal activities have been terrorizing Colombia.
None of which makes an awful lot of good sense. Other than polishing his image abroad as a dispenser of aid to the needy, in the process damaging diplomatic relations with other countries, he seems intent on fashioning a reputation as a challenger to the new world order. A world order that has left us with one super power which makes bad decisions at times impacting on the rest of the world, but whose intentions and responsibilities nonetheless place them on a pedestal somewhat elevated from that of such a crass opportunist.
His supporters may be delighted to hear him expound his mad theories and intentions, but to the rest of the world he is a sad and dangerous bore, badly in need of some introspection. Failing that, Venezuelans should seek the earliest opportunity to throw him onto the dust-heap of history.
posted by Pieface @ Wednesday, April 12, 2006
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