Hurricane Hugo?...Pfft!
By Repair Man Jack Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Just how bad is the odious Hugo Chavez? It’s a good question to ask. As an increasingly dictatorial and anti-democratic ruler of Venezuela, he certainly doesn’t want what’s in our best interests and he hasn’t been shy about criticizing our country and its current leadership. What needs to be sorted out is how much of this is posture and how much could be backed up with policy.
Chavez styles himself the new Simon Bolivar. He claims he leads the Venezuelan people to freedom from the evil Colossus of The North. If Huey “The Kingfish” Long savvied the Spanish language, Hugo Chavez would still give the Senator from Louisiana a run for his money in any populist demagogue beauty pageant.
Read on . . .
However, the freedom Hugo Chavez offers his people is a unique brand thereof. It’s a freedom that doesn’t include free speech or constitutionally protected property rights, but that does let you skip out on work after only six hours. Not only that, but the people of Venezuela don’t have to sweat choosing which guy to vote for next election. Hugo’s nice enough to run things until he croaks.
Chavez’s “21st Century Socialism” will no doubt accomplish everything for Venezuelans that Mugabe’s “20th Century Socialism” now offers Zimbabwe. It will only vary on timescale, because Chavez, unlike Mugabe, sits perched upon a veritable underground lake of crude oil. To a certain extent, Paleobiology overdetermines destiny. Millions of dinosaurs and prehistoric plants were nice enough to die and get turned into crude oil under Venezuela. That gives Chavez a stupid cushion that Mugabe, Castro and a host of other reprobates don’t have.
This abundance of crude oil also gives Chavez a certain standing in the international community that his intellect and social graces wouldn’t otherwise justify. This also leaves him dependent upon the people he chooses to demonize. Chavez can claim to smell the sulfur as he follows George W. Bush to the podium of New York City’s version of The Planet of the Apes; The United Nations. However, if the American owned and operated Valero Corporation ever decided that refining Texas Tea or Saudi Light Sweet Crude was more cost effective than filtering the gunk out Venezuela’s lower grade crude oil, Chavez would have a lot of hungry people demanding answers that “21st Century Socialism” wouldn’t be equipped to deliver.
So how should the United States deal with the rude and boisterous Hugo Chavez? It should treat him with the respect and dignity that he treats us. Venezuela should be subjected to utter ridicule until the people of that nation are too embarrassed to allow Hugo Chavez to continue in power.
We should make it a point to render Hugo’s stupid and hard-blowing bluster the object of a Trey Parker cartoon. If VOA, or another one of our leading propaganda arms, would deliver the sorry truth to Venezuela’s educated and capable middle class, they would not be in a mood to respect his authoritah.
That, more than any other policy we could follow, would render Hugo Chavez the mere annoyance William F. Buckley believes him to be.
Cross-Posted At: THE MINORITY REPORT
Is there not a risk that his military build up could lead to a more hostile Venezuela? I agree that while he will be a long term disaster for Venezuela and Venezuelans, he is not much of threat to the US or our neighbors...yet.