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By Gerry Daly Posted in Foreign Affairs — Comments (8) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

There are those on the American left who adore Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. A fine example of one is Radio Left's contributor Mary MacElveen, who writes in part,

I had often wondered if there were any leaders left in this world who were committed to doing God’s work here on Earth and I would have to say yes ... his name is President Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela.

The full context and an examination of some recent developments in Venezuela follow below the fold.

The full quote from MacElveen is even 'better':

As the weeks wore on, leading up to Bush’s first inauguration, I hesitantly gave him my support ... I even sat down to listen to his first inaugural speech where he stated “Many in our country do not know the pain of poverty, but we can listen to those who do. And I can pledge our nation to a goal: When we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side.”

I remember thinking that perhaps he does want to do right by the American people.

Man was I wrong and he has done everything possible to turn his back on those in abject poverty in this nation ... he surely passed to the other side of the road.

I had often wondered if there were any leaders left in this world who were committed to doing God’s work here on Earth and I would have to say yes ... his name is President Hugo Chavez Frias of Venezuela.

Where MacElveen sees someone doing God's work, Venezuela's highest Catholic Cardinal sees something very different, as CNN reports:

Venezuela's highest Catholic prelate on Sunday condemned President Hugo Chavez's rule as a dictatorship and urged Venezuelans to reject it in an attack likely to strain already poor church-government ties.

"I am convinced that what we have here is a dictatorship," Cardinal Rosalio Castillo, who is retired, said in a interview published by El Universal newspaper.

He told Venezuelans to use their constitutional right to refuse to recognize the left-wing president on the grounds he was not ruling democratically. Castillo did not elaborate on what actions he thought Venezuelans should take...

The cardinal scoffed at a recent assertion by Chavez that his government was following the teaching of Jesus Christ by spending Venezuela's oil wealth to help the poor.

"His goal above all is not to help the poor but to concentrate his power," Castillo said.

But what does he know? He's just, you know, a Cardinal who happens to live there. MacElveen knows better. How? Because she has familiarized herself:

During the last few weeks, as I have familiarized myself with President Chavez and what I found is that he did not pass to the other side of the road ... and many of his policies are directed at helping the poor of his country.

• While President Chavez calls it a 'revolution,' what I see is a President doing right by his people.
   


• While the wealthy of Venezuela and the United States may not agree, my message to them is that this planet belongs to all of us.

Emphasis hers. That may be the case, but as far as Chavez' oil man Eudo Carruyo is concerned, at least a portion of that planet, namely a ritzy $1.7M condo in Miami, belongs not to all of us, but to him, as detailed by Babalu Blog:

Case in point: Chavista oil man Eudo Carruyo. He just bought himself a $1.7 million condominium in a ritzy part of Miami. It's at 848 Brickell Key Drive, Numero 404. Chavez yells and screams about representing the poor, but this guy, Eudo "The Treasurer" Carruyo, who's a bigshot at PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, quietly represents the chavista plutocrats who are getting rich off Venezuela's oil boom.

So ... does this creep have a salary that would justify a $1.7 million condo purchase in Miami? This would have to be a second home, at least, because he probably lives in Caracas. Miami's just his crash pad between parties. He might have another over in Houston somewhere, too. Does he really earn this kind of money? While Venezuela's poor cannot get jobs and must shop in Chavez's "free" stores?

But that is probably a cheap shot. After all, if the Venezuela government is doing the work of God, who can deny them a little vacation spot in the good ol' U. S. of A.?

And returning to the U. S. of A.'s MacElveen:

I often ponder what is wrong with American thinking when we brand this style of leadership as being 'leftist' ... where that very term has been demonized in the past and continues to be. I see nothing leftist in his approach to governing his people ... only a President who has a true moral compass and will lead from there.

Emphasis hers. Thankfully, she immediately gives a primo example of what fits the description of "nothing leftist":

• Just yesterday, I read an exciting piece concerning President Chavez’ vision for the people of Venezuela: “Chavez touts 21st Century Socialism."

Yes, God forbid anyone think he is leftist when he is touting "21st Century Socialism." Unfortunately for MacElveen, the article she links to sees leftism where she does not:

"Venezuela suffers a distortion because many of us are excluded from production, from wealth and services," said [Carlos] Lanz, 62, a key architect of Chavez's reforms. "We are constructing a new economic model."...

Eschewing Marxism-Leninism, Lanz says, Chavez has developed an economic model called "endogenous development" whereby state oil money will finance the creation of thousands of small-scale cooperatives in agricultural and other areas to provide jobs and foster community development.

A second leg of Chavez's master plan is something known as "cogestion," roughly translated as co-management, where the state is helping workers purchase shares of companies they work in to give them a greater say in management.

The goal of all this, they say, is to lift millions out of poverty by reducing Venezuela's reliance on oil, which has left the country with a weak manufacturing and agricultural base and over-dependent on imports of food and almost everything else...

The son of a wealthy farmer who became a leftist rebel in the 1960s, Lanz is using cogestion to revamp CVG Alcasa, an obsolete state-owned aluminum plant in this scorching city about 330 miles southeast of the capital, Caracas.

Well, maybe he was a leftist rebel, but he can be excused because he is helping Chavez do God's work (just not in the opinion of Cardinal Rosalio Castillo).

MacElveen read that article, approvingly, and declared:

I would have to add that America also needs a new economic model, because the one we have presently is not working for most Americans.

Almost on a daily basis we see corporations laying off many of their workers and over time their unemployment benefits will max out.

Emphasis again hers, although I am starting to think the bold-underline combo must have some different meaning, perhaps subtly meaning a negation (which in the above usage would make a double negative). Because the Associated Press sees idle companies in Venezuela:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has vowed to expropriate as many as 700 failed companies and more than a thousand others operating below full capacity.

I am sure they are just putting words in dearest leader's mouth. After all, the economic model in Venezuela is working, while the one in the United States is not, despite our low unemployment rate. But for giggles, let's see what the AP says Chavez is saying:

"If (company) owners don't want to open those (failed) companies we will have to expropriate them and open them ourselves," Chavez said Sunday during his televised call-in show "Alo Presidente."

The president said he had a list of companies that are totally or partly idle and warned owners that ceasing operations goes against the constitution. He said he could confiscate as many as 1,149 companies for operating below capacity.

I suppose it never dawned on MacElveen that these idel companies are not employing, or paying, the people who used to work for them and be paid back when the companies were not idle-- before Chavez fixed the economic model to make it work for them.

But don't blame Chavez, says Chavez:

Chavez noted that expropriation would be a last recourse used to bring those companies back to life and said capitalism is to blame for those companies going under.

In a way, he is correct. The jobs were there under capitalism. Had capitalism not ever been in Venezuela, the people would never have had those jobs to lose.

The Associated Press piece concludes with this helpful note:

Land in urban areas is also at risk of expropriation to make way for low-cost housing developments.

Seeing how many out of work former employees of the idle companies there are, those new low-cost housing developments will come in handy.

I've almost lost track of where I was with MacElveen, so let me continue sharing her vision:

What I found amazing is this passage: “The road so far has been rocky. Faced with violent protests and a bitter recall referendum, Chavez spent his first six years in office fighting for his political life even as he poured billions of dollars into social programs.”

President Chavez fought for his people and won ... and what did he pour billions of dollars into? He poured those billions into social programs...

And into Russian weapons, according to the Boston Globe:

President Hugo Chavez's weapons deals with Russia, his curbs on military cooperation with the United States, and his plans to train as many as 2 million Venezuelan civilians to repel a possible invasion by an ''imperialist" superpower have the United States and his domestic critics worried about what the leftist former military officer is up to...

His domestic opponents scoff at the idea that Washington would ever invade Venezuela, and charge that Chavez's true intention is to arm a huge cadre of loyal reservists who would protect him against any internal uprising and to promote himself as a militarized counterweight to US influence in Latin America.

Surely they jest, what would a man of the people need to fear from his people? They are too busy working at the state-confiscated companies and enjoying their low-budget housing (oops, that's to come after the confiscation; my bad) to rise up.

I keep getting distracted by these intrusions of facts. Back to the reality-based community's MacElveen:

Who has the right to be called a moral president?

I would have to say that the truly moral president is Hugo Chavez and not George W. Bush.

Preach it, sister! And what could be more truly moral than destroying oil wealth? The American Thinker is all over how Chavez is doing a great job at doing just that:

So it's all the more remarkable to see that the new Fortune 500 list of top companies has dropped Venezuela's oil company, PdVSA, from its ranks altogether. Last year, it ranked 76. This year, it's not there at all, a drop of at least 424 places. Fortune didn't offer any explanation, but that is one big drop for an oil company - and a state oil monopoly in a country with the highest oil reserves in the hemisphere.

Daniel Duquenal speculates that it may be that this company has not filed an SEC statement in more than a year, so its value is impossible to determine. But that alone is a bad sign. Miguel Octavio said the company had grown un-auditable. Gustavo Coronel calls this financial black box a mockery of the government's freakish claims that 'now the company belongs to all of us.'

How freaky! Good ol' Gus used the phrase "now the company belongs to all of us", and MacElveen said that "this planet belongs to all of us." Great minds think alike, eh?

The American Thinker continues:

And as we have reported, Chavez has repeatedly talked of selling Venezuela's Citgo refining and marketing arm in the U.S. to raise cash - at a time when all the other oil companies are battling each other ferociously to buy U.S assets - the Unocal battle being the latest. What other oil company has dropped so many spaces on the Fortune 500 list at a time of record oil prices?

Technically, some of the oil company's executives are also buying U.S. assets, like condos in Miami. However, I cannot say for certain that they had to battle ferociously for it. Maybe they got a sweet deal without much competition. Still, it is interesting to ponder. With oil prices so high, just where is the money going that Chavez is looking to sell things to raise cash?

I guess I just do not understand the new economic model, which is socialism for the 21st century but definitely not leftist. Otherwise, I would comprehend how this benefits the poor of Venezuela, either short term or long term. I completely understand that Chavez is for the poor. But how does creating more of them benefit anyone, other than the party of the poor? I have never understood why this dynamic of party self-empowerment is not apparent to people. A 'party of the rich' will act to create more rich people and fewer poor people, since this will keep them in power. Conversely, it is in the electoral interests of the 'party of the poor', no matter what country we are talking about, to create more poor. Doing so is their ticket to remain in power.

I'll leave the coda to the Washington Post:

A crowd gathered, eager to debate. Two men, drinking beer at an open-air stand, complained that Chavez had not done anything to help them find jobs.

"It's not Chavez's fault!" yelled Viviana Caciani, 33, jumping into the fray. "Long live the revolution!"