OK, I will not mention all the other really awful dictators that Carter, Hollywood and academia seem to think are really neat guys. Let's just go with Hugo Chavez.

If the Liberal-Left think Bush is a fascist/imperialist who is the enemy of freedom. What is Chavez?

As listed above, Chavez wants to rewrite his country's consititution so he can stay in power PAST 2012. Uh, President-for-Life is the title he's looking for, or so it seems to me.

He has shut down nearly all opposition newspapers and tv. He has fired military officers and inserted those loyal to him. He has fired judges and packed the courts.....and not through a legislature that is hostile....the legislature is also packed with his cronies.

In the NYT yesterday, Chavez announced he is for the five HOUR work day.

He masks himself as the saviour of the poor and oppressed. Didn't Mussolini do the same thing? Isn't he a demagogue in the truist sense?

He is nationalizing foreign investments (that is a nice word for stealing). He is pumping up his military with all sorts of weaponry (former soviet aircraft, submarines, and hundreds of thousands AK-47s or AKMs). Why?

Does he really expect the USA to land on his shores? Is he really a source for peace in the hemisphere? If he cares about his people, why doesn't he vector most of those dollars into helping his countryman...and skip the harangues and the token "show-ups" and photo ops in the poorest sections of Caracas?

The poor, sadly, are easily led by cheap stunts and bravado scape-goating. Venezuela has been awash in oil for as long as I can remember. I was there in the 1970s. This isn't a poor country. This is a country that doesn't really educate itself and the few keep nearly all the loot. Now, one man, claiming to be the saviour of the poor is really another really awful dictator.

I could be wrong.

Mr. Penn, doubtless much, much brighter than I, will inform us in the days ahead. Or not.

Posted by tad at August 16, 2007 01:16 PM

As with many dictators in the last 100 years he was elected to office. Now term limits are one thing Soviet style elections are another, and this is what should be watched for.

Many conservatives dislike Chavez because he consistently thumbs his nose at Bushco and the US.

The world community is allowed to dislike us, they are allowed not to do business with us, they are allowed their opinion of us. To say differently is antithetical to American belief.

Are we so worried that he is going to over run South America? Ha! Until we start treating those south of our border with more respect we will continue to see these pocket dictators come and go.

Posted by psyberwolfe at August 16, 2007 05:57 PM

psyberwolfe: Please give specifics as to what exactly we ought to do in terms of giving those south of the border more respect.....that we are not already doing.

Further, please justify why those countries, most with massive amounts of natural resources, have done little to advance their nations in the past 300 years.

Indeed, why do so many people of Latin America flee? Note: I am NOT speaking of just Mexico.

Further Note: Some of the very best people I ever served with were hispanic. Nope, not a bigot when it comes to indivduals. I am, however, disgusted with oligarchies, dictatorships, rampant corruption that seems the norm "down south".

OK, having said all that, I know we - in the USA - have plenty of faults of our own. Plenty. Way too many. We do not, however, routinuely have coups and treat our citizenry in an awful manner. Even the least of us can aspire to, and achieve great success in the USA.

Posted by tad at August 16, 2007 07:07 PM

psyberwolfe: Please give specifics as to what exactly we ought to do in terms of giving those south of the border more respect.....that we are not already doing.

Well lets see maybe we could stop using them as slave labor (read underpaid for the profits the American corporations earn from their cheap labor.)

Further, please justify why those countries, most with massive amounts of natural resources, have done little to advance their nations in the past 300 years.

Huh? Not germain to the conversation.

Posted by psyberwolfe at August 16, 2007 09:13 PM

I rather think if the countries that lie to our south were run much better, their own citizenry would not come north and be used by anyone.

Do people or countries deserve respect if they really treat their own people so terribly bad? The natural resource issue in play here is that those countries are NOT without resources....they are just kept by very few....they do not have middle classes....of the size that the USA does. I would, of course, concede that Chile is one noteable exception. Others have potential, but have taken centuries to move not much. Thus, "men on horseback" take over. Too many coups and not nearly enough education.

Posted by tad at August 16, 2007 10:24 PM

Psberwolfe,

You mention, “Until we start treating those south of our border with more respect we will continue to see these pocket dictators come and go.” As if the policies of the US towards its neighbors to the South are responsible for that region’s tendency toward despotism.

So, according to this logic then, dictators arise as a result of America treating countries and their governments without respect. Therefore, by treating countries with respect, good government will arise.

I assume this logic -- no respect leading to despotism -- can be applied throughout history and all regions of the earth. For it would be inconsistent to say that only the US should treat other countries with respect and other countries do not.

Historical analysis, however, will expose this as rather simplistic and a canard.

For example, did fascism arise in Italy after WWI because Italy was treated without respect? No, she was on the winning side in the war. Italy, however, had its own problems most of which were internal.

Did militarism arise in Japan in the early 20th century because she was treated without respect? No, she was given possession of the German colonies after WWI and supported in her aspirations in the Far East by several European countries.

Did totalitarianism arise in Russia in the early 20th century because she was treated without respect? No, foreign and domestic policy incompetence, military defeats, and an energetic Bolshevism brought about dictatorial communism.

Did dictatorship arise in Germany after WWI because she was treated without respect? There is some relevance here. But the Weimer Republic was encouraged and supported by the Western powers. It was the worldwide depression and the governing incompetence of the regime that brought it to its knees.

Did dictatorships arise in Latin America because she was treated without respect? Again there is some relevance here, but numerous regimes became left-wing dictatorships with the encouragement of the success of Castro’s regime in Cuba, The prevailing climate of the cold war also precipitated the emergence of right-wing regimes.

The point here is that countries have their own agenda and to ascribe the fate of a country solely to its neighbors’ treatment of it, is to deny the importance of indigenous factors on the character of a country.

Cheers,
Lawrence H.

Posted by Lawrence H. at August 18, 2007 03:24 PM