Democracy Redux

Two countries, two presidents, one who follows the rule of law..

So there's been a lot of bad-mouthing of Venezuela in the West, ever since the US-backed coup failed to kill and oust Hugo Chavez a few years ago. You get a lot of fairly high strung rhetoric, ranging from 'He's a dictator!' to 'He's going to declare war on the United States because he bought some guns for his Army!' to 'He's actually Satan in disguise!'

Basically, the argument goes, he's a powermad despot with his Machiavellian plots to control the country operating like a well-oiled machine, and oh, isn't it such a tragedy that we have such a man in charge of a country in our hemisphere?

A country full of oil no less......

Of course, reality is more complicated, as it often is. The US backed a bloody coup against Chavez because he wants to give the country's oil wealth back to the people of, well, his own damn country. He's proceeded to do so with an array of populist programs for the poor, as well as the gradual nationalization of Venezuela's oil assets. Gasp.

By the end of the first three years of his presidency, Chávez had successfully initiated a land transfer program and had introduced several reforms aimed at improving the social welfare of the population. These reforms entailed the lowering of infant mortality rates; the implementation of a free, government-funded healthcare system; and free education up to the university level. By December of 2001, inflation fell to 12.3% the lowest since 1986,^[14] while economic growth was steady at four percent.^[15]Chávez's administration also reported an increase in primary school enrollment by one million students.^[15]

Source: Wikipedia

Ideas like these led us to try to remove his government by force, or at least, help those who would do so. Sigh.

Chavez has, since the coup, taken every opportunity to thumb his nose at the United States while building regional power and alliances. He's got programs going to trade oil, gas, fuels and so forth amongst South American nations, helped to push socialist leaders into power (through elections I might add, not coups) across the continent, and generally proven to be a competent player in the old Spheres of Influence/Great Powers game that Churchill loved so much.

For that of course, he must pay. American 'journalism' has been trying to plant a dagger in his back ever since.

In particular, the part that drives most American journalists red with rage is that Chavez has closed down some tv stations in Venezuela that were, well, anti-Chavez. By anti-Chavez, I don't mean they played news critical of Chavez. Or anti-Chavez propaganda. True, they did all that. By anti-Chavez I mean they were active conspirators in the US coup against him, took over the airwaves when the coup was in process, pronounced the coup a success and helped the would be new President to roll back all the results of those pesky elections of the last few years, starting of course with that money going from the big foreign oil concerns to the poor.

That didn't work, and needless to say, it left a sour taste in Chavez' mouth. Still, he didn't do anything in retaliation for some time, until they kept pouring the propaganda out over the air and he couldn't take it anymore.

Shocking I know.

At any rate, this all comes up because the latest anti-Chavez crusade was started by various news outlets getting huffy over a couple of constitutional referendums Chavez was pushing in the next election. One was to remove term limits for his office; the other was to hand control of the Central Bank over to the executive branch.

We got the usual wailing and gnashing of teeth on this one. Oh, he's wants to be President for Life, oh this is a power grab, oh woe for democracy.

Woe for Democracy that people are allowed to vote? Does this also mean that all US presidents before Truman were Presidents for Life because they lacked term limits?

The results of the referendum would surprise you, if you only watched the American news.

CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) -- Venezuelan voters narrowly rejected a constitutional referendum that would have bolstered President Hugo Chavez's embrace of socialism and granted an indefinite extension of his eligibility to serve as president, the National Electoral Council reported early Monday.

Source: CNN.com

He's a svengali!
Lolz.

Meanwhile, Putin in Russia, Musharraf in Pakistan, they're great guys. Allies of the US of A. Bush has looked into their souls, and they're just awesome dudes.

Riiiiiiiiight.

One final note. What's Chavez's response to losing this referendum? Violence in the streets? Threats? Ignoring the rule of law with some sort of signing statement?

Chavez, in what he called a talk "from my heart" acknowledging the results, thanked those who opposed his proposal, saying the election had proven that Venezuelan democracy is maturing.

Source: CNN.com

What a monster.