Manny Lopez, editorial columnist for The Detroit News, recently returned to Venezuela after a nine year absence. He filed a striking piece from Caracas which caught my and a lot of people’s attention. It illustrated better than most reporting I’ve read on the subject, just how substantially the country had changed under president Hugo Chavez’s rule. He graciously granted our friend Lee Garnett at Postpolitical and I an opportunity to interview him about his thoughts and experiences:
Lee: Thanks for sitting down with us. I noticed in your March 25th piece on the situation on Venezuela, that you’ve a personal interest in the place through an aunt and uncle. What’s the extent of your relationship and interest in the country?
Manny: First, thanks for the chance to share more about Venezuela with you and the readers of postpolitical. I have a ton of family in Caracas and Barcelona. Although I hadn’t visited in nine years, we used to go every other year and Venezuela has always been something of a second home for me.
I recently returned from a 10-day vacation there and when I got back realized that there was too much going on to not write about it for The Detroit News and others via the Internet.
Lee: Even under the caudillos, Caracas has always been a lively and colorful capital. But one of the things you wrote about in your March 14 column that I found particularly striking, was this impression that under Chávez the city seems to be somehow losing its vitality. Perhaps in the same way that Havana did after Castro? What are some of the most notable atmospheric differences you observed between now and 1997?
Manny: I think one of the most noticeable differences is the tension that exists. You drive through neighborhoods and there’s a distinct us-versus-them atmosphere. Chávistas are boldly marking their territory and taking over the weak fringes, too. Most non-Chávista neighborhoods don’t spray paint their entrances with signs that proclaim their allegiances.
Chávez has spent millions plastering the country with propaganda. “Socialism, patriotism or death” banners hang throughout Caracas as well as a litany of “death to American imperialism” murals.
There also is an unquestionable concern about crime among locals and visitors (though there aren’t nearly as many tourists as there once was). Chávez has created such an atmosphere of entitlement among the truly poor that some now think they have a mandate to take what they want and redistribute it to themselves and their families. And why not? Though there is a decent police presence, I’m told they apparently don’t act on theft or assault charges that often.
Ironically, the socialists are so caught up in the so-called revolution and the attack on middle and upper class Venezuelans, that they don’t stop and think about why Chávez hasn’t significantly redistributed the tremendous amount of oil money he’s raking in. Since he took office the number of truly poor is the same, but he’s confiscated more oil money than the three previous governments combined.
Lance: From past experience I would assume this is purposeful. The Chávistas are being told not only that their desire is understandable, and thus not of much concern to Chavez and the state, but that it is necessary for them to do so. Squatting and other acts of seizure being examples as well. Or, is your impression this is merely a byproduct of the sense of entitlement?
Manny: It’s a combination of both. Chávez is a master propagandist. He’s told his followers, directly and otherwise, that their circumstances are the fault of the previous governments and the upper classes. Taken a step further, it’s the fault of the United States, which has orchestrated a campaign against Venezuela for decades, he and his minions say. It’s nonsense of course, but the Chávistas are so desperate to try and rise to the levels of society that they supposedly hate, they eat up the rhetoric.
Combined with a lack of action against uprisings, the entitlement attitude spreads and empowers people to act out in ways they otherwise wouldn’t. Petty theft or vandalism is just the start.
Lee: You wrote that Chávez has created a culture of theft that has infected virtually every level of society. We know from the experiences in other former socialist societies that once established this ruination of morality and the work ethic can have debilitating consequences long after the death of the dictators. Assuming Chávez disappears tomorrow, is it too late for this culture of theft to depart with him?
Manny: I wouldn’t say Chávez has infected every level of society. On the contrary, he’s polarized everyone but the truly poor. The middle-classes and the wealthy, even some who voted for him, see his dictatorship moving the country in the wrong direction.
To be sure, crime before Chávez was bad, but his rhetoric against independent wealth and individual success has many believing that they’re entitled to anything and everything.
I’m confident that it’s not too late for things to change and I think that even if Chávez continues his ruinous rein, there are enough opponents to help turn things around.
Venezuelans have long supported democracy and have lived with the unquestionable benefits of a free society even during periods of serious political corruption. Chávez has empowered the truly poor (and there are a lot), but even those who voted for him are questioning his actions.
Lee: But with approximately 53% of the country living below the poverty line, that’s an enormous political culture to reintegrate into a pluralistic system that respects private property rights, even if it is just the poor who are supporting Chavezism. I guess I’m skeptical that once you’ve had a drink at the fountain of mafia-style politics, you can’t so easily turn off the tap without a lot of resentment. If it were impossible to go back, is there perhaps a long-term future for the secessionist movement in Zulia? What’s the popularity of the idea among the opposition?
Manny: Good question. An optimist can look at the situation in Venezuela and the mobilization of the poor as a good thing because it gets them engaged. It gives people who otherwise had little hope for even the basic necessities in life motivation to seek more.
Chávez says he’s giving it to them now and some are getting a taste, but not nearly the number he says are. And Chávez will never bring them up to a level of middle income or class. Doing so might motivate them to want more and turn against him. Accordingly, he’ll keep his thumb on them for control. That’s a long-winded way of saying I think that there is hope that once the “redistribution†slows or stops there very well could be a push back even against Chávez. Maybe that’s a bit Pollyanna-ish and hopeful, but possible.
As for the secessionist movement in Zulia, I don’t know how the opposition truly looks at it, but I think it’s highly unlikely to happen. You’ve got to also seriously consider how much promotion the idea/cause is driven by Chávez and his fellow conspiracy theorists. If they can drum up enough fervor about how the opposition is plotting to secede, he garners more support, especially since he’ll undoubtedly link it to the United States.
Lee: You’ve been in touch with Leopoldo Lopez and have been following the Rosales persecution. First hand, what’s the state of the Venezuelan democratic opposition and can it have a future in the changing constitutional order?
Manny: Yes, Leopoldo Lopez (no relation) read my March 18 column and sent me an e-mail the next day. He thanked me for acknowledging what he says the international media don’t want to write about.
I’ve also been told by friends in Venezuela that at least one of the newspapers in Caracas is translating and reprinting my columns.
The intense international interest (I’m also getting e-mails from London and elsewhere), tells me that the opposition is stronger than Chávez would have anyone believe and stronger than he wants.
Internally, Un Nuevo Tiempo is now the unified opposition party. They five former separate parties will have a stronger voice and direction.
But it’s important to remember that Chávez will never allow true democracy to return to Venezuela so they have their work cut out for them.
Lance: You write of the various opposition groups uniting. Can you tell us who are the various opposition groups, what are their differences and potential internal conflicts?
Manny: I don’t have a lot of info on the differences among the groups, but know that there were struggles for dominance, which is what kept them from unifying before the last election. Once they realized that Chávez would spare no expense (by paying the poor to vote for him) or bother to follow traditional election rules (ie: changing or shutting down polling places at the last minute or registering an inordinate number, say a couple million, foreigners to vote in Venezuela), they decided that one opposition party was better than five.
There are some strong personalities among the opposition leaders as well as some significant political differences (libertarians, right-wing conservatives, elites, etc.) and they’ll have some growing pains sharing the stage, but because they have a unified goal, they hopefully will stay united and strong.
Chávez doesn’t like them because many are internationally educated and particularly because much of that schooling was in the United States, where they saw the benefits of a free-market economy and true democracy at work. There also are a lot of remnants of past governments, which rubs a lot of people in the country the wrong way.
Lance: Given the crackdown on opposition and independent media outlets, what are the practical steps the opposition can take, and are there steps the U.S. should consider to help the opposition? What mistakes do you think they and we have made so far, and what can be learned from them?
Manny: It is going to get increasingly difficult for the opposition to have a voice because Chávez is shutting down anyone (Radio Caracas Television, for example) who questions or opposes him. And he pulls the puppet strings of his media without fail. Watch some of his “interviews†with them and he rarely allows them to speak. No one challenges his answers or his asinine statements.
What’s worse, he’s got plenty of American media personalities and pseudo-celebrities hoodwinked. Witness the inane interview Barbara Walters did of him recently. She’s a joke and her interview proved it. It was painfully embarrassing to watch and she never asked why the overall poverty is the same despite his “socialism†or why he wants to shut the free press, etc. But she did get serenaded by Chávez and got lots of appropriate pictures of poor people.
Sorry to rant about this, but I’ve got to make one more observation about her “report” from Venezuela. In it she chastised the Venezuelan wealthy for living on large estates with tall fences and occasionally barbed wire to keep people out. Whatever. My guess is that Walters lives in a building or compound that has security guards and fences. As I said in a blog at The Detroit News: “When you live in glass mansions…”
As for what role the U.S. should take, I’ll leave that to the diplomats. Much has been said of the U.S. influence in Latin America and plenty of people, including many Venezuelans, think the U.S. interferes. There’s some truth to that, particularly in Latin America, but it’s not unique to the U.S.
Chávez has his puppets here, too, and he’s buying off governments (Bolivia, Iran) and others (Joe Kennedy, for one) around the world to further his cause. So we’re not alone in protecting our interests or, heaven forbid, promoting democracy around the world.
Lance: You speak of figures here in the U.S., including Joe Kennedy, who have cooperated with and praised Chavez. Given the poverty in Venezuela, how has subsidizing fuel for politically useful consumers in the US played in Venezuela? Wouldn’t that money (in the eyes of the Venezuelan poor) be better spent there?
Manny: Can you say “lapdogs� That’s what Joe Kennedy, U.S. Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts, and U.S. Rep. Jose Serrano, a New York Democrat, are when it comes to home heating oil and Chávez. I’m being kind with that description. All three ignore the outright threats and insults that Chávez has issued to the United States and its president and government. The shallowness of their character is astounding, especially since it’s motivated by contempt for President George W. Bush and our own democratically elected government. That’s their prerogative, I guess, but I find it repulsive.
The Venezuelan socialists, like the American socialists, don’t see it as a loss on their end. They still get paid for the oil and Chávez has them convinced that he’s helping their “brothers†and “sisters†in the United States who are being left behind by Bush.
Lee: Chávez is reported to be arming peasant militias, is devolving greater political autonomy to their committees and is habitually ranting about Tamanaco. Consequently, a lot of people fear that any military coup or bourgeois led uprising that toppled Chávez, would provoke a bloody revolt by his supporters. How likely is that? Particularly given that compared to her neighbors, Venezuela has a relatively pacific history in this respect.
Manny: The one thing about Chávez that I give him credit for is his ability to captivate people and audiences. He’s an amazing marketer because he can distort any message or fact to suit his needs and when fired up, most people don’t stop to think: “hey wait a minute, that doesn’t make sense.”
He masterfully incites his followers by reminding them of revolutionary leaders of the past. He’s absolutely corrupted the name, image and principles of SÃmon Bolivar.
Venezuelans aren’t stupid or ignorant of what Bolivar did. He’s everyone’s hero there and those who think for themselves (the opposition) are beside themselves at the use of Bolivar to pursue communism.
Chávez uses Bolivar or Tamanaco because he can’t use Che or Fidel (anymore than he already does). He’s smart enough to know that he needs to keep some distance between his “socialism†and Cuba’s communism, though he’s moving in that direction anyway. Venezuelan’s deny that he’s committed to communism, but they’re kidding themselves.
Lee: That’s a very interesting point. Chavez has repeatedly denied he wants to reconstruct the Cuban model, but polls also show majorities disbelieve him. What accounts for a people who believe in democracy, yet knowingly support a political program that is inimical to it?
Manny: Keep an eye on the Catholic Church in Venezuela. Rumor was when I was there that he was trying to figure out a way to pressure it, too. The Catholic Church has been opposed to him from the beginning and while I found it hard to believe he’d be able to make any headway in this regard, it’s rumored to be on his agenda.
Venezuelans have wanted political change for so long that they’ve been willing to give Chávez a chance, even during his recent authoritarian rule. They don’t want to believe that he (though he counts as his mentor and closest friend Fidel Castro) really could introduce that kind of oppression on them. And as I’ve said, Chávez is smart about marketing. He’ll never be without the riches of his own plunder, but he’ll never truly share it with his countrymen and when people start to protest, he’ll shut them down and challenge the world community angrily for suggesting he’s violating human rights or whatever.
Lee: How politically preconditioned is Venezuelan Bolivarianism on the personal figure of the dictator. I think there’s a feeling in the United States that if Chávez would just go away, the authoritarian edifice that he’s created in government would collapse back into normalcy. Is this realistic, or is the movement more durable than one personality?
Manny: The respect and admiration for Simón Bolivar is beyond anything that exists in the United States for any one of our Founding Fathers. That’s why Chávez has latched onto it. And his anger and ego propel such force that most won’t question the association openly. So I think there’s a difference between true Bolivarianism and that which Chávez is selling.
Chávez has masterfully figured out how to use it to his advantage. For example, Chávez has decided that everyone must change over their passports to represent the country’s new name (Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, changed from the Republic of Venezuela in 1999) before being able to travel internationally. That’s just one way he keeps his thumb on people and their movement.
If Chávez went away, his die-hard followers would mourn and riot and to a large extent, I think Chávez would love to be viewed as a martyr, but I’m not sure history in the short-term or long-term would view him that way.
The oppressive authoritarianism would wilt away, I think, and a truer form of democracy would arise.
Normalcy however is another thing. I’m not sure Venezuela’s government has ever been normal, as we define it. Corruption has always been an issue in Venezuela and that’s partly why Chávez won. People wanted a change and he provided it. But like most dictators he turned his promises upside down and moved in his own direction.
Lee: That brings up another question. One of the things I’ve never seen polled, is whether Venezuelans believe that Chavez can actually survive his now indefinite term as president. Is it possible that we’re looking at a kind of cynical “take the money and run†situation? That is, where people don’t think he’ll survive anyway, so one might as well get what they can anti-democratically, while they can.
Manny: No, I don’t think that Venezuelans are trying to get all they can because they think he’ll disappear. They wanted change and they got it. Now they’re trying to figure out if they can stomach the experiment and for how long.
I think there’s a consensus among oppositionists that they can hold onto most of what they have but they’re wary. Some are already shifting their money to Miami banks or getting credit cards issued through the United States.
Lance: How has talk of dissolving the legislature been received generally? Has it given any of his followers pause or changed the way the opposition views the proper course of action?
Manny: Chávez doesn’t need to disband the legislature because he tells them what to do anyway. He’s got 18 months to rule by decree and intends to take advantage of it.
Lance: How much control over the military does Chávez have, and what steps is he taking to protect himself from the possibility of a military led coup?
Manny: I’m not sure about this. The military presence is strong, but it has always been visible. The National Guard is stationed along highway routes and in the major cities and I think it’s as much to give the impression of control as it is real control.
The U.S. has stopped selling Chávez parts to repair his fleet of airplanes and other goods so he’s turned to Russia for help. He is spending a ton of money on the military, but not an inordinate amount when compared to other nations in the region and elsewhere.
What is more dangerous is his training of Chávistas and the supply of weapons to those groups to use in the event of an “attack” on him or the “revolution.”
Lance: What do you expect the next steps Chávez will take, and how does the empowerment of the local committees and councils fit into those plans?
Manny: Chávez will continue to talk about his “democratic” socialism but move faster toward communism. He’ll continue telling the poor that he’s helping them and plaster up the appropriate propaganda to make them think this is so.
He’ll also move faster to nationalize and rid the country of private industry and progress. He’s already said he’ll take control of the Central Bank and he recently said hospitals and grocery stores will be nationalized if they don’t come in line with government demands on prices and supplies.
He banned alcohol sales during the recently passed Holy Week, which is something the opposition can play to it’s advantage because it affects all class levels. Few will go kindly with a push to prohibition in Venezuela.
The worst thing about all this is that history (past and present) has proven that the path he’s taking is doomed for failure and not even the country’s immense oil wealth can sustain his programs.
Capitalism has become a model for failed communist, socialist and fascist governments for a reason and neither Chávez nor Castro can ultimately convince enough people to move away from that success.
Thanks for the opportunity to talk about Venezuela some more. I’ll chime in occasionally on The Detroit News politics blog about what’s happening in Venezuela so make sure to check it out.
Lee: Thanks for your time and insights Manny. It’s been an education.
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Update: For more on Venezuela from A Second Hand Conjecture, go here. I especially recommend The fight against inflation to understand the manipulation of government statistics. It is also funny. Also, for a different, but complimentary, view of Venezuela read from Alexandra Storr’s commentary on the oil boom. Go here for part one.
Recent columns and Detroit News politics blogs by Manny Lopez on Venezuela and Chavez:
Blog (April 3): No booze, no beef? Hardly sounds like paradise
Blog (March 17): When you live in glass mansions…
Blog (July 5, 2006): Vaya, Cindy, vaya
Column (April 1): Is Venezuela a paradise and the U.S. a ‘failed democracy? You decide
Column (March 25): Venezuela insider: Eat, drink and don’t talk politics
Column (March 18): Venezuelan opposition unites, but goes silent with shutdown of free press
Column (March14): Venezuela’s socialism doesn’t work
Column (March 4): Venezuelan politics: propaganda or promise? Stay tuned
[tags] Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, Manny Lopez, socialism, Cuba, communism, oil[/tags]
Leftside,
What’s a few tens of millions of deaths between friends, lets say Stalin murdered 30 to 60 million people. We know at least 30-million starved during collectivization. (Don’t give me that bad planning stuff. Stalin’s own hand written dairies show the famine was state sponsored.) If 30 to 60-million are insufficient to be a mass murderer. How many do you think is a tipping point?
So were the Lords who looked over their peasants, in days of old, when Knights were bold. Chavez and Castro look upon the peasants like Charlemagne looked upon his peasants.
Fish, Of course Stalin was a mass murderer. He singled out opponents for often deadly forced labor or execution.
But please elaborate on your notion that “the famine was state sponsored.” I don’t believe the facts show that it was purposefully engineered in any sense of the phrase.
Lance’s cited USSR source (Amis) claims 20 million TOTAL Soviet deaths from 1917 to Stalin’s death, about 10 of which were peasants, right? So to say “30 million starved during collectivization” is off by a fair bit, no?
Sigh. Here we go again. Deny, when exposed, excuse. Surely you can’t be oblivious to the repetition of this tiresome pattern.
Let me take you under the wing for a moment. The correct response is: “You’re right, I was out of order and I was wrong to later deny it.” It’s not “You’re right…but actually, I’m justified in being wrong, because of this, that and the other thing…furthermore I’m actually right anyway, because you’re wrong.” This is just vanity, plain and simple. You’ve got to realize how asinine that looks from the reader’s perspective.
It’s not just manners either. See, if you said option one above when I confronted you, I guarantee everyone’s respect of you would have gone up about 300%. Consequently you’d be arguing into a more hospitable environment. By giving a non-apology apology and then circuitously defending your remarks all over again, you imbue only one impression: this guy is a jerk. People don’t like jerks generally. They tend not to take their arguments seriously, much less be persuaded by them.
Well first of all, the way Venezuela measures inflation is through the CPI model. That is, it monitors certain goods to see their change in price. Since retail prices on many if not most of the items in the index are proportionately fixed by government price controls, what you’re not going to see a accurate reflection of currency devaluation in its measures. What you see showing up in the CPI is instead supplier pricing, which will naturally over-represent monetary purchasing power.
Worse, some of the indexed consumables aren’t even available anymore, because they are officially retail priced below profitability, or even below minimum recovery. Thus you have a CPI that’s measuring the price of goods which are not for sale. This is perhaps the ultimate Marxist economic model, identical to the Soviets inflation models. To deny that the CPI is inaccurate, you have to argue that there are no price controls that affect market pricing. But ask Hugo and he’ll tell you why he has price controls “to keep the prices low!” Exactly.
However, real inflation is not unknowable in a price-controlled market, because that market must trade with the outside world. The very interesting piece you linked to reveals an independent indicator. That is that hard currency convertability with the parallel exchange rate has gotten pretty severe. It ranges, but is 50-100% below the official rate. By order of Chavez, only the government can officially convert the bolivar (for reasons which should now be obvious), but the market prices show their figures are unrealistic, as they are not accounting for cumulative devaluation and are thus selling the Bolivar at an expected, rather than actual rate.
Then you didn’t read Amis, or you need to re-read him. Nor have you read seriously on the issue. Nor are you familiar with Stalin’s own speeches which advocated the liquidation of the kulaks as a class. Their property and grain was to be expropriated and they would not be allowed to join the cooperatives. Uh, how do you feed yourself? Now, Kulaks meant whatever Stalin wanted it to, so everybody was a kulak if it was convenient. The literature is extensive and deep. If you have not read it, then I rest my case, you have no idea what you are talking about.
You called them “supposed failures.” That is being an apologist. Like the deniers you say, “of course Stalin was bad, but these claims are exaggerrated, you ignore this and ignore that, etc.
No it wouldn’t, and if you had come in here arguing that you might have had a better start than calling him a liar. However, it is a problem when what you want to see is something so problematic. No point in arguing that. You will not agree. I’ll just say that if I went to Zimbabwe several years ago I have the intellectual tools to know what I see as familiar. The apologists went there and talked about clinics and efforts to mobilize the people. I predict mass murder, famine and social chaos. They see someone redistributing land. I may have seen what I wanted to see, but it was based on understanding how these things work. They don’t, period. Same with Manny. We have seen this story, we have heard the same explanations for why this time it is all right. It won’t be this time either, though oil will let it float a while longer.
Of course the author himself has revised this table up ward, radically in the case of China as he wanted to research China’s famines and other events before including them.
No it is not, and communism was the reason for both anyway. The Soviet Union was collapsing. Those excess deaths were baked into the cake either way. And no, the accounting of Conquest and others does not use the same method as you are describing. Similar tools, but very different implementation. It was purposeful. More importantly, the state knew of the situation and continued to implement policies which took grain from the peasants despite the famine. Oh, and I also don’t buy your numbers anyway. The 50 million figure is ridiculous, and the way those numbers were calculated assumed the collapse and the long run problems were not going to occur to some extent anyway. That you would compare them is absurd.
To murder someone means to unlawfully and purposely kill him, or to be responsible for his death through reckless and depraved indifference to his life. That is what happened then, it is not what was responsible for most of these supposed “excess” deaths you wish to make equivalent. Just like so many who have excused the totalitarians of the past, whether left or right. All societies by some baseline have excess deaths. That baseline choice is the key in using statistical analysis, but then one must look at how those deaths occurred to make the decisions necessary to apply the demographic tools appropriately. You are engaging in sophistry.
Actually I didn’t source him for death totals, nor does he claim only 10 (or even 10% in case it was a typo) were peasants, and yes Amis says it was state sponsored terror. As I said, you don’t know what you are talking about. I gave you several sources. Try Lev Kopelev and Conquest to start.
As for my numbers, as opposed to the character of the terror, I have seen many different stabs at it. The most comprehensive survey of the literature comes out at about 61, 000,000. Though these numbers keep getting incrementally larger over time.
Amis uses Conquests numbers, but that is misleading. Conquest is just showing what he could find at the time. He never claimed it was in anyway a ceiling. It was a floor. It was also only for Stalin’s 23 years in power. That leaves many more uncounted in that number. Amis knows this, it just wasn’t the point of his book. Conquest openly acknowledged the shortcoming of his data and gave future researchers a pretty good blueprint of what he was not counting for one reason or another
To quote him:
Unfortunately that 20 million figure for Stalin keeps getting repeated, it is the most widely cited, despite Conquests own misgivings about it.
If you look at Conquest’s estimates and fill in the holes with data he admits he didn’t have, the figure comes to about 43,000,000 citizens and foreigners, over twice Conquest’s total. That is just by Stalin.
Stalin died in 1953, so what did Conquest leave out? From The same source I linked above (though I do not need the source, I figure you want one though. I have the books from which your estimates are based myself):
Considering that Stalin died in 1953, note what Conquest did not include — camp deaths after 1950, and before 1936; executions 1939-53; the vast deportation of the people of captive nations into the camps, and their deaths 1939-1953; the massive deportation within the Soviet Union of minorities 1941-1944; and their deaths; and those the Soviet Red Army and secret police executed throughout Eastern Europe after their conquest during 1944-1945 is omitted. Moreover, omitted is the deadly Ukrainian famine Stalin purposely imposed on the region and that killed 5 million in 1932-1934. So, Conquest’s estimates are spotty and incomplete.
The 61 million number is conservative and there are holes not mentioned in the quote above. There are researchers (which he takes account of, but he uses midrange numbers) who believe it was far more. I may be wrong, as may be those who claim 6 million Jews were murdered, but exaggeration isn’t the issue, and if it is 30 million I still don’t want to hear of socialism’s “supposed failures” given its horrific victims list and the even larger “excess death’s” it is responsible for due to having been an abysmal economic failure everywhere it has been implemented. If I used that metric for socialism’s failures that you so breezily wish to apply to post 1989 Russia, then I’ll up my numbers to the several hundred million range. Pardon me if I don’t feel like giving you the exact number. I don’t consider the argument that the Soviet Union pursued stupid policies and should be blamed for that worth taking the time for. I’ll stick to murder and depraved indifference. That figure is bad enough.
I also don’t know why, given the suffering in store for Venezuela should Chavez do everything he claims, why it matters anyway to you? They will, as you say, be dead anyway. Famine due to poor policy seems enough of a problem to me. Considering this is a problem that only socialism or state run economies in this century seem to be able to create, that should be bad enough.
For grins though I am going to post this, and then edit it and put up some numbers for Communism’s victims, whether you think they were purposeful or not.
Of course the author himself has revised this table up ward, radically in the case of China as he wanted to research China’s famines and other events before including them. Here are more updated figures which include all the largest mass murderers of the last century.
Where are all the liberal democracies? They are almost all variations of socialism, whether of the left or right. Mostly supposedly left, though I think that term is misleading. We do see colonialism, which is where the old colonial powers, some of them liberal democracies did their work, but of course, they were not practicing market economics or democracy there. There they practiced state run economics. The exceptions (such as Hong Kong) not only didn’t suffer such violence but are amongst the wealthiest places on the planet.
Lee shows why official inflation figures are bunk in Venezuela, but as evidence I give you Hugo Chavez himself, who is complaining that exactly what lee is describing is occurring. His response? Use the power of the state to force merchants to sell goods at state mandated prices even if they lose money. If not, not only can they be prosecuted, have Chavista’s sent after them as well as shadowy thugs. but the state will seize their stores.
That goes back to what I was describing earlier about seeing what one wants to see. I don’t have to go to Venezuela to know that price controls lead to shortages and bogus inflation statistics. I know that is true. I need no evidence because it has to be that way. Either the price controls are irrelevant (Hugo tells us they are not) or shortages are present (Hugo supports me there as well.) I also know there are only two possible outcomes. For Venezuela’s sake I hope the first is chosen, which is abandon the controls. If not, then only more and more power applied to the merchants followed by more shortages, flight of capital, increasingly severe crackdowns, further expropriations and and since people just won’t cooperate (because they can’t) eventually imprisonments, repression and mass murder. It happens every time. Not most of the time, every time. Zimbabwe isn’t about Mugabe being a bad guy, pursuing his policies required it to happen. The only other choice is abandoning the policies.
The best outcome possible from a avoiding death perspective is Cuba. Everything is controlled by the state and the only way to live is to cooperate. Pretty poor choice, but at least millions do not die. That unfortunately requires some way to keep people there besides massive violence. Cuba has the ocean, though that hasn’t kept tens of thousands from dying trying to escape, or a state which can wall off its citizens, such as The Soviet block in the 1970′s and 1980′s (See the Lives of Others for the extent of the deadening hand of the state in East Germany to accomplish that.) Still, well over a million were murdered even then. Venezuela has neither of those barriers or the power to erect them. So either Chavez has to abandon his program or ratchet up the violence and oppression.
Outside of that we have the possibility of a coup. That might be better, but we could see civil war or a new Pinochet. That Chavez is popular doesn’t change that dynamic at all. Popular leaders can still cause immense suffering. I say it is Zimbabwe on a slower timeline, mostly because of oil.
It’s good to know that voracious readers can be so informed about what’s happening in the neighborhoods and streets of Venezuela. Apparently, however, the reading is quite selective.
Leftside, the statistics I cited in my columns were from Sumate. I know, you’re already typing away with all the disclaimers about them being an opposition group.
Anyone who supports true democracy is part of the opposition so I’ll accept that you discount their numbers outright. No need to argue this point, just as I’ll take your statistics with a grain of salt.
But dispense with the platitudes about “factual errors” and the discounting of anything that I’ve witnessed and written because you’ve read somewhere that journalists are out to get Chavez. Let’s also do away with the (mis)interpretation of my columns. Blind support doesn’t necessarily mean idiot. That’s your interpretation, not mine. And I love the credibility comment coming from someone who hides behind a pen name.
Listen, the poor are still poor in Venezuela, despite the massive accumulation of oil wealth that the government is confiscating. The most poor are still the most poor. None are being lifted into the middle class and barely, if all, out of poverty. Perhaps the poor in Bolivia are doing better. They’re certainly getting a ton of Venezuelan oil money.
I also love the diversion technique Leftside uses that absolutely parrots the criticism by others who disagree with me. They’re obsessed with my itinerary in Venezuela (among other piddling details), specifically if I visited any poor neighborhoods. “Well, since you won’t answer, clearly you’re lying. Clearly you didn’t go, blah, blah, blah.”
That’s such an absurd conclusion it shouldn’t warrant this much attention, but for the record, I’ve been in some of the poorest neighborhoods, working-class ones and occasionally a rather nice one. The Polar tastes the same in all of them. Hopefully, my “credibility” is now restored.
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Look at this mile long page full with discussion, but not a single line that came from the people of Venezuela.
This whole page is full with judgements. It’s a cunning trap, to trap honest observers into an argument which is designed to spread confusion. It is always more effective to spread confusion than to simply lie. One can confuse a whole perspective for an argument without a single lie. To see a demonstration, just scroll thrugh this whole page.
By the end of the page, any reader will be engaged with all sorts of arguments, but the primary argument, i.e., why do the United States always condem the free choises taken by people at their own expense? Venezuelans certainly do not bill their undoings to the United States. What kind of choices they take, it is upto a people and NOT upto the United States.
This whole web of blogs and discussion groups is designed to exclude and eliminate the true issues from the mainstream debate.
Turnright Th’rice
Funny, considering the basis of the discussion is an interview on a report from Venezuela. Of course, I can point you to a great number of people besides the people Manny visited in Venezuela who agree with and corroborate what is written here.
Nor is it improper for us to discuss our fellow men in another country. We have as much right to be concerned with their fate as any.
Finally, the idea that the people of Venezuela have freely chosen Chavez’s policies is a joke. Every dictatorship defends itself by saying it is up to their people, even as they subvert the peoples ability to choose otherwise. The same claims were, and are made for Zimbabwe, Cuba, the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia and other places which feel under the sway of totalitarians. Hopefully Chavez will somehow be stopped before he snuffs out all resistance, and the real suffering begins.
Finally, even if Chavez had enough popular support to claim a majority favoring his policy, it is disingenuous to claim those whose rights are being trampled have chosen it for themselves. Only a crabbed and withered notion of human freedom allows minorities to be oppressed because a majority wishes to take those rights away.
Is that “the people” in the abstract/ideological sense (ala ‘Venezuela Ahora es de Todos’), or people in the actual sense (as in Manny’s Venezuelan sources, family, friends and people he met)?
As you’re a participant by posting, which issues are you now guilty of excluding and eliminating? Confess your crimes for us, comrade.
Lee! I thought you had been “disappeared.” Call me, and yeah, exactly right. We are busy excluding his views.
Email me your number, Lance. I don’t think I still have it in my phone.