Looking south (And you thought Dubya was bad...!)

[thatcrazycajun]

As we continue to read and hear from various news outlets, Junior Bush (AKA Preznit Chimpy McShithead -- thanks, Tom!) is still busily working to set himself up as Maximum Leader of our government; just yesterday it was announced that he issued an executive order placing a political appointee in each and every federal agency to keep its work and public statements in line with Regime policy. (See International Herald Tribune story here.)

As it turns out, however, even our Imperial President II is a piker compared with Venezuela's radical-leftist President, Hugo Chavez, who, fresh from overwhelmingly winning a second six-year term, has now begun laying the groundwork to make himself President-for-Life of his country and arrogating unto that office broad and as-yet-not-fully-defined powers. (See BusinessWeek Online story here.) While I may agree with at least one or two of his policy ideas (getting more of the income from Venezuela's rich oil fields into the hands of people lower down on the economic ladder, frex), this does not excuse such naked power-grabbing. As Messrs. Niven, Pournelle and Flynn showed us in Fallen Angels, tyranny of the extreme left can be every bit as bad, in its own way, as that of the extreme right.

Let us all devoutly hope that (a) a majority of Venezuelans wise up and get rid of this hijo de la puta PDQ, and that (b) he doesn't give Junior any worse ideas than he's already having.

Comments

Been wanting to post about both of these -- hopefully will at some point

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

1) Bush Exec Order. As I understand it, what this order does is make it ridiculously difficult to get out non-binding advice letters. I strongly suspect a large number of small businesses will soon discover how the big orgs that speak for "business" (like U.S. Chamber, that backed the measure) have screwed them to benefit the alrgest companies. Businesses routinely rely on advisory opinions to conduct business. Not just the EPA, which Bush doesn't like, but SEC, IRS, FCC, FTC, the whole friggin' alphabet soup. These companies depend on knowing how to comply with regulations and learning in advance how certain actions will be treated.

The order does not alter the agencies' enforcement and adjudication power. All it does it make it difficult to impossible for the agency to say in advance how to stay on the right side of the law. Idiots.

It also frames everything in terms of market failure, as if that were the only reason to regulate. That's an extremely bad frame for public policy. This is the classic Gramscian tactic of shifting the very nature of the debate in public policy in a way that prevents consideration of certain goals/outcomes.

Venezuala

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Chavez is at the head of a wave of our own making. Most U.S. residents simply do not understand what is driving the shift left back to Socialism in South and Central America. This is unsurprising given how poorly this region is reported and how little about the history of the last 15 years people know.

During the cold war, we interpreted shifts to socialism and efforts to contain it as part of the general US v. Soviet hegemony fight. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and subsequent resolution of a number of regional conflicts, South and Central America enthusiastically embraced the "Washington Solution" of open markets pushed by the World Bank, IMF, other trade associations, and the US and EU.

In the last 15 years, the majority of South and Central Americans have seen only minimal, if any, rise in their standard of living as a consequence. Some countries have done better, particularly those that did not wholly embrace the open market paradigm (e.g., Chile). Others have done much worse. Ecuador and Argintina, for example, saw massive economic collapse.

The South and Central Americans have also seen the fruits of neo-imperialism and our own trade hypocracy. Under our guidance, they sold off critical infrastructure (what Chavez now wants to renationalize) to foreign companies to raise capital. These companies have adopted what is called the "capital city strategy." They can make money in dense urban areas, like the capital city of a developing nation, but not in the hinterland. So they don't invest in infrastructure outside the capital. Meanwhile, after the South & Central American folks dropped their tarrifs and permited foreign comapnies to invest, the U.S. and Europe have refused to drop argicultural subsidies -- which make it impossible for many of these countries to compete effectively in one of the few areas non-industrialized countries can play.

I won't even touch on the industrial world (EU as well as US) abuse of intellectual property law and other issues, especially our failure to live up to the DOHA agreements on the availability of medications. Waaay too complicated.

So they have become all pissed and disillusioned with open markets, capitalism, and us. You are surprised they revert back to the "man on horseback" strategy? Chavez promises to make their lives better. He has taken steps to do so. No one else has done squat for them. It's hard to worry about abstract concepts like "concetrating too much power in the hands of the executive" when you and your family live in squallor and the only people who oppose Chavez are the people you blame for your current condition of misery.

If the US and the EU do not want to see this spread throughout the developing world, they need to do something real about showing how democracy and capitalism improve people's lives. Otherwise, as far as the developing world is concerned, that's all just so muc chin music to justify the North ripping off the South.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Dropping tariffs would be something real. Is there anything else you'd recommend?

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

I dunno...I'd say that between open, honest tyranny (Chavez) and tyranny masquerading as democracy (Bush), it's kind of a toss-up.

Of course, it helps, from my perspective as a democratic socialist, that Chavez is a socialist who - at least so far - seems to actually have an interest in improving his people's standard of living. Whereas American "democracy" has always been something of a sham (even in its most seemingly egalitarian moments), with the entire system rigged in favor of the upper 0.001%, and the "choices" offered to the rest of us largely illusiory.

Not that I approve Chavez' actions here (note the qualifier "democratic" in my political orientation). But I think it's important to note that if the nations of Central and South America are taking a strong turn toward authoritarian socialism, it is largely a reaction to many decades of having American "Free Market" Capitalism (or, as anyone who was actually paying attention would describe it, bloody fascist dictatorship) shoved down their throats, stuck under their fingernails, rammed up their asses, and worse. Just ask anyone from El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile...

So overall I'm rooting for Chavez to succeed in his larger goals, though I'd prefer he go about it differently...and I'm praying that he'll give up those dictatorial powers after the agreed-upon 18 months are up, though I expect that the odds are low.

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

...ah...I see that between beginning my comment in the morning, running some errands, and completing it around 5pm, osewalrus made my point more persuasively than I did...