I finally saw a Confederate flag bumper sticker I like. It bears a likeness of the stars and bars with a slash through it and said: “You lost. Get over it.” Perhaps now would be a good time to send a few cases of those stickers to the anti-Hugo Chavez crowd still wandering the streets of Caracas.
In six years in office, Mr. Chavez has won two elections and six referenda and survived a four-month general strike and a two-day coup attempt. I cannot think of another national leader who has been set upon so frequently and so virulently and has responded with as much restraint as Mr. Chavez has.
Any restraint on Mr. Chavez’s part is difficult to discern amid the newsfunk that fogs stories about Venezuela in the American press. Near the top of each story in the New York Times or Washington Post, Mr. Chavez is described as a “left-leaning strongman,” “former paratrooper” or “leader of a failed 1992 coup.” Much further down (if at all) is mentioned that Mr. Chavez was democratically elected in 1998 on the votes of millions of poor Venezuelans who were tired of being ignored and abused by the nation’s ruling class.
To be accurate, Mr. Chavez is not very strong, nor does his restraint in countering the opposition spring from a love for his enemies. Lacking the support of Venezuela’s business community or old families or academia or labor unions, he has had to maneuver with guile and agility to survive as long as he has.
In his favor is the huge pool of oil upon which Venezuela rests, the largest in the western hemisphere. This pool – and the high price of oil, thanks to the ham-handed Middle East war waged by Mr. Chavez’s critics in Washington – have provided the Venezuelan president with the funds to provide schools and hospitals and sewage treatment to his poor countrymen, most of whom have never before received any benefit from their country’s natural resources.
Latin America has had many “strongman” presidents – militaristic, despotic, and corrupt – but willing to spread graft to the patron U.S. industry. Neither the U.S. State Department nor the American media has had cross words for them.
Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, feeds the poor and smiles toward Fidel Castro, the bete noir. Worse, he makes noises at the Americans who pump the oil from beneath Lake Maricabo, companies like PhillipsConoco, that keep 84 percent of the money Venezuela’s oil earns. Mr. Chavez says Venezuela deserves more than 16 percent of its oil money. He wants 30 percent.
Given demands like that, it’s clear the American oil companies will keep funding the Venezuelan political opposition, hoping to keep Mr. Chavez off balance with another referendum, another strike or another coup attempt. The Bush White House, a servant of the oil companies, will help by sending taxpayer dollars to the Chavez opposition through the “Endowment for Democracy.”
Hugo Chavez sees this; the message is not lost. In response, he rewrites the constitution, he packs the courts, he rearranges the government and the national oil company into patronage paddocks. Such moves are democratically undesirable, but if Mr. Chavez doesn’t level the playing field somehow, he’s finished.
Although he’s done more for Venezuela’s poor in the past six years than his predecessors had done in six decades, Mr. Chavez doesn’t push too hard. Seventy-seven percent of all Venezuela’s farmland is in the hands of three percent of the population. Mr. Chavez has introduced some land reform, but so far he’s only taken over property that was all but abandoned.
Hugo Chavez is an incrementalist, moving slowly, getting stronger with each election won and coup attempt foiled. He’s young for a national leader and he knows the value of Venezuela’s oil will grow geometrically in the decades ahead. He’d like to funnel as much of it as possible to the poor – for their sake and because he must laugh at the howls of the rich.
Hugo Chavez is a realist. He has eyes and sees the bloodthirsty Augusto Pinochet living out a quiet retirement. He sees Jean-Bertrand Aristide taken out by a U.S.-backed coup for bucking the U.S. even in Haiti, the backwater of the Americas.
Mostly, he sees Fidel, who has successfully danced on the knife edge for 45 years and Hugo must wonder – what would it be like to be Fidel with oil?
Fidel with Oil
I finally saw a Confederate flag bumper sticker I like. It bears a likeness of the stars and bars with a slash through it and said: “You lost. Get over it.” Perhaps now would be a good time to send a few cases of those stickers to the anti-Hugo Chavez crowd still wandering the streets of Caracas.
In six years in office, Mr. Chavez has won two elections and six referenda and survived a four-month general strike and a two-day coup attempt. I cannot think of another national leader who has been set upon so frequently and so virulently and has responded with as much restraint as Mr. Chavez has.
Any restraint on Mr. Chavez’s part is difficult to discern amid the newsfunk that fogs stories about Venezuela in the American press. Near the top of each story in the New York Times or Washington Post, Mr. Chavez is described as a “left-leaning strongman,” “former paratrooper” or “leader of a failed 1992 coup.” Much further down (if at all) is mentioned that Mr. Chavez was democratically elected in 1998 on the votes of millions of poor Venezuelans who were tired of being ignored and abused by the nation’s ruling class.
To be accurate, Mr. Chavez is not very strong, nor does his restraint in countering the opposition spring from a love for his enemies. Lacking the support of Venezuela’s business community or old families or academia or labor unions, he has had to maneuver with guile and agility to survive as long as he has.
In his favor is the huge pool of oil upon which Venezuela rests, the largest in the western hemisphere. This pool – and the high price of oil, thanks to the ham-handed Middle East war waged by Mr. Chavez’s critics in Washington – have provided the Venezuelan president with the funds to provide schools and hospitals and sewage treatment to his poor countrymen, most of whom have never before received any benefit from their country’s natural resources.
Latin America has had many “strongman” presidents – militaristic, despotic, and corrupt – but willing to spread graft to the patron U.S. industry. Neither the U.S. State Department nor the American media has had cross words for them.
Hugo Chavez, on the other hand, feeds the poor and smiles toward Fidel Castro, the bete noir. Worse, he makes noises at the Americans who pump the oil from beneath Lake Maricabo, companies like PhillipsConoco, that keep 84 percent of the money Venezuela’s oil earns. Mr. Chavez says Venezuela deserves more than 16 percent of its oil money. He wants 30 percent.
Given demands like that, it’s clear the American oil companies will keep funding the Venezuelan political opposition, hoping to keep Mr. Chavez off balance with another referendum, another strike or another coup attempt. The Bush White House, a servant of the oil companies, will help by sending taxpayer dollars to the Chavez opposition through the “Endowment for Democracy.”
Hugo Chavez sees this; the message is not lost. In response, he rewrites the constitution, he packs the courts, he rearranges the government and the national oil company into patronage paddocks. Such moves are democratically undesirable, but if Mr. Chavez doesn’t level the playing field somehow, he’s finished.
Although he’s done more for Venezuela’s poor in the past six years than his predecessors had done in six decades, Mr. Chavez doesn’t push too hard. Seventy-seven percent of all Venezuela’s farmland is in the hands of three percent of the population. Mr. Chavez has introduced some land reform, but so far he’s only taken over property that was all but abandoned.
Hugo Chavez is an incrementalist, moving slowly, getting stronger with each election won and coup attempt foiled. He’s young for a national leader and he knows the value of Venezuela’s oil will grow geometrically in the decades ahead. He’d like to funnel as much of it as possible to the poor – for their sake and because he must laugh at the howls of the rich.
Hugo Chavez is a realist. He has eyes and sees the bloodthirsty Augusto Pinochet living out a quiet retirement. He sees Jean-Bertrand Aristide taken out by a U.S.-backed coup for bucking the U.S. even in Haiti, the backwater of the Americas.
Mostly, he sees Fidel, who has successfully danced on the knife edge for 45 years and Hugo must wonder – what would it be like to be Fidel with oil?
(c) Mark Floegel, 2004