You mean this: “As usual on BoingBoing, the amount of kneejerking by the anti-Chavez lot is astounding”? That’s no an ad hominem by any stretch of the definition.
Actually, is a misrepresentation. A Strawman argument.
I can’t speak for others, but at least on my case, the amount of what you call “kneejerking” is maybe related with the amount of times I’ve been called “fascist”, “CIA stooge”, “right-winger”, “not Venezuelan” (because real Venezuelans “love Chávez”) and a long and picturesque etc.
Maybe that’s reason of my predisposition…
In my case it’s because I’m a libertarian communist, possibly anarcho-syndicalist. I don’t get to pick and choose which politician is better than another when they all represent what I oppose.
The enemy of my enemy does not get a free pass to being my friend, especially when both sides take a dim view of my political allegiances.
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Another version of Rafael Uzcátegui article on Venezuela, Q&A version:
So, I’m a semi-privileged gringo who just spent two weeks touring Venezuela, and I heard and saw a lot. The first thing I want to saw is that Venezuela is BEAUTIFUL, and there is a lot there to love. There are shortages, for sure, and currency speculation is rife. I tried to imagine what life would be like in Canada if there was a black market where currency could be exchanged for ten times the official rate, and my only answer was MESSED UP. That’s what’s going on. Lots of things are expensive to locals, but if you have access to American dollars, you are rich as stink. I heard a lot of talk of danger and lawlessness, and I am sure it is true, but in my day to day interactions people were more than civil, they went out of their way to help.
Corruption, theft and inefficiency are not unique to Venezuela, what is unique is that Venezuelan oil gives the government enough money to experiment.
If any economists have any useful information about how to end currency speculation fueled by an over inflated dollar, I’d love to hear about it.
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That was a great piece FoolishOwl. I read it yesterday and it actually clarified what is going on in Venezuela.
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Not that long after Chavez was first elected president, around 2002 I think, I was at a conference of revolutionary socialists in New York, and I attended a panel meeting with some socialist union activists from Venezuela. My recollection was that this was at the height of Chavez’s popularity, both with the Venezuelan left and the US left. The Venezuelan union activists had several criticisms of Chavez, but their general position was critical support: so long as Chavez retained the support of the oppressed and continued to try to act in their interests, they would support him, even as they maintained formal independence from his party and criticized his political shortcomings.
I find it remarkable that, fifteen years after Chavez was first elected, his political faction has managed to maintain a basically reformist footing and to maintain its base of support among the poor, the working class, and people of color.
But my understanding has been that the revolutionary socialist wing of the left has, in general, been critical of Chavismo all along, and generally maintained a position of critical support
Are you aware that oil was nationalized in Venezuela SINCE 1972? That Chávez DID NOT nationalize a private oil industry, national or foreign? That the “never did anything for the poor” stuff is absolutely NOT true, given that? That the problem was that the previous goverments SQUANDERED that oil revenue that was supposed to be used to develop the country in EXACTLY THE SAME WAYS that the “Revolution” is doing now?
I’m sick of this bullshit. Chavistas present a completly distored history and the stupid world “left” eats it up because it plays to their little movie in their heads about what is Latin America. After all, that prevents them to having to learn that Venezuela is not Colombia or Mexico is not Argentina or what, exactly, is the history and situation. Better another tale of US & oligarchs vs Ché Guevaras, we liked the last one!
If you cant get stuff like this straight, what kind of weight should your opinion have on anything related to what is REALLY happening?
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And another one.
Want to tell me what democratically elected goverment in Venezuela (as you may know, we had quite a few before “The Revolution”) did not have the support of the “people of color” in Venezuela, given Mestizos are 49% of the population?
Where you there the last, say, 7 elections? Did you find out that parties or voters were split into racial lines? In so, in which dimension was that? Because for the life of me I cant remember it every time I was asked to go vote.
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Aha. Lets parse this.
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“not quite as bad as”. You were there I suppose? Care to tell me about it? I mean, you lived there before Chávez? You know how “bad” it was under the “right wing” predecessors? Because I did. And I remember the very awful and absolutely terrible Caracazo. But what I dont remember was armed bands of thugs in motorcycles threatening and shooting people. I dont remember the goverments telling people night and day that opposition was “roaches” that should be “stamped”. I dont remember public list of voters being used for discrimination. I dont remember much in the way of right wing politics either. I remember a ton of idiotic mismanagement of the oil riches & some attempts at neoliberal reform that were rolled back as quickly as they came due to the reaction to it.
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It is kind of hard to make a “good case” when, if you mention actual stuff that would have the world Left angry at whoever commited it if it was from the Right, the very moment you say “it is in Venezuela” you get labeled a oligarch wannaby fascist that DESERVES it. Or that doesnt deserve consideration. Hey, they are censoring news! That is very bad everywhere… but in Venezuela, when you are a fascist that dont have a moral standing to say that is bad because you obviously are a baby-eating oligarch. And the governor of some state threatened protestors with “fulminating counterattacks”, but that would be bad in the US or Europe, not in Venezuela where they deserve because they are 100% fascists that dont deserve anything.
Lets buy for some moment that “the right wing” predecessors did worse. What is a Venezuelan suppose to do? Not bother anybody with what is happening now because doing so means that you are a supporter of whatever new paranoid dream Maduro has? Suffer in silence because “it was worse before”? Accept this as the price for some nebulous “revolution achievement” that doesnt seem to come?
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You too? I got some armchair revolutionary gringo tell me that the patterns of errors in my English showed clearly that I could not have been born in Venezuela and was a CIA stooge posting from Miami.
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You didn’t catch the sarcasm in my sentence?
Sorry if I was not clear. What I meant is, you too got the “You cant be Venezuelan” answer? I thought it was just a weird thing that happened to me, not a common tactic of “debate” now.
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Sorry JoseCouto, my apologies I just read your answer far too quickly this morning (sipping coffee moment)
Yes, it has happened to me as well. One of the most hilarious ones was from a guy from Fair.org, that told me that judging from my English "I had surely live in the States for a while, and that I surely belonged to Venezuelan aristocracy, and probably I was probably mad for my lost privileges…
Absolutely delusional…
I don’t remember those things either. For all the bad things that “la cuarta” had in it, I don’t remember armed thugs with clubs and pistols menacing you in the streets for being of one party, or another. Nor I do remember politicians in charge viciously attacking Venezuelan citizens because of a disagreement.
If I told you just how many times that happened to me…
This quasi-Orwellian way chavistas (domestic and foreign) are re-writting Venezuelan history is just amazing…
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Let me fix it a small error - date of nationalization was 1976. Just in case anybody thinks I’m also rewritting history - I’m just still winning by a margin of 4 years vs several decades…
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Not in my experience, at least. What I’ve have seen in most (in forums like these) cases is the kind of uncritical knee-jerk support for Chávez. Anyone begging to differ, is almost instantly squashed as “fascist”, and dismissed.
Maduro is the only one, actually receiving a broader (and sometimes tough) criticism.
I’m not a fan of quoting Wikipedia, but here it is:
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