Venezuela Watch

As a fellow once suggested, it would be hard to design a political system that would work in an insane asylum.

I understand that the IMF does not equal the US, but of course it is pretty easy to understand how folks down there would come to make that identification. The French, Brits and Germans hadn't been autocratically messing about for decades in south/central america as had the US.

george said earlier that the problems of the region can be blamed on the region itself. I'm sure that speaks the larger truth of things, but it's quite irrelevant to my point. Particular animosity towards and suspicion of US influence is generated, surely for goodness sakes, precisely because of that history of US messing about.

And the United Fruit Growers Association case seems the paradigm example of this.

The US has supported regimes far far more oppressive of human/civil rights than what we see with Chavez where that has met certain business or strategic interests. That's simply a factual statement. Venezuela's oil is not irrelevant.

the IMF is one of the U.S.'s tools for coercing economic policy with Latin American societies. Its demands pretend to benefit these societies in the long run, but it appears that so far they only benefit the risk and hurt the poor.
BTW, Porfirio Diaz may have originated the dicho, "Pobre Mexico, tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los estados unidos."
Nevertheless, this rings a bit of hypocrisy, given that Diaz opened the door to the U.S., Britan, and other European powers to exploit Mexico's resources in exchange for building its infrastructure (railroads, roads, dams, etc.). The suffering of educated Mexicans in losing jobs to foreigners (especially gringos) contributed to the 1910 revolution against the porfiriato.

The IMF is the creation of lending nations designed to create a stable structure under which developing nations could have better access to international capital markets than they otherwise would have. The IMF was created to enable borrowing countries to themselves get access to capital without surrendering ownership of the investments for which they presumably were using the money. Prior to the IMF capital exports took the fiorm of direct income-producing elements of infrastructure. In the case of South America the overwhelming majority of these investments were European, not American. Getting the European's out of the control of railroads, telephone services and like infrastructure was a typical part of the cant of South American populist demagogues such as Juan Peron of Argentina and others. Again these investors were usually British, Dutch and French - not American.

The IMF itself is by informal agreement of the funding nations, always headed by a European, and its principal management positions are all held by Europeans. The notion expressed here that the IMF is a tool of the United States is an absurdity based on ignorance or worse. The restrictions they impose as part of their loans are typical of what transpires throughout the world of commerce, among nations, businesses, or individuals. The propaganda against the IMF is largely fed by profligate populist politicians in South America seeking to blame others for their foolish lack of prudence and investment.

Almost all of the economic investment and government to government interference in South America prior to WWII came from Euroipe, not the United States. Since then the U.S. invoilvement has increased, but we by no means exceed the current European economic presence there.

The social and economic problems so evident in Bolivia today - and in Peru and Ecuador as well - have their origins in the stratified social and ownership structure of these countries when they were created. They most certainly are not the creation of the United States.

Hugo Chavez, whom Blatham purports to admire so much as a needed antidote to American influence is continuing a long Venezuelan tradition of the plundering of that countrie's rich natural resources for the benefit of himself and his crones. He will leave this naturally rich country trapped in ignorance and poverty and still in the grip of the fantasy that others are to blame for problems they themselves have created.

Why clearly mistate what I've written george? You won't find the term 'admire' anywhere.

Chavez is plundering his nation's resources to "benefit himself and his crones"? I'll ignore the amusing typo there, but I can't help but wonder how Chavez's energy policy differs from the Bush/Cheney approach in this regard...

George, help me out here!

OK, change "admires so much as an antidote..." to "values so much as an antidote..."

The basic point remains. He is an antidote only to the fantasies and illusions that others like him have created, and which are sustained by credulous souls, who believe the IMF is a tool of the U.S. government that victimizes poor borrowing nations.

OK 'cronies'.

I really don't follow your poiint about a connection between the respective energy policies. Chavez is merely giving away oil to Castro and threatening other steps (such as the divestiture of Citgo) wehich make little economic sense, but which get him a moment's attention in the press.

Bush & Cheney got a lot of heat from the Democrats for their "secret" energy meetings which in part led to a widely published energy document. It called for such radical things as increased investment in clean coal technology; greater access to known U.S. petroleum reserves; tthe revitalization of the nuclear power industry; and improvements in the infrastructure of our electrical power grid.

If the intentions of the energy meetings was to benefit the entire country and not just some companies and cronies, why was it so blatantly secretive?
By the way, I agree that Mexico's Pemex oil company is corrupt, serving primarily the interests of wealthy insiders--very similar to the U.S..

It was one of many meetings in which information was gathered for the development of a new Energy Policy. The resulting Policy documeny was widely distributed and is still available on the web. There is nothing particularly astonishing in the document. The President and his deputies have and have long exercised the right to meet in private with private citizens for discussions of government policy and related matters. This tempest in a teapot was an "issue" manufactured entirely by his Democrat opponents for political purposes and reinforced by sympathetic elements in the media for the same purpose. Clinton held fund raising "coffees" in the White House and refused to divulge the attendees. Do you see any difference?

If I have to work 14 hours a day, in a physically exhausting, mindnumbing job thats the only one I can get in my country/region/with my education/etc, merely to keep myself and my family from starving, with time for little else than sleep, I am not "free".

Spoken like a true European.

Not being "free" is not having the ability to say I will not work at this job, no matter what the consequences.

Not being "free" is not having the ability, under any circumstances, to improve or change my position.

Being "free" doesn't mean I get to live in the land of milk and honey.

Being "free" is not synonymous with living comfortably.

Being "free" doesn't mean I am free of deprivation.

It is quite easy to give up freedom for comfort.

It's a matter of choice.

link

Defending the Venezuelan people from its democratically elected, and popular, leader.

Democracy at our discretion. You vill obey mien orders.

Nothing to do with oil. Nothing to do with corporate interests. Condi's heartfelt concern relates only to helping the Venezuelan citizens to the revelation that they don't really understand properly what they should want.

Nonsense! We are getting all the oil we want to buy from Venezuela, and at the prevailing market price. Chavez can't last a day without the oil revenues -- his need to sell the stuff is greater than ours to buy it. This paranoit fantasy doesn't pass the laugh test.

The concerns have all to do with the all-to-familiar pattern of Latin American dictators who rule in the name of phoney populism. Chavez is destroying the political and economic underpinnings of his country and attempting to export the authoritarian disease to his neighbors. It will take Venezuela at least a generation to recover from the damage Chavez has already done.

I'm quite sure that Venezuelans are as able to understand what they want as anyone else. the problems are that they have not had the ability to express their wants in a fair election, and their authoritarian dictator is plundering the natural wealth of the country and the property of some of its citizens to bribe his loyalists to become his agents for power.

Will Blatham also characterize Juan Domingo Peron as "what the people of Argentina really wanted"? The patterns here are quite similat and the bad effects of Peronism have continued to hurt Argentina for more than a generation after this authoritarian "populist" passed from the scene.

Your evidence for this claim is what?

Georgeob1, why do you not prefer "the all-to-familiar pattern of Latin American dictators who rule in the name of phoney populism" to the all too familiar pattern of Latin American dictators who have taken over by military coup and enjoyed the support of the American government? At least the former, with all their "faults" (from the perspective of what you consider to be "our" interests) were democratically elected.

Adolph Hitler was Democratically elected in Germany as well. There were no further elections in that unfortunate country until after WWII.

The Soviets also staged regular election charades. Problem was only the Party could certify candidates.

Like these two, Venezuela 's authoritarian government does not tolerate a functioning and organized political opposition. Instead it suppresses it through thuggery and by rigging the election process.

Jimmy Carter apparently believes Chavez is a model democrat. This, perhaps, is the most damning thing one could say about poor Hugo.

Geo, that old Hitler cop-out will be used indefinitely as a rationalization for the elimination of elected officials we do not like. Come on, you can do better than that.

Sorry george, but your continued statements do not constitute anything like evidence for the claim made.