Hugo Chavez is Crazy

The sentiment that is the title of this entry is not new, original, or surprising. But it is the only succinct way of saying something we all agree with. Hugo Chavez is crazy. When I say crazy, I don't mean crazy like a fox (ie. not crazy), or crazy like a drunken frat boy (ie. will be sane in 12 hours when sober and hungover), or even crazy like a mental patient. Hugo Chavez is crazy in that way a man can only be when he is simultaneously 1) a demagogue, 2) trapped in the Cold War (which ended somewhere between 1989 and 1991), 3) neurotic, 4) politically, economically, and historically ignorant, 4) and the (almost) president(-for-life) of an up-and-coming Third-World nation with infinitely more to lose from crazy "reforms" than it has to gain. Of course it may just be that the people of Venezuela are crazy. Hmm. Consider:

1) Chavez withdrew billions (around US$26 billion) of dollars from US banks and put them into European banks because he feared that the US would impound the capital as part of an attempt to overthrow his presidency. Click here to see the Financial Times article where they note that is part of a "reform" in which Chavez ultimately plans to liquidate Venezuela's reserves for use in social programs. . . thus making Venezuela's currency plummet like a brick in freefall. Hooray!

2) After an oil crisis led to economic disruption in Venezuela in the waning years of the Cold War, Chavez led coup attempt a 1992. He and his co-conspirators were stopped and imprisoned for two years before receiving a pardon. Then in 1998 he elected president of Venezuela - normally a horrible idea if you want someone who believes in solving problems using 'rules' and 'law' and 'democracy'. . . but maybe that's just me. Chavez consistently wins about 60% of the vote, though different elections/referendums have widely varying participation levels and corruption levels.

3) In 2002 there was a coup and a counter-coup. . . the end result was Venezuela's shortest lived government and Chavez's radically increased neuroticism. Soon after he began openly stating his admiration of the leader of one of the most backward states in the world, Cuba.

4) Estimates are that as many as 98% of arrestees in Venezuela are members of Chavez's political opposition and Human Rights watch has denounced the Chavez government for actively limiting freedom of speech among those unfriendly to the government. Of course, the four largest private media sources in Venezuela are, according to Chavez, "the four whores of the Apocalypse", so this is understandable. Thank god his government is sponsoring Telesur, a Latin American channel that promotes Latin American (read Chavez's) perspective.

5) Since socialism has worked so well for all those other nations who are using it (with their high unemployment, depression, and substance abuse rates, not to mention weak economic status in most non-Western European states), Chavez has decided to implement it at home, saying the Venezuelan people must choose between, "capitalism, which is the road to hell, or socialism, for those who want to build the kingdom of God here on earth." He has also stated we wants to institute a 'humanist' brand of socialism, rather than one focused on machines or the state - one thinks of course of Maoism and the Khymer Rouge, both excellent examples of high-quality statecraft. Check out his approval of the Zimbabwean land reform debacle and check out the results of of the land reform in Zimbabwe. Kinda' a portend, eh?

6) In 2000 Chavez was the first head-of-state to meet with Saddam Hussein since the end of the first Iraqi-American ("Gulf") War.

7) I don't even think this is relevant, but it will make you giggle. Unless you're a social conservative. Then you're probably not reading this blog.

8) The title of this article from Democracy NOW! is, and I quote "Hugo Chavez: 'If the Imperialist Government of the White House Dares to Invade Venezuela, the War of 100 Years Will be Unleashed in South America'". (Read it here: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/19/1336214). Who the hell is planning on invading Venezuela? We've got like, 40 countries we want to invade more than you Chavez. You don't even figure into the calculus. Sowee.

9) As proof the US was conspiring against him, Chavez claimed the US was delaying visas for his entourage . . . of course every visa requested was given, including 10 requested last minute.

10) Venezuela still recieves an enormous proportion of its revenues from one product: oil. The problem is that this money is being spend on social programs and on developing agriculture, rather than a general economic diversification program. When the oil runs out, Venezuela falls down. Check out this article from The Nation for some background.

11) Hugo Chavez still wears unusual military uniforms with frequency - usually a sign that someone is settling into being a democratic leader who will willingly relinquish his seat if he loses an election, right?

12) And the kicker, the one I posted outside my office door: Chavez claims that Halloween and other dangerous American cultural artifacts (such as Disney animation) are part of an elaborate American plot to conquer the world and spread the American fixation on "terror". Ugh, I only got rocks.

13) [Added November 2nd] Chavez threatens to give F-16s to China or Cuba thanks to a tussle with the US over spare parts (we're kinda' angry that he's buying weapons then supplying them to leftist rebels in Columbia - no biggie, right?). Jeezus. If you want a war you're really going the right way.

The best part? His nemesis is George Bush. . . a man who claimed a mandate with a 2% poll advantage, who's foreign policy is straight outta' the Cold War, and who obsesses about intricate international plots against him, his agenda, and of course the US. Irony? Naw.

PS - Pat Robertson is still an insane kook. (He did assert that the State Department should be nuked and he might have mentioned that feminism encourages women to "kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians." Wow. Wow. Geez.
PPS - Venezuela was the first state to offer the US aid after Hurricane Katrina.