Soccer Mom: Unplugged

Venezuela, a country that had enjoyed an unbroken period of democratic government beginning in 1958, has been propelled to the forefront of the international consciousness by an egomanial, ex-paratrooper turned head of state, Hugo Chavez.

Chavez made headlines after a failed coup attempt in February 1992.  The February Coup, the first of two that year, left 18 dead and 60 injured before Chavez turned himself in.  After his release from prison, this son of school teachers, rode a wave of popular support founded on his condemnation of the capitalist Venezuelan system that had failed to lift its citizenry from poverty.  The Venezuelan poor weren't just hungry, they were hungry for reform.

Chavez promised to deliver and from the earliest stages of his presidency he punished not only the wealthy, but anyone he perceived as a threat.  He condemned religious leaders in the nation claiming that they did not walk in the path of Christ and whenever the media reported on the increasingly disgruntled state of Venezuelan citizens, Chavez pronounced, conspiratorially, that the papers were controlled by reactionary forces. 

Chavez has consistently introduced leftist revolutionary practices and consolidated power into his own hands to the detriment of his countrymen.  The gap between rich and poor Venezuelans has remained a constant and contraversial programs such as seizing private lands without compensation, has left many with a truer understanding of Latin American Leftism and socialist policy in general.  Not so for "progressives" in our own country.

The American political Left, though distancing themselves from his latest attempt at theatrics, has embraced Chavez frequently in the past.  Antiwar spokeswoman, Cindy Sheehan made a much celebrated trip to Venezuela to meet with him and a spokesman for the liberal Washingtonian thinktank, Larry Birns, told Clarin, Argentina's largest newspaper that he was disappointed in President Chavez' UN address only because he fears it will have cost Chavez a seat on that body's Security Council.  The same voices who accuse George W. Bush of skirting the law with wiretapping seem to have withheld criticism of Chavez' complete abandonment of his nation's constitution and stood silently by while he confiscated private property and enacted purely punitive measures against perceived political enemies.

For eight years, President Chavez has promised a social justice that neither he nor socialist policies can deliver.  The increasing volume and beligerence of his rhetoric against capitalist societies that continue to enjoy unprecedented economic growth is revealing and the mounting pressure of trying to put a brave face on the miserable failure that has been his tenure is clearly affecting his political judgement ad his mental capacity.  Chavez alternatively sees himself as incarnations of Simon Bolivar and Jesus Christ.  Sadly, for Venezuelans, Chavez is just another Latin American Leftist following a self-destructive path littered with communist policies.  

Latin America has always suffered from class issues.  Most of the nations to our south, democratic and otherwise have been unable to create a strong middle class and financial power has long been concentrated in a few hands.  While America enjoys a steady poverty rate ranging from 8-11%, more than half of the people in most Central and South American countries live a hand to mouth existence.  People in conditions like those are easily swayed by the flattery of men who promise reform and redistribution of wealth.  Time and again when power hungry leaders like Chavez rise to positions of authority, however, corruption becomes the end state with little change actual effected.  Coup follows coup,  and the pendulum swings from capitalism to socialism producing a cumulative condition of undermined economies, unpredictable currencies and general instability.  None of the socialist reforms have created a prosperous Latino nation.  And unfortunately, men like Hugo Chavez will always be marketable until true prosperity is achieved. 

What is amazing is the connection that until today many American liberals have shared with Chavez.  Even as Charlie Rangel accepts oil for the poor of his congressional district from the Venezuelan president,  nearly half of Chavez' own constituents are going to bed hungry.  In the face of such hypocrisy,  why do men like Rangel embrace Chavez upon meeting? Why do women like Sheehan seek him out?  Ask yourself,  why would people who profit as much from democracy as Americans do welcome a man who led two violent coups in an attempt to undermine the voice of the people and establish himself a dictator?

Think before you vote.