Hugo Chavez…
…has died, according to Venezuela’s Vice President Nicolas Maduro.
Impossible as yet to tell what the repercussions will be: an end to tyranny there, or just a continuation under another leader?
Fausta’s blog is a good place to go for news on Latin America. Here’s an optimistic-sounding article I found from a link on her page.
It will certainly be interesting to see how Obama and his new SOS Kerry will handle this.
Probably continuation, but it remains to be seen if the VP Maduro can hold tightly onto power like Chavez did.
I predict lots of freebies to the underclass to win their votes. Sound familiar?
The only thing keeping me from being uninhibitedly happy about this is that old saying: “The evil that men do lives after them.”
Ok, fine, evil may be hyperbolic in Chavez’s case. He was a stooge of a thug, a man to be laughed at as much as to be reviled, and did his best work serving as a living example of why autocratic thugocracies should go the way of the condor, but with far less sorrow: Because they’re passé remnants of 60’s Viva Le Revolution type of Che Gueverra style “idealism”, which was really power hunger and murderous intent cloaked in supposedly idealistic revolutionary language. It’s old, and discredited, and should just slip into history along with all the other disproven types of autocracy, however “democratically elected” it purports itself to be.
Gah, rant… gotta cut myself off. Anyway, sure: The term “evil” should really be reserved for men like Bin Laden, Pol Pot… Hitler… etc. So fine, it’s hyperbolic to bring out that Shakespeare quote in response to this news. But still, I think you all get my point: The man may be dead, but the autocratic power hunger and misuse of a nation’s character and spirit lives on after him. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t live all *that* long.
E.M.H. (5:28 pm), I think the use of “evil” as a descriptor is okay, and non-hyperbolic, ^if^ you might agree with me that evil appears in varying quality and well as quantity in this world.
Is Sean Penn delivering the eulogy, or just a pallbearer?
Obama=Chavez.
Said it before, say it again.
My Colombian friends have uniformly started the calls with : “The pig is dead!”
Barry and Joe III will mourn the passing of boyfriend and enabler
Poor Joe Kennedy – I wonder what he’s going to do now since his “Joe For Oil” supplier is gone. I’m sure he’ll still get paid his over 400K fee as the program’s spokesperson.
Hugo Chavez has died, and just as predictably a whole slew of useful idiots are coming out to say what a good guy he was H/T to Sister Toldjah, one of them is a
U.S Congressman. Sadly, I’m not surprised.
It takes a certain will and “charisma” to gain power as Chavez did. It is not a common property.
Thank God.
Now if Barry will just go.
E.M.H.:
I don’t think that “evil” is hyperbole at all. Socialism is evil. It spreads poverty and crushes the human spirit. Chavez may not have operated gulags or death squads, but his economic policies caused real harm to real people. Their lives are smaller and meaner than need be.
Don Carlos:
Yep.
Tom the Redhunter:
José Serrano has repeatedly introduced legislation to repeal the 22nd Amendment. Strangely, he’s done it under both Democrat and Republican administrations. Whatever his motivation, he clearly likes the idea of a President-For-Life.
At the risk of being characterized as morally repugnant, I have to say my sympathy meter is still pegged at zero.
}}} to see how Obama and his new SOS Kerry will handle this.
Like the quivering mounds of Jell-O they both are, I’m sure…
BTW, as far as Chavez —
“Good Riddance to Bad Rubbish”
The world is not only a better place without him, the world would have been a better place had he been strangled in the crib like he should have been.
mejor el diablo conocido…………
Chavez was but a symptom of the rot of Latin American political society; he was just nosier than most. Peron, Allende, Morales, Zelaya, Castro, Santa Anna, Ortega and a bunch of others all fell off the same production line. The SOP is well established and pretty trite; declare themselves the patron of the poor, make their election campaigns into religious movements, rob the country blind while preoccupying the credulous supporters with miniscule crumbs paid for by uncontrolled spending and verbal wars against an imaginary rich or foreign class of oppressors.
Fortunately it can’t happen here, the press would expose them in nothing flat.
Neo, that optimistic sounding article you referenced ends with “Remarkably, in the midst of this tumultuous power struggle, the State Department’s first instinct was to open talks with the corrupt and hostile Ché¡vez regime to normalize relations — a move that would legitimize a criminal regime, undermine Venezuelan democrats, and hobble ongoing law enforcement investigations.” In short doing what has already been done in Honduras and the middle east.
Coupled with support by America’s anti-democratic leftist President, millions of low information, armed and organized voters, thousands who got rich or better off from Chavez’s activities and coupled with foreigners who how to take over parliaments (see Hezbollah killing their way to a majority in Lebanon’s parliament), the fact that a Chavez is anything but unusual in Latin America and the chances for reform in Venezuela are a pipe dream.
Chavez was a very bad person, while I refrain from dancing on graves, his demise is a good thing. Despite Venezuela’s resources, the country is in bad shape with inflation above 20% and the currency was recently devalued. Millions of Venezuelan’s have been programed to expect the state to provide for them. The productive members of society have been demonized . (Sound familiar?) This will be a test case for predicting how Cuba will react when the Castors are on the wrong side of the grass.
Drudge reports Hugo amassed a fortune of 2 billion dollars. Thats 2 thousand million dollars. We have to acknowledge state run socialism is propped up by people with some form of moral disorder.
The fat’s in the fire now.
SteveH:
ALL Socialists are capitalists in their private lives. That includes our present leadership…in both parties.
Democracy and socialist redistribution is the quickest way to slavery and wealth. At least for the kings and gods.
Hugo Chavez was definitely sincere and passionate about social justice, but I don’t believe he choose the best road to achieve that goal. Historically, socialism has always been detrimental to the people it was supposed to help. Also, I don’t understand why Chavez hated the US so much. By the way, I noticed that countries whose leaders hate America are most of the times countries where atrocities are commited on a regular basis…
The fact that people think leaders like Obama are either incompetent or merely mistaken, is why evil reigns supreme even now.
Good news but somewhat off subject: There is an article in Commentary explaining how the recent election in Israel reflects a society that is abandoning socialism for capitalism. Given that the voters in Israel are extremely high information it does demonstrate that a wise people can move against systems that do not work.
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