PROMETHEAN ANTAGONIST

"...As Fabian socialist playwright George Bernard Shaw rightly wrote, 'He who robs Peter to pay Paul can always count on Paul’s support.'..." An insightful statement quoted in a recent essay at FrontPageMagazine.com regarding Hugo Chavez's "Incredible Shrinking Revolution."

"...When you strip away the red from Hugo Chavez’s rhetoric and the dishonest propaganda glorifying him from the world’s left-wing press, the naked Chavez turns out to be little more than an old-fashioned Latin American military dictator like Pinochet, a prating megalomaniac Caudillo propped up mostly by secret police and stolen oil money. Even the New York Times, if only to save its own waning credibility, has begun to report Chavez’s defects and decline."

"Chavez 'is imposing a fascist dictatorship,' history professor and author Herma Marksman, who was Chavez’s mistress for 10 years during his first marriage, told The Times of London in May."

“ 'A totalitarian regime is coming because he doesn’t believe in democratic institutions. Hugo controls all the powers,' said Marksman. '[He] disguised himself as little Red Riding Hood and turned out to be the wolf…He’s the caudillo you have to say yes to. At the rate he’s going, his end can only be violent.'..."

I hope so. Remember, us pro-free market non-socialist types are "mean-spirited" toward statist autocrats.

Chavez is a serious annoyance. Okay, I can see how a bunch of poor people can get suckered into supporting -- temporarily -- a guy who promises to steal other people's money and give them a few crumbs while building his power base and military for his great ego clash with the powerful rich gringo state up north, but hasn't anybody been paying attention to history or even human psychology. Chavez and his "revolution" are textbook cases. Leftism on steroids always follows the same path. The phony whine about concern for the poor, photo ops with Potemkin hospitals and, of course, massive arms build ups to "defend" against claimed future attacks from Toys R Us (the U.S.).

When I had read that Chavez was considering a "referendum" (maybe Jimmy Carter can give his stamp of approval again!) to become President until the two-thousand thirty's I almost laughed at the predictability of it all. Is anybody awake on this...Hello!

The real comedy show on the whole Chavez thing is the predictable response from America's left -- Hollywood and like-minded pampered clones of dictator adulation. Oliver Stone, of course, is going to do a movie on the coup attempt against Chavez (I wonder if he'll note Chavez's own coup attempt to seize power before trying more conventional routes).

If you don't know them already, brush up on your histories of the French "Revolution," Russian "Revolution," and assorted Socialist "revolutions" of the past half century and you'll be startled to find the usual in Chavez's phony scheme to glorify himself in the name of "helping the poor."

Venezuela would certainly be better served by following all those "non-revolutionary" states that have now formed successful advanced economies from formerly poor and unequal ones (e.g. South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, to name a few).

In a previous post I made note of judging a state by its friends. The Venezuelan state (Chavez is becoming the State) is friends with almost every dictator and ruthless authoritarian regime on the planet, not to mention terrorist organizations and psychotic "leaders." But, remember, it isn't China, North Korea, Iran, Cuba, or Zimbabwe we should look poorly upon. It's the "evil Hegemon" of the north and its open system of government that should cause great fear. Just look at all those Mexicans and Canadians shaking in their boots during air raid drills.

The Marxist clown currently lording over Venezuela could cause some serious trouble for a lot of people down the road. In the end, he will have "helped" no one and "...his end can only be violent...”

Like I said before, I hope so.

# posted by Promethean Antagonist @ 12:18 AM