Hugo Chavez: CommuNazi
Five days ago, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez got his cherry-picked lame-duck legislature to pass a new law allowing him to “rule by emergency decree” for the next 18 months, thereby allowing him to bypass the newly elected legislature, in which the opposition won scores of seats. Chavez calls it an “Enabling” act that will allow him to successfully deepen and extend his “socialist Bolivarian revolution.” You can read about it in various press reports, such as this one from the AP and a report from Reuters, or you can read a first rate analysis from the conservative website The New American.
Teodoro Petkoff is a former Marxist guerrilla leader and now a major opponent of Chavez’s goons. He correctly called Chavez’s announcement a “Christmas ambush,” writing in his daily Tal Cual that Chavez is preparing totalitarian measures that amount to “a brutal attack … against democratic life.” These measures include a new vat tax, restricting access to the internet, regulating posts on the internet, and, of course, closing down more of opposition newspapers, and television and radio stations. All this, of course, in the name of real “democracy.” Joel D. Hirst at the Council on Foreign Relations presents a full account of what Chavez intends to do with his new powers.
Here, from Hirst and the Council, are Chavez’s main goals:
- Media and Telecommunications. The modification of the Media Responsibility Law and the Telecommunications Law place severe restrictions on the Internet, centralizing access under the control of a government server. They re-categorize the airwaves as a “public good” and set in place harsh penalties for arcane and obtuse violations of the law. The laws require TV stations to re-apply for their licenses and for the owners to be in the country (a clear reference to Globovision, whose owner, Dr. Guillermo Zuloaga, is in political exile in the United States).
- Electoral Reform. The reform of the Political Party Law establishes the crime of electoral fraud. Fraud would be committed if a politician changed parties, voted against legislation that was “ideologically represented” by their “electoral offer” (on file when they registered their candidacy with the National Electoral Council), or if they make common cause with ideas or people who are not ideologically akin to their electoral offer. Sanctions are the expulsion from parliament and inability to run for public office for up to eight years. This law is meant to protect against individuals or political parties turning against Chavez, as happened with the opposition parties of PODEMOS (We Can) and PPT (Fatherland for All).
- Economy and Governance. Chavez is pushing through a block of five laws: Popular Power, Planning and Popular Power, Communes, Social Control, and the law of Development and Support of the Communal Economy. These laws establish the commune as the lowest level of Venezuelan economy and government. They set in place the Popular Power, which is responsible to the Revolutionary leadership (Chavez) for all governing (eliminating the municipalities and regional government’s constitutional mandate). To facilitate the creation of this new governance model, the Assembly is approving the Law of the System for Transferring the Responsibilities of the States and Municipalities to the Popular Power.
Clearly, the above is a full recipe for totalitarian power and the creation of another full-fledged Cuban-style regime in our hemisphere. The American far left, or what remains of it, will be quite happy. Bill Ayers, who is on record as extolling Chavez’s educational system as the one he wants imposed in the United States, must be elated today after learning that university autonomy will be abolished, and that the university will now require “teaching courses on Popular Power and communes, and [that it] focuses the pedagogy around revolutionary principles.” Perhaps Chavez will import Ayers’ instructional manuals on how to achieve this end for the mandatory new programs.
Also happy will be former Nation publisher and editor-in-chief Victor Navasky, now a major professor at the Columbia University School of Journalism. Sent to Venezuela in in 2007 by the Committee to Protect Journalists, a group that set up an investigation of Chavez’s war against a free press, Navasky reported that he would go, although he explained, “I knew Chávez was overwhelmingly popular with the poor and I wasn’t interested in participating in an anti-Chávez hit job, even in the worthy cause of human rights.” Notice how Navasky, the very model of a New York City leftist, puts human rights by the wayside when it comes to extolling the revolutionary virtues of a would-be Communist dictator. As Navasky sees things, the threat to a free press was not Chavez, but the “media owners.” To criticize Chavez, evidently, amounts to nothing but a “hit-job.” No wonder Chavez loves the likes of Navasky and Oliver Stone. Navasky must pine for the day when The Nation would be mandatory reading in this country and Fox News would be closed down. As he wrote, Chavez’s goal of “socialism in the 21st Century” is one “to be nourished as an ideal to pursue rather than a policy to be mocked.”
Of course, Ayers and Navasky will not be happy to see that the Obama administration’s reaction finally is harsh. State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said that Chavez is establishing “new and creative ways to justify autocratic powers.” He added: “What he is doing here, we believe, is subverting the will of the Venezuelan people.” No wonder the left thinks the Obama administration is now betraying them.
There is one good historical precedent for what Chavez is attempting, and it does not come from the history of Communist countries now long gone. Rather, it comes from the policies established by Adolf Hitler after the burning of the Reichstag by an arsonist in 1933. Arguing that the Communists were trying to subvert the German government (Chavez, of course, says the anti-Communists are doing the same in Venezuela), Hitler asked President von Hindenburg to pass an “emergency decree” to allow the Nazi government to have full emergency powers. All civil liberties were suspended, and mass arrests followed of Communists, socialists, trade unionists and other opponents of the regime. Opposition delegates were removed from the Reichstag, giving the Nazis a legislative majority that did not exist before.
New elections were set for March 5, 1933. By passing the Enabling Act — the same term used by Chavez today — Hitler sought to abolish democracy by formally democratic means. According to the Act, Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution allowed the chancellor to rule by decree in times of a national emergency, without the participation of the Reichstag. But the Nazi Party had only 32 per cent of the seats in the Reichstag, and to pass the Enabling Act there had to be a two-thirds majority. By banning opposition Communist delegates who had all been arrested, and preventing Social-Democrats from taking seats to which they were elected after the Reichstag fire, the Nazis now had the necessary votes to pass the Act. Clearly, Hugo Chavez must have studied Hitler’s tactics before commencing upon a similar road.
All this brings to mind the appropriate term we might consider using to describe Hugo Chavez. I suggest an old one from the days of the Cold War: CommuNazi. An adherent of Communist ideology, Chavez has much more in common with the activities of the Nazis under Hitler than the Communists led by Stalin, who, in Eastern Europe after WW II, used so-called “salami tactics” to gain control of the parliament, and who created phony Social-Democratic groups aligned with the Communists to maintain the façade of democracy in the new so-called “People’s Democracies.”
Let us hope that the Obama administration and the State Department begin to take the threat posed by Chavez seriously, especially as he makes arms and trade deals with Iran and Russia. There is more for us to fear than his rhetoric and his internal policies meant to consolidate totalitarian rule in Venezuela.
Let us hope that the Obama administration and the State Department begin to take the threat posed by Chavez seriously, especially as he makes arms and trade deals with Iran and Russia. There is more for us to fear than his rhetoric and his internal policies meant to consolidate totalitarian rule in Venezuela.
I don’t know, Ron. I remain unconvinced that this administration and many of its policy advisers are terribly concerned with thwarting Communism in any of its various forms in general, or with Chavez and his noxious brand specifically.
It seems to me that the Sean Penn approach is closer than the Ronald Reagan approach, for example.
This is an administration that openly worships Mao, has t-shirts and posters of Che, and if Stanley Kurtz is to be believed and his research is on the mark, would love to implement a few of those very ideas (by more stealthy means, of course) right here at home.
One shudders to think how Obama/Frank/Pelosi/Reid would have handled the Cuban missile crisis. One suspects that our relationship with Fidel and Nikita would have been “reset” and it all would have been quite different.
Iran, North Korea and Venezuela seem to have some interesting commonalities these days. But one wonders whether is is merely Sean Penn, Oliver Stone and Michael Moore who feel such warm feelings toward them. Maybe we can ask Jimmy Carter. His only shortcoming was, he didn’t win a second term. Or so I heard.
Or did he?
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner.
Even old commies hold out hope that others (Chavez, here) may see the light.
All while the rest of us just want the SOB wasted ASAP.
Ron, what makes you believe that a true believer like Obama (& Compatriots) are interested in countering Hugo’s goals?
From my little perch (living very close to a cesspool of Middle East thugocrats)it is quite obvious that Obama (as demonstrated by his huggy bear of Hugo)isn’t at All interested in thwarting-ain’t that a hoot-Hugo’s putsch.
In fact, he and his elected and unelected czars are toasting their hero as we read this post.
Really.
NO administration post Reagan, has taken any strategic interest in the threats posed by rogue governments of Central and South America….and, I might add North Africa.
Americans refuse to study how nations such as nearby neighbors like Cuba, Venzuella and others have succeeded in their communist socialist transitions. The very same strategies have materialized and excellerated right here at home since the 60′s and 70′s with remarkable systemic successes.
Chavez, has gained strategic support from the likes of Russia, Iran and most likely North Korea….. and our government see no threat? We’re to busy still, nation building in Iraq and Afghanistan with a tired and worn military, a broken economy, a rising dastardly national debt…all key components of a former U.S. strategy for falling the USSR and now reversed on the U.S. by our “real” enemies, near and far.
And, here we sit with our own government being ran by Hugo, Jr. and his communist, socialist progressive thugs….preaching how bad the American blueprint of demcracy and capitalism is and how it has “victimized” the majority class of American’s. Sound familiar?
Traditional America in TROUBLED TIMES!
That he baldly calls it an “enabling act” is what floors me. He must think that anyone who recognizes the reference will be unable to do a damned thing about it.
He’s probably right about that.
Ron,
You think Obama OPPOSES these moves? Are you still smoking some of that reefer you used back in the ’60s?
Remember Honduras? Remember Zelaya? Remember how the Honduran military tried to stop his illegal seizure of power? Remember who the Obama junta excoriated in that one? (Hint: It wasn’t the Marxist dictator wannabe).
Chavez isn’t a negative model to Obama; he’s a model of how to do it right (as in, “correctly”).
“You think Obama OPPOSES these moves? Are you still smoking some of that reefer you used back in the ’60s?”
Poor Ron. He tries to kiss the asses of the wingnuts and they still fart in his face.
Hugo Chavez is no dictator. He is no Adolf Hitler. He is the democratically elected president of Venezuela. Unlike the USA, Venezuela does not go around invading other nations.
In Venezuela there is freedom of expression, freedom of religion.
Please pretty please, stop publishing absolute lies!
Oh, I get it . Good joke.
I’m with Gordo. Chavez is a thug and a creep. It’s no secret.
Being a thug and a creep are his good points.
You are not properly informed. In Venezuela we have no freedom of speech. Who told you that, buddy? I am Venezuelan and left my country three years ago. I DO know what I am talking about. Obviously you are clueless, my friend. If you still do not believe me, make a little trip to Caracas and check it out yourself, and make yourself a favor: read more, listen to international news and confirm facts before talking!
Oh come on ! This isn’t the real truth either. You just belong to the wrong group within the country.
What is your name? You are probably from some reactionary group.
Show me youur papers!
“In Venezuela there is freedom of expression, freedom of religion”
If there’s any of the above in Venezuela, there won’t be for much longer.
Luke…yer nuts. Please stop smoking, ingesting, shooting, snorting or drinking whatever it is you’re doing and come back to the real world.
Luke,
Can you read? Do you have a brain?? I suggest you listen to Johhny -Chavez is a creep and a violent thug and the last thing that the people of Venez. need are brainless do-gooders like yourself extolling the virtues of a dictator!
“CARACAS — President Hugo Chavez and his supporters show no sign of letting up in the campaign of hostility towards media organizations and publications critical of him and his policies. On the contrary, signs are that they intend to step up the pressure.”
“Officials from a local tax office in Libertador — the only one of the five municipalities in the capital that’s still under pro-Chavez control — ordered the “closure for an indefinite time” of a daily newspaper, El Nuevo Pais, and a weekly magazine, Zeta, on Thursday. Both publications make little secret of their disapproval of the president and his policies.”–Latin American Herald Tribune
Not an unusal occurence in the Chavez dictatorship.
I’d say Freedom of expression in Venezuela is pretty limited. There’s plenty of places in the world that are worse than Venezuela, but it is not a free country.
Hugo Chavez is one of the worst human beings alive. I hope one of President Palin’s first acts is to excise this cancer permanently.
Socialists are as bad as Nazis. They should be shunned by all decent people and hounded out of public life.
In this country and on this forum it seems you are free to publish your representation of truth, and so are others. I hope you never get to set the rules for public spaces, or in the private spaces of others.
Oh right. “Hugo Chavez is no dictator. He is no Adolf Hitler. He is the democratically elected president of Venezuela. Unlike the USA, Venezuela does not go around invading other nations.
In Venezuela there is freedom of expression, freedom of religion.”
Typical left wing crap. What IS, isn’t. ISN’T, is. The rule of opposites: Whenever a leftist says something is, it of course is the opposite. Whenever something OBVIOUSLY exists, the leftists say it doesn’t. Whatever the leftist accuses an opponent of, he is guilty of that very thing.
Freedom of expression my eye. How about economic freedom? Free trade among people is a NATURAL act, but communists and socialists impose their plastic, fake economics upon all. They deny actual costs, prices, impose ARTIFICIAL numbers. Then the shortages occur. OF COURSE the Power Pigs live in luxury, fly on their expensive planes, ride in limos, “in the people’s name.” Leftists turn up into down, right into wrong… they are just greedy, selfish lusters of power.
Those who crave power over others least deserve it.
Thank you Luke.
All he wants to do is save his country being trampled on by the super powers. Horses for courses as we say, Mao did not get it all right but everyone has a full rice bowl and and a roof over their head and most important national security and the people have pride of country. More power to his elbow, if it take removing some whiners to creat solidarity I will support him against the bleeding hearts. Just for the record I have friends from Venezuela who understand and support him here even in Europe
Barack Obama and Victor Navasky are probably on the same page. Hugo Chavez is supposedly a victim of capitalist exploiters who must be stopped. How can we blame him? Obama will do nothing more than mildly criticize the dictator. Hilary Clinton might express her displeasure and hope for a quick resolution of the crisis. That’s the beginning and the end of it. The odds are that if the less then perfect John McCain was president—Chavez would not have dared pull off this stunt.
What, exactly, would McCain have done? Specifically. And try to remember that Chavez has been power since before Bush was elected … And what did he do?
“What, exactly, would McCain have done? Specifically. And try to remember that Chavez has been power since before Bush was elected … And what did he do?”
What? Were you expecting them to invade? Heaven forbid!
And on top of that, Chavez is also very good friends with the islamonazi Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and has connections with terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, well known America haters.
What will Obama do……?
*crickets chirping*
No surprise.
Freedom and socialism do not go together, the more socialism you get the less freedom you have. The notion of democratic socialism is absurd and does not work. Nazi is just short for national socialism. According to Hayek, every socialism over time degenerates towards national socialism.
Again, reality proves Hayek right. We see the same in North Korea, where the commies proclaim themselves as master race.
It decends further than just down to nationalism. Inevitably it gets more tribal. Wait …no … that’s wrong. It started that way.
They’re all on the same page and serve the same ethos:
Lenin: Class-based International Socialist
Hitler: Race-based National Socialism
Obama: Class- and Race-based Post-National Socialism
All are enemies of individual freedom and free enterprise.
Well said…
“Clearly, Hugo Chavez must have studied Hitler’s tactics before commencing upon a similar road.” Clearly, someone has also read “Obama’s Emerging Enabling Act” on Rule of Reason, Capitalism Magazine, and The Dougout, from December 5th.
Chavez must have studied Hitler’s tactics before commencing upon a similar road.
HE may not have had to
got the Cliff notes from Amedinejhad—> his coach
and I am sure Enabling Act is no coincidence toto these guys Hitler is a hero to be admired and emulated- these self importants will suicide in their death wishes and leave their people to pay- just like last time (please watch H channel Fall of the 3rd Reich- the wages of sin is DEATH)
So, Iran is putting ICBMS in Venezuela (“USSR is putting ICBMs in Cuba”). Russia now has a base in Venezuela. Iran and Venezuela supply each other with nuke materials and technology. World realignment. So OBPama plays golf and goes on vacations. Let’s hope he has China and it’s new navy under control and that was the reason for the India/Indonesia “trip” – probably nahhhhh, golf is more important.
Oh, and OBPama steals his mantra from Putney Swope: “Throw another Jew on the fire – it’s getting cold in here!”
And we agree to cripple our ability to intercept those missiles with the new START treaty.
Iran has no ICBM’s the best they have is a medium range missile a two stage solid fuel design Sajjil-2 has a range of about 1,250 miles or 2,000 kilometers! No way one could reach the United States or even Mexico for that matter!
To reach Mexico City they would have to have a missile capable of going at least 2,300 miles, however they could do a lot of damage to most South American countries in the immediate vicinity and possibly some in Central America!
Personally I hope he continues to waste his countries resources and further wrecks his economy trying to be a big man in this hemisphere till there is a coup or revolt and is gotten rid of in a messy manner!
The summary on the main page for this article says:
Ok. So where’s the evidence that the “American far left” is “ecstatic”?
Not even one example? Just supposition that it’s the sort of thing that they would be happy about. Dear oh dear.
It’s still in the google cache
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ilhkR01UnlIJ:pajamasmedia.com/%3Fsrc%3Dnetwork+Chavez+passes+his+“Enabling+Act”+giving+him+near-dictatorial+power+in+Venezuela%3B+American+far+left+ecstatic.+Oddly+enough!&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au&client=safari
Chavez is nothing but a petty dictator. If this were the 1960s, the CIA would have disposed of this jerk in a matter of weeks. But today, with a neutered CIA when it comes to regime change, we’re stuck with guys like Chavez. So now, if we want to replace this nut, we have to fight a huge war that will undoubtedly kill thousands of people and cost trillions of dollars, instead of a CIA-backed coup that would kill only a handful of people, cause no damage, and cost a few bucks in bribes and payoffs to the people who replace this thug. Yes, we’ve come such a long way since the 1960s. Pity, really.
“If this were the 1960s, the CIA would have disposed of this jerk in a matter of weeks”
And didn’t that work out well? Homework assignment: Go look up the cases of the ‘CIA’ taking care of foreign leaders, and match that up with messes that the western world is still trying to clean up today.
Oh yeah? Well how’s about the time the CIA knocked off Castro with an exploding cigar? That worked pretty well, didn’t it?
At least they tried, Joseph. But you’re right. Cuba has just flourished under Castro. Those boat people trying to swim to Florida, just forget them. And those political killings and “re-education camps” that Castro just loves, pay no attention to them, either. And that fantastic Communist economy Cuba has? Sweet, isn’t it? Yep, it sure is better for these people to have communist dictators in power. Especially when we have to put up with all of the refugees who want to come into this country because those dictators remain in power. Try telling them American interventionism is a bad thing.
Yep, they did try. When LBJ took office, he’s reported as saying, “They were running a damn Murder Incorporated in the Caribbean.”
Not that I believe the quote, but even if he did say it, so what? You are typical of the far-left crybabies who don’t have a clue on how global power politics is played. You don’t want to take out a guy like Chavez with a bullet from the CIA, yet you are shocked, shocked mind you, when he murders dissidents or anybody else for that matter that may disagree with him. And people like you sit there and moan and groan when this dictator consolidates his power and declares himself ruler for life, just like Castro did. Oh yes, but you’ll want to run to the United Nations and get sanctions against a killer like that. Ooooo, that will show him, right? Just like sanctions are stopping the maniacs in Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
And when all the sanctions fail and Chavez starts invading another neighboring country, all people like you will be left with is more blame and more excuses on why the “international community” let us down and allowed this nut to continue on his murderous rampage. Nope, not going to work, son. People like you allowed nuts like Chavez into power, people like you make excuses to keep nuts like Chavez in power, and people like you go on their pathetic little soap boxes to stop the world from making nuts like Chavez LOSE power.
He’s your boy, Joseph. Sleep well with the knowledge that, one day, he may even allow Iranian missiles to be based on his territory pointed right at the United States. Won’t that be a wonderful development, Joseph? All because it isn’t “right” to kill a maniac like that, even if he does eventually get the capability to incinerate an American city with an Iranian supplied nuclear weapon. Sleep well, Joseph. After all, your guy is in power. Now deal with it.
The trouble is, ls46, that it doesn’t work.
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1385.html
Sure you can bump somebody off, but who replaces him? Why do you think nobody’s tried to deal with mugabe? Because it’s safer in the long run to just let him die of natural causes and turn up as the good guys with a chance of helping, rather than make him a cause celebre for his mates to use to install another dictator.
Part of the reason that communist take-overs were so successful was that the regimes they replaced were so utterly corrupt and deranged. Unfortunately, they were often corrupt, deranged regimes that were happy to do business with the US on favorable terms in return for support – so guess who the bad guy was when the worm turned?
Iran would not be where it is today if not for kermit roosevelt.
Matthew, you simply are wrong. You said, “Because it’s safer in the long run to just let him die of natural causes and turn up as the good guys with a chance of helping, rather than make him a cause celebre for his mates to use to install another dictator.” So I guess everything turned up aces in North Korea by letting that communist monarchy continue on its merry way. It has supplied nuclear technology to other rogue states and is about to flatten South Korea for no reason at all, but I guess, under your definition, we should just leave it alone and let it die under “natural causes” so that we can look good? Try telling that to a couple of million dead South Koreans if the North uses nuclear weapons against them. That sure is a high price to pay to say that you’re morrally superior than they are.
So what you’re also saying is, that if someone could actually kill Kim Jong Il and his insane son, someone WORSE than him could replace him? Hard to really believe it could get any worse than that, but I guess you’re intitled to your opinion. And why haven’t we tried to eliminate Mugabe in Zimbabwe? Because there is nothing in Zimbabwe worth fighting for and Mugabe, as crazy as he is, really isn’t that much of an external threat outside of Zimbabwe. Just like Pol Pot in Cambodia, the rest of the world doesn’t really care what you do inside your country, so long as you don’t de-stabilize the rest of the world in the process.
But to people like you I always ask one question: If you had an opportunity to kill Adolf Hitler in 1938, just before he started World War II in Europe, a war that killed tens of millions of people, WOULD YOU DO IT? There was really nobody else in Germany at the time who could have replaced Hitler. So, if you could have avoided World War II in Europe with one bullet, would you have done it? Again, if you maintain that it would not be “morrally right” to kill any national leader, then you will have paid a huge price for being morally correct, right?
“So I guess everything turned up aces in North Korea by letting that communist monarchy continue on its merry way. It has supplied nuclear technology to other rogue states and is about to flatten South Korea for no reason at all … telling that to a couple of million dead South Koreans if the North uses nuclear weapons against them”
If you want a complete guide to international security that can fit on a postage stamp then you have to ask somebody else. My example was zimbabwe – taking into account the circumstances in zimbabwe: mugabe hasn’t picked an heir, his government sits atop a military structure, he’s as old as methuselah, mad as a cut snake and absolutely nobody likes him. He will die, and then we can step in to assist. Killing him will roll the dice and give his thugs an excuse for another crackdown and a goody-grab. Invading will be a bloodbath – APCs and 50-cals vs machetes, civilians the prime targets.
North korea is not zimbabwe. I think it’s a tougher problem. I think there would be no point at all in killing the kims. They are a personality cult, but it’s a much bigger organisation than mugabe’s. Think “truman show”. That’s just my humble opinion.
And north korea isn’t going to kill a couple of million south koreans with nuclear weapons. Partly because that will mean the end of their regime – china and the US will have NO choice but to invade. But also partly because he hasn’t got any nuclear weapons worth deploying. The one test they’ve conducted was a snafu – a couple of kilotons at worst. Kim’s nuclear weapons just aren’t scary. His artillery is much more dangerous.
“why haven’t we tried to eliminate Mugabe in Zimbabwe? Because there is nothing in Zimbabwe worth fighting for”
There’s a LOT in zimbabwe worth fighting for. They’ve got coal, precious minerals and they (used to be) the bread basket of africa. Strategically, zimbabwe is important.
“Just like Pol Pot in Cambodia, the rest of the world doesn’t really care what you do inside your country, so long as you don’t de-stabilize the rest of the world in the process”
To some extent, yes. I don’t like it either, but I don’t make the rules. Sorry.
“If you had an opportunity to kill Adolf Hitler in 1938, just before he started World War II in Europe, a war that killed tens of millions of people, WOULD YOU DO IT?”
Probably. But that’s knowing what we know now. Back then, most of the world’s political interests thought he wasn’t a threat (the left and labor unions disagreed). You might be wrong to think there was nobody who could replace him – pre-war german right-wing politics was pretty complicated, and hitler had a way of bumping off his rivals. We might have prevented the holocaust, but maybe not WWII. We also might have made space for a better military leader (hitler really wasn’t a very good commander – he lost the plot under pressure, and couldn’t take anything that sounded like criticism).
I’m sorry that life isn’t simple. I wish I could make it simple, but it isn’t. History does show that bumping off leaders on the sly is just too unpredictable.
Sorry Matthew, your liberal stance on doing nothing in the world just doesn’t go with reality. Regarding Hitler, you said, “You might be wrong to think there was nobody who could replace him – pre-war german right-wing politics was pretty complicated, and hitler had a way of bumping off his rivals. We might have prevented the holocaust, but maybe not WWII.” That is just plain wrong. If you read William Shirer’s “The Nightmare Years,” he clearly states that the German General Staff was ready to kill Hitler if the French and the British had stood up against Hitler at the Munich Conference in 1938. The General Staff didn’t think Germany was prepared in 1938 to fight off France and Germany and it was ready to replace Hitler in a coup in order to avoid a war. Once Hitler got everything he wanted at Munich, the General Staff couldn’t politically eliminate the man who obtained such a stunning victory over the other European powers at that time. There was nobody to replace Hitler if he had been killed at that time. There probably would have been an interim military government until the Germans could figure out what to do next. But all of this is conjecture since the man lived.
Then you said, “There’s a LOT in zimbabwe worth fighting for. They’ve got coal, precious minerals and they (used to be) the bread basket of africa. Strategically, zimbabwe is important.” No, it’s not. If it were, the United States would have made overtures to that madman a long time ago. We basically ignore the country because, whatever the country has, can be obtained somewhere else. If Zimbabwe decides to throw away their resources, it really isn’t up to us to stop them. But what makes you think the guy who replaces Mugabe will be any better? Black Africa has a terrible history of corrupt and homicidal leaders. Take a look at Liberia, Ivory Coast, or Somalia if you want a text book lesson on how pitiful the political chain of succession is in many of these countries. I agree, most of the time it’s best just to ignore these basket cases and leave them to their own miserable governments. But if these governments threaten outside nations, say through terrorism, then it DOES become our problem and the world has to act. If not, you could get a dictator who wants to do more than just terrorize his own people.
Which brings us to our “happy” friends in North Korea. You said,”And north korea isn’t going to kill a couple of million south koreans with nuclear weapons. Partly because that will mean the end of their regime – china and the US will have NO choice but to invade. But also partly because he hasn’t got any nuclear weapons worth deploying. The one test they’ve conducted was a snafu – a couple of kilotons at worst. Kim’s nuclear weapons just aren’t scary. His artillery is much more dangerous.” I don’t know if you believe any of that nonsense, but it’s very dangerous to underestimate the desires or the capacity of homicidal maniacs, like Kim Jong Il. I especially enjoyed when you said, “The one nuclear test they’ve conducted was a snafu – a couple of kilotons at worst.” Hmmm, I wonder what “a couple of kilotons” dropped on any city, anywhere, would do to it. I’m sure the South Koreans would sleep well thinking about that. And who’s to say what Kim and his kid want to do? Perhaps if they think they don’t have anything to lose, like that nut Jim Jones in Guyana or Hitler in Germany, they wouldn’t mind dying if it ment taking the whole country down with them. North Korea is a great example where the killing of a sick dictator (if possible) could only help that country. I doubt they have anybody who is crazier than Kim Jong Il and his family. Get rid of them and you may actually have a shot at putting in a better government.
I am a big supporter in NOT getting involved in many parts of the world, Zimbabwe being a good example of that. Most third-world countries offer the US very little in return for being interested in them. But when you have a dictator in charge of one of these countries, and they then decide to invade or de-stabilize neighboring countries, then it’s time to see if eliminating the leadership would be quicker, faster, safer, and cheaper than having to invade and destroy a country in order to save it. If World War II could have been avoided with a coup in 1938, I would have taken that risk even if it ment having some “hurt” feelings on the part of the German people. Wouldn’t you?
Um, sorry Matthew. If you looked at the 1960s, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Hondurus, El Salvador, and just about all of South America was at least friendly to the United States, or had leaders that were kept in power by the United States. After the CIA was basically neutered in the 1970s, many of those countries, like Nicaragua and El Salvador, started falling and drifted towards communism. Yes, you sure are right. Who the heck would want the order that was obtained during the 1960s. The Communism some of those countries now embrace and the petty dictators like Chavez are much, much, better. Tell the people of Venezuela that they’re better off today with Chavez, OK?
Here in Miami business with Venezuelans boomed, that was 80′s to early 90′s- now we get refugees who can’t/won’t go back
the jewhate grows so we get religion exiles
the “capitalist” purges ruined many of them
the general insecurity (your kid/wife/hubby held for ransom
ah the benefits of socialism
they used to come here and spend bundles of cash, now they come b/c our city is very Spanish and Jewish friendly- and those groups help them get re-started
shame really- destroy the middle classes and then – another one bites the dust
LS46… Our greatest commodity from 1960′s and 70′s era forward, has been generations of indocrinated educated morons. Having a substantive and [factual] dialog with them is not within the realm of reality.
All we need to know about those types is that they know nothing, believe in nothing. If they really believed in their communist socialist, progressive garbage they’d packed their bags and moved to Cuba, Venzuella, Russia, China or North Korea by now. Their movement relies upon an army of morons…literally!
Time for Obama to dispatch Jimmy Carter and a phalanx of Hollywierd notables as “observers” to the democratic gestures of “Oogo” and report back for careful digestion by the Administration. Barry’s gotten to the bottom of the “Tips and Tricks” page of Saul Alinsky.
Sounds familiar?
What will Sarah say? She should say a lot if Obama does not at least take this outrage up with the OAS.
On one level, this is remarkably disorienting: back in the 1960s, a rather odd right-winger in LA named Anthony J. Hilder (I think he’s still around on the web nuttier than ever) wrote a delightfully alliterate pamphlet denouncing CommUNazism in which he maintained they were essentially the same. I offer his prophetic words here:
“The New Left is Bastard Born… Sons of Satan and Slithering Sluts spawned from the syphilitic womb of the mother of whores-sired by the Machiavellian Megalomaniac Monstrosity “Illuminati”…Color them Liberal.
America is plagued with these venomous Vermin…Liberalism is more than just a mental disease…Liberalism is a sickness of the soul… Liberalism is a cancer… America to survive must cut the Liberal cancer out!
Revolution by Evolution is their Satanic Master Plan…the inculcators of antediluvian liberal concepts have promulgated a Renaissance of Sodom and Gomorrah…with promises of Peace, Poppies and Prostitution; their Judas Goats duped, doped, and dazed the flower generation-gazing into Sick and Psychedelic Kaleidoscopes, dwarfing them into JELLYHEADS…while preparing them for slaughter.
Pusillanimous Pinks, Punks, Perverts and Purveyors of Filth have paraded neath the UN-American flag of the National Liberal Front “so-Viet Cong” in acts Tantamount to Treason…Hippies, Hookers, Hypes and Heathens Hostile and Heretic out-Herod Herod.
What the government gives it must first take away!!!
The CommUNists and Nazis are all one world socialistic liberal totalitarian dictatorial democracies…Mobocracies where the people have surrendered their freedom of choice to a government which dictates freedom from choice…Thus equal slavery for all….
To have perpetual peace we must wage perpetual war, against the cancers of liberalism. Total liberalism is CommUNazism. CommUNazism is liberalism in action. Not all liberals are CommUNazists or Nazis, but all Nazis and CommUNists are liberals.
CommUNazism is exploitation of the mass for the benefit of the few with the expropriation of wealth and incentive from the industrious. CommUNazism is Rape, Robbery and Regression to the Dark Ages.”
“The New Left is Bastard Born… Sons of Satan and Slithering Sluts spawned from the syphilitic womb of the mother of whores-sired by the Machiavellian Megalomaniac Monstrosity “Illuminati”…Color them Liberal.”
Right-wingnut commentary hasn’t progressed much, has it? Same incisive reasoning.
Other than the anti-Illuminist hyperbole, this is pretty much spot on:
Liberalism (progressivism) has become a cancer on society.
Revolution by evolution is the Gramascian programme and that of the Democratic Socialists.
The Marxists did encourage and exploit the Flower Generation’s degeneracy and the New Left generally.
And the rest is all pretty obviously true: government must take to give, and the essential similarity of left and right socialism is clear to any student of liberty. Read Hayek.
“The New Left is Bastard Born… Sons of Satan and Slithering Sluts spawned from the syphilitic womb of the mother of whores-sired by the Machiavellian Megalomaniac Monstrosity “Illuminati”…Color them Liberal.”
Wow. Nice use of adjectives and nouns there. Colorful, but perhaps, a little understated.
Ecstatic and VERY envious.
Not to worry though, dictatorship is on the way here, too. At about a 90 mph clip.
Matthew, aren’t Bill Ayres and Oliver Stone examples of the far left ? Note the example set by the Obami with Zelaya who was clearly a creature of Chavez. Zelaya was making new friends during his presidential term, as well.
Show me that they’re ecstatic about this dictator-for-18-months thing and you’ve won.
By making a star of petty dictatorships like Venezuela and Iran, we buy right into their blustering desire to be noticed in the world. When we demonize them along with North Korea, we are not doing ourselves any favors. We should simply ignore them and take the oil of Ven. and Iran.
The atomic genie is out of the bottle and we cannot do anything about it. If Chavez’s neighbors don’t care he’s a dictator why should we. Sooner or later he’ll die or collapse under the weight of his own repression. When will the US start to learn that these countries only exist when they oppose us, like children who cry for attention?
We should not give this man’s successor whoever it is ammunition to use against the US to put another like him in power. The more we in turn bluster against Venezuela, the more credibility a Chavez successor will have. Just ignore these horrible regimes, they have not the power to really harm anyone but themselves and it is none of our business anyway – they are sovereign nations.
BO seems to have developed an intense case of south blindness. There is a terrorist war going in Mexico literally a stones throw from major American cities, that is far bloodier and more dangerous than Afghanistan. Yet, the US government is inert in the face of it.
Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Honduras — all are ignored.
Mr. Obama will do nothing because he is on the same team.
“Let us hope that the Obama administration and the State Department begin to take the threat posed by Chavez seriously, especially as he makes arms and trade deals with Iran and Russia”
Since Obama and Chavez are two totalitarian figures who share the same world views,I see them more collaborating than colliding.
A real US president would oust this troll by using military forces
We cannot tolerate such a hazard in our backyard
With the gift the FCC granted Obama this holiday season, the USA is only a few steps behind Chavez.
Who will be the first Globovision of the USA?
“Chavez is pushing through a block of five laws”
No need to push when you can decree. A sad sight. I blame the Venezuelan people. Stupid “fixers and dealers”.
Hugo Chavez is the penultimate community organizer.
I am guessing that Madonna’s former boy chub, whatshisname, Sean something, will drink a few beers to celebrate.
No, no, Ron. You don’t compare Chavez to Hitler at PJM. Follow your pal Roger Simon’s lead:
“Separated at Birth: Harry Reid and Hugo Chavez”
Most people do not know and it is never mentioned by the media that Chavez and his family own at least a tenth of Venezuela.Chavez’s father and uncles own so many ranches that they cover about a tenth of the country.Chavez’s brothers and sisters are in control of the entire government,internal control and the all of Venezuela’s foreign policy.Chavez and his family own the farms,control all the oil wealth.The country is should be called CHAVENEZUELA.
How to get rid of him? Fund the opposition to these regimes and stay the hell out. Far more can be accomplished by funding good guerilla forces and leave these guys, like Chavez, to face the turmoil of a poor economy and a populace in revolt. Give the dissenters in these countries the means and arms to do the job, simply reverse the communist plan of victory. That way there is no one else to blame, give the guerillas the means to destroy the infrastructure while you sit on the side lines saying sorry, not our problem. If you’re going to waste something it’s better to waste a little time and money than the lives of our young people.
Why work so hard to distinguish between the Nazis and Communists? Any sane comparison shows them more alike than different.
As I started to read this article I reached the sentence where it’s stated that Chavez calls it an “enabling act” the bells and whistles started going off in my head. On March 24 1933 Adolph Hitler also got an “enabling act” passed which led directly to his establishing his dictatorship in Germany which subsequently led to WWII. I wonder if Chavez is a student of history. He may want to read up on how that enabling act worked out for Hitler and for Germany.
Im not worried about venezuela. let them have all the commie koolaid they want. We need to start worrying about whats happening here… the fcc just passed net neter -ality effectivly silencing conservative or alternate opinions. yes it will happen. and i do not think we should wait for jackboots and gestapo (unions) to start to resist. and personally i dont think we should be nice about it either
Crony Capitalism for the elites and paganism for the poor will result in marxism for the masses. The faux capitalists who preceded Chavez allocated Petro Dollars based on keeping themselves in power and buying weekends in Isla Margarita with their mitstresses. Chavez cadre of goons will make things 1000 times worse. As neighboring Colombia ramps up Petrol Production I hope that they do not make the same mistake.