I’m heartened by Cooper’s willingness to respond to comments or questions.

I had a long post I must have lost somehow, because I can’t imagine that it was screened!  To take six paragraphs with links and quotations to one paragraph:

The allegation that Chavez received money from a Spanish bank in his 1998 campaign is in some right-wing blogs without being sourced, and in one single El Universal article in Spanish.  It sites the judge by name and it seems he would be accessible to a journalist who wants to determine the truth in this matter.

If that’s enough for Cooper or another journalist to go on, great.  If not I can try to recreate my post that traces the internet path of the claim cited in this Dig.  Please post here or reach me here: http://bemweb.com/contact/

But Marc, Justin Delacour does make a statement of substance with regard to Mr Boyd with which you have not dealt - that «Boyd has publicly called for the violent overthrow of Venezuela’s democratically-elected government». Do you know if this is indeed the case ? And Mr Delacour, could you provide more details ? I am unfamiliar with Mr Boyd and his work (or what «qualifications» he may or may not have to analyse the situation in Venezuela - as a citizen of the country he’s certainly nearer the situation than I am !), but if the allegation is true, then I think it fair to say that that places Mr Boyd in a category other than that of a «neutral» and «objective» (whatever these terms mean) observer of the situation in that country. Not to say that he might not have things to teach us, but in any event I should find such a disclosure (with hopefully, a reference that can be checked) of no little importance….

All one needs to do to ascertain that Marc Cooper is not a serious analyst of Venezuela is to read the following excerpt by Cooper:

“But Chavez’s critics, like Venezuelan Aleksander Boyd, who says he identifies neither with the government nor its formal opponents, argues that Chavez has perilously concentrated all state power in his hands and—although elected—is hardly a democrat…”

To describe Aleksander Boyd as a “critic” of Chávez who “says he identifies neither with the government nor its formal opponents” is to distort reality beyond recognition.  Boyd has publicly called for the violent overthrow of Venezuela’s democratically-elected government.  Boyd differs with the government’s “formal opponents” only insofar as he is more venemous in his opposition to Chávez. 

Moreover, Boyd is nothing more than an anti-Chávez blogger; he has no credentials whatsoever as an analyst of Venezuelan politics. 

Apparently Marc Cooper’s idea of “digging for truth” is to scour the blogosphere for quotes that he can plug into his poorly researched articles.

One wonders why publications that are otherwise politically progressive would continue allowing Cooper to publish such terrible pieces about Venezuela.  (see http://lanr.blogspot.com/2005/11/marc-cooper-on-venezuela.html#links to review Cooper’s long reign of error on the country).

Justin Delacour
Doctoral Student
Department of Political Science
University of New Mexico

Cooper uses his stint in Chile in the same way that Orwell used his experience in the Spanish Civil War. It gives him a certain credibility with which he can bash the left, just as Orwell would “name names” in the 1950s. The thing that strikes me about the current generation of “The God that Failed” (Hitchens, Cooper, David Horowitz, Norm Geras et al) is how mediocre they are. At least Orwell dodged bullets. All Cooper does is write for mainstream and “pwogwessive” publications. He is truly a legend in his own mind.

As for community media in Venezuela, it is very significant, and the government seemed to recognize as much after the coup.  Probably not providing enough support in changing the structure of the media environment yet though.  Here’s a good introduction to a few of many independent community media groups in Venezuela.

Cooper writes about community media, “The corrective, as I believe you suggest, would be a state-supported but community controlled media that would present a democratic diversity of views. I know of no steps in that direction.”

Perhaps The reason you are not aware of these efforts is because you have never gone to Venezuela. There is a government-supported grassroots radio movement with many new stations being started up.

Regarding the statement, “Those of us most sympathetic to his stated goals, then, have the greatest responsibility in hold him accountable,” Get over yourself; you aren’t that important.

Hugo Chavez is the elected president of a sovereign state who doesn’t have to answer to any armchair pundits. Jorge Ramos has the same delusions of grandeur—“Chavez me mintio,” he whined. The president of Venezuela won’t even grant him an interview now, after Ramos wrote a smear article which told the reader more about his great vanity than about Chavez. To readers who want to know what’s going on there, read articles and books by people who live in or have spent time in Venezuela. Eva Golinger is one author who has done a lot of research, as well as venezuelanalysis.com, aporrea.org, and vheadline.com

P.S.
Why you still advertise that you were Allende’s translator is a mystery. A translator works with the written word, in which case you were sitting at a typewriter translating his statements into English. I find it hard to believe that in more than 30 years you haven’t figured out the difference between a translator and an interpreter, which is what I assume you mean. I also can’t understand how such a young man from the Valley was able to become so skilled that he would be able to interpret for a head of state, when all other interpreters have to train for years in the profession.

Dear Mr Cooper,

Thank you for your speedy and detailed reply ! It was not at all my intention to lecture you ; as you will note I referred to you in the third person, as my previous message was addressed to all participants in the discussion. But, as I presume you will agree, the question of what constitutes the range of permissible discourse in the media is not one that can be ignored, certainly not in the United States, nor here in Europe, nor, I suspect, in Venezuela. At any rate, I am glad to be able to draw the conclusion that in your spectrum, views that are somewhat more to the left than those of La Republicca and Signor Rampoldi, neither of which I wish to malign or besmirch, can be also be entertained. In any event, I shall do my best to retain my civility, something which I find aided by the very structure of forums like the present one, which allow us to cool our enthusiasms and reflect over both the content and form of what we have to say before sending it off….

With regard to your assessment of Señor Chavez, I certainly agree that he has, by virtue of his success in mobilising a majority of the country, taken upon himself responsibilities which are quite literally «awesome». Nor are our own responsibilities less great, as we have the duty of seeing to it that the reaction of the political leaderships of our respective countries does not exceed the bounds of legality and humanity. Were I to ask Señor Chavez what he is doing to create institutions which will leave power in the hands of the people even when he is no longer there to supervise matters, I suspect he would reply by pointing to the mass organisations that he is attempting to create. But as experience shows, these can be subverted to other purposes, and therefore some sort of institutional checks and balances need to be be created to prevent the concentration of too much power in too few hands. Señor Chavez might then point to the coup of 2002 as evidence that his power is finite - if he had not been seen by an overwhelming majority of Venezuelans as representing their interests, interests for which they were willing to fight, he might say, then the coup would certainly have succeeded and his fate would have resembled that of Señor Allende. But these, we might reply, are not <u>institutional</u> safeguards, and Señor Chavez will not be there forever ; what if men less dedicated to the interests of a majority come to power by deceiving the people ? Señor Chavez might then point out, politely avoiding the use of an example which lies much nearer to hand, that despite the Weimar Constitution possessing such safeguards, Herr Hitler was able to come to power anyway. And so the dialogue between supporters of Good Institutions on the one hand, and those who support Good Men on the other might continue. In the event, perfect safeguards do not exist, but it would be interesting to know if there is any evidence that indicates that the Bolivarian Movement or Señor Chavez himself see the concentration of power as a problem, or is the concept of his own frailty, of the very possibility of there arising what in Maoist terms would be called a contradiction between him and the people entirely foreign to his nature ? Here I think the devil is in the details, and more digging is necessary. I hope that you will continue to wield your shovel !...

Richard Young’s brief response to Cooper’s lengthy article is as a diamond to a slab of granite.  I’d like to read more of Mr. Young’s work.

I find both Mr Cooper’s article and the ensuing discussion of great interest. My impression is that, unfortunately, Mr Cooper has failed to satisfactorily engage with the, to my mind, quite reasonable criticisms and comments offered by such commentators as Mr Buermann. More digging is needed with regard to such matters as 1) the media situation in Venezuela (and for that matter, in the United States, as well !). Who owns what ? As truthdig‘s motto would have it, «freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one» ; from what I understand to be the case, both the (private) printed press and the ether media in Venezuela reflect almost exclusively the class interests of their owners (is it still possible to write «class interests» without becoming hors de discours ?). Is it possible to see state-owned/controlled media as a corrective to this situation ? The question then becomes, what happens if state power is in the hands of representatives of this same class, as it is, say, here in Sweden (I choose this example in order to avoid tramping on the sore toes of certain people in the Western hemisphere) ? The problem, as I see it, with both the Cuban (with which I had a couple of months experience in 1968) and the Venezuelan revolutions are that their attempts to redress grievances and put more political and economic power into the hands of a majority of the people - something which seems to be desperately needed - are dependent upon the good will of a very small number of leaders. In both cases the revolutionary governments attempted to encourage the formation of base organisations among the people ; it seems to me too early to come to any judgement about the fate of the Venezuelan organisations, but nearly half a century on, it seems fair to say that the Cuban ones are better at transmitting views and policies from top to bottom than they other way ‘round and the question of how to make the top responsible to the bottom - and changeable at the latter’s will - remains unresolved (as it does in other countries which Mr Cooper would presumably regard as «democracies». That being said, I think that the Venezuelan experiment has the great good fortune to be carried out in a far less hostile environment than its Cuban predecessor of 40 years ; does this mean that there exists greater hope for its success ? I should very much like to see more digging with respect to this matter….

As regards the question of Mr Chavez’s largess as being due to the high price of oil, my reflection is that his generosity pales in comparison with the generosity exhibited by the governments of, say, the United States and the member states of the European Union in dealing out subsidies to the great corporations. To take one (not-so) minor example : the estimated cost of the US wars on Iraq and Afghanistan so far is some 300 thousand million USD, most of which is recycled into the coffers of the great US corporations, which, not so incidentally, have direct ownership ties to that country’s media corporations.  Moreover, it seems, again to me, that it is rather unlikely that the price of oil is going to come down any time soon - unless the imbalance in the world economy, due mainly to US policies concerning the balance of trade, tax cuts for the wealthy, and an entirely unnecessary, not to say illegal and criminal war leads to a global economic collapse. But oil is, as we all (should) know, a finite resource ; what is Señor Chavez doing to ensure that Venezuela possesses an economic base which ensures more than mere subsistence the day the wells run dry ? Here again, I should like to ask Mr Cooper to do more digging….

As to Mr Cooper’s reference to Guido Rampoldi’s article in La Repubblica, which I read from time to time, I can only say that I consider it misleading to refer to that journal as «Italy’s leading leftist daily newspaper». The blogger from whom Mr Cooper took the article (who does call it «left-wing») has it about right : «which is sort of like the Italian version of The Guardian». For US readers unfamiliar with the latter, it is sort of on a par with, say, the New York Times ; i e, it does publish a few left-wing columnists but news reporting is generally supportive of US-British interventions around the world, and the paper, while critical of how the occupation has been carried out, opposes a time-table for the withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraq. If journals of this type represent the left wing of Mr Cooper’s spectrum of acceptable discourse, it is little wonder that his view of Señor Chavez’s efforts to remake Venezuela is highly negative….

And now the Chicago Transit Authority rejects help from Venezuela’s CITGO.

“As Chicago’s poorest face an increase to already-high public transit fees, the city is ignoring an offer of discounted diesel fuel to benefit low-income people.”

And so far—except for the non-profit newspaper that broke the story—the story’s being ignored.  Read it here: http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/2710

And more discussion on this and more by people interested in fostering democracy everywhere at http://narcosphere.narconews.com/

It’s time to ignore Chavez. He’s Venezuela’s problem.

I just like to remind everyone that the economics of oil stays the same no matter who he sells it to. All other claims are rooted in economic ignorance.

Now that the Cold War is over, small socialist states mainly harm their own and provide us with constant reminders of such a folly. Besides, a modicum of involvement will be exploited by those who want to use us as a scapegoat for their own domestic failures. Expect more noise from Chavez as his economy runs into problems down the line; but ignore him. Benign neglect is the best policy.

I have a strong feeling that Latin America is going to get a great deal of attention from the Bush Administration in the next few months; probably covertly.

Why do I have this feeling? 

I just read a businessnews report that Exxon Mobil and Venezuela have a deep divide over the management of oil fields in Venezuela.  According to the article, Exxon Mobil is the only Big Oil firm who has not signed a revised contract with the Venezuelan corporation who has received government authority to manage Venezuela’s oilfields. 

Exxon Mobil probably sees the whole thing as a contract violation problem whereas the Venezuelan government may see it as a sovereignty issue.  We’ll see

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1124-02.htm
Well since it was not done properly in Venezuela…
Could Bolivia be next?

Marc Cooper,

Well, with the election of Evo Morales, it appears that Bolivia has decided to be an independent nation.  It will be fascinating to see if Bolivia becomes one of Mr. Bush’s “Axis of Evil” nations of Latin America.

Do you smell a U.S. covert action of some sort in Latin America? 

Will Al Qaeda morph into Los Malhechor?

I really see the future of the U.S. written all over the story. If the U.S. continues on the coarse it is on, the time will come when the people of the U.S. will have to do the same, with all the same pain.
It is time now to stop the Powers from putting us in that position.
WE THE PEOPLE
means
WE THE PEOPLE

And now for a frivolously peripheral grammar dig:

Tbe principal parts of “bode” are bode, boded, boded.

http://www.bartleby.com/61/15/B0361500.html

(Only because you’re a translator and thus you probably care about this sort of thing. *I* would want to be told…)

Marc,

“But it is really too facile to then conclude that the opposition therefore lacks all legitimacy.”

And thusly I conclude no such thing, being why I ask whether the NED might not be weakening the opposition, as such.  I thought I’d made that pretty clear: nobody would accept it here if some foreign organization came in and tried to organize the Democrats.  Is there some reason to think they’d accept it in Venezuela?

“Do you surrender critical faculties and scrutiny merely because there is a political conflict involved?”

Did I suggest anything of the sort?

I asked for more scrutiny: if you’d care to take the slightest curiousity in whether Chavez has been supporting narco-terrorism, has been subverting union democracy, has been surviving off a spike in oil prices, what the NED actually does in countries like Venezuela where elections are free and fair, whether the boycott might have had an influence on voter turnout, whether the oppositions’ “human rights record has little if nothing in common with the tainted record of Cuba or, say, Pinochet’s Chile”.  Yadda yadda, repeat original post.

And so you raise Cuba’s involvement in a health program in contrast to US funding for the oppositions’ political organizing.  How are they comparable?  Surely the US has some doctors in Venzuela?  Is Cuba’s staff funnelling money to election campaigns?  Something? 

I did ask “how it’s useful to criticize Chavez without asking whether he’s any worse than the opposition the US has been uncritically supporting”, because the US is supporting one and not the other, so I ask again: does any criticism of Chavez justify “surrender[ing] critical faculties and scrutiny” to his opposition?  If you can’t see fit to respond to anything I said you can at least respond to some of your own bullshit.

Marc Cooper: “I think both causes – the health program and the opposition funding—are marred by foreign involvement.”

How on earth is the health program marred by foreign involvement?

Marc,

“only some of which I can discern as challenges”

Well right, most of them were just honest questions.

I didn’t object to election monitoring. I asked whether the NED funded organizations have any business “party building” in places where election monitors routinely declare elections to be “free and fair”, and I asked about the role of the government in monitoring union elections.

“it sounds as if your major complaint is that I’m not just uncritical enough in support of Chavez”

In the eye of the beholder, sure.  I don’t doubt the accuracy of the human rights reports, I just don’t see is how it’s useful to criticize Chavez without asking whether he’s any worse than the opposition the US has been uncritically supporting, given that the discussion in the US is whether we ought to topple Chavez and put his opposition in charge.

For balance, see http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/
Parenti/GoodThings_Venezuela.html

In the Nation (May 6, 2002), Marc Cooper-one of those Cold War liberals who nowadays regularly defends the U.S. empire-writes that the democratically-elected Chavez speaks “often as a thug,” who “flirts with megalomania.” Chavez’s behavior, Cooper rattles on, “borders on the paranoiac,” is “ham-fisted demagogy” acted out with an “increasingly autocratic style.” Like so many critics, Cooper downplays Chavez’s accomplishments and uses name-calling in place of informed analysis.
Other media mouthpieces have labeled Chavez “mercurial,” “besieged,” “heavy-handed,” “incompetent,” and “dictatorial,” a “barracks populist,” a “strongman,” a “firebrand,” and, above all, a “leftist.” It is never explained what “leftist” means.
A leftist is someone who advocates a more equitable distribution of social resources and human services and who supports the kinds of programs that the Chavez government is putting in place. (Likewise a rightist is someone who opposes such programs and seeks to advance the insatiable privileges of private capital and the wealthy few.) The term “leftist” is frequently bandied about in the U. N. media, but seldom defined. The power of the label is in its remaining undefined, allowing it to have an abstracted built-in demonizing impact, which precludes rational examination of its political content.

Gee, this Chavez guy sounds like Bush:  mercurial attitude, emotionally rails against his opposition, and tells ‘jokes’.....wonder if Chavez also likes to address the troops…again..and again…and again…

Frankly, I thought the article could have been a little longer.  We are, after all, talking about the dynamics of development in a region volatile with the failure of long-standing U.S. policies and intervention.  That sells us a lot of oil.  Three days drive from Harlingen Texas.

I’m guessing Marc wouldn’t go far wrong in writing up a sequel.

Tapes reveal US involvement in Venezuela terror attack

Mr. Cooper:

Thank you so much for your fair and balanced article…and by fair and balanced I am in no way comparing you to faux news.

Although I realize much work needs to be done to encourage a more visible democracy in Venezuela, Mr. Chavez’s dedication in helping his people rise from the ranks of poverty is commendable.  I think you’ve done an excellent job in outlining those accomplishments. 

Mr. Bush’s displeasure with Mr. Chavez is extremely amusing to me.  People in glass houses or “bubbles” should never throw stones.

Thanks again and look forward to more “digs”.

I find your (Cooper’s) analysis of the trajectory of Chavez’s regime rather more formally correct in civics class terms than explanatory, with its focus on who’s abiding and not abiding by the rules of “democracy” on the different sides.  The politics of democracy and dictatorship in Latin America (as elsewhere) have a lot to do with national and international economics and business, which pretty much only gets alluded to through the quotes of others.  You don’t explain why the Bush-supported coup failed.  For example, if Chavez is so bad from the standpoint of big business in Venezuela, why didn’t - and hasn’t - oil and other major money flown the coup, a la Allende’s Chile?  Why did a major section of the military support him in the 2002 coup - frat solidarity?  Why would the oil workers strike against a ‘people’s president’ and then turn around and abandon the coup?  To say that the Bush Administration sees the Red Dawn in Chavez isn’t saying much, since they see that in Congress and the Democratic Party almost everyday!  Yes, Chavez is clearly a nationalist with corporatist aspirations and a heavy dose of populism.  But if your goal, as your article’s title suggests, was to explain the animosity toward Chavez of the U.S. administration (and big business interests, as represented by the major media), and why the latter has been stymied so far in its attempts to oust him, I don’t think you’ve succeeded.

Democratic candidate John Kerry briefly made the Venezuelan leader an issue, calling him a supporter of “narco-terrorists”

What was the evidence for this claim?  I recall it and never heard another word about it.  Did it stand up to scrutiny?

Chavez then escalated the rhetorical fire, branding the Bush White House “a terrorist administration” and calling the U.S. president no less than a “murderer.”

Concerning Iraq in particular: not exactly a baseless charge.  Regarding any “escalation” he said he wants to improve relations with the US.  Truly an unruly firebrand.

He angered some to his left by imposing state-monitored elections within the trade unions

“monitored” in the sense that Venezuelan elections are themselves monitored, assigned a grade on “free and fair”,
or in the sense that the state is controlling or otherwise directly influencing the elections?

Chavez seized the airwaves several times during the day.

Did he seize the private airwaves, or just use the state media?  Is using the state media as a mouthpiece unusual in Venezuela?  Did the opposition “sieze” the private media, or did they just happen to already have it?

What then ensued was a two-day tragic-comic opera buffa that was an on-again, off-again coup—a historic episode in which the U.S. played a less than honorable role and set the two countries on their collision course.

I think, given the evidence provided here, that the coup was rather the collision itself.  Was it the election of Bush or the election of Chavez that set them on a collision course?

And what is the connection between the coup and the opposition?  Did the opposition suppport the coup?  In what way?  Did they support Carmona’s dissolving all constitutional institutions?  If we’re to develop a fair assessment of Chavez’s record it would be fair, indeed necessary, to compare his record to the alternatives.  E.g., did the opposition help forment a coup before attempting a constitutional recall?

while NED and the U.S. government may have not played a direct role in the coup, they certainly gave the coup plotters the impression that Washington would have no real objections to toppling Chavez

Some further truth digs here would be appropriate, beyond the partisan link.  What do the NED organizations do in Venezuela, even if unassociated with the coup plotters?  Ought the NED continue working in countries like Venezuela where observers from the UN and OAS observer missions routinely grade elections “free and fair”?  Wouldn’t the US oppose, rightly, the influence of a foreign power that came in and tried to organize the Democratic Party into a coherent opposition?

Chavez has been blessed with an inept and often outrageous political opposition.

Some study of the previous questions might perhaps help lead to explanations for why this is the case.

Parenti and other pro-Chavez writers

You label the anti-Chavez commentator as a “Chavez critic” who “identifies neither with the government nor its formal opponents”.  Parenti quotes at length a Chavez critic in her piece, so labelling her as a partisan might not be particularly fair.  Maybe she’s just a sympathetic writer.

Chavez’s mercurial personality, and what seems like an incipient personality cult, also unsettles many. He is prone to making weekend and weeknight television appearances in which, literally for hours, he will ramble on from subject to subject, sing songs and make sexually explicit wisecracks involving anyone from his wife to Condoleezza Rice. ... the image of a leader fascinated with, if not drunk on, power.

I’m not sure if character politics should be a matter of concern for US readers.  “every single branch of power is ominously controlled” by George W. Bush’s GOP, so what?  If the matter is whether the elections were legitemate this matters not one iota.

While Venezuela’s recent human rights record has little if nothing in common with the tainted record of Cuba or, say, Pinochet’s Chile

The comparison shouldn’t be between Chavez’s presidency and Pinochet’s or Castro’s dictatorships, but between Chavez and the available alternative: his opposition.  The same reports express similar concerns regarding them.

critics suggest that Chavez’s success is a temporary bubble inflated by high oil prices

You let this charge go otherwise unanswered, though it would seem relevant to the discussion of US economic development policy in the region.  Marc Weisbrot’s response to this criticism seems coherent enough.

Citing fears that voting machines could register the identities and choices of individual balloters, the country’s major opposition parties all withdrew and boycotted the elections.

The EU preliminary report, at least, noted that the voting machines were unable to do so before the election: you note niether that no valid reason was then given to continue the boycott, nor in the discussion of low turnout - while airing the obvious “questions about the real level of Chavez’s popularity” - that the boycott might be an obvious explanation for the low turnout.

The era of armed Latin American insurgencies has come to an end. And the discontented and the disenfranchised have been using the ballot box and not bazookas to demand social change. The United States should support those efforts rather than short-circuit them.

I think you’ve made the case well enough that the US has thus far been willing to attack those efforts, whether it be Bush or Kerry (and Bill Clinton has made similar fulminations): perhaps the more moderate position of simply ceasing the attacks would be a more politically acceptable position for the divergent and divisive attitudes in the US towards such efforts.

Marc Cooper writes,
for which he drew a rebuke from the International Labor Organization.

Doyle,
Isn’t that the CIA sponsored ILO?

Marc Cooper writes,
like Venezuelan Aleksander Boyd, who says he identifies neither with the government nor its formal opponents, argues that Chavez has perilously concentrated all state power in his hands and—although elected—is hardly a democrat:

Doyle,
What is being a fence sitter got to do offering an informed opinion on Chavez and the swing to the left in Venezuala?

Marc Cooper writes,
a leader fascinated with, if not drunk on, power.

Doyle,
Empty observation. What is a leader supposed to be anyway if not fascinated by power? Adding drunk in has no context but implies nearly there.

Marc Cooper,
old-fashioned populist buying constituencies with lavish handouts.

Doyle,
Populist what’s that, not I’m afraid a very communicative label to me? Buying constituencies with lavish handouts? This sort of wording doesn’t give much sense of the political process, and is boiler plate sort of U.S. talk.

Marc Cooper,
EU observers noted that Chavez used government radio and TV as an “excessive resource” during the election campaign,

Doyle,
Was this Berlusconi’s observers? Who, EU diplomats from London? Doesn’t help much to quote un-named sources.
thanks,
Doyle

Great discussions going back and forth here. There has been a lot of feedback about press restrictions in Venezuela. Those restrictions are worrisome, but they are not without context. I would encourage anyone interested in the issue to read John Dinges article in the July/August issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. (there is a direct link on the TruthDig website.) Mr. Dinges fairly raises concerns about press restrictions, but he also details the complicity of the Venezuelan news media in the aborted coup of 2002. As is so often the case with Mr. Chavez, he does not act in a vaccuum. He was responsing to an openly hostile press and television media that cheered on the coupsters, a media that often referred to him as a Sambo, or a monkey, and made jokes about killing him ON THE AIR. Imagine the outcry in the US, if President Bush was referred to as a monkey or if somebody on TV made vile threats on his life? I say this not to defend his press restrictions, but to put them in context.
Whether or not you agree with Mr Chavez, he has due cause to be highly suspicious of the US, which backed the coup against him, and of the opposition, many of whom supported the coup.
  For example, the opposition group SUMATE, which is funded in part by the US, continually makes bogus claims about election fraud, even after international observers like the EU and the OAS and The Carter Center note that Venezuelan elections are largely free and fair. That is simply irresponsible on the part of SUMATE. These baseless claims at one point had the potential to incite violence. (SUMATE has lost so much credibility of late that that is no long the case.) As a US citizen, Im outraged that our tax dollars are funding innacurate propaganda against a democratically elected government. By all means, criticize Mr. Chavez, but to suggest he rose to power by election fraud is laughable.
If you’re trying to understand Mr. Chavez’s popularity, consider this: Mr. Chavez appears to be the ONLY president in Venezuela’s near-half-century of democratic rule who actually cares about poor people, and there are A LOT of poor people here. He spends time with them. He talks directly to them. He visits them. He provides social services for them. He tells them they are important, and that their opinions matter. Most importantly, he listens to them. I know that is a radical concept, listening to poor people, caring about what happens to them, but it seems to work for him. In return, for the most part they love him, and they vote for him.
On the downside, a lot of his social programs are dependent on high oil prices. If oil prices drop significantly, he could be in trouble. I predict that his approval ratings will drop below 50 percent if Venezuela hits hard times. Also, Im always nervous about any politician who takes on the role of the father figure. Again, the most apt comparison for Mr. Chavez is Juan Peron, not Fidel Castro.
Also, while Mr. Chavez is doing good things for Venezuela’s neediest citizens, he isnt doing much about creating stable, nonpartisan democratic institutions that will survive his presidency.
JC, Valencia, Venezuela

Mr Cooper, I have many comments on your article and would like to point them out one at a time if you allow me. The first one is in the first paragraph.  After the Dec. 4 Legislative elections, it becomes very difficult to say that Venezuela is a democracy or to justify that. On what basis can you say that today there is democracy in Venezuela? Furthermore, what justification to you have for saying that there is real socialism in Venezuela that goes beyond handouts?  Attached is a recent article on Venezuelan socialism where the socialits denounce Chavez: http://www.spartacist.org/

“level headed state department.”  This says it all.

I am thankful for Truthdig and all other internet news outlets. The mainstream media has become increasingly toxic and I watch only to guage the speed of their fall from grace….Thanks also for the article on Chavez, I am very interested in him. I think that the bottom line is that he was put into power by the people of Venezuela which means that they had the courage to rise up and change the insufferable status quo. Until the American people do the same with Bush, we will have to bear the consequences. Not enough attention is being paid to the apathy that suffocates most dissent in this faux democracy of ours. The republicans are rewarding the rich while robbing the rest of us, and yet they are supported by the very victims they are preying upon! Is this not proof of national insanity? I think that the USA will have to suffer for a while before the time comes when the American people say “Enough!”. Becoming a “participatory” democracy is the only thing that will save us.

I’m trying to understand something…

“Chavez’s mercurial personality…”

I’m taking mercurial to mean:  liable to sudden unpredictable change.  Is this the definition of mercurial you are using?

In any case, could you quantitatively expand on why you chose this adjective to describe Chavez?  You write that he rambles “from subject to subject”.  Are there other,  more specific behaviors that you consider to be indicative of a mercurial personality?

Malcolm wrote, This aspect of the FTAA gets little or no attention, but it is important to IP owners everywhere.

I think you meant “collectors of economic rents everywhere.”

Unfortunately I have yet to set foot in Venezuela. I just last month retired from a “lifetime of shoveling smoke” (as Judge Learned Hand so memorably described his career in the law), and hope to expand my virtual travelling (via the internet) to the real thing. Meanwhile, I endeavor to inform myself on what nefarious activities our latest World Champion of Democracy (President of the moment) is up to, while reading Spanish literature and journalism for fun. And being who I am (a Depression child, a WW2 adolescent, a Korean War veteran, a CORE member, a self-appointed lawyer for Khaddafi’s bombed little children, etc.), I will no doubt continuing inflicting my radical views on more reasonable folks like you. In any event, I am honored that we “kind of agree.” Keep up the good work.

Yes I have to agree with Louis Proyect and Richard Young. I feel that Marc Cooper gives the game away through numerous slanted uses of language. For example to say “In the heat of the confusion, military commanders arrested Chavez” makes it sound as if the coup happened almost by accident.

Though Cooper writes at length, he sometimes leaves out very important details. For example he says the opposition pulled out from the most recent elections because of their “fears that voting machines could register the identities and choices of individual balloters”. What he fails to mention is they pulled out after it was agreed not to use these fingerprinting machines in an attempt to bend over backwards to accommodate the opposition!

Most damaging to the bona fides of the article though is the fact that Cooper happily quotes Alexander Boyd as if he were a serious “critic” instead of the hysterical propagandist he is as even a quick visit to his website will make abundantly clear.

Balance doesn’t mean anything.  Well, it does mean something, it means that you are considering Golden Means fallacy to have some sort of value.  It also achieved “balance” by glossing over a few things. 

Human Rights Watch is cited as saying Venezuelan police are corrupt and brutal.  The thing is Chavez doesn’t control the police.  The chief of police in Caracas is an opposition crazy who thinks Chavez is Hitler.  Chavez tried to fire him and the same people bitching about the brutal police turned around and pointed at how this was more proof of his undemocratic intentions.  Why the Chief of Police was duly elected!

Thanks for an interesting and seemingly balanced article.  Since I automatically discount anything this administration says about Chavez, it’s nice to be able to read something that seems fact-based.

I would like to take the liberty of making two points in the area of my expertise, intellectual property law. 

First, Venezuela has the hemisphere’s worst Trademark Office.  It is an absolute disaster.  Whatever else President Chavez can do, he can’t run a Trademark Office efficiently.  Maybe he just doesn’t care; balanced against literacy, public healthcare, and the like, a Trademark Office doesn’t make it and shouldn’t make it.  Still, Croatia and Bosnia kept their Trademark Offices going full tilt right through the war, without even a burp, and run much more efficiently than ours.

Second, the FTAA is an intellectual property disaster area.  This aspect of the FTAA gets little or no attention, but it is important to IP owners everywhere.  The details are too technical to present here, but I’ll be happy to do so on request.  To the extent that President Chavez is anti-FTAA, he ought to be applauded by IP owners.  Oddly, I haven’t seen Disney, Microsoft, AOL Time Warner, and the pharmaceuticals stepping up to the plate.

Again, many thanks for a helpful post, and many more thanks for the site that made it possible.  Don’t have to go to http://www.latimes anymore.

Marc and I disagree about a lot of things, he is an unreconstructed “progressive” and I a knuckle dragging Neandertholic conservative.  Having said that, and knowing the contempt to which he holds Chavez, this has been a balanced and well thought out piece.  Obviously, Marc’s writing is filtered through the filter of progressive and anti-Bush rhetoric as mine is filtered through a conservative filter, but all and all, well done Marc. 

Now, if you could get past your obvious anti-Bush proclivities, perhaps you could write about the understandable antipathy of the Bush administration to a thug like Chavez.

xposted on Marc’s blog Marc Cooper

Leaving aside Chavez’s internal failures (he’s a “nicer” Charles Taylor, just another thuggish warlord and will doubtless rule as long as Eternal Presidente Castro, king-for-life going on 40 years now). Well, that’s mostly a problem for Venezuelans who have to live under his rule.

Marc makes that point very well.

But the problem with Chavez and Castro is not the “Washington Consensus” and their rejection of it but their continued embrace of armed insurrection inside other countries; alliances with the Iranians and Al Qaeda; and awful influence in Latin America to the detriment of everyone in the region and the US in particular.

The Washington Consensus I agree is a failure, it said that the problem was too much State Sector crowding out any private economy and a distorted, mercantilist system that was very fragile and inefficient compared to foreign competitors. This was arguably true but not the main problem, rather the symptom of too much Charles Taylorism (without the extreme violence) and general thuggery that led to a neo-feudal system. Dismantling the public sector without tackling the corruption and thuggery did nothing and so the Washington Consensus failed because only the symptom not the disease was addressed. Leaving the state sectors alone will fixing corruption is what Lula is trying and so far it’s showing results. By fixing the underlying issue.

Lula has NOT said that going back to neo-feudalism is a solution, and has advocated reform and anti-corruption measures as well as fiscal discipline to make Brazil a more wealthy country. We should promote Lula (who has generally good relations with Washington) and isolate Chavez and Castro, both of whom have aided the Marxist guerillas in Colombia and encouraged coups there.

Chavez and Castro argue that the solution is one giant Latin American country under their rule; with “Bolivarist” structures i.e. Peronist neo-feudalism, and alliances with Iran and Al Qaeda to “destroy” the US. They are our enemies (though not our chief ones) and there’s no getting round it.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35193-2005Mar14.html

“Iran has every right . . . to develop atomic energy and to continue its research in that area,” Chavez said at a joint appearance with Khatami. “All over the world, there is a clamor for equality . . . and profound rejection of the imperialist desires of the U.S. government. Faced with the threat of the U.S. government against our brother people in Iran, count on us for all our support.”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/002/346jorji.asp

“A day after the September 11 terrorist attacks, President Chavez declared that “The United States brought the attacks upon itself, for their arrogant imperialist foreign policy.” Chavez also described the U.S. military response to bin Laden as “terrorism,” claiming that he saw no difference between the invasion of Afghanistan and the September 11 terrorist attacks.”

Yesterday in Colombia, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton gave a press conference where he unequivocally stated that the Chavez government will not refer to the FARC Colombian terrorists as “terrorists,” because the Chavez government wishes to remain “neutral.”
————————————————-
I don’t see how Chaves is NOT the enemy of the people of the United States. That’s not even considering the allegations of Chavez’s personal pilot that Hugo Chavez gave Al Qaeda ten million dollars after 9/11. Questionable perhaps but it would not be the first time a buffon acted like a buffoon.

Marc you were shamefully remiss in this area, in an otherwise excellent article. It took me four minutes of googling. The only conclusion we can make is that Chavez is indeed our enemy and the friend of Iran’s crazy President.

I share your opposition to laws (Venezuelan or otherwise)which restrict freedom of the press; but I do not subscribe to the selective focus by journalists/media/human rights organizations on such restrictive laws of certain disobedient foreign governments (Cuba, Venezuela), while much worse laws—and more importantly, practices—of certain obedient foreign governments (Saudi Arabia, Egypt) receive relatively less condemnation. As for the “unhealthy quota” of control which Mr. Cooper says that President Chavez presently has over the entirety of Venezuelan governmental institutions, I would ask two questions: (1) After the pre-election concessions which the CNE made at the request of the opposition parties (to address their claimed concerns about the fairness/transparency of the election process), was it President Chavez’s fault that the opposition parties nonetheless withdrew from the election—and thereby ensured that the pro-Chavez candidates would have an “unhealthy quota” of the legislature? (2) How does President Chavez’s “unhealthy quota” of governmental powers compare with President Bush’s quota?  My questions are not intended to quarrel with Mr. Cooper (whose article is in many respects admirable), but rather to make a basic point: President Chavez is a (several times now) democratically elected representative of a large majority of Venezuelan voters, who deserves to be evaluated on the basis of what he has undertaken to do—and done to date—for the majority of Venezuelan citizens. If that kind of evaluation is honestly and competently made, I believe that President Chavez compares very favorably with his predecessors over the past several decades. In any event, that judgment is for Venezuelan voters who (I trust you will concede) continue to enjoy democratic voting procedures which are at least as trustworthy as those employed in our recent national elections.

As a “revolution” this appears to be one of the less bloody ones.

It may be that, in these times, change will have to take place at a speed that appears revolutionary.

And, it may be that Chavez is not “in control” of all of those sectors of government, but that they are acting in unusual unanimity.

IOW, we may not need to subscribe to a “devil theory” to explain what we’re seeing.  I think this should be a welcome train of thought to all rational people….

Hello all,

Cooper’s essay is ironic in that Hugo Chevez and Bush seem to be cut from the same mold; bullies, ego-maniacs and two to be wary of.

One wonders just how much care our president has for the people of his country when he antagonizes a majr oil resource.

It’s apparent that Chevez is afraid of Bush, as he’d best be.  Our cowboy prez shoots from the hip and his aim is dead-eye!

In his fine article, Mr. Cooper neglected to mention what must be a poke in the eye of the Bush administration.  This occurred when President Chavez arranged to subsidize oil exports to several northeastern states to meet the needs of the American disadvantaged.  Chavez turns out to have a more benevolent domestic policy toward the American people than the Bush administration or the Republicans who control congress.  If this be the new hemispheric populism, than let’s make the most of it.

The balanced piece that Mr. Cooper wrote helped to provide great insight into the relationship between the George W. Bush Administration and Hugo Chavez-led Venezuelan Government.  The common thread between Bush and Chavez seems to be that neither leader really wishes for democratic rule in Venezuela, albeit for different reasons.

Mr. Cooper, thanks for a fine article and I look forward to reading more learned essays by you.

Also, thanks to Truthdig for bringing this fine web site to us.

“blind hostility and confrontation toward Chavez is not only hypocritical but also counterproductive-damaging to Washington, to Venezuela, and ultimately to the Venezuelan people”

That is the best summary of how I’ve always felt since Chavez came into power. His movement is turning into a personality cult and it didn’t need to.

I wouldn’t classify Parenti as a pro-Chavez writer. His article for the Nation was very balanced and his observations were not inconsistant with Marc’s conclusions.

As a daily reader (in Spanish) of El Universal and other anti-Chavez Venezuelan newspapers for the past five years, my comment on the subject article is that Mr. Cooper errs on the side of our Government’s propaganda line on Chavez in particular, and Latin America in general. Cooper lends credence to the absurd line that Chavez has intimidated the opposition press (which any literate observer can readily disprove by reading El Universal on-line today and every day for the past five years). Cooper also lends credence to the absurd line that Chavez effectively controls all branches of the Venezuelan government (which any fair observer can easily disprove by noting the fact that the Venezuelan courts allowed virtually every leading member of the military/business/labor coup against Chavez to escape to their presently comfortable exiles in Columbia, Miami and elsewhere). As for our Government’s involvement in the coup, Cooper goes lightly over the well documented facts that our Ambassador (Shapiro) personally had an early (roughly 6AM) breakfast with coup-leader Cardona while the duly elected President of Venezuela was being held at gun-point by his military subordinates and American military advisers were physically present in the Presidential palace. Cooper also conveniently fails to note that since the Venezuelan coup, our Government also directly participated in the Haitian coup, wherein our Ambassador appeared in the middle of the night at the Presidential residence with armed American forces, asked the duly elected President of Haiti to give our Ambassador a signed resignation document, and then flew President Aristide off to an unknown destination (which turned out to be an African dictatorship friendly to our Government). Cooper also glosses over a “labor strike” which was in reality a management lock-out by the top officials of the Venezuelan government’s petroleum enterprise—the only purpose of which was to shut down the Venezuelan government’s primary source of income, and thereby to force President Chavez out of his elected office. To those of us who are old enough to recall our Government’s relentless series of open and covert armed interventions over the past half-century in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Granada, Panama and Haiti (several times), Mr. Cooper’s story sacrifices truth for “balance.” As a matter of fact, our Government (on an unfortunately bi-partisan basis) has consistently sought to control the internal political affairs of nations all over the world, including Latin America, and our Government shows no signs of changing that policy in the foreseeable future. In my opinion, Mr. Cooper could better employ his considerable talents by candidly acknowledging our Government’s imperial policies and practices regarding Venezuela (and particularly Venezuelan petroleum resources) for the past century, and then fairly evaluating President Chavez’s conduct in that historical context. If he did so, I suspect that President Chavez would emerge as the most effective representative of the Venezuelan people in modern history.

Chavez is not perfect, very likely a man drunk on power. But he is popular (60%) with his people, has withstood a BushCo coup attempt, and is using oil profits to benefit the poor. So he can’t be all bad.

For a nation sitting on so much oil wealth to have such a disparity between rich and poor is shameful. And it has been this way for a very long time. The old PeDeVesa oil establishment had to go, and Chavez was the man with the axe.

It is my belief that BushCo opposes him not so much for his left-wing policies as for his professed willingness to accept Euros instead of dollars for oil purchases.

BushCo cannot allow ANYONE to break the long-standing US dollar hegemony. Saddam was the first to try. Iran is soon to be the second. Chavez has been talking about it. Stay tuned.

Mr. Cooper should be commended for one of the most balanced critiques of Mr. Chavez that I have ever read. That I am reading it in a US medium is even more cause for joy. Mr. Chavez is no angel, but he is the president of Venezuela, fair and square, sin duda. The US should respect that.
I support Mr. Chavez to a point. To this point, his greatest single triumph was the destruction of the two ruling parties, Accion Democracia and Copei, that had robbed this country blind for 40+ years. Yes, he has consolidated his power, as all politicians do, but it has been done legally, at the ballot box.
The opposition is in disarray, moreso even that the US Democrats. But Chavez’s superheated rhetoric leaves me nervous. He is constantly on TV, developing a personality cult, and I believe the comparison to Juan Peron is accurate. He called Mexico’s Fox a “puppy” or lapdog of the US, which was needlessly insulting. Was Mr. Fox a lapdog when he denounced the US-backed 2002 coup?
The extent of the Bush Administration’s role in the 2002 coup is still not fully known, but I cannot imagine how anyone in the opposition would have felt emboldened to topple Mr. Chavez without a wink from the U.S.
Can anyone explain to me why the MSM in the US have not more vigorously attempted to ascertain the Bush Administration’s role in the coup? It has played a huge role in discrediting the US in LatAm, almost as much as the invasion of Iraq.
JC, Valencia, Venezuela

This article was an exercise in damning with faint praise. Cooper should write about topics he is more enthusiastic about, like poker, vintage muscle cars and fishing. This pastiche of attacks on Chavez culled together in the name of defending him is just another marker in Cooper’s headlong slide into Hitchens territory.

I am really glad that Marc pointed out the obvious hypocrisy between what the Bush administration claims is democracy building in Iraq to its anti-democracy position on the coup in Venezuela. This disconnect is never touched upon in the mainstream media, but to me seems fundamental in our discussions of why we are in Iraq. This hypocrisy is not lost on the other Latin American countries who are becoming more distant from the US all the time. Many like Venezuela and Chile are looking east to China as an alternative.