“New Vision” Is The Same Old Coup
Although this article in the New York Times does present a fairly good overview of the opposition to (T)Hugo Chavez's coup, the tone is generally sympathetic to the soon-to-be-president for life. This isn't really surprising given the fact that the western media has always had a hard time recognizing the real monsters. That being why Fidel Castro still gets kid glove treatment.
A sweeping revision of the Constitution, expected to be approved by referendum on Dec. 2, is both bolstering Mr. Chávez’s popularity here among people who would benefit and stirring contempt from economists who declare it demagogy. Signaling new instability here, dissent is also emerging among his former lieutenants, one of whom says the president is carrying out a populist coup.
“There is a perverse subversion of our existing Constitution under way,” said Gen. Raúl Isaías Baduel, a retired defense minister and former confidant of Mr. Chávez who broke with him in a stunning defection this month to the political opposition. “This is not a reform,” General Baduel said in an interview here this week. “I categorize it as a coup d’état.”
Chávez loyalists already control the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, almost every state government, the entire federal bureaucracy and newly nationalized companies in the telephone, electricity and oil industries. Soon they could control even more.
But this is an upheaval that would be carried out with the approval of the voters. While opinion polls in Venezuela are often tainted by partisanship, they suggest that the referendum could be Mr. Chávez’s closest electoral test since his presidency began in 1999, but one he may well win.
“We are witnessing a seizure and redirection of power through legitimate means,” said Alberto Barrera Tyszka, co-author of a best-selling biography of Mr. Chávez. “This is not a dictatorship but something more complex: the tyranny of popularity.”
Chavez is not even close to being the first tyrant to mask his takeover behind populism or mob rule. It has happened time and again throughout recorded history. Hiding behind a mask of democracy does not a democracy make. It is one of the reasons the framers of the American constitution formed this country into a representative republic.
In the long run, the people of Venezuela will pay a bitter price for the rule of a tyrant like Chavez. Just ask Doctor Oscar Elias Biscet what life is like under Fidel Castro. If you can get into the prison to talk to him. Then back out, which is the tricky part.
Media, World news | Gaius Saturday, 17 November , 2007
By Greg, Saturday, 17 November , 2007 @ 1:41 pm
“This isn’t really surprising given the fact that the western media has always had a hard time recognizing the real monsters. ”
I remember my college days, back around ‘80 or so. I spent a lot of time talking to the communists, socialists, and a few other ‘ists’ on campus. Very enlightening. Capitalism is evil, the US is a monster, “real communism” hasn’t been tried yet, but at least the Soviets get points for trying, so they’re better than us. And on and on.
Where do these people go when they graduate? Into government jobs and the media.
So all a brutal, bloodthirsty, mass-murdering dictator has to do is put a socialist/communist label on his work, or utter the leftist platitudes, and our media will eat it up. Even if they don’t they’re given some benefit of the doubt, since the US is the source of all evil.