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08/23/2004:

"Contained Revolution"

by Michael Shifter Washington Post---Full Article
It's easy to interpret Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's big win at the polls as a sure sign that leftist radicalism is about to sweep the rest of Latin America. So far, though, there is little evidence to support that view.

Chavez's victory in the Aug. 15 recall referendum can be attributed to reasons unique to Venezuela. Record-high oil prices enabled Chavez to employ preelection gimmicks reflected in spectacular social spending in poor barrios. There is nothing radical about such a practice; rather, it is blatantly old-fashioned patronage politics of the sort Chavez has, ironically, often railed against. Chavez also benefited handsomely from turmoil over the U.S. Iraq policy that he so vehemently attacked.

Well this one is good for a giggle. Shifter is v.p. at Inter-American Dialogue, an outfit started in 1982 (just in time for the Contra war in Nicaragua), peopled by IMF, Council on Foreign Relations, Open Society Institute (Soros), Human Rights Watch (Soros),anti-Castro Cuban-types, and the like. As if these guys have the ultimate word on whether Chavez's Venezuela represents a 'real' revolution or not, being in the vanguard of the revolution as they are...When guys like Soros think 'revolution' (shudder), they think dirty commies, and later on in this editorial Shifter points to evidence in the fact that Chavez deals with the petroleum big boys, and thus cannot be a revolutionary. I think it's pretty subversive to use the big bucks of the capitalists to rebuild your infrastructure, rooting out the curruption and dealing with the oil companies on your own terms. He praises Lula in Brazil for promptly selling out his country. Either these guys have not caught up to the new face of Latin American anti-colonialism, or they know darned well it's revolution they're looking at, and are trying to play it down. I suspect the latter. Any country with natural resources like Venezuela can do the same, and then move on to help detox other countries with the IMF/World Bank monkeys on their back.

Inter-American Dialogue Staff (i.e. Rogues' Gallery)