Since when is Chavez a dictator?

Venezuela has held half-a-dozen major elections for national offices and issues since 1998, the year of Chávez’s first presidential victory. That election saw Chávez beating his nearest rival by 16 percentage points, 56 percent to 40 percent, in a vote that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called “a remarkable demonstration of democracy in its purest form.” (Chicago Tribune, 12/8/98.)

In 2000, in a re-election required by the new Venezuelan constitution, Chávez increased his winning margin, 60 percent to 38 percent. In each case the elections were monitored and certified by a variety of observers including the Organization of American States, the European Union and the Carter Center.

Despite the CI..sorry, conspiracy hot-flush there...National Endownment for Democracy's efforts or the US embassy for that matter, which actually funded violent street thugs.  

Even The New York Times says: "Mr. Chávez remains, at least technically, a democrat. He has repeatedly beaten Venezuela’s dysfunctional opposition in elections deemed fair by international observers."

Come on Jamie, let's not let our understandable revulsion over the treatment of homosexuals in Cuba get the better of us here.

I'm assuming you're equally disgusted with US support for other gay bashing "partners". Half the ME springs to mind. And I somehow suspect you weren't one of those human rights advocates who spoke out in outrage as Priests were getting their throats slit, or when mothers were forced to watch their children being shot by Central American terrorists, funded and directed by your own government in the 80's.

Whoa...another conspiracy hot-flush there...than never happened, of course. Maybe I should read The Nation?

Hmm, he doesn't actually make the case that Penn isn't an ally of the gay community and certainly not in the way implied by the summary above.  This is a typical and typically tiresome Kirchickian game of connect the dots.  Penn hearts Chavez and Raul Castro, Fidel did very bad things to gays, ergo Penn is no friend of gays.  This is silly.  Penn may well be an idiot about Chavez and Castro -- I haven't read the article -- and he may well be ignorant of Cuba's past treatment of gays.  (Kirchick says nothing about Chaves or even Raul specifically in relation to gays even though they are the ostensible subjects of the Penn article.)  But Penn's probably flawless and completely correct in his views on gay rights and, in that sense, is probably a very good friend to gays indeed.  People are typically right about some things and wrong about others.  This doesn't make them *always* wrong about everything.

Anyway, this is awfully rich, coming from Kirchick.  Isn't *he* the one who's in bed with bigots?  By which I mean American conservatives?  He might object, oh, well, I don't agree with them on *that.*  As would Penn in relation to Cuba's past anti-gay actions.  Kirchick's way around this problem is to suggest that you would have expected Penn to ask these guys about gay rights, and he didn't, so how dare he?  Please.  I wouldn't necessarily expect any such thing -- gay rights was not the focus, no doubt, of the article.  Moreover, Penn probably isn't familiar with this history that Kirchick is emphasizing and Kirchick presents no evidence that it's a contemporary concern in either country anyway.  (It may well be, but Kirchick doesn't point to anything to say it is.)  Ugh.

While in Germany in matters related to World War II, Dwight D. Eisenhower reportedly became enamored of the German Autobahn to such an extent that he readily signed on to the Interstate Highway System that forever changed America's politics, culture, and ecology.

Well, that settles it: Ike was a fucking Nazi.

What's the point of making these videos? Why not just type it up? I wish TNR would get rid of "TNR TV" and open up its archives instead.

Things in Cuba are changing under its new leadership - here's this from last spring:

www.msnbc.msn.com/.../24685283

They're playing Brokeback Mountain on state television!  

James, alas, is not old enough to have remembered the role America played in installing and then sustaining some of the most vicious reactionary thug regimes this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Does he really imagine that the Monroe Doctrine has been invoked throughout our nation's history only to further the interests of spreading democracy, individual liberty, labor rights, equal opportunity for all?

Is he really this stuptifyingly credulous?

Or perhaps he will channel Jeanne Kirkpatrick in a new post that, once again, notes the distinction between authoritarian regimes [the brutal thugs America supported] and totalitarian regimes [the brutal thugs supported by the Commies].

Few will deny that Chavez and the Castro brothers run regimes that leave a lot to be desired for those who champion democratic republics. I don't deny it. But other folks [especially the reactionaries] just flick aside the fact that Chavez and Castro genuinely sought to bring literacy and education and health care to ALL [or at least a lot more] of the people in their nations.

Socialism [at least as it was intended] may have morphed historically into collectives from Hell. But don't try to pretend that the American government has ever been interested in anything South of the border other than lining up banana republics for United Fruit and all of its corporate progeny.

To wit:

1850-56: U.S. soldiers defend American-built transisthmian railroad in Panama

1852-53: U.S. Marines land in Argentina to protect American interests during a revolution

1855: U.S. forces sent to Uruguay to protect American lives and property

1856: William Walker, with a mercenary army, conquers Nicaragua.

1857: Cornelius Vanderbilt funds the war against Walker, and hires American mercenary Sylvanus M. Spencer to lead Costa Rican forces

1885: Washington sends--in one of the first acts of "gunboat diplomacy"--the USS Wachusett to Guatemala to defend American lives and property

1898: America defeats Spain and annexes or assumes control of Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico (and also annexes Hawaii)

1903: The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty makes the U.S. the "sovereign" power in the Panama Canal Zone

1904: Roosevelt announces his corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, and takes customs control of the Dominican Republic

1905: U.S. Marines land in Honduras

1906-09: U.S. forces occupy Cuba

1910: U.S. forces land in Nicaragua and control--for the next thirty-eight years--the country's finances

1912: United Fruit begins operations in Honduras

1914-34: U.S. troops occupy Haiti

1916-24: U.S. Marines occupy the Dominican Republic

1918: U.S. army lands in Panama to protect United Fruit plantations

1920-21: U.S. troops support a coup in Guatemala

1926-33: U.S. marines occupy Nicaragua and wage war against Sandino's peasant army

1936-79: U.S. support for the Somozas

1954: CIA-United Fruit coup in Guatemala

1961: CIA-supported invasion of the Bay of Pigs

1966: U.S. Green Berets take part in "Operation Guatemala"; over 8,000 Guatemalans killed

1981-90: U.S. funds contra war in Nicaragua

1983: U.S. invasion of Granada

1989: U.S. invasion ousts Panamanian dictator and former CIA operative, Manuel Noriega.

And this list does not include other incursions like the destablization of the Allende regime and the concommitant installation of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile.

george walton

Inamb:

You forgot to mention the country that  Panama was apart of and why it fought for independence.

I have learned never to trust kirchick's representations of anyone's work. The lad has too often purposely misrepresented the positions of others - does the names Eric Alterman & Matt Yglesias ring a bell for tnr readers? It would not be off the mark to call kirchick a liar; he has been publicly caught and called out for it and after a Foer woodshed whuppin', was made to publicly apologize on this board for his lies.

I will read the article myself to make my own judgements about what Penn did or did not assert.

Wasn't Chavez elected? I can see calling the Castros dictators but like it or not, Chavez was elected. What do they teach these thick headed boys in them Ivy schools these days???

What tbbaker said. What's the point of the video format if all it features is talking heads anyway? What's the added value? Now making the archives properly accessible online, that would have an added value..

The real problem is Kirchick's weird snotty approach -- typical of him.  Jonah Goldbergian, you might say.  If you want to criticize Penn's article, just do it, and in a way that inspires confidence that you're not deliberately distorting it to make a cutesy half-assed point.  (As in, Ha Ha, Penn isn't all gay-friendly as all you liberals think, so there.  Liberals are Fascists!  Kirchick out.)  In that alternative world, the world in which people try to persuade using reasoned argument, we would take the underlying point of view more seriously and afford its expressions greater respect.  I mean, I don't think we're all a bunch of Chavez/Castro lovers who are all salivating at the prospect of a Penn-authored article on foreign affairs over here.  And yet we bristle at this sort of thing.  It's like you're *un*convincing us.

I thought Penn was great in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," "Mystic River" and "Sweet and Lowdown." By Kirchick's estimation, that puts me ... IN BED WITH BIGOTS!

That America has supported a lot of bad capitalist leaders doesn't  mean that America should start supporting lots of bad socialist leaders now to balance it out.  Chavez may have originally been elected but banning opponents from running and threatening to send tanks out against anyone who votes against your party isn't really democratic.

tbbaker:  agreed.  I don't subscribe to TNR so I can listen to the white noise of more talking heads.  I look to  websites like this to lower the decibel level by providing thoughtful, substantive journalism without all the noise.  So I refuse to watch the little webcasts.  Maybe that's my loss but I don't think so.

Regarding Sean Penn:  He is an actor whom I go to see in movies.  I do not give a rats ass about which group he does or does not support.  If and when he stands for public office I will pass the appropriate judgments at the appropriate time.  For now, I consider him to be one of the top three male actors we have, for which I consider him to be a national treasure.

Just a point about Chavez: Having gamed a nominally democratic system to maintain oneself in power does not make one a democrat. Is Chavez a dictator? Perhaps not. But it's almost beyond argument that he is a tyrant.

It does speak poorly of any person's judgment, and maybe even character, that he would overlook, condone, or even approve of Chavez's tyranny. Then again, a person who insists that his art be free of the taint of poor political or moral judgment or character on the part of artists is a person whose artistic life will by definition be limited to observing the showrooms at his local Ikea.

I would like to suggest that Kirchick make the late Fred "Mister" Rogers his next target. After all, Rogers was an ordained Presbyterian minister, and the Presbyterian Church is actively seeking to remove dozens of Presbyterian ministers who have performed gay union ceremonies from the church. Ergo, Mister Rogers was professionally in bed with bigots, and what's worse, rebroadcasts of his children's program are funded with public money and deliberately aimed at impressionable children. The horror!

What Poortom said.

What Rhubs said.

What Jhildner said.

What Jaunty said.

What Woody said.

...

There is one thing for which I am thankful.  By so selflessly offering himself as a bi-weekly piñata, Jamie serves two valuable objects: first, he provides a live and contunous reminder of what bad journalism is - and thus, gives us a useful negative standard as against which we can measure others; second - and I say this without a shred of irony - while Jamie is an insufferable intellectual whiner and boor, the posts following his whiney and boorish mutterings are invariably substantive, thought-provoking and interesting.  He also manages otherwise normally calm people to froth at the mouth and use invective, which can be funny or at least entertaining, and that ain't bad.

I mean, without Jamie's assinine faux-syllogisms, you would not get BillYard's gems, would you?

So here is to Jamie - for being the best court jester and class-room fool TNR could provide for the general merriment of the rest of us.

What Poortom said.

What Rhubs said.

What Jhildner said.

What Jaunty said.

What Woody said.

and what Ick said

Another piece of silliness from Kirchick.

Excellent remarks, rhubarbs. Holding elections does not a democrat make. The cretin Chavez proposed a law that would have had Venezuelans spying on each other and he only withdrew it because of overwhelming opposition; even some of his allies couldn't stomach it.

I had a pretty good idea where Jamie was going to go with this without watching the TV show (the Kirchick threshold seems to get lower all the time) - I imagine that others commenting here were no less perspicacious. So, following on from Icarus's post, I propose a solution that will save a little labor on Jamie's part while also assuring that we get the gems from the people in Blackie's list (plus Blackie and of course BillYard), without which reading the Plank and the Stump would be much less enjoyable and informative - Jamie writes a headline then tosses it out to the commenters so they can examine the issue using critical thinking aimed at uncovering the truth rather than the ad hominem, strawman, guilt-by-association arguments employed by Jamie to obscure the actual issues under discussion. If it works here, maybe the Spine can be similarly slimmed down.  

Geoff G:  are you suggesting the inmates should run the asylum?

Can't believe I didn't make the list. It was the throat sliting, right? I knew I should have toned down the god damn throat sliting, damn it! Mac pass me the bottle, Sleepy's already had a slug, give me the bleeding thing Sleepy! Yea I know it's freezing out here but they have to open the door at somepoint, and then we're in like Flynn. I'm going to rob Blackton's seat and warm my ass all over that fire. Jesus it's f*cking freezing out here, here squeeze up, we'll keep ourselves warm...not that close Sleepy.

Poortomsacold - you betcha! Just to be clear, however, I am opposed to letting the clowns run the circus, or the foxes guard the henhouse, both of which proved have disastrous the last eight or so years.

Iggy,

I missed out, too. In this economy you find out who your friends are in a hurry. It's every ID for itself.

Listen man, I found a great freeway overpass, unoccupied except for that meth whore who shows up with a trick once in a while. (She'll do you for a rock--not bad if you can get past the oozing sores.) You and Sleepy are welcome. I still have some of my December SSI check left--I'll spring for some white port if you bring the lemon juice.

Too bad the abandoned mall across the street's off limits. I could still crash in the empty Circuit City, even after Mervyn's and Sharper Image and the Hollywood Video all went belly-up. But then the Pontiac dealer threw in the towel, and they put chain link and razor wire around the whole complex.

Mr Yard, you're a gent. Shift over near that barrell, good man, private property is theft Bill. I'm through with crack whores, the last one wouldn't even do me. Man, when a crack whore is letting you down easy telling you "it's not you, it's me", well, then, it's time to hang up your boots. Between me and you, I don't think Sleepy's too right, poor bastard, the cold's getting into his bones. I always think of Teplukhin around this time of year, I'll never forget finding him stiff as a board underneath that McCain 08 banner. They cashed him out of town Bill, chased him out, that sh*t ain't right, it ain't right, not gentlemenlike if you know what I mean.

Sorry to hear about Tep--the last I saw him was with his "Will Expound on Russia or UHC for Food--God Bless" cardboard sign at the off-ramp, bending over to pick up the quarter Channy tossed him from the limo.

There's a cold front comin' in, but we should be okay. I found a couple pallets of used derivatives behind the old Lehman Brothers building on Main Street. They burn nice and slow.

Laughing out loud here William and throwing in the towel; this is Frank Bruno trying to share the ring with George Foreman.  A pallet of slow burning Lehman Brothers derivatives?  That's a beautiful thing, maybe all that CDS documentation could be put to some good use this season. Paulson could set up a charity for it and some good PR shots of him burning it in barrells to warm the Iraq vets.

I hope your well these days William: Oscar the annoying, biting Cavalier pup says hello to the cat, dog and rooster.

Yard:  "pallet of derivatives."  Ha!  Name of my next novel.

yeah yard, wonderful phrase.

Iggy, a fine effort at keeping up with Mozart - I'd say you succeeded and you made my list.

Channy threw me a quarter last time he was in town too, but Tep wouldn't even look at me.  That's OK - I understand I guess.

Paulson is the most nerve wracking person the market has had to deal with in years - every time he shows his face in front of the cameras, the markets faint.  He should take his vampire teeth and keep to himself, he's scaring the children with his schizophrenia.

Kirchick is just too preditable - Sean Penn is an actor, I don't care about his views on Hugo Chavez, did he do a good job in the role or what?  

Kirchick never misses an opportunity for dorm room platitudes, I'm surprised Lieberman wasn't somehow brought in to this.

Spare us this crap, Jamie boy! I'm as queer as a 3 dollar bill and supposed center-left rags like yours cheer leading for the red-baiting mainstream circus media on behalf of us po' homos scare me far and away more than Penn and Chavez who manage (faults and all) to stand for something besides the status quo. You and your trained seal Vargas Llosa nauseate me!

thomas plagemann

san francisco