OPINION Venezuela,
America's anti-universe Hugo
Chavez, a war veteran, wears civilian clothes while his
US counterpart, George W Bush, who evaded a war he
supported, cannot appear often enough in a military
uniform. Chavez raised taxes to pay down Venezuela's
debt, while Bush regards taxing billionaires as
something close to unconstitutional. Quantum physicists
have a name for what we see here: parallel universes. -
Ian Williams
OPINION Venezuela, America's
anti-universe By Ian Williams
Quantum physicists discuss parallel universes in
a matter-of-fact sort of way. In some of them, they
posit that there is a reversal of basic properties, so
there is a positron where we have an electron, or time
flows in the opposite direction. Looking at events in
Venezuela, one wonders whether political scientists and
columnists should think in similar terms. Is Simon
Bolivar's republic on the Spanish Main a sort of
anti-universe to the United States?
During this
week's referendum in the South American country, it was
almost like watching through a looking glass. However,
it is not a straight mirror-image - more like one of
those distorting mirrors in a carnival.
While we
are invited to distrust Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez
because he actually served in the military, even if he
missed Vietnam, US presidential candidates are competing
on the basis of who is the best animated GI Joe figure
on offer.
Chavez, the genuine Venezuelan
veteran, now wears civilian clothes, but US President
George W Bush cannot appear often enough in military
uniform or in front of military audiences, such as the
Veterans of Foreign Wars convention he spoke at this
week. Although Bush is now running as the paragon of
military virtues, he actually evaded one foreign war he
supported, in Vietnam, and started another with no
intention of risking his neck there, in Iraq.
Bush's chief contender for the presidency, John
Kerry, is campaigning on his military service, while not
mentioning, much, that he returned to oppose the war in
which he had actually fought and bled. Of course his
opponents, such as Swift Boat Veterans for Recovered
Memory Syndrome, think that makes him less military than
the guy who dodged and ran while cheerleading from home.
Some conservative commentators accused Chavez of
buying votes, as if providing work, health care and
education to the poorest and usually forgotten
Venezuelans were a heinous crime. But you can see where
they come from. One of the objections of the rich and
middle-class opposition in Venezuela is that Chavez
expects them to pay taxes. And not just that, he
actually raised taxes to pay down the ballooning
government deficit that he inherited from his
predecessors who are now in opposition.
In
contrast, George W Bush has almost succeeded in making
it a constitutional amendment that billionaires do not
pay taxes. In the United States, giving tax breaks to
the already rich and padding corporate welfare rolls is,
of course, perfectly democratic, as is allowing forests
and national parks to be looted and mined without any
benefit to most citizens.
What a telling
contrast with a Latin America caudillo who is
using record oil revenues to finance welfare programs.
And every Bush supporter knows that while other nations'
deficits are signs of slippery creeping socialism,
impending anarchy and unfitness to govern, running up a
deficit in Washington is just a legitimate cost of
pork-barreling and military adventurism.
Having
radio and television stations owned by rich proprietors
who are rabidly reactionary and totally uninhibited by
any regard for fairness and balance adds to the
parallels, except that in the USA the anchorpeople
maintain that the president can do no wrong, while in
Venezuela he can do no right.
Chavez of course
seized an unfair advantage by ensuring the registration
of millions of dark-colored and poor citizens on the
voting rolls, which is clearly a threat to democracy as
we know it. This is in no way comparable to seizing the
presidency with a fistful of dubious votes because your
brother gerrymandered a key state up the Everglades and
back with ethnic cleansing of voting rolls and selective
application of balloting rules, which allows you to
preach the export of democracy to the rest of the world.
Indeed, one was horrified to hear that Chavez
was using his slim majority in the National Assembly to
pack the Supreme Court with politically motivated
justices to ensure that he won any challenges to his
referendum results. It couldn't happen in the United
States! We all know it is inconceivable that five
Supreme Court justices all appointed by previous
Republican presidents would vote to suspend the counting
of the ballots in Florida because to continue doing so
would "irremediably harm" the rights of one George W
Bush, reputedly a Republican Party member.
But
Venezuela is a banana republic, not to be measured by
the standards of civilized and developed countries. How
can you trust a country that was the first to abolish
the death penalty, back in 1853?
It is difficult
to give wholehearted support for Chavez, despite amiably
independent characteristics such as calling the
president of the United States an "asshole", publicly
hoping he loses the next election, and (oh horror!)
thinking current high oil prices are "fair", while
looking to a European social-democratic model rather
than a Chicago School neo-liberal one.
After
all, Chavez was the leader of a military coup in times
past, and he shows a populist tendency to assume that he
represents the will of the people, unlike Bush, who was
the beneficiary of a judicial coup in 2000, and who
assumes that he represents the will of God and the
people.
Chavez does show some authoritarian
tendencies, although nothing perhaps so draconian as the
USA Patriot (Uniting and Strengthening America by
Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and
Obstruct Terrorism) Act. And seriously, Human Rights
Watch has pointed out that he is hardly running a Latin
American Sweden. Guns go pop in the night and,
statistically, they are more likely to pop at the
opposition than vice versa.
However, it was
Chavez who introduced the constitutional change that
allowed a recall referendum, and he won it in the teeth
of national media that were overwhelmingly overtly
partisan against him. He has won elections and referenda
by clear majorities. In short, he is an indisputably
elected leader.
One almost wishes that John
Kerry could at least as loudly and unequivocally promise
social justice for the millions of Americans without
health care, or access to proper education, or
progressive taxation on the ultra-rich.
It might
motivate them to turn out in the same numbers that the
marginalized Venezuelans do, despite Fox, MSNBC and
Clear Channel. Unless we assume that the average
Venezuelan is just much smarter than the average
American - or Chavez smarter than the average American
Democratic contender.
Ian Williams'
latest book Deserter: Bush's War on Military
Families, Veterans and His Past, from Nation Books is
available on Amazon.com.
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