Chavismo


September 25th, 2007

if hugo chavez were running for president, i would probably vote for him.

on the fad of giving breast implants as birthday gifts:

Chavez complained about the new fad of giving the plastic surgery operation at 15 — when Latin Americans celebrate a girl’s coming-of-age — during a diatribe against what he says are Western-imposed consumerist icons such as Barbie dolls.

people claim he’s corrupt – but compared to GW, he’s practically a saint. he’s not afraid to try out unique strategies for relieving social problems, and according to wikipedia, despite the alleged corruption, his policies have resulted in discernable improvements at all levels of society:

The “Bolivarian Missions” have entailed the launching of government anti-poverty initiatives, the construction of thousands of free medical clinics for the poor, the institution of educational campaigns that have reportedly made more than one million adult Venezuelans literate, and the enactment of food and housing subsidies. The infant mortality rate fell by 18.2% between 1998 and 2006. The government earmarked 44.6% of the 2007 budget for social investment, with 1999-2007 averaging 12.8% of GDP.

see also: democratic socialism

or, see conservapedia’s chavez entry for a, uh….different, point of view.

it’s one of those cases where we are told some other leader is evil/corrupt because they don’t play the games the US wants them to play in the way the US wants them to (like OPEC and World Bank), when in reality they are no more evil/corrupt than any of our own politicians. just because someone hates the US does not mean they are corrupt (or any more corrupt than our own), and particularly if a leader is socialist/communist, they are automatically “evil” even if they are doing good works because the US still believes democracy is the greatest thing ever, despite any evidence to the contrary.

recall that chavez won the 2006 Time Magazine “person of the year” online reader poll, and Time opted to instead make the web 2.0 users the “person of the year”[/url] (catering to good ol’ american egotism and sense of self-importance), presumably because putting chavez in a positive light would mean too much backlash for Time Warner corp. that chain of events – users selecting a controversial winner –>Time selecting the users (without mentioning who they chose) – still makes my head spin.

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