rhetorical broadsides

Foreign governments, not least the US administration, will watch closely to see if the late president's movement, "Chavismo", succeeds in holding power and perpetuating his "21st-century socialist revolution", a model entailing state control of the economy, subsidies to Cuba and rhetorical broadsides against Yankee imperialism.

Ah, the rhetorical broadsides. It’s not cool to say so outright but I think a lot of the way opinion on Chavez has split is down to the holder’s opinion on that issue. I mean, people don’t say ‘how very dare that buffoon say mean and nasty things about the United States of Wonderful’ they just fret insincerely about demagoguery or about how Chavez never diversified the Venezualan economy. Likewise, behind the talk of the man who empowered the poor, there’s a definite undertone of ‘go on, Hugo, show Uncle Yanqui your arse again!’ This is partly why some people went off him after Bush left: ‘you can’t show Obama your arse! He's Obama! And he’s a Democrat!’

 But the rhetorical broadsides did a bit of wider good. You have a leader who survived a coup attempt that the US very much wanted to see succeed and who then based his foreign policy around the Khrushchev principle of throwing a hedgehog down Uncle Sam’s pants at every opportunity: and Uncle Sam went on and let him do it. Uncle Sam was busy at the time rampaging elsewhere and the whole golpista approach was waning after  the end of the Cold War. But it sends a signal to even the dimmest Brazilian general, say, that he’d better knuckle down and learn to live with Lula. It lets the coca farmer in the Altiplano know he can vote for who he wants without worrying about the army showing up and conducting a limpieza. It creates political space.

The problem with Hugo’s variation on the Lat Am left-nationalist-military nexus is that this tradition never survives the death of the founder, at least not with any integrity. Think of Noriega succeeding Torrijos in Panama or the evolution of the PRI in Mexico. Right now Chavismo looks like it may be good for another election, not least because the opposition seems like such an incoherent horrible mess. But it’s difficult to see how an organization whose ideology basically amounts to The Personal Generosity of Hugo Chavez is going to survive over the longer term.

Comments

[shah8]

I'm not sure the Manuel Noriega story can happen in today's times--what with that expulsion of US personnel the other day.

I think the changes will go like from Khrushchev to Brezhnev or Mandela to Mbeki. I do not think a rightward lurch is all that's possible. Chavez was popular because his program was popular, and while institutions are a mess, I suspect Venezuelan politics is too transparent and democritized for things to change much in the US's favor.

I think a very material comparison is with Nasser, and Chavez ultimately compares very well with him, Peron, and pretty much every other populist from the military. Dude pretty much won at life, guys...oh man...

[nick s]

It creates political space.

Exactamente: South American governments of all political stripes now appear to be significantly less beholden to Uncle Yanqui, and Hugo had at least something to do with that. El Presidente in Chile -- a conservative billionaire businessman -- was saying relatively nice things about him, and even Santos in Colombia has been more willing to engage on a broad regional basis than Uribe.

There are a few exceptions (Paraguay had a whiff of the School of the Americas to it) but mainstream right-wing politics seems a lot less dependent upon generals and spooks these days.

[Cian]

Honduras is another exception. And Mexico is firmly in the orbit of its northern neighbor.

Chavez is definitely part of it, but I think Iraq may have been a major contributor. It distracted the US at a time when local movements were pushing. Traditionally the US would have pushed back hard (as they did later in Honduras), but Iraq distracted them at a crucial moment.

Incidentally, Nick Cohen's piece this week on why he was right on Iraq is magnificent. One of the greatest pieces of irony I've read in years.

[alle]

This is art. NPR:

"Chavez invested Venezuela's oil wealth into social programs including state-run food markets, cash benefits for poor families, free health clinics and education programs. But those gains were meager compared with the spectacular construction projects that oil riches spurred in glittering Middle Eastern cities, including the world's tallest building in Dubai and plans for branches of the Louvre and Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi."

[shah8]

http://www.coha.org/hugo-chavez-and-the-future-of-venezuela/

for those that want non-ideological economic analysis of Venezuela's economy over Chavez' reign, and gives obvious places to look at when estimating the job of successor governments in Venezuela.

[NomadUK]

This is art. NPR:

Jesus. I knew there was a good reason I stopped giving those clowns money all those years ago.

[nick s]

Well, that piece is from the AP's business desk, not NPR itself, but Nice Polite Republicans called Hugo a dictator about fifteen times in its own bit.

[Barry Freed]

What nick s said above re creating political space. And now that his corpse is going to be put on permanent display a la Lenin this thrice re-elected "dictator" can troll the US from beyond the grave in perpetuity.

[ajay]

this thrice re-elected "dictator" can troll the US from beyond the grave in perpetuity.

One can only hope that, Hari Seldon-style, he has recorded a load of video messages to be played posthumously at intervals.

[Chris williams]

A load of _really long_ video messages.