Caracas blogging

Helmut here, in Venezuela. Got in last night. My hosts have put me up in a beautiful family-run posada. Like a little rainforest oasis in an upscale part of the city near the foot of the mountain nature preserve. They have wifi, so I can blog from a spot where all around me are giant bamboo trees, banana trees, and other large trees and their epiphytes, lianas, the peeping of tree frogs and a bright yellow bird.

I had a nice discussion this morning at a cafe famous as an "opposition" meeting place with one of the board of directors of a wealthy foundation that is partially funding my trip. He's a kind, lovely gentleman scholar of the South American aristocratic-intellectual Cambridge-educated sort. We had a good discussion about the politics of Venezuela.

There are mixed feelings about Chavez from all the people I spoke with today. He has done some good things in Venezuela, funded some important projects, including Catholic schools in the poor neighborhoods that are now producing some very good scholars who go on to the universities. Before Chavez they had nothing and no aspirations. The poor in Caracas' "ranchos" (favelas) love him. And the city as a whole appears to be booming with lots of new construction. Even the opposition gentleman I met today admits that the previous government was so corrupt and so damaging to Venezuelan society and the economy, that Chavez -- though many still distrust him -- is an important step in the right direction. Before him, investors had been leaving the country, including many wealthy expatriates. Now some are returning, even while Chavez tries to redistribute some of the oil revenues, and even while corruption continues. But much of the opposition apparently thinks of him as a buffoon who's walking a thin line. Of course, he has brought a new class of rich cronies with him too -- a nouveau riche who aren't afraid to be ostentatious about it. That's probably par for the course. (The number of wealthy and politically connected lobbyists in DC boomed after Bush took office). And Chavez, apparently, has a habit of making promises to help other Latin American countries with influxes of capital that usually do not come to fruition.

Chavez is playing politics with the continent. But so is Bush and, as Barba notes below, not too well for the moment or at least in the manner of the spoiled child-prince. One of my hosts, however, mentioned to me today that while Chavez is doing populist rabble-rousing in Buenos Aires, Bush and gang have been making the kind of backroom economic deals the South American leaders are really after. So, perhaps what we need are categories of the variations of buffoonery.

The late afternoon rain is about to fall.