Friday, March 10, 2006

Is that a knock at my door?

Since harrassment of people connected to the Middle East worked so well, let's move on to Venezuela, shall we? (via Long Sunday).

3 comments:

roxtar said...

I feel like Faye Dunaway in Chinatown:

"It's the ignorance!"

(smack)

"It's the arrogance!"

(smack)

"It's the ignorance!"

(smack)

"It's the arrogance!"

(smack)

helmut said...

Really? I don't remember that. It has been a while since I saw Chinatown. But I understand the sentiment.

I think the VZ thing is just stupid. Even Venezuelans are trying to figure out where they stand, where they're going. It's a place full of good ideas, and old problems. Few of the problems originate with Chavez. Unless you're an American or VZ opposition ideologue. But underneath the rhetorical exchanges between the US and VZ is freely flowing oil and basically a Venezuelan state that wishes to build a relatively open market upon the support of strong social justice programs. And that ain't bad at all, especially when half your population is poor.

It's as if the US is locked into 1970s/80s Cold War Latin American shenaniganism as the only possible policy. Not surprising since the same architects of that era are architecting now. But this time it's not going to work. BushCo has blown to shreds their ability to work that system. No one in SA believes their threats. No one really cares that much except for the classes that want to preserve their post-colonial prestige and status.

So, BushCo has inadvertently created a climate in which they're the evil meanies and the left feels truly, for once, empowered by US weakness. In this sense, I actually think Bush has done something good. He is a failed president and that has provided the window of opportunity for Latin America to work out its own non-Soviet, non-US capitalist directions. I think we're seeing the beginnings of a beautiful relationship, to do another movie reference, if only the US can elect a president with some vision.

roxtar said...

"She's my sister....daughter....sister....daughter, etc."

The residuum of the underplayed "Incest Among the Mulrays" plotline.