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I get that it's real important to leftists to dissociate themselves with the disaster that is Chavez and now Maduro, but ... really ? Just some random links:

I get that it's real important to leftists to dissociate themselves with the disaster that is Chavez and now Maduro, but ... really ? Just some random links: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/09/10/the-revolutionary https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/09/10/the-revolution... https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/05/the-talented-mr-ch-vez/304809/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/05/the-tal... https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/4748 https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/4748 Noam Chomsky praising Hugo Chavez https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2006/may/07/featuresreview.review https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2006/may/07/features... http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-obama-americas20-2009apr20-story.html http://www.latimes.com/la-fg-obama-americas20-2009apr20-stor... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM-iixwmN_A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM-iixwmN_A I think it's pretty fair to say that almost all of the left sang the praises of Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution for over a decade. The more leftist, the more praise. You know, you'll grow up, and at some point you're going to realize that the left in fact sang the praises for a long time of many people that are now considered evil incarnate. Mao, Stalin are just some examples, and probably not even the worst.

pavlov 9y ago
Random links indeed. Did you even read them? The tone is largely neutral to critical. "Today, Chavez’s desultory government spending and overall economic approach resembles the populism of the Argentine Juan Perón far more than any authentic socialist model. It is an incoherent mess, dependent on constant infusions of oil money, and is highly unlikely to lead to sustainable development for Venezuela. It is governed primarily by an age-old autocratic goal: the maintenance of personal power." That's from the Atlantic article. Not exactly singing praises. I'm not disputing that there must have been Western leftists enthusiastic about Chavez back around the turn of the millennium. I just couldn't think of anyone. Chomsky seems like a solid example though. Amusingly, Donald Trump is currently the closest equivalent to Hugo Chavez in his rhetoric and political style. The populist strongman is a category of his own, not owned by the left nor the right.
- candiodari 9y ago
  I mean, I get it. Leftists are famous for making this point. Famous leftists of the past that turned out to be monsters responsible for millions of deaths ... deny that they were leftists. Stalin ? Not a leftist. Lenin ? Not a leftist ! Mao ? Not a leftist. Pol Pot ? Not a leftist !! Soviets ? Never any real socialist policies ! Now you are trying to make the point that Hugo Chavez ... wasn't left or right. Seriously. Does that justify a response any more than the "theory" that the Soviets weren't socialist ? I can certainly understand why western leftists wouldn't want to be associated with Hugo Chavez these days. Amazingly, they don't seem to feel the same about Che "kill all doctors when we arrive, so the population depends on us for survival" Guevara. Leftists have a long and sordid history of supporting monsters, even back when left actually meant left (ie. the time of the French revolution), and then abandoning them and claiming they're not really leftist when the result of -always the same now declared "not actually socialist"- policies becomes clear. I mean you wouldn't recognize the names these days, but the leftists of the French revolution ... I may recognize (some of) their accomplishments ... BUT they were loathsome monstrous mass-murderers who massacred their way through Paris, killing in estimation >20% of the whole population. But the fact that they're unwilling to distance themselves TODAY from someone like Che Guevara, just because he's popular in a certain crowd, really tells you enough about leftists, doesn't it ?

pavlov 9y ago

Random links indeed. Did you even read them? The tone is largely neutral to critical. "Today, Chavez’s desultory government spending and overall economic approach resembles the populism of the Argentine Juan Perón far more than any authentic socialist model. It is an incoherent mess, dependent on constant infusions of oil money, and is highly unlikely to lead to sustainable development for Venezuela. It is governed primarily by an age-old autocratic goal: the maintenance of personal power." That's from the Atlantic article. Not exactly singing praises. I'm not disputing that there must have been Western leftists enthusiastic about Chavez back around the turn of the millennium. I just couldn't think of anyone. Chomsky seems like a solid example though. Amusingly, Donald Trump is currently the closest equivalent to Hugo Chavez in his rhetoric and political style. The populist strongman is a category of his own, not owned by the left nor the right.

candiodari 9y ago
I mean, I get it. Leftists are famous for making this point. Famous leftists of the past that turned out to be monsters responsible for millions of deaths ... deny that they were leftists. Stalin ? Not a leftist. Lenin ? Not a leftist ! Mao ? Not a leftist. Pol Pot ? Not a leftist !! Soviets ? Never any real socialist policies ! Now you are trying to make the point that Hugo Chavez ... wasn't left or right. Seriously. Does that justify a response any more than the "theory" that the Soviets weren't socialist ? I can certainly understand why western leftists wouldn't want to be associated with Hugo Chavez these days. Amazingly, they don't seem to feel the same about Che "kill all doctors when we arrive, so the population depends on us for survival" Guevara. Leftists have a long and sordid history of supporting monsters, even back when left actually meant left (ie. the time of the French revolution), and then abandoning them and claiming they're not really leftist when the result of -always the same now declared "not actually socialist"- policies becomes clear. I mean you wouldn't recognize the names these days, but the leftists of the French revolution ... I may recognize (some of) their accomplishments ... BUT they were loathsome monstrous mass-murderers who massacred their way through Paris, killing in estimation >20% of the whole population. But the fact that they're unwilling to distance themselves TODAY from someone like Che Guevara, just because he's popular in a certain crowd, really tells you enough about leftists, doesn't it ?