Monday, January 5, 2015

Liberal press gives O another tongue bath

You can read it here.

An enduring characteristic of Barack Obama’s presidency has been his determination to implement the ideological agenda with which he arrived in office without regard for conditions in the real world. He imposed timetables for “ending the wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq unlinked to military progress. He insisted on pursuing Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, even though the leaders of both sides were manifestly unwilling. He began his second term by seeking a new nuclear arms deal with Vladi­mir Putin, despite abundant evidence that Putin was preparing for confrontation with the West.

Now, six years into his presidency, Obama has launched, as his first significant initiative in Latin America, detente with Cuba. It’s a torch that many liberals have carried for decades. Once again, however, the president has acted with willful disregard for current events.
Uh. Oh, wait. Somebody must have dropped the script and mixed up the pages.

You see, Obama is following the same policy toward Venezuela as George Bush did, but because it's Obama the policy is now shallow, passive and misguided.

The rightwing commenters immediately pile on. See, leftism destroyed Venezuela.

In fact, Venezuela has always been a failed petrostate, since the end of World War II at least. And all US administrations since Eisenhower at least have complacently accepted whatever dictator the army threw up. You see, a strong government is a stable government, as Kissinger so helpfully explained. The United States loves dictators, most of whom are rightists, but a leftist will do.

The Post's Jackson Diehl, supposedly an expert on foreign affairs, writes:
Meanwhile, Maduro has overseen the degeneration of his country’s economic, political and social situation from abysmal to truly disastrous.
In fact, it is not noticeably worse than it was before Chavez. In the '50s, when rightwingers tended to point to Venezuela as a rare Latin American success story (because it held sham elections and paid its international bonds and was not aligned with the USSR), half of Venezuelans were born out of wedlock -- in a nominally Catholic country -- because their parents could not afford a marriage license.

A 1% (or less) did extremely well, and were pointed to as a shining example of how capitalism was good.

My mother, a devoted watcher of Bill O'Reilly and usually a reliable reflector of the rightwing views in her retirement village, was talking to someone the other day who had a son (an American expat) who is abandoning Venezuela after his once-successful career changed direction. The parent said, "Venezuela is becoming a terrible place."

I offered: "It always was."

My mother then surprised me by agreeing. While she tends to accept the nonsense of Fox News uncritically, she does believe her own eyes, and (I did not know this) she's been to Venezuela.

"It was horrible. From the cruise ship, we could see whole mountainsides of garbage. But when we went ashore we passed through the most beautiful houses you have ever seen."

Attagirl, Mom

16 comments:

  1. Airlines are starting to refuse to fly to Argentina. Car factories are shutting down. The government is resorting to socialism's last resort: looting.

    When has that happened before there?

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  2. Except it isn't a socialist government. It's fascist.

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  3. Talk about a distinction without a difference.

    Even if you are right, which you aren't:

    Chavismo (the most literal translation being "Chavism") is the name given to the left-wing political ideology based on the ideas, programs and government style associated with the former president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez.[1] It combines elements of socialism, left-wing populism, patriotism,[2] internationalism,[3] bolivarianism,[4] feminism,[5] green politics,[6] and Caribbean and Latin American integration.[7]

    ...

    Broadly, chavismo policies include nationalization, social welfare programs, and opposition to neoliberalism (particularly the policies of the IMF and the World Bank). According to Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan socialism accepts private property,[9] but this socialism seeks to promote social property too.[10] Chavismo also support participatory democracy[11] and workplace democracy.[12] In January 2007, Chávez proposed to build the communal state, whose main idea is to build self-government institutions like communal councils, communes, and communal cities.[13]

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  4. Argentina you said. Argentina is fascist. I don't know why you brought in Argentina but you did. Other end of the continent.

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  5. Sorry ... Venezuela; for some odd reason it is a mistake I often make. So let me correct my error:

    Airlines are starting to refuse to fly to [Venezuela]. Car factories are shutting down. The government is resorting to socialism's last resort: looting.

    When has that happened before there?


    Oh, and Argentina isn't fascist.

    Nor is Clint Eastwood. Watch "Trouble with the Curve". And then park that fascist nonsense where the sun doesn't shine.

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  6. Well, you mentioned looting, and the government of Argentina is famous for that. But OK, if Peronists aren't fascists then all the crap the rightwingers fed me about them in the '50s was . . . crap. So hard to know the players wothout a scorecard.

    When have airlines topped flying into a place? About 3 years ago, American Samoa.

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  7. But OK, if Peronists aren't fascists then all the crap the rightwingers fed me about them in the '50s was . . . crap.

    For a journalist, you have a real problem with tense.

    Hint: "Argentina is fascist" <> But OK, if Peronists aren't fascists then all the crap the rightwingers fed me about them in the '50s was . . . crap..

    And word meaning:

    When have airlines topped flying into a place? About 3 years ago, American Samoa.*

    Note, "When has that happened before [in Venezuela]." was in direct response to this: In fact, it is not noticeably worse than it was before Chavez.

    So, nothing to do with American Samoa.

    It is in many ways worse.

    ---
    * Wrong again.

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  8. The current government of Argentina is Peronist.

    I wasn't aware that you were limiting the airline policy to Venezuela, but that's a good example of missing the point. For the majority of Venezuelans, it wouldn't make any difference if the Wright Bros. had never invented the airplane. The Venezuelan kleptoclass cares but I don't care overmuch about them.

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  9. I wasn't aware that you were limiting the airline policy to Venezuela ...

    My name-swapping aside, your post explicitly said things are "not notably worse" in Venezuela than they have been before. Even taking weasel words in to account, it is in fact a great deal worse when airlines stop flying, or factories stop operating. Or when the socialists start looting.

    The current government of Argentina is Peronist.

    For a journalist, you seem to have very little respect for your own words. Let me quote you directly: Argentina is fascist.

    Which you changed to "... Argentina is Peronist."

    In what regard is the current Argentinian government fascist?

    For the majority of Venezuelans, it wouldn't make any difference if the Wright Bros. had never invented the airplane ...

    Clearly, you have never heard of the Venezuelan diaspora. To whom it makes a great deal of difference.

    Oh, and nice goal post shifting there. Right up to your usual standard.

    (And I'll take it as read that with respect to American Samoa and Clint Eastwood, you were blowing it out your hat.)

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  10. More on the Venezuelan diaspora that you can't be bothered to learn about here. And here.

    Because socialism is working so super there.

    Just like everywhere else.

    No such thing as a good theory that doesn't work in practice.

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  11. Peronism = fascism. That was too easy.

    Poor people do not buy airplane tickets. In Venezuela they don't even buy marriage licenses or food

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  12. Peronism = fascism. That was too easy.

    Yes, stupid answers that avoid the question always are.

    To reiterate: In what regard is the current Argentinian government fascist?

    Please describe what the Argentinian government does in the present that constitutes fascism.

    I'll bet it is precisely the same as Clint Eastwood: nothing.

    You keep proving personally what seems uniquely true for progressives in general: a very strong tendency towards baseless defamation.

    Poor people do not buy airplane tickets.

    Again, not the point. You asserted that things aren't any worse there now than they have been previously.

    When presented with evidence to the contrary, you shift goal posts and prevaricate.

    Nothing new there.

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  13. Demonstrating that a different segment of the society is suffering is not the same as showing that things are worse.

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  14. Oh for pete's sake. You have provided exactly zero evidence that things aren't worse; near as I can tell, it is yet another attack of the progressive delusion: your thoughts are correct merely because you think them.

    You want evidence? Here. Here. Here.

    I'm hearing a symphony of crickets about the Argentinian government and Clint Eastwood being fascist.

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  15. ... is not the same as showing that things are worse.

    QED.

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