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Misplaced blame for Venezuela's woes
Commentator David Frum.
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Kai Ryssdal: Hugo Chavez is looking for some help from his friends. The Venezuelan president has invited a team of Cuban energy experts to help Caracas deal with an ongoing power crisis. That's interesting on two counts. First, Cuba's not really known for having sound energy policies of its own. Also, Venezuela is one of the world's leading energy exporters. It ships millions of barrels of crude oil every day.
Commentator David Frum has just come back from a State Department-sponsored trip to Venezuela. And he sent along these observations about the curious state of its economy.
DAVID FRUM: The campus of the Central University of Venezuela is a UNESCO landmark, a perfect example of the tropical modernism of the 1960s. I visited just a few days ago to talk to students and faculty and noticed something strange: Every clock in the building had stopped dead. I asked why. Answer: The 1980s vintage computer that controlled the clocks had failed, and the university could not obtain foreign currency to repair or replace it.
It's not an unusual story in Venezuela. In the five days I spent there, I met middle-class professionals who had given up their cars for lack of imported spare parts. Next-door, Colombia demands dollars for its coffee, so most Venezuelans must make do with brackish Nicaraguan brew.
Those who have maintained illegal bank accounts in the United States smuggle scarce goods from Miami. It took an hour to load my flight, as middle-class Venezuelans struggled to wedge their bags into the overhead bins. They won't check their luggage because, they explain, they fear the Caracas luggage handlers will rob them.
Those who must use local currency lose one-third of their purchasing power to inflation every year and in late January saw their savings cut in half by a devaluation. Electricity disappears for two hours a day outside the capital. Water taps run dry. In the single month of January, the Hugo Chavez government seized ownership of a major shopping mall and a large grocery chain was caught shipping a boatload of missiles to Hezbollah and ordered cable stations to drop the country's most popular TV station because it did not carry a long-winded presidential speech in full.
It takes a certain kind of genius to lay waste to the economy of one of the world's major oil producers. But in his excuses, at least, Chavez is very far from original. He fixes the blame where it always goes: on the Americans and the Jews.
RYSSDAL: David Frum is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
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"Next-door, Colombia demands dollars for its coffee, so most Venezuelans must make do with brackish Nicaraguan brew." I've been living here for two years now, and aside from a two month spell last year, neither I nor anyone I know has ever gone without locally-produced Venezuelan coffee... I've never even SEEN "Nicaraguan coffee" down here. You don't need to lie to make your point, you know...
Well, I am concerned about the liberal commentators who think things are great in Venezuela right now. Perhaps they all work for government, and want governments to run industry not only here, but in all the world's nations. I don't think 22% inflation is something we would want in America. But maybe the liberals in our nation, Canada and others who have sung the praises of Hugo don't mind that inflation.
And, for those who think George Bush is evil, I am really surprised at that. Did not the American economy grow at 3.5% a year under his presidency, and he cut taxes which have helped the middle class, and even the poor of this country save and get ahead?
Is the Venezuelan economy growing like wise? With daily electrical blackouts, shortages of all types, poor health care, and now water shortages, I don't think the government nationalizing industry is wise. Just look at Russia, folks. The five year plans of the Kremlin only kept the people poor, and they had to import our wheat, or starve.
And Russia, like Venezuela, is oil rich. No excuse for poverty, when a barrel of oil is $75.
Now, in a wealthy oil rich nation such as Venezuela, poverty is the norm. Why is this?
Margaret Thatcher said it best, that socialism always makes nation's poor, since one runs out of other people's money.
Mexico is also another poor, failed third world nation. It has nationalized the oil industry there, and cannot provide jobs for its citizens.
Also, why is Hugo shipping arms to the sworn enemies of Israel?
Chavezs' biggest LIE is calling his " revolution " Bolivarian. Bolivar would have him shot for what he's doing to Venezuela. As far as I'm concerned I'll beleive the comments by residents against Chaves who are in the majority over the left wing living comfortably in the USA with all the liberties of a democracy. Most of these " radicals " are just armchair philosophers that love to be controversial. It's so COOL. Why aren't they living in Cuba or Venezuela helping their revolution? Because they're phonies. And the comments about coffee and spelling. COME ON!! Those must be teenagers. It looks like YouTube.
Venezuela hold's one of the world's largest oil reserves - top three, depending on how you measure it.
Frum's commentary is part of a right-wing push for intervention in Venezuela to bring these oil fields back under the control of Bil Oil.
Covert intervention is certainly occurring right now. It could develop towards assassination of Chavez, or U.S. support of pro-U.S. political groups. Given the U.S. economy's dependence on oil, it could ultimately lead to war.
I think it's shameful of Marketplace to give Frum a forum for this kind of propaganda.
Further, if you examine the Chavez record at the website for the Anti-Defamation League, you will find little evidence for claims that Chavez is anti-Semitic. There are plenty of criticisms of Israeli policy, but that is not the same as Antisemitism. Ask any politically progressive Jew.
First of all, let me tell you that I'm a Venezuelan still living here...
Some quick points for Chavez/Revolution/Rojitos zealots:
- Are you aware of any government provided statistics regarding diseases such as dengue/malaria/tuberculosis? This would certainly prove the revolution's progress on Public Health issues...
- What other country in the world treats it own citizens as third class people behind any cuban or other paid foreigner? (I'm convinced that Venezuela's progress from 1950 onwards relied heavily on the union of native Venezuelan's and worthy inmigrants from Europe and other parts of S. America. so discard the xenophobic argument)
- Regarding Mr. Frum credentials, Venezuelan's would love to have such transparency regarding Chavez collaborators on speeches and policies
- Lastly, what other peace-abiding party in the world would have a motto offering, loosely translated "Homeland, Socialism or DEATH... we'll triumph!" (Sound's like something from Stalin's, Mao or Pol Pot's cookbook doesn't it?)
My 2 cents...
To all who think life in Venezuela is doing great, please move here for a few years, for a quick trip just won´t cut it. I am a duo national having lived here all my life and can tell you that this misgovernment is bent on destroying all that ever worked in order to create the "New Man". If it sounds a bit like Mao´s great leap forward / cultural revolution, you are not far off the mark. If you think that Chavez has done a lot for the poor, consider that the highest inflation and crime rate in almost the whole world affects the everyone, but the poor that much more. I guess you guys in the Sates or else where living in the conform of your own homes need to see a totally failed state before recognize one. There are no two sides to this story. Wake up...
everyone should read "100 years of regime change". the facts are the west tries to control all outside countries from cuba, chile, to iran and iraq. of course, the first posters have a decidedly obvious bias. everyone should do a google image search of "palestinian loss of land" and as peter jennings was eulogized as saying "every story has 2 sides". the question to be asked is: what would you do if you were the born in the shoes of a palestinan - especially after 2 world wars purported lessons of "land can't be taken by force and ethnic cleansing is wrong". don't root for the underdog, hizbollah etc just understand right from wrong and just what would be a fair and equitable outcome. venezuela, cuba and others ARE held back by trade sanctions (can't get airplane replacement parts) and while they may not avail themselves as subservients to the west as others would like, they proceed along their own path as they see fit. the real question is why does/should the west feel threatened by how these countries run their affairs. the answer is we no longer have conquistadors and plunder. we oppose plunder by resource poor japan's world war. instead the west can only expand, having used up their own resources, by exploiting yet another foreign country's resources. the fake is the lies of "democracy, woman's rights, national (oil in)security, wmd's" etc. almost without exception, every foreign involvement has as it's roots an agenda of control and resource exploitation. they are treated as brezenski's book "the grand chessboard" exposes (written pre iraq/afganistan) as pawns the west plays with and sacrifices.
By hooking up with Ahmdineajad,Hezbollah,Hamas Chavez has painted a big red target on Venezuela. Getting SAMS and other rockets to Hezebollah is esculating your problems. All that heavy oil and no sense. Could have great infrastructure, schools, medical, vacation spots. Keep giving fish instead of makeing fishermen and you'll go out of business as all other civilizations have done that use welfare to prop up political support.
more recent polls done IN venezuela
A new nationwide poll by the Venezuelan firm Hinterlaces shows that Chávez's political base is shrinking. Among the key findings of the poll, conducted in November, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points:
• Sixty-one percent of Venezuelans think that the country is heading in the wrong direction, while 37 percent say it is going in the right direction.
• Seventy-eight percent of Venezuelans say they disagree with Chávez's recent decision to pull the independent RCTV station off the cable television system, while only 18 percent agreed. RCTV's open air network was closed down by the government in 2007.
• Sixty-one percent of Venezuelans support the anti-Chávez student protests, while 30 percent reject them.
• Eighty-seven percent of Venezuelans do not want their country to become like Cuba, while 9 percent do.
• Twenty-eight percent of Venezuelans say they will vote for pro-Chávez candidates in September's legislative elections, while 26 percent say they will vote for opposition candidates, and 34 percent for independent candidates.
• Chávez's approval rate has gone down from 51 percent in February 2009 to 39 percent in November 2009.
• Fifty-five percent of Venezuelans describe themselves as ``neither pro-Chávez, nor anti-Chávez,'' while 27 percent consider themselves pro-Chávez, and 14 percent describe themselves as ``oppositionists.''
• Seventy-five percent of Venezuelans say that the country needs new leaders, while 21 percent disagreed with that statement.
Venezuelans are not interested in being controlled by any other countries or Big Business but we are definitely are not interested in living like Cubans
It's nice to have sensible commentary for a change from most public radio's far-left-leaning analysis. But this should have been taken one step further: there are supposedly mainstream politicians trying to impose the same policies that (Frum reports) have ruined Venezuela on the United States. Let us learn the lessons of history.
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