The Moving Finger Wags, and having Wagged
The boys at Harry's Place, visibly shocked and dismayed at being deprived of their "OMG CHAVEZ IZ A DICTATORS!" story, give us all the benefit of the deep knowledge of the region and sound political analysis that had them bringing up Mugabe analogies in defence of the rights of the Vestey family against a land reform package that the Vesteys had actually agreed to ... a masterclass of the concern-troll's art, just change "Chavez" to "Israel" and it will do you fine my anti-Zionist friends ...
I've never believed Chavez is uniquely evil among world leaders, or even among the very worst. I focus on him because of his inexplicably high standing among the "anti-imperialist" Left. They need to be reminded exactly whom they're supporting
yes, yes, that's us certainly told, the wise teacher has spoken. Wait, there's more ...
I think Chavez is more of a fool than a monster. Perhaps he is not as bad as some of his strongest critics hold. Nevertheless, I find the adulation heaped upon this rather comic man - more of a Peron than an Allende - in some parts of the Left difficult to understand.
yes, of course, the constant litany of citations to outright fascists and the partisans of Carlos Andres Perez were only ever there because they cared so much, they didn't want the Trots to get hurt, you see.
Which only leaves one question in my mind ...
If you have to be a bit of an idiot to uncritically support Chavez (and you do), then really, how much of a total twat do you have to be to uncritically swallow every single press release and blog post put out by anyone connected to the antichavista opposition, for five years? Just asking, guys. Here's hoping that this marks the end of Decent punditry in the LatAm sphere.
All right, how about an accents debate to go with the pronounciation debate? Should words that are accented in Spanish(and other languages) be reproduced on the BBC - and on blogs - with or without the accent? Discuss, with reference to Chávez/Chavez and any other examples you care to employ.
ReplyDeleteMy own policy is to reflect my own pronunciation, so I include all French accents, umlauts but no other diacritics in German and Scandinavian languages, but basically nothing in Spanish. It's a sort of bastard relative of my citation policy for foreign books, where I cite the English title if I read a translation and the original title if I read it in the original. (Some would call this an "only ever using English titles" policy, but I swear that saying you've read Das Kapital ought to be taken as a claim that you've read it in German.)
ReplyDeletedsquared,
ReplyDeleteOff-topic, but possibly of interest to you.
gosh, that's an excellent book review - I'll link to it from CT.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, D2, that Decency will have all political movements' fatal attraction to Latin America; like the Soviet leadership did with Cuba in 1962. It's sunny, the drinks are good, the music's good, and revolutions occasionally happen; it made Mikoyan feel young again.
ReplyDeleteAnd I bet Hitch, NTM, and Co feel much the same way.
Very attractive women on the antichavista side too, I suppose.
ReplyDeleteLots of disillusioned ex-leftists with stories to tell, too.
ReplyDeleteI really just don't get the sheep like behavior of the anti-Chavez crowd. He was deemed "bad" because he was lees likely to cheat on OPEC in the face of American pressure for him to do so. Thats it. And even though that reason has completely become outdated, once the hounds are reved up the enemy must stay in place! See also: Iran.
ReplyDeletehow much of a total twat do you have to be to uncritically swallow every single press release and blog post put out by anyone connected to the antichavista opposition, for five years?
ReplyDeleteHow much of a total twat do you have to be to lie about what other people have been doing in order to make your point?
Oh, that big a twat.
hahaha everyone, that is "brownie" from "Harry's Place".
ReplyDeleteDid the "Brownie" monicker give it away?
ReplyDeleteRats. Foiled again.
Sorry, Brownie, are you trying to claim that Harry's Place didn't endorse more or less every antichavista going, including the Vestey family and that bloke who wanted to pour molten silver into HC's eye sockets?
ReplyDeleteYes, that's precisely what I'm claiming.
ReplyDeleteGene has, by far, produced the majority of the Chávez posts and given where he lives, it's unsurprising that this is a subject that interests him more than it does the other posters on HP. Even so, Gene's posts hav e hardly been the unqualified endorsements of every critic and criticism of Chávezthat you are claiming. Anyone can verify this by actually reading the posts.
The Chávez debate isn't one that exercises me too much, but you don't have to be an interested party to work out why HP has carried some posts on this subject. Chávez has become a cause celebre for a section of the western left that believes anybody who annoys George Bush is worthy of our unsverving support, and conveniently ignores any personal or political foibles that could be construed as vaguely anti-democratic. This generation of unthinking leftists is, I'll wager, closely related to the Guevara t-shirt-wearing numpties of the 70s and 80s.
The summary of the HP position is that Chávez is more Castro than he is Allende. That, as someone who fetes and is feted by the likes of Assad and Ahmadinejad, is more worthy of our scorn than he is our respect (notwithstanding some real economic benefits enjoyed by Venezuela's poorest during his presidency).
It's possible to think these things and not hanker for a Latin America dominated by right-wing juntas. You know, just in case there was any confusion about this point.
It's also possible to think these things and not support the Vestey family against land reform and not regularly and approving link to posts from the molten silver eyeballs guy, but you did it.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean "given where Gene lives", by the way? He lives in Washington DC. That is 2050 miles from Caracas. I live closer to Vladimir Putin than Gene does to Hugo Chavez.
By my calculations you're not much more than a third further from Hugo. Treating it as a triangle. Anyway, eyeballs. wtf?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you mean "given where Gene lives", by the way? He lives in Washington DC. That is 2050 miles from Caracas.
ReplyDeleteGene lives on the south-side.
Am I being asked to defend an assertion that the goings-on in Latin America will inevitably get more airtime and scrutiny on news schedules in the US than they do in Britain, Belgium and Liechtenstein, and that it therefore follows that a guy living in Washington D.C. with a healthy interest in domestic and international politics might have more to say about Venezuela and Chavez than his equivalent in London, Brussels and, um, Lieichtensteinville?
Please say it ‘aint so?
Er, yes, you are. Venezuela is not in the United States. US news broadcasts are almost proverbially weak on international news. This assertion will need a hell of a lot of defending.
ReplyDeleteVenezuela is not in the United States.
ReplyDeleteThat's my argument blown asunder.
US news broadcasts are almost proverbially weak on international news.
Yes, yes, we know that. It is something of a cliche but having spent as long as I have working in the US these last 15 years, from Boston to Phoenix, I can vouch for the fact there is *some* truth in claims that news media organisations there are a little insular, but the extent of the insularity is routinely exaggerated and it is still a perfectly valid claim that there is more coverage of Latin American affairs on the national networks (at least) in the US than there is in the UK. More to the point, it's self-evident that a blogger from the US who is one of a team on a political blog will have more to say on events there than one of his contemporaries from the UK, all other things being equal and notwithstanding the fact his house might be 2050 miles from Caracas.
Gene has written more about Venezuela....Harry/Graham/Marcus/Me, etc. have written more about the Balkans. It isn't that hard to understand why that might be, even though Belgrade is a ways from South London and Glasgow.
This assertion will need a hell of a lot of defending.
Actually, it doesn't. You're confusing your wanting to read a defence with the idea that something so stark-staringly obvious *needs* defending.
Am I being asked to defend an assertion
ReplyDeleteno, a thousand times no. Feel free to leave any time you like.
I've been a week in the US so far, as I'm staying with the in laws for Christmas. Currently international news has comprised of:
ReplyDelete1) Bush admitting that intelligence shows that Iran stopped developing nukes in 2003. Despite being an international story, coverage has been entirely US centric.
2) Apparently Chavez lost some kind of referrendum. What that referrendum was - well you're not going to find out on the TV news.
Ignoring stories about US soldiers in Iraq, that's it.
American TV news is less insular than it used to be, but that's not saying a great deal.
"it is still a perfectly valid claim that there is more coverage of Latin American affairs on the national networks (at least) in the US than there is in the UK."
You do know that a perfectly valid claim can also be false, right?
A quick look
ReplyDeletehere is recommended to anyone inclined to believe Brownie.
"Am I being asked to defend an assertion that the goings-on in Latin America will inevitably get more airtime and scrutiny on news schedules in the US than they do in Britain, Belgium and Liechtenstein,
ReplyDelete"Please say it ‘aint so?"
OK, it ain't so.
This assertion is false.
a section of the western left that believes anybody who annoys George Bush is worthy of our unswerving support
ReplyDeleteI am aware of no such section, but you know, "whatever".
Incidentally, doesn't Brownie's claim re: US TV really involve observing truthfully that the US media will mention George Bush's enemies - because George Bush mentions them?
I'm not sure that this constitutes coverage of International Affairs, though.
I'm sorry but brownie is right. The US does get the BBC. So the BBC + epsilon is still greater than the BBC. QED.
ReplyDeleteAnd believe me CNN, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, Fox News, and NBC really do amount to epsilon.