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Should we bomb Venezuela?
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Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 6:18 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

If you don't think the region has developed at all politcally in the last couple decades, then I think you're being a little narrow minded there.

I think it looks that way, and perhaps there has been some advance.

Bottom line, though, is the old pattern of civil-military relations. And here there has been no change.

Military institutions are dormant in places like Brazil and Chile, and the Argentine military has pretty much been on the defensive for some time. (A while back I heard something about elite interests asking the Army to assume the govt, and they backed way off that, saying something akin to "are you crazy?") But the absense of military govts, for the moment, does not mean that the civilians are in control of them.

See Brian Loveman's comparative analysis of their constitutions and the clauses they've always had on states of emergency, for example. Loveman calls these post-dictatorship states "protected democracies." This means that the military handed power back to the civilians in the 1990s, but on condition that they can basically come back any time they feel the civilians are mismanaging state affairs.

And then there's the corruption issue. It is so pervasive and ubiquitous in Latin America and the Caribbean that I do not believe it will ever go away. It is institutionalized. In many cases, they don't even believe that they are doing anything wrong.

In any case, Chavez is a perfect example of the resurgence of an old pattern (as was Fujimori and as Castro remains today): the Latin American "strongman." Venezuelan presidents were allowed one five-year term, in 1998, when Chavez won. Then he rewrote the constitution and now presidents can serve two six-year terms, so he will probably stay at least until 2012. Interesting trend, don't you agree?

Last edited by Gopher on Sun Jan 29, 2006 9:15 pm; edited 1 time in total

thepeel

Joined: 08 Aug 2004

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:08 pm Post subject:

deessell wrote:

I like him too. I wish him well but feel he may not live long enough to have a huge impact. I would be interested in working there and getting a good look at what's going on with social reform. Interesting times ahead for South America.

I can help you along. They are poor. And they are going to remain poor as long as Chav et. al. are treated like real leaders rather than loudmouth populists.

Sometimes we have to look away from the nonsense coming out of the mouths of people like Chav (or Bush) and try to find real data on the outcome of policy. After all, it is all about the policy.

When we look at the data, the poverty stats and others, we see that people are actually becoming poorer under the Chav despite the ungodly amounts of oil that are being exported.

http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2006/01/chavez-effect-on-poverty.html

Left wing policy will always make a country poor. Always. It is happening in France today, and in the Soviet Union yesterday.

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Sun Jan 29, 2006 10:02 pm Post subject:

BJWD wrote:

Left wing policy will always make a country poor. Always. It is happening in France today, and in the Soviet Union yesterday.

yeah, those damn norweigens are so poor that they have the highest average income in the world. And their neigbors the Swedes, have to pity them. Throw in the Danes and Canadians, and my god, you a big IMF bail-out on your hands.

thepeel

Joined: 08 Aug 2004

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:21 am Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

BJWD wrote:

Left wing policy will always make a country poor. Always. It is happening in France today, and in the Soviet Union yesterday.

All those nations have market-based economies. The way that Chav and his Chaves are headed is towards a command economy. You can have a market economy and tax the hell out of it and still prosper. You cannot have a command economy and prosper. Hugo is a socialist, not a social democrat. So, I should have been more clear and made a distinction between socialist proper and market economies with high taxation.

But, you should look into the unemployment rates of Northern European countries when compared with the more 'Anglo' (to use the phrase of the French) economies.

mithridates

Joined: 03 Mar 2003
Location: President's office, Korean Space Agency

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:34 am Post subject:

Yeah! Iceland has staggering 3.1% unemployment rate. Norway 4.3%. Sweden 5.6%. Only Finland is really high (8.9). UK 4.8% USA 5.0%

EFLtrainer

Joined: 04 May 2005

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:48 am Post subject:

Gopher wrote:

Because problematic Hispanic culture will always create problematic and highly unstable Hispanic govts in that part of the world, and they will always need a more mature power to guide them.

Wow. Racism. How very moral of you.

thepeel

Joined: 08 Aug 2004

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:10 am Post subject:

mithridates wrote:

Yeah!

Iceland has staggering 3.1% unemployment rate. Norway 4.3%. Sweden 5.6%. Only Finland is really high (8.9).

UK 4.8%
USA 5.0%

Right. The way that unemployment is officially counted varies from country to country. The stats you are using are 'official'. When we count unemployment as the Americans do these nations generally (but not Iceland) register quite a bit higher. To get a better picture you may want to use the same source you used for those stats to find the (I think) more accurate employment rate.

Here is one economist who rates Sweden's as "at least" 12.1% but that they can be said to have as high as a 23.8%.

http://www.johannorberg.net/?page=displayblog&month=1&year=2006#1486

I haven't the time now, but will find the comparative data, using American methods of calculating unemployment tomorrow. Or do it myself. Of course how employment/unemployment is calculated is quite a hotly debated subject with economists. Typically those who work for the government want the criteria to be adjusted so that rates are lower and private sector economists are more concerned with the rate of employment, which tends to be a more accurate picture of the health of a labour market.

But I think we can agree that, because of the simple truth of incentives, nations with more welfare will have higher unemployment. This is why you should think very seriously when you read that Sweden et al. have better unemployment rates than America. It simply cannot be true, if it is true that people respond to incentives. [/quote]

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 12:12 pm Post subject:

Comparing Chavez and Venezuela to any of these European leaders or states makes about as much sense as saying that Allende was Willie Brandt.

dogbert

Joined: 29 Jan 2003
Location: Killbox 90210

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:15 pm Post subject:

EFLtrainer wrote:

Gopher wrote:

Because problematic Hispanic culture will always create problematic and highly unstable Hispanic govts in that part of the world, and they will always need a more mature power to guide them.

Wow. Racism. How very moral of you.

But it's true.

ChimpumCallao

Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: your mom

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:23 pm Post subject:

EFLtrainer wrote:

Gopher wrote:

Because problematic Hispanic culture will always create problematic and highly unstable Hispanic govts in that part of the world, and they will always need a more mature power to guide them.

Wow. Racism. How very moral of you.

oh please stop with the moralistic grandstanding.

hispanics and their countries ARE volatile and the governments ARE unstable. the people as a whole are generally grossly uneducated, both formally and about the world around them. you think americans don't know anything about the world? Try talking to any hispanic about a country besides america or their own.

let me tell you a story about alan garcia, who was president of peru around my childhood. he was a thief who ignored the shining path and focused on stealing from the government. he ran against toledo in the 2000's, about 15 years later....AND ALMOST WON. would you catgorize those millions who voted for him as victims of racism, or ignorance?

ChimpumCallao

Joined: 17 May 2005
Location: your mom

Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:30 pm Post subject:

BJWD wrote:

mithridates wrote:

Yeah!

Iceland has staggering 3.1% unemployment rate. Norway 4.3%. Sweden 5.6%. Only Finland is really high (8.9).

UK 4.8%
USA 5.0%

[/quote]

he's 100% right, mith. If you go to any Swedish blog that doesnt focus on giving itself a moralistic hand job then you get the same stats that bjwd posted time and time again.

11:21 - SWEDEN��S UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IS 12.1% - AT LEAST:

Open unemployment in Sweden stands at just 5.4 percent, but that��s because most unemployed are not counted as unemployed. In my DI-column yesterday I measured Sweden��s real unemployment for December 2005. Here is the result:

Quote:

Open unemployment: 244 000 people
Labour market projects: 126 000
Job-seekers who study: 89 000
Latent unemployment (not in the work-force, but could and would like to work): 111 000

This means that Sweden��s real unemployment rate is 12.1 percent.

And if we include the incredible number of people of working-age who have retired on disability benefits or are on long-term sick-leave (more than 6 months) in one of the world��s healthiest countries, Sweden��s unemployment rate is 23.8 percent. Almost a quarter of the Swedes of working-age!

Sweden��s economy is very good at producing goods, but because of our regulated labour market, it is bad at producing jobs. According to a new SNS/NBER-study of 35 developed countries, there are only two countries with jobless growth, Sweden and Finland. Economic growth in Sweden in the last 25 years has no relationship with labour market participation, whereas one percent of growth increases the number of jobs by 0.25 percent in Denmark, 0.5 percent in the US and 0.6 percent in Spain.

care to talk about their AWESOME record with immigrants?? Heard about the Latvian fiasco?

for all of you posting about the beauty of the scandanavian social model, i suggest you check out this blog and others...

http://www.spectator.se/stambord/

The Bobster

Joined: 15 Jan 2003

Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 7:47 am Post subject:

Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote:

Real men don't buy oil from those who are the enemy.

The free market means that if he wants to sell it for less then others will have to also. So American consumers win that way. And if he wants to decrease production to drive the price up, American oil companies will see better year-end earnings, so (theoretically) the American economy prospers from that also.

Which means it doesn't matter if we buy from him, we still benefit. You are smart enough to know that.

Quote:

When it comes to energy policy The US -read Bush has no guts, and zero self respect.

Pathetic.

Hey, cool. We both hate Bush. You for the worst reasons, me for the best. (My reasons amount to that he is bad for America ... how about you?)

Quote:

bucheon bum:
Gopher wrote:

Quote:

Because problematic Hispanic culture will always create problematic and highly unstable Hispanic govts in that part of the world, and they will always need a more mature power to guide them.

Kipling lives.

You saw that, too, eh? The White Man's Burden thing, such a drag, really it is - sometimes I wish I could just relax a little and enjoy life the way the lesser races do ...

Gopher :

Quote:

And then there's the corruption issue.

Goph, all your citations about corruption in Latin American govts, just a few words in your year :

Liberals are corrupt in Canada, and now we all have to live with Stephen Harper. What fun for us all.

Jack Abramoff in the US, Haliburton sweetheart-deals in Iraq, and cronyism at home ("You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie!"), not to mention the way Bush got into office in 2000, appointed by a Supreme Court composed of several nominees from his father ... the list is longer than this, we both know.

Said it several times before about that "election" in 2000, say it again : if it had happened anywhere south of Juarez, we'd all be winking at each other and saying, yeah, but those places are not REAL democracies ... hey, you know what I'm talkin' about.

deessell :

Quote:

I like him too. I wish him well but feel he may not live long enough to have a huge impact.

I don't pay enough attention to him to like or dislike him, because nothing I've seen so far leads me to think he can have any impact on my country or Korea, the two places I care most about.

He seems more and more interesting as I note how much those on the Right fear him, but generally I think he needs to be spending more energy building Venezuela up rather than tearing down places outside his sphere that have less capability to make his country worse than he has to make it better. Yes, it is a shortcoming of populists ...

BJWD :

Quote:

I can help you along. They are poor. And they are going to remain poor as long as Chav et. al. are treated like real leaders rather than loudmouth populists.

Gee whiz, you might be right about that, but come to think, they were poor for hundreds of years while the "un-populists" ruled things ... if I were them I would clutch at any glimmer of hope of something different.

Gopher :

Quote:

Comparing Chavez and Venezuela to any of these European leaders or states makes about as much sense as saying that Allende was Willie Brandt.

Maybe true, but that might be a good thing - see, Willy Brandt is the last thing S America needs at this moment, seems to me ... clue : S America today looks nothing like West Germany did in the 70s. Actually, they'd be a lot better off if they ever did look anything like, ever.

S America looks a lot like S America has looked for the past several hundred years, in some ways better but a lot ways worse, so some new hats at tyhe top of the pile might be start of something good.

Gonna go out on a limb here and risk the flings of a hundred arrows : Chile just might have been better off under Allende than what turned out to happen during President-For-Most-Of-His-Life Pinochet.

Let's walk down the street of any random street in Santiago and start asking people what they think about that. Enquiring minds want to know.

The Bobster

Joined: 15 Jan 2003

Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 7:51 am Post subject:

Oh, and BB, ain't it cool how I managed to avoid mentioning Cindy even once?

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 1:52 pm Post subject:

The Bobster wrote:

...Willy Brandt is the last thing S America needs at this moment, seems to me ... clue : S America today looks nothing like West Germany did in the 70s. Actually, they'd be a lot better off if they ever did look anything like, ever.

S America looks a lot like S America has looked for the past several hundred years, in some ways better but a lot ways worse, so some new hats at tyhe top of the pile might be start of something good.

Gonna go out on a limb here and risk the flings of a hundred arrows : Chile just might have been better off under Allende than what turned out to happen during President-For-Most-Of-His-Life Pinochet.

Let's walk down the street of any random street in Santiago and start asking people what they think about that. Enquiring minds want to know.

Allende wasn't any more virtuous or mature than Chavez. Neither are Chileans or most other Latin Americans in general.

Chileans who tend to like Pinochet and approve of his rule tend to be harsh, callous, and self-righteous rightists, and they live in a world of denial about many things.

Chileans who tend to like Allende and approve his administration tend to be harsh and self-righteous and consumed by antiAmericanism, and they live in a world of denial about many things.

Whether they like the left or the right, they all tend to hate Peru and Peruvians, Bolivia and Bolivians, and this on extremely harsh racist grounds. In Chile, indio, as in "no sea indio," or "no sea roto," means "don't be stupid, ignorant, uncultured, ugly, or dirty."

So it makes me wonder, Bobster, how much you really know about Chilean affairs, indeed Latin American and Caribbean affairs, that goes beyond the anti-U.S. populist rants that come from the likes of Hugo Chavez.

Let's return to the Allende regime for a moment, and I'll clarify from the start, that I'm no friend of Pinochet's and I believe that Chile would have been much better off without him -- and I'll also clarify that I feel the same about Allende.

In 1970, Allende was constitutionally-elected with less than half of the vote. More than half of the country voted against him. And they didn't just vote against him, but they feared and vigorously opposed him.

He did nothing to assuage their fears; he did nothing to build a consensus, even with the Christian Democrats -- indeed, he refused to work with them out of pettiness.

He gave speeches, for example, where he explained:

Allende wrote:

I am not President of all Chileans. -- La Nacion, 5 February 1971

His economics policies -- and he didn't have any economics policies, by the way -- induced chaos in Chilean affairs.

Allende spoke, very emotionally, but not very professionally, and also not diplomatically, on "overthrowing the arrogance of money." The U.S. ambassador commented:

Korry wrote:

Allende is a brilliant politician who understands Chile and Chileans but he has only a half-grasp of his true economic problems. -- Korry to State, 28 April 1971

Seeing that Allende had no interest in promulgating or overseeing economic affairs, other than instructing his ministers "to overthrow the arrogance of money" and then let them do as they pleased, other commentators reacted much the same.

Indeed, the Chileans went to Beijing to seek financial assistance from a fraternal Socialist state. And Beijing was not interested.

Allende was extremely hostile and antagonistic to the U.S. (And this is not to ignore that the U.S. was extremely hostile and antagonistic to Allende, but we are talking about Allende here.) His first act in foreign policy, for example, was to pledge assistance to Puerto Rican guerrillas.

Initially, the Soviets moved to back Allende, with much money and a $100 million arms deal -- meant to destroy one U.S. dependency and create a Russian one in its place, thus forcing the Chilean officer corps to take orders from the Soviets.

When Allende's military commanders and advisors attempted to warn him off this course, he disregarded their advice and attempted to force the Soviet arms (and training and spare parts committments) down a very stronlgy anticommunist armed forces' throat.

After the March 1973 elections, where Allende's party had insufficient power to force its "agenda" and the opposition (the centrists and the right, who had since joined in their opposition to the govt) had enough power to impeach Allende's ministers, oppose his program through legislation, but not enough votes to impeach Allende himself, Allende's commander-in-chief, Prats, presented the President with two alternatives: "democratic conciliation" or "the extremist route."

According to a DIA summary (the Chileans have burned their own records rather than publish them), Prats urged Allende "to seek a working agreement with the political opposition and closer ties with the US�Prats points out that Chile is not within the Soviet sphere of influence geopolitically and that further damage to US-Chilean relations will seriously affect�national security." Prats also suggested that Allende disarm all paramilitary groups and reestablish law and order across the nation.

The commander-in-chief explained that should Allende choose the extremist option, the armed forces would "withdraw their support and discontinue all participation in the government." In fact, the military withdrew on 27 March. According to Ambassador Davis, "[Socialist extremist] Altamirano�regarded the officers' departure as a victory."

Soon, the naval officer corps confronted Allende, not just over the Soviet arms, but over Altamirano's attempts to infiltrate and subvert the Navy with Communist politics:

Admiral Merino travelled to Santiago, on 5 September. Allende assaulted him with a bitter diatribe, accusing the admiral of saying that the Navy was "at war" with the government. According to Merino, he indeed confirmed this:

Admiral Merino wrote:

Yes, sir�we are at war with you. The navy is at war, because it is not communist and will never be communist, neither the admirals nor the naval council, nor any sailor�we will defend it to the last, it is our life and the life of our Chile. -- cited in Haslam, Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende's Chile, 214

Merino demanded that Allende replace his cabinet and the government officers immediately below them as well on 7 September. The President told Merino that he was no longer in control of the government.

Allende wrote:

Look, if you wish to change someone�go and talk to [Communist Party official Volodia] Teitelboim, with [Corval�n], or Altamirano. They are the ones in charge; I am in charge of nothing. -- cited in Haslam, Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende's Chile, 215

Moscow had by this time, according to historian Jonathan Haslam "effectively wiped their hands of the whole affair, not least because of Chilean incompetence." (Haslam, Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende's Chile, 230) They turned around the ships that were carrying the tanks and other arms that they had sold to Santiago.

So, as you can see, the story goes on and on and has many other relevant details than a mere recitation of the simplistic anti-U.S. version goes.

And even Soviet Ambassador Yuri Pavlov recognized this:

Quote:

...it was well understood in Moscow that although CIA had a lot to do with the coup d'�tat, it was not the main reason. -- cited in Haslam, Nixon Administration and the Death of Allende's Chile, 228

Disinterested researchers and academics have gone much further in assessing the causes for Allende's downfall. Haslam, for example, calls the majority of Allende's wounds "self-inflicted." Loveman is more specific:

Quote:

Whatever the full extent of United States complicity in the tragedy of September 1973, and whatever the impact of international economics, the most critical factor of all in the failure of the Allende administration was bad politics and unrealistic economic policies�[Allende] also failed because, unlike a transition to social democracy, there is no peaceful road to the socialism envisaged by Marxist-Leninists�By aggressively pursuing an illusion dreaded and resisted since the 1930s by Chilean anti-Marxists and by threatening the basic values, beliefs, and interests of broad sectors of the population, President Allende's Unidad Popular coalition set the stage for a military government and counterrevolution. -- Loveman, Chile, 259-260

Allende's govt mostly went down, then, because Allende refused to talk to or deal with those who disagreed with him -- and most Chileans voted against and vigorously disagreed with him.

So, in other words, Bobster, I reaffirm that Latin American govts tend to be childish and immature, esp. the emotionally-based, populist-style ones, or...

Gopher wrote:

So, "down with the empire!" Chavez chants. That's fine. But if the U.S. went down, someone else would replace them in the Caribbean Basin -- from outside the basin, that is. Because problematic Hispanic culture will always create problematic and highly unstable Hispanic govts in that part of the world, and they will always need a more mature power to guide them.

Last edited by Gopher on Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:18 pm; edited 1 time in total

Gopher

Joined: 04 Jun 2005

Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 2:11 pm Post subject:

Quote:

SANTIAGO, Chile � President Bush broke up a fight last night between his lead Secret Service agent and a Chilean security detail, pulling the agent through a wall of men trying to bar his bodyguard's access to a state dinner.

Mr. Bush and first lady Laura Bush arrived at 8 p.m. local time yesterday at the Estacion Mapocho Cultural Center for the official dinner of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.

After the first couple posed for photos with Chilean President Ricardo Lagos and his wife, the four entered the doorway with a line of Chilean security guards and uniformed police closing quickly behind him.

The president's lead agent approached the line of men as quickly as it closed and demanded to be allowed through. Within a few seconds, the confrontation began to escalate with voices being raised and shoving in all directions.

"You're not stopping me! You're not stopping me!" yelled the agent, as captured by several television cameras. "I'm with the president."

During the fracas, another Secret Service agent was roughly pulled from the tumult and pushed against a concrete wall by Chilean security. A few seconds later, after posing for yet more pictures about 15 feet inside the doorway, Mr. Bush and the rest of the party turned to enter the dining room. But the president quickly turned his head to the growing din just outside.

Mr. Bush calmly turned right as the other three continued on and inserted himself into the fight. The president reached over two rows of Chilean security guards, grabbed his lead agent by the shoulder of his suit jacket and began to pull.

The tape of the incident, viewed by reporters last night, could not pick up any words the president might have been saying as he worked to get the agent through the line.

A few Chilean guards turned their heads and noticed that the arm draped over their shoulders was that of the president, and the line softened. Mr. Bush pulled his agent through, who was heard to say, "Get your hands off me" as he passed roughly through the doorway.

Mr. Bush then adjusted his shirt cuff and said something to the first dignitary he passed as a grin crossed his face.

According to Secret Service sources, the man Mr. Bush pulled through is a high-level agent and one of the president's personal favorites. The president normally has two agents near him at all times, but the second agent on the detail was not immediately allowed through.

The second agent, who was nearly put in a headlock and pushed against the concrete wall, did not aggressively retaliate and was soon seen standing next to the presidential limousine. No punches were thrown.

The Secret Service source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the president's security detail and that the Chileans had argued about security procedures all day and that he wasn't surprised to see last night's skirmish unfold.

The Chileans, he said, were determined to take charge of security, but the president of the United States is the only world leader who takes his bodyguards with him wherever he goes. Normally, foreign countries defer to that demand. The Chilean security detail resisted, the source said, and was determined to take a stand at the dinner.

"That's what the argument this afternoon was about," he said. "I saw this coming."

Chilean security knew that the Secret Service always accompanies the president and knows how to identify them by the pins on their lapels, the source said, but blocked them anyway.

The White House downplayed the incident last night.

"Chilean security tried to stop the president's Secret Service from accompanying him," said White House deputy press secretary Claire Buchan. "He told them they were with him, and the issue was resolved."

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20041120-113709-8651r.htm

Last edited by Gopher on Mon Jun 26, 2006 11:19 pm; edited 1 time in total

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