Don't know much about VZ and Chavez. From pieces and bits I have read about that country and Chavz, it seems to me he seized people's anger against the rich and corrupted 14 years ago, but wasn't really successful in devliering what he promised. Sounds familiar? Today's NYT piece mentions that he brought demorcacy to poor people in VZ. However, IMHO, there is something more fundamental than the form of democracy, i.e. fairness. I think that includes absolute fairness in terms of human rights and "relative" fairness based on the very fact that humans are not equal. Ideology preached on absoulte fairness in all aspects, IMHO, has resulted in unfariness in all cases around the world. Chavez is no different. Worse, it seems that he and his proteges have exploited their idealism to benefit themselves; corruptions are rampant in Chavez's apparatus as reported. Again, this is all too familiar. It has to make you wonder this may be the necessary result of picking winners and losers.
I hate to get in the way of a good narrative, but it was Chavez who chose to position the US as his arch enemy, not the other way around. IIRC, it was in response to the war in Iraq, among other things. The things that people decry as unthinkably scandalous behavior in US foreign policy often strike me as baffling. They are almost always game theory/normal human interpersonal dynamics writ large for the global stage. Imagine you have a coworker that controls some aspect of how much work you get or how much you get paid or something, but that guy has some sort of objectionable behavior or beliefs. The fact that he has power over you means that you are going to try and find a way to have a positive relationship with him if you possibly can. Maybe the brave thing is to sit him down and take him to task over his issues, but I can't think of anybody I've ever known that would do that, unless they were quitting. If you even broach the subject, you'll do it as gently as possible, so as not to offend him. Conversely, if you have a subordinate at work that you really like and who does a great job, but you find out that he is talking **** about you behind your back, you are not going to spend all your time trying to get buddy-buddy with him, and you aren't going to go out of your way to see that he gets a promotion. Would that be scandalous and hypocritical behavior? In my mind, that is just basic game theory and human dynamics at work. When you chose how to relate to others, you take a whole range of factors into account from very practical considerations to abstractions, weigh them, and choose what you think is an optimal strategy. Can anybody really imagine the US praising Chavez, for instance, right after his speech at the UN where he goes on and on about Bush being the devil and smelling the brimstone and so on? I mean, when you come right down to it, Chavez did the same thing in evaluating how to deal with the US. Early on, he spent a bunch of effort courting the USA. At some point, his evaluation changed, and the same people he had just been talking very politely with became evil incarnate.
This will depart from Chavez a bit. The Arab spring was portrayed as these countries uprising because they were tired of their authoritarian regimes and it being a success for democracy in the Middle East. Which I don't agree with. The youth was exploited in most of these countries by western media. Particularly Iran's green movement. Then we armed groups in Egypt,Syria, Tunisia and Libya. And for what? Mubarak is out, but the MB is in. Gadafi is gone but Libya still can't form a government or secure itself so it depends on militias. (Just like Iraq and Afghanistan) There is no freedom in Tunisia. Iran is Iran. In my opinion its like the CIA in South America/Central America all over again. This time Assad is like Castro. Aligned with the Russians, killing his own people while the world is frozen watching and not helping. But even if we do, what will change?
This is where people don't understand the oil industry in countries other than the US. In almost every country in the world, the State owns the oil AND have State Run oil companies (Citgo for Venezuela, Saudi Aramco for Saudi Arabia, etc.). The Super Major oil companies will come into those countries and partner with the state run companies. The Super Major (BP, ExxonMobile, Chevron, etc.) lends their superior technical expertise and efficiency to explore and produce the oil. The State-Run company and the State themselves keep the BULK of the money. The Super Major gets their Royalty from every barrel, but it is usually capped at some dollar amount, whether the price of oil is $50 or $100, and if its under a certain amount, they usually get nothing. In these scenarios, oil is produced as efficiently and completely as possible, maximizing output and profits for all. ExxonMobile gets their $10-$15 a barrel and the State basically gets everything else. When Chavez nationalized the oil companies, he basically took over all their operations and equipment of the corporations operating there and decided to keep the $10-$15/barrel. The issue was that all the technical expertise left. Now, even though Venezuala keeps makes 10-15% more per barrel, they are producing about 40% of what they otherwise would be producing if they had the technical expertise of the outside companies operating in their country. When they nationalized, the brain-drain of qualified E&P people was astronomical. Chavez SHOULD have just spent the oil money on whatever social programs he wanted, but he SHOULD have let the outside companies keep producing. Venezuela ended up cutting off their capitalistic nose and ended up spiting the nationalized face. The funny thing is he ended up knowing he was wrong, but couldn't politically backtrack (not that any foreign investor would want to risk it anyways). A dirty little Venezuelan secret is that they usually pay huge amounts for foreign consultants to come in and show them how to use the equipment they nationalized.
Revolutions are messy and take time to resolve themselves. If you were expecting everything to be great a year or two after this all started, I think you had unrealistic expectations. The US went through a revolution, formed a failed government, had to create a new government a decade later, and still went through a horrific civil war 80 years later.
They had oil prior to Chavez. They certainly benefited from rising prices and an influx of money going to the government, but someone still has to direct that money to helping the impoverished in the country.
I understand that. My point/opinion was only that these revolutions were not organic. Also, given time, I think it will be a miracle if one pans out. Also, non of these people can cross an ocean and then fight their homeland. Afghanistan has been a 12 year campaign with elections in 2004. Iraq conflict started in 2003 with its first elections in 2005. Neither have functional governments with fair representation of the population. At some point we have to think building democracies won't work.
Excuse me... I hate to point this out but Chavez went through a coup attempt which resulted in a rich business man declaring himself president. I'm sure Chavez believed that American support was behind the attempt.
Not that it matters to another soul on this board, but just about everything you state has been said to me by my father. He's been in the industry almost 40 years and had an apartment in Maracaibo for several years representing his services company. He spent most of my teenage years in either Venezuela, China, Russia and Nigeria.
yeah unilaterally invading a nation while declaring they have fantasy nukes that never appear TENDS to do that to people.
It's one thing to say that the Arab Spring is a movement which is not necessarily the 1848 Revolution in terms of idealistic democratic liberalism. That, I think a lot of people can agree on. It's another thing to say that the United States caused it, and that somehow we decided to kick out these autocrats( many of whom we have had good relations with, like Mubarak) for....I don't know, because we're chaotic evil?
Your right, there is a difference between the two. I'm saying that western democracies were largely behind the momentum that caused the Arab spring. Not just us but we are very much included. Also, your adding adjectives I never used. I do not think we are evil. I think we are meddlesome and opportunistic in this particular instance and so was the EU.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>I just heard that a poor cancer in Venezuela lost its life yesterday after a long bout with Hugo Chavez. At least it's in a better place...</p>— nick searcy (@yesnicksearcy) <a href="https://twitter.com/yesnicksearcy/status/309468589012946945">March 7, 2013</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
You can surely explain HOW the West was "largely behind the momentum that caused the Arab spring", correct? After all, I don't recall a lot of Western intervention in Egypt or Tunisia, the first states to be afflicted by the revolutionary tides and governed by autocrats friendly to the United States. As for Libya and Syria, one has to observe that their civil wars began on their own, without the aid of the West. Sure, the West intervened after the fact, but that's doesn't explain how they caused it then.
