Hugo Chávez Dead at 58: Good Riddance!
By Michael Moynihan, Mar 5, 2013 5:49 PM EST
All one needs to know about Hugo Chávez’s poisonous political legacy can be determined from the circumstances in which he died. Or how little we know about the manner in which—or when, or how—he died. As Venezuela’s bombastic caudillo was expiring in Cuba—and then at a military hospital in Caracas—various newspapers, pundits, and bloggers had already declared him dead, speculated on the cause of his supposed death, and examined the fragmentary evidence of his condition in an attempt to determine with what he was afflicted.
His handpicked successor, the fanatically loyal former union leader Nicolas Maduro, denounced those who speculated that the president was dying as “mentally ill,” “sick with hatred, sick with evil,” and hopelessly right wing. A Spanish news report suggesting that he was sliding off this mortal coil was written by “Francoists.” In Bolivarian Venezuela, where politically subtlety disappeared along with political stability, to question the government—which still hasn’t revealed the nature of his illness—was tantamount to treason against the republic.
Today, at last, Maduro, who possesses both the charm and politics of Erich Honecker, held a Chávez-like press conference to tell Venezuelans that their leader’s medical situation had worsened, and that it was the United States that likely gave him cancer. It was clear that Chávez had either already died (or was barely hanging on) when Maduro announced that the United States was planning a coup and, in response, he was expelling an American diplomat. If the military rises—and such a thing is unlikely, because after the 2002 coup Chávez ensured their loyalty—it would be the sinister machinations of the empire at work. A little preemptive explanation.
From accusing the White House of trying to kill him to hanging out with Ahmadinejad and Gaddafi, here's a quick look at some reasons why Chavez was thought to hate America.
Hugo Chávez Frias was not a dictator, a semantic point to which his supporters devoted much argument, but he was most assuredly not a democrat. Having burst onto the Venezuelan political scene in 1992 as the leader of a failed military coup, he would later reposition himself as a champion of the ballot box, though one without much concern for the niceties of democracy. In the early days of Chavismo, despite his golpista background, Chavez commanded support from beyond the barrios, but his popularity waned significantly as he consolidated power by shuttering opposition media, rewriting the constitution, and expanding the supreme court. As his rule become more arbitrary and power centralized, thousands fled into exile. He won elections in conditions that, had they taken place in this country, would likely provoke revolution (and, in 2002, actually did in Venezuela). Chavez took his semi-democratic mandate as license to rule undemocratically and rebuild state institutions, now staffed with loyal supporters.
The fatherland is a shambles, Bolivarian socialism has failed, and Comandante Chávez is dead.
Chávez presided over a political epoch flush with money and lorded over a society riven by fear, deep political divisions, and ultraviolence. Consider the latest crime statistics from Observatorio Venezolano de la Violencia, which reckons that 2012 saw an astonishing 21,692 murders in the country—in a population of 29 million. Last year, I accompanied a Venezuelan journalist on his morning rounds at Caracas’s only morgue to count the previous night’s murders. As the number of dead ballooned, the Chávez regime simply stopped releasing murder statistics to the media.
All of this could have been predicted, and wasn’t particularly surprising from a president who believed that one must take the side of any enemy of the “empire.” That Zimbabwe’s dictator Robert Mugabe was a “freedom fighter,” or that Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko presided over “a model of a social state.” Saddam Hussein was a “brother,” Bashar al-Assad had the “same political vision” as the Bolivarian revolutionaries in Venezuela. He saw in the madness of Col. Gaddafi an often overlooked “brilliance” (“I ask God to protect the life of our brother Muammar Gaddafi”
. The brutal terrorist Carlos the Jackal, who praised the 9/11 attacks from his French jail cell, was “a good friend.” He praised and supported FARC, the terrorist organization operating in neighboring Colombia. The list is endless.
His was a poisonous influence on the region, one rah-rahed by radical fools who desired to see a thumb jammed in America’s eye, while not caring a lick for its effect on ordinary Venezuelans. In his terrific new book (fortuitously timed to publish this week) Comandante: Hugo Chávez's Venezuela, The Guardian’s Rory Carroll summed up the legacy of Chávez’s Venezuela as “a land of power cuts, broken escalators, shortages, queues, insecurity, bureaucracy, unreturned calls, unfilled holes, uncollected garbage.” One could add to that list grinding poverty, massive corruption, censorship, and intimidation.
This was Chávez’s reign and his legacy; extralegal, vindictive, and interested in the short-term gesture rather than the more difficult, long-term solution. From his revolutionary comrades in Cuba, he borrowed the slogan “patria, socialismo o muerte”—fatherland, socialism or death. The fatherland is a shambles, Bolivarian socialism has failed, and Comandante Chávez is dead. May the “revolution” die with him.
Hugo Chavez Dead at 58: Good Riddance! - The Daily Beast
Remembering Hugo Chávez: A Demagogue’s Career in Quotes
By Andrew Katz, March 05, 2013
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez died Tuesday from complications related to a near two-year battle with cancer. He was 58. Chávez, a populist firebrand who has defined a whole era of Latin American politics, was not known for holding his tongue. Here are some choice examples of the socialist’s oratory:
“Christopher Columbus was the spearhead of the biggest invasion and genocide ever seen in the history of humanity.” — Chávez, in 2003, on the discovery of the New World.
“I give you a replica of liberator Simon Bolivar’s sword. For you who, like Bolivar, took up arms to liberate your people. For you who, like Bolivar, are and will always be a true freedom fighter. [Mugabe] continues, alongside his people, to confront the pretensions of new imperialists.” — Chávez, speaking about Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, in 2004.
“Don’t mess with me, sir, or you will get stung.” – Chávez, in 2005, when addressing former Mexican President Vicente Fox.
“Terrorism, putting fear into other nations, putting fear into their own people. Families go and begin to disguise their children as witches. This is contrary to our way.” — Chávez, in a weekly broadcast in 2005, inveighing against the American tradition of Halloween.
“Remember, little girl, I’m like the thorn tree that flowers on the plain. I waft my scent to passers-by and prick he who shakes me. Don’t mess with me, Condoleezza. Don’t mess with me, girl.” — Chávez, to then U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in 2006.
“Don’t be shameless, Mr Blair. Don’t be immoral, Mr. Blair. You are one of those who have no morals. You are not one who has the right to criticize anyone about the rules of the international community. You are an imperialist pawn who attempts to curry favor with Danger Bush-Hitler, the number one mass murderer and assassin there is on the planet. Go straight to hell, Mr. Blair.” — Chávez, in 2006, to former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“You are a coward, a killer, a [perpetrator of] genocide, an alcoholic, a drunk, a liar, an immoral person, Mr Danger. You are the worst, Mr. Danger. The worst of this planet… A psychologically sick man, I know it.” – Chávez, about U.S. President George W. Bush, in 2006.
“Capitalism is the way of the devil and exploitation. If you really want to look at things through the eyes of Jesus Christ — who I think was the first socialist — only socialism can really create a genuine society.” — Chávez, on Christ’s economic views, in 2006.
“Yesterday the devil came here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today.” — Chávez in 2006, on George W. Bush, who appeared before the U.N. General Assembly at the same podium a day earlier.
“I think it’s imprudent for a king to shout at a president to shut up. Mr. King, we are not going to shut up.” — Chávez, in 2007, regarding a spat with Spain’s King Juan Carlos.
“I chew coca leaves every morning, and look at me!” — Chávez, in 2008, on certain natural health benefits.
“Bombing the brave Libyan people to save them? What a brilliant strategy by the mad empire. Where are the international rights? This is like the caveman era.” — Chávez, in 2011, on the NATO bombing campaign in Libya.
“You are a fraud, Obama,” Chávez said in 2011. “Go and ask many people in Africa, who might have believed in you because of the color of your skin, because your father was from Africa. You are an Afro-descendant, but you are the shame of all those people.”
“I think that Barack Obama – aside from ‘the president’ – is a good guy” — Chávez, a year later.
“Ahmadinejad and I are going into the … basement now to set our sights on Washington and launch cannons and missiles.” — Chávez, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in 2012.
Read more: http://world.time.com/2013/03/05/remembering-hugo-chavez-a-demagogues-career-in-quotes/#ixzz2Mmf2Mkxp