Hugo Chavez has considerable appeal to the latest generation of what Lenin called 'useful idiots'
Chris Sabatini uses the 11th anniversary of President Hugo Chávez’s assumption of power to reflect on the seven key lessons he has learned from the Bolivarian caudillo.
“President Chávez’s behavior and profile, internationally and nationally, provide a powerful lesson on how to challenge and defy traditional wisdom—and with it international norms and precedent,” writes Sabatini, Editor-in-Chief of Americas Quarterly and Senior Director of Policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas – and, of course, former Latin America/Caribbean program director at the National Endowment for Democracy.
Each lesson is worth pondering, but my favorite is #2:
If You Wrap Yourself in the Rhetoric of Social Justice, People Will Give You the Benefit of the Doubt (even if you are a former military officer): Whether it’s some human rights groups that don’t want to risk their lefty creds by criticizing a supposedly socially progressive government or Hollywood stars out of their artistic, intellectual depth (Sean Penn, Danny Glover), it is astonishing the degree to which people are willing to give a pass to a clearly autocratic government that claims it’s for the poor. To say that is not to deny the need or even the merits of Chavista literacy programs, health clinics or food subsidies for the poor. But if a conservative, elected president embraced Chilean General Pinochet’s legacy, claimed he was a historical descendant of Milton Friedman, spoke a folksy jargon familiar to the poor, pursued the same social programs but also closed down opposition media and jailed opponents I can guarantee that many of these human rights as well as Sean Penn would be in full-throated attack mode. (I have this image of former Peruvian autocrat Alberto Fujimori sitting in jail, watching this play out and thinking to himself, “If only I had worn a Ché Guevara t-shirt this never would have happened to me.”) (Note: some may say here that Friedman would never have supported handouts to the poor; Karl Marx wouldn’t have either—in fact he would have seen it for what it really is, an effort to buy off the proletariat.)
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