From: Paul Zarembka (zarembka@BUFFALO.EDU)
Date: Mon May 31 2004 - 13:07:10 EDT
On Mon, 31 May 2004, Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > Chavez's Venezuela will be any different? His authoritarian regime > seems to have eliminated several checks against corruption. You are fixed on Chavez. Chavez doesn't own the government nor Venezuela. He would not last a day without a social base. Your choice of wording is revealing, as if he is a dictator. And you rarely even attempt to discuss the lives of ordinary Venezuelan workers and peasants. "His authoritarian regime"! Does the U.S. have an "authoritarian regime", or France, or Poland, or India, or South Africa, or Brazil, or Japan, or Mexico, or Argentina, or Turkey, or Russia? If they have "authoritarian regimes", then your expression is empty of distinction. If they have "authoritarian regimes" what would be a "democratic government"? Or are you a "left-wing communist" for which nothing short of communism is democratic (but then even Lenin said democracy is the dictatorship of the majority over the minority). In any case, your pejorative of "authoritarian regime" feeds the stomaches of the extreme-right opposition in Venezuela in which the masses of workers and peasants may soon face civil war. I'm sorry to report that this is serious, not the stuff for casual, uninformed judgments from afar (you yourself have said you are not well informed on Venezuela -- I'm not making this up). Which side would you take on the barricades, or will you stay in the Bay Area and continue to report on "Chavez's authoritarian regime"? Paul
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