Marc Cooper has a pair of pieces up that are worth reading:
- Thirty Years Later: Meeting the Death Squads. In the wake of Winds affiliate Randy Paul's reminder that Friday the 24th is the 30th anniversary of the installation of the military dictatorship in Argentina, Marc Cooper has his own personal experience of being in Argentina during that time. Being invited into a green Ford Falcon = no foolin' trouble.
"Thanks to the Democratic Left list-serve I have come across a stunningly intelligent posting from a previously unknown (to me) and mysterious blogger. Oso Raro over at Slaves of Academe is one smart gal -- though that's all she let's us know about her.
But what a thrillingly intelligent (and wonderfully long) essay she has penned about the new Hero Worship around one, um, er, Hugo Chavez. Though, that's not really fair. Her take is much deeper than that and -- from a definite left-of-center position-- probes the psyche of First World Leftists who have an insatiable need to project their own frustrated dreams on some tin-pot character like Col. Chavez. It's what she calls The Che Complex..."
It's one heck of an essay, and grapples with a certain important trrain from a left-wing perspective that works like Hollander's "Political Pilgrims" have addressed from the center-right. One more building stone in the "Decent Left" movement represented by folks like Democratiyya; the exchanges in Marc's comments section are also ineresting in a weird sort of way.
To have a decent left you would need an economically literate left.
I don't see it.
Political justice requires economic justice. Economic justice means upholding the property rights of the poor as well as the rich.
Let me know when a significant portion of the left (apart from the marginalized Joe Lieberman in a party that would be considered rightist in most other countries) starts supporting property rights.
http://powerandcontrol.blogsp*t.com/2004/11/property.html
Sorry about the b l o g s p o t thing.
That Chavez was legitimately elected and then overthrown in a coup supported by the Bush administration should be enough to tell you who the good guys are here. If you had and decency, honor and integrity, that is.
#2 "That Chavez was legitimately elected"
Four words into your reply and you have already lost credibility.
That kind of personal wordship, of authoritarian leader, of endowing a political leader with extra powers is deeply rooted in Latin America and it is one of its main cultural problems.
As one of the Bryan's Life characters says to him: I know you are the true prophet cause I've followed many, something similiar happens here. Chavez is finally the leader they have been looking for to raise them from poverty.
The position of the First World Left, so frustrated in not getting done the revolution in their home countries (except probably in Spain) and supporting that kind of leaders and the decissions they make is not much better either.
M. Simon (#1)
Political justice requires economic justice. Economic justice means upholding the property rights of the poor as well as the rich.
Yes, that is the solution. Sadly the concept of "Justice" greatly differs in the Hispanic world from the Anglosaxon. It is a cultural difference very profitable for a few powerful individuals.
Carlos Alberto Montaner, a political analyst, has worked a great part of his life to overcome it.
Joe,
I was humming right along with Oso Raro's commentary and, while disagreeing with some of her Lefty descriptors, was well on my way to, I thought, maybe a deeper understanding of Chaves and Latin/South America.
Then, a third of the way in, she writes
"confirmed by international observers with their eyes more on the unstable price of oil than democratic irreugularities; in other words, brought to you by the same people who confirmed an Ohio win for Bush)."
Tune out time, anybody who seriously believes this allegation lives in a reality hugely self created. Kinda the mirror image of those people in Kansas the progressive left doesn't understand.
Mike
Mike, of course she's in a different, self-created reality. She's a leftist.
The question is whether it is possible within that reality to be truer to professed ideals, and criticize tyrants who breach them even if they happen to hate America, the Jews, et. al.
That's the first step toward what might be called a "Decent Left," and it's a very important one. It's also useful to read this stuff from someone who has seen it up-close and personal from the inside.
Joe,
How can I believe anything promulgated by a person who accepts non-reality as a truth?
I'm reduced to a "pick & choose" mode of reading.
Yeah, she might be right here, but, then, she is insane so she might be wrong.
I'm way behind you and most WoC commenters/posters in being well read on all these subjects, but I think I'm pretty representative of your readers in that I'm looking to increase my knowledge of the world and it's politics.
Agree with or not, almost everything here at WoC is enlightening, but that's only because I believe in the basic sanity of the writer.
Mike Daley