Oops!!

The blog remains one-hundred percent opposed to hysteria, and I myself resist the tendency towards it as well, but this cannot be good.

HT: Tully at SF

Hugo Chavez vs. Time

Hugo has apparently decided that time itself is thwarting his plans, so he's decided to create a whole new time zone.

"I don't care if they call me crazy, the new time will go ahead," he said.

OK, then. You're craaaazy.

HT: Althouse, who has a cool new profile pic.

The People Say No to Hugo

Hugo Chavez's plan to solididy himself as a dictator (even more than he already was) has failed, as the people of Venezuela rejected his referendum that would have made him President for life, carved up what was left of the Constitution, and seized even more executive power, and made him the next Fidel. The Chavistas will doubtless continue to misread this, and blame the U.S., but I think Marc Cooper nails it in one strike:

The real answer is that Hugo Chavez lost because a majority of Venezuelans decided he had taken them far enough off, thank you very much, and simply did not want to cross the threshold into an uncertain and prolonged chapter of personal dictatorship and political darkness. Good for them. Let's hope they can make it through the next six years of Chavez' current term.

Indeed. The people wanted democracy. Chavez, after grabbing more and more power, after shutting down the opposition press (with apparent approval from some over here), and his continued authoritarian expansion, couldn't force the people to choose dictatorship. He may call them traitors, but it won't work. Let's just hope and pray Venezuela survives the rest of his term.

BTW, Tully over at my second home Stubborn Facts has consistently provided extensive coverage of this issue, and Chavez's antics in general.

I Don't How Else To Say This

I'm planning on blogging more extensively on the issue after getting a better handle on things, but as I see things now, this is bad. I know it may place me in unexpected company to say this, but the situation in Colombia is bad. I hope I'm reading this wrong, but if things are as they seem, then Congress has a lot to answer for.

HT:Instapundit (Yes, that Instapundit. Some people seem to have a great deal of antipathy against the good professor, but the fact that we don't agree on everything hardly disqualifies him from polite society, and certainly ought to exempt him from such low-class namecalling.)

Hugo vs. Free Speech

Apparently, FAIR thinks it's fair. Read this, and try not to vomit:

When Chávez returned to power the commercial stations refused to cover the news, airing instead entertainment programs—in RCTV's case, the American film Pretty Woman. By refusing to cover such a newsworthy story, the stations abandoned the public interest and violated the public trust that is seen in Venezuela (and in the U.S.) as a requirement for operating on the public airwaves. Regarding RCTV's refusal to cover the return of Chavez to power, Columbia University professor and former NPR editor John Dinges told Marketplace (5/8/07):

"What RCTV did simply can't be justified under any stretch of journalistic principles…. When a television channel simply fails to report, simply goes off the air during a period of national crisis, not because they're forced to, but simply because they don't agree with what's happening, you've lost your ability to defend what you do on journalistic principles."

You've got to f-ing kidding me. How much did he pay you, FAIR? How much?

Hat tip: Marc Cooper

Reflections on Pinochet's Death, (and Reflections on the Reflections)

In case you didn't know, General Augusto Pinochet has died, at the age of 91. The old dictator passed away a couple of days ago, and for most, this ought to be good news. It seems that there's an uncomfortable heap of controversy over his legacy. I must confess to not being anything approaching an expert, but it seems to me, after reading the history, that Pinochet's legacy as a brutal dictator, who seized power from the democratically-elected (albeit Marxist) Sal Allende, and then murdered over 3,000 over his people, tortured and brutalized thousands more, committed acts of state terrorism, including acts on U.S soil, and subjected his people to a nearly two-decade reign of terror is valid and undisputed. Even many of his apologists (and they're out and about), admit he was a dictator.

There are numerous sources to check out on Pinochet's legacy. Christopher Hitchens has written a good piece on Pinochet's bloody legacy. Marc Cooper, who was actually Allende's translator back in the day, has a perspective on this you'll not get anywhere else.

As I said before, not everybody's happy that the Captain General is gone. Many of his supporters have taken to the streets, and pledged their support for him at his funeral. Apparently, much like their beloved master, they really do have a soft spot for fascism.

The rightist apologists for Pinochet, at home and abroad, are all over the place. The general pro-Pinochet argument basically goes like this: His free-market economic policies brought prosperity to Chile, and he left Chile better off. His dictatorial regime is excused as a necessary reaction to communism. "Sure he was a dictator, but those damned commies had to be stopped." His despotism, murder, and terrorism are somehow mitigated by his Milton Friedman style economic policies. Maybe I missed something, but I didn't think that markets were usually implemented through bloody dictatorships. Shows what I know. This view is far more prevalent than many realize. Maggie Thatcher saw him as "restoring democracy to Chile." In fact, he was having tea with the Iron Lady right before his 1998 arrest.

Examples of right-wing apology are here, here, here, and a mind boggling one here. These sorts of things get ugly real quick, it seems.

Heck, even the Washington Post gets in on the action.

Look, recognizing the very real and ugly tyrannical legacy of Fidel and other communist regimes is one thing, but to excuse one of the most brutal and criminal dictatorships in Latin America, all under the banner of economic renewal, and a policy of anything goes against communism is wholly misguided.

Glenn Greenwald and others point to the linkage between this and the controversial policy of the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, who passed away just a few days ago also. Her policy, expressed in her landmark 1979 piece "Dictatorships and Double Standards, " essentially argues that right-wing regimes were less repressive than left-wing ones, and that it was good U.S. policy to back any regimes that were anticommunist. This approach was flawed for obvious reasons. I won't go too much into Kirkpatrick's role on this, although Greenwald does capture the prevailed right-wing sentiment on Pinochet clearly: It was all justified to save the country from communism. Many point out how he laid down his power after the plebiscite, which to me is like saying "he raped us for twenty years, and then he stopped. What a guy!" Well, it was the least he could do, after all.

Now, as I said, I'm not an expert, but this whole Pinochet apology and revisionism borders on revolting. I'll just leave it at that.