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    Conservatives only misundersta..., 2007-12-07 11:11:33 | Main | now mitt extra oxymoron..., 2007-12-08 10:55:46

    a little less chavismo, a little more machismo, please:

    I've been reading about the 60 odd constitutional ammendments that were shot down in a public referendum in Venezuela this week, and a lot of folks have been referring to a 'new and dynamic' student movement that joined the opposition, so I thought this was kind of funny:

    He also hasn't totally broken with his namesake, who was responsible for the deaths of millions. "Of course, there's the murder and repression," he says. But the Soviet leader defeated Hitler, he says, and propagated ideas of fairness and sharing that inspired the left in subsequent decades. "He was important for publicizing some important ideas."

    That's Ivan Stalin González, featured by the WSJ as one of the leaders of said student movement. The WSJ says he is concerned that Chavez might be 'more authoritarian than egalitarian'. Well with anti-authoritarian allies like this liberty is surely safe from the pugnacious onslaught of Chavez's motormouth. Or maybe they just miss the Looney Toons reruns on RCTV. Or, being as RCTV remains the highest rated network in the country after being "shut down", not. Who knows what might drive an admirer of Stalin's ideas about fairness away from Chavismo.

    I also love that caption the WSJ attached to that story. Classic.

    Anyway, I don't really see why I should care whether Venezuela has term limits or not. I'm dubious about the emergency powers the referendum apparently would have granted to the presidency - if only because I haven't found anybody who explained what they were and how they could be implemented, or, for that matter, an English translation of the 40 pages of reforms. The rest of it was apparently a laundry list of economic reforms that could just as well be implemented by the legislature or symbolic gibberish about socialismo.

    Marc Cooper, for one, expresses unrestrained glee on finally seeing a return on the tens of millions US taxpayers have blown funding an opposition that, as we know, would never entertain sympathies for a "prolonged chapter of personal dictatorship and political darkness".

    I would like to take note of Coop's three predictions near the end of his post, though: that "the left" would dispute the results, ramble about how it was all a nefarious Washington plot, or argue that his acceptance of the results demonstrates Chavez's democratic credentials.

    One post later Cooper is crowing how Tariq Ali proves these predictions right. 'Just as he predicted' Ali argues that Chavez lost due to low turnout among his supporters. Remember when Marc Cooper predicted that? To demonstrate just how crazy and nutty and blind and predictable this idea is, and further demonstrating Marc Cooper's awesome powers of foresight, a CBS/New Republic analysis, amidst much ruing of how "Chavez perfected the playbook of 'democratic authoritarianism'", notes that:

    "The referendum vote did reveal cracks in the Chávez juggernaut. Most noteworthy, voter turnout in many supposed Chavista strongholds was at times spotty, if not outright low."

    Get it? Tariq is such a nut!

    As we have amply demonstrated here Marc Cooper totally predicted that the "extreme left" would argue that Chavez lost the vote because of a lack of support from his base, and that this "crapola" would be an "absurd notion". Marc Cooper 15 billion, The Left 0.

    For more factless bloviating about how truly disgusting and illogical the non-existent American left has become we can always depend on Marc Cooper to construct another intricately engineered scarecrow, and then watch in amazement and wonder as he proceeds to self-righteously beat the straw out of it. Humanity has a true champion at last.


:: posted by buermann @ 2007-12-07 16:05:06 CST | link


    Comments:
      "Of course, there's the murder and repression,"

      That young man will go far, I can assure you. Give it ten years, I reckon, and the Coopster will be writing "more in sorrow than anger" condemnations of his excesses.

    posted by Scruggs @ 2007-12-08 18:02:02 | link




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