Getting Desperate

September 12, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs 

Expropriating U.S. businesses, reducing U.S. flights, expelling a U.S. Ambassador (along with political soul mate Bolivian President Evo Morales), and aiding guerrillas that terrorize U.S. allies, are only superficial schemes and exhausted attempts to buy back power, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trying to portray a dichotomy where the United States “needs to show respect for Latin America.” To borrow a misused quote, “Latin America has moved on,” not from the Washington Consensus as Counterpunch’s Juan Montecino argues, but rather from the cultural phenomenon of Caudillismo and the Cold War relic of Fidelismo.

Via Reuters:

Opinion polls show his allies could lose important governorships in November elections because Venezuelans worry about some of the world’s worst rates for inflation and murder. But those issues were pushed off the front pages and TV talk shows.

Gone too was the opposition media’s blow-by-blow coverage of a trial, where Chavez was accused this week of sending agents to Florida to buy the silence of businessmen involved in a scandal where $800,000 was funneled to his ally Argentina.

The opposition defeated Chavez last year for the first time in a national vote, a referendum on expanding his powers, and says he wants to fire his political base by creating enemies.

“Chavez is nervous. He should calm down. We will send him a box of sedatives,” opposition leader Manuel Rosales said. “It seems the election map and numbers have him nervous.”

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