Group Think Tourism

November 13, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under International Affairs 

Alek Boyd of Venezuelan News and Views shows how fawning foreigners undermine democracy by glossing over the oppressive and militaristic socialism Hugo Chavez has brought upon the Venezuelan people:

Chavez, however, can’t be faulted for hiding his intentions. For if there’s one leader that has abused its powers to commandeer all media to advance his ideals and announce with surgical precision what he would do, how and why, that is Chavez. His revolution is on radio, on TV, online 24/7. Therefore, as irony would have it, gatherings serve to witness the shrinking number of ‘thinkers’ that think that allowing the existence of only one, official, version of reality is morally justified, freedom of opinion and expression be damned. Fellow travelers accepting Chavez’s hospitality expose a breed of ‘intellectuals’ at the service of the revolution, a concept popping straight out of Havana’s ‘cultural congress.’ More tellingly, Chavez’s Gramscian construct, despite the enormous amount of resources lavished to achieve it, is an absolute failure. Hundreds of community and national TV and radio stations, Chinese satellite and continental TV networks notwithstanding, it has failed to produce or inspire a literary/artistic movement of the sort seen during the boom years of the 60ies and 70ies. On the contrary, if there are notorious elements that have characterized Chavez’s pet project these are its mediocrity, mendacity, lack of creativity and originality, owing to the very Dadaist nature of it. For it is unthinkable that stuff produced by members of the Miranda Centre, such as Eva Golinger, would become subject of respected academic study in years to come.

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