NYT
Op-Ed Columnist
The Limits of 21st-Century Revolution
By ROGER COHEN
CARACAS, Venezuela

President Hugo Chávez has narrowly lost his latest attempt to push
forward a revolutionary socialist agenda. His oil-rich country, still
bent on humbling the United States, is an instructive place from which
to view the world, so here are eight rules of modern political life as
seen from Venezuela:

1.) Trade trumps politics. Even as Chávez has been calling President
Bush "the devil," U.S.-Venezuela commercial ties have blossomed. This
is the Western Hemisphere's equivalent of the Taiwan-China
relationship: political enemies engaged in booming business. Bilateral
trade will be about $47 billion this year, up from 2006, with
Venezuelan exports to the U.S. reaching $37 billion (overwhelmingly
oil), and imports totaling close to $10 billion. Chávez derides the
"little Yankees" but can't get enough American cars and clothes for
his "21st-century socialism." Such links dilute danger.

2.) Globalization breeds nationalism. Global financial flows and
technology limit the real power of politicians, who compensate with
what's left: national identity. Chávez's last speech in an
unsuccessful campaign to turn Venezuela into a state with a formally
socialist constitution had nothing to say about the ideas involved,
but much to say about "our real enemy, the American empire,"
anticolonialism, Bolivarian glory and alleged threats from the Central
Intelligence Agency or CNN. The radicalization of political discourse
matters more than its content, as the 2004 U.S. election campaign also
suggested.

3.) Oil centralizes power. Venezuelan oil fetches a lower price than
most because it's harder to refine, but Chávez is still pocketing
between $4 billion and $6.7 billion a month, depending on whom you
believe. Give anyone in an opaque, rather than open, society more than
$100 million a day and he might start to rave about ruling until 2050,
as Chavez has. "The tendency of the petrostate is to recentralize,
petrify and personalize power," said Margarita López Maya, a political
scientist who long supported Chávez but is now disillusioned. From
Moscow to Luanda to Caracas, this has been the case.

4.) Anti-U.S. networks are here to stay. Chávez is throwing his one-
pipeline-state petrodollars around to cultivate bonds beyond comrades
in Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia. Ties with Iran, Russia, China,
Argentina, Ecuador and Caribbean states are intensifying. Never mind
if it takes three weeks to ship oil to China and three days to the
United States: Chávez wants to parlay his petrorevenue and
pseudorevolution into a global anti-American role. Moscow is selling
him arms; Beijing is selling whatever it can. These trends will
continue beyond Bush. High oil prices will tend to accentuate the long-
term erosion of American dominance.

5.) Ideologies are now served à la carte. Chávez makes common cause
with the Cuban Revolution. But he parades under banners of Jesus
Christ and calls Christ the "first revolutionary." So much for
Communism's dismissal of the opium of the people. The Venezuelan
leader talks a lot about women's rights, but abortion remains illegal.
Just as Chinese Communism can be capitalist, and Russian democracy
look Leninist, Chávez's Cuban-inspired socialism can be Catholic: what
counts is power preservation.

6.) Democracy is tested. Chávez has held several referendums and
elections since coming to power nine years ago, although none as close
as yesterday's. When opposition TV stations are curtailed, when birth
certificates and national identity cards are bought for a few hundred
dollars, when tens of billions of dollars go missing in the national
budget, when the judiciary is subservient and corruption a way of
life, democracy is challenged. Chávez's concession of a narrow defeat
is reassuring, but his readiness to build an open and accountable
society is still open to question. Russian "sovereign democracy" and
Chávez's "socialist democracy" need new transparency above all.

7.) Utopias live. Decades of neglect of Venezuela's poor by ruling
elites opened the way for Chávez's "revolution," with its promise of
socialist cooperatives, improved health care and education, and
"people's power." In some areas, like health and education, he has
delivered. But "El Comandante" has also tried to extend a controlled
system for his greater glory. It benefits his crony capitalists in a
make-believe economy of price controls, exchange-rate controls and
unsustainable subsidies. When the crash comes, the poor will suffer
and have no recourse. But the thirst for utopian illusion seems
undimmed by 20th-century cataclysm, and the appetite for an anti-Bush
is so voracious that the Chávez-as-Che concoction resonates, empty as
it is.

8.) TV trumps all. In the bars of Caracas, people watch N.B.A.
basketball and their beloved baseball. Johan Santana, the brilliant
Venezuelan pitcher now apparently close to a move to the Yankees, is a
national hero. At the U.S. embassy, visa applicants must wait until
April for appointments. Flights to and from the United States are
packed, malls full of U.S. brands. Consumers have ever more choices,
politicians ever fewer. It's unlikely even Chávez can turn back the
clock far enough to change that.

Lance wrote:
>
> 
> 5.) Ideologies are now served à la carte. Chávez makes common cause
> with the Cuban Revolution. But he parades under banners of Jesus
> Christ and calls Christ the "first revolutionary." So much for
> Communism's dismissal of the opium of the people. The Venezuelan
> leader talks a lot about women's rights, but abortion remains illegal.
> Just as Chinese Communism can be capitalist, and Russian democracy
> look Leninist, Chávez's Cuban-inspired socialism can be Catholic: what
> counts is power preservation.
> 
I'm not quite sure what the purpose of posting this here is - it seems 
to be pretty standard Yankland Uber Alles rhetoric.

I thought that quite a few people were of the opinion that the gospels 
suggest that Jesus had quite a few socialist or communist ideas.

I also thought that it was fairly common knowledge that the Yanks are 
constantly trying to make abortion illegal and bomb innocent people 
working in abortion clinics.

They are, I suppose, right about power preservation, but how a Yank 
writer could possibly imagine that this is a problem only for foreigners 
is beyond me.

Peter H.M.Brooks wrote:
> Lance wrote:
> >
> >
> > 5.) Ideologies are now served � la carte. Ch�vez makes common cause
> > with the Cuban Revolution. But he parades under banners of Jesus
> > Christ and calls Christ the "first revolutionary." So much for
> > Communism's dismissal of the opium of the people. The Venezuelan
> > leader talks a lot about women's rights, but abortion remains illegal.
> > Just as Chinese Communism can be capitalist, and Russian democracy
> > look Leninist, Ch�vez's Cuban-inspired socialism can be Catholic: what
> > counts is power preservation.
> >
> I'm not quite sure what the purpose of posting this here is - it seems
> to be pretty standard Yankland Uber Alles rhetoric.
>
> I thought that quite a few people were of the opinion that the gospels
> suggest that Jesus had quite a few socialist or communist ideas.
>
> I also thought that it was fairly common knowledge that the Yanks are
> constantly trying to make abortion illegal and bomb innocent people
> working in abortion clinics.
>
> They are, I suppose, right about power preservation, but how a Yank
> writer could possibly imagine that this is a problem only for foreigners
> is beyond me.

It seems to me that you are incapable of thinking rationally about
America and Americans. It is a vast and highly differentiated society,
containing a huge variety of views and opinions, including views not
far from your own. Anyway.

I do think classical Marxists would not have accepted any association
with a religious figure such as Jesus, whether or not he had socialist
leanings. So I think the article is right.

Many Americans have campaigned for the right of women to have
abortions. As far as I know some have even been assasinated for
holding that view. Shame on you for your narrow minded bigotry.

If Americans (some anyway) are obsessed with maintaing hegemony in the
world today, well that gives them a pretty good place from which to
see the same motives in others. So pay attention!

Cheers

Lance

Lance wrote:
> 
> 
> I do think classical Marxists would not have accepted any association
> with a religious figure such as Jesus, whether or not he had socialist
> leanings. So I think the article is right.
 >
I'm not sure who you consider to be a 'classical Marxist', but this 
claim is not unknown in pinkos:

http://www.tiraspoltimes.com/news/moldova_president_says_jesus_was_a_commie.html
> 
> Many Americans have campaigned for the right of women to have
> abortions. As far as I know some have even been assasinated for
> holding that view. Shame on you for your narrow minded bigotry.
 >
I mentioned the attacks on abortion clinics.
> 
> If Americans (some anyway) are obsessed with maintaing hegemony in the
> world today, well that gives them a pretty good place from which to
> see the same motives in others. So pay attention!
> 
That suggests an insight that wasn't obvious in the article you quoted.