POLITICS AND NATURE

Power Expands in Venezuela

Hugo Chavez brings to mind the failed social movements littering the ash heap of the twentieth century. Planned economies break down because they lack freedom. The election in Venezuela is likely to go to the insane, self absorbed leader and it will prove to be disastrous for the people. Chavez, like so many authoritarians, claims to be fighting the good fight, for the people. There is a long line of strongmen through history who came to power by pandering to the people by asserting they were standing up to take care of the little guy.

Hitler promised Germans pride.

Lenin brought revolution.

Castro fought international capitalism backed by industrial, imperial powers.

Mao promised a return to the land.

Sandinistas fought land owners.

Mussolini made Italian trains run on time.

Often, the so-called leader of the people dies in power. Each case is different but social orders propped up by injustice and terror lead to revolutions built upon the same. Chavez’s role in this hemisphere, propelled by demagoguery and funded with oil revenue, holds the potential to engender colossal tensions reverberating throughout the world for decades.

Chavez, assuming he wins this referendum (whatever it is being called), is granted extraordinary executive powers. We’re talking strength enough to make Richard Nixon contemplate constitutional limits on presidential influence.

Who Cares?

#1: Democratic governance can be dangerous if people are not active and informed.

Politics and Nature articles repeatedly advance the idea that free expression requires thoughtful debate and extensive deliberation. Notice that Hugo Chavez allowed the people to vote themselves into slavery. He did not declare himself king. The people will carry him on their shoulders into the throne room and fashion a crown out of the sweat of their labor.

#2: The United States imports over 1 million barrels of Venezuelan Oil per day.

Just for the sake of knowledge, Venezuela is the fourth largest exporter to America, behind 1. Canada, 2. Saudi Arabia and 3. Mexico

www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

Hugo Chavez and the U.S. need each other at this point in time. They get money, the United States get fuel. It is a symbiotic relationship that, it seems, neither leader wants to acknowledge. Questions of global warming, environmental justice, and political rights aside, U.S. dependence on foreign oil threatens the long term stability of international relations.

Economies expanding exponentially in China and India may provide other markets to Venezuela. The U.S. may develop alternative energy sources. Until one of these future possibilities becomes a reality, these countries are trapped in an uneasy co-dependence. Chavez uses U.S. money to finance socialist movements benefiting his name. He is no fool. He feeds on what many in the world see as the depraved indifference of the current President George W. Bush and the careless, ignorant North American thugs proselytizing to the world.

#3: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Martin Luther King Jr. reminded people of this fundamental truth in his Letter From Birmingham Jail, in 1963. This more theoretical reasoning appears odd to the modern U.S. mind. Forever pursuing fiscal expansion, searching the modern world for a better retirement plan, all while feeding and teaching children, taking them to and from soccer, volleyball, baseball, football, spelling B’s, debates, fixing plumbing, paying the mortgage (for those lucky enough to own their own homes), keeping jobs, paying bills, all while making sure to take both weeks of vacation throughout the year.

Imagine, for a moment, chaos and unhappiness supported by the vindictive, veritably violent, version of vacant minded anarchists spreading up and down the Americas. Chavez seems to take a certain amount of pleasure exporting his insanity while giving money to every anarchistic faction willing to swear to hatred of capitalism and the United States.

Thirsting for Freedom

The version of Venezuela Chavez wants will benefit his friends and allies. The poor lose any ability to speak their voices within systems of oppression like the one Chavez will impress upon Venezuela. Socialist autocracy will not solve problems for anyone.

Democracy has many virtues. Among those most important are that “all [people] are created equal” and that “each is endowed by the creator with inalienable rights and that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Consolidating government in any man’s hands is a prescription for destruction.

The appeal Chavez and others like him have on the common man is the power to stand up to the people with money. Marx calls them the bourgeoisie. They are the owners of the means of production. Ayn Rand (and Fred Thompson) calls them the most productive class of citizens. The United States stands on the precipice between the lofty goals of equality and the mean realities of difference and a, sometimes uneasy, arrangement has been made in which all people theoretically have the equality of opportunity.

This, of course, is not true, but it is certainly a pleasant fantasy keeping the peace outside of the inner cities. Capitalism is the best of what the world has come to know as far as economic structures are concerned. There are, however, weaknesses and it does not work without counterbalancing forces arrayed against its evil children; avarice, despair, poverty, and environmental squalor that pollute the loftiest of its goals. Even Adam Smith admitted back in 1775 that a rightful duty of government is to protect natural parks and areas deemed for the public good.

Chavez will destroy nature along with the human spirit that will crush under the weight of his ultimate power, just as this nation would be crushed under a single leadership for a lifetime. The United States deals with capitalism’s inequities in numerous ways, among those are governmental involvement.

Do not equate Hillary Clinton with Hugo Chavez or any candidate’s platforms on health care reform with socialism, like so many conservative commentators do on whims. We are far from a socialist state and we are far from an autocratic state. That is why is so important for people to stay engaged and active in thinking about the nation and why we are who we are and why we do what we do.

Don’t let the naysayers destroy the spirit of this nation. There are problems and, if the current group in control of the executive in this nation are any indication, hiding heads in the sand and simply asserting over and over again ‘all is well’ doesn’t work. It fails to address real concerns and issues. Venezuela experiences vast poverty, which goes hand in hand with injustice and environmental destruction. These people don’t care, like those supporting Putin in Russia, who does what as long as order and stability are restored.

The funny part is, when capitalism goes too far by ignoring the rights of workers, the health of the environment, and the justice of corporate actions, it can lead to revolutions and then the revolutionaries move into the houses of the evil landowners that lived in those houses before them.

We Americans are ignorant. I’m not being pompous, I am an ignorant American and I’m actually not ashamed of that. I read as much as I can, have traveled as much as possible, and worked with, lived with, and conversed with people of all educational and skill levels, and still I know very little.

I do know people who travel the world and want to tell me what it is like and I know that all they have seen of the world comes from boardrooms or through the window of the limousine on the way to corporate headquarters. It is a lot like W looking out the window of Air Force One over Katrina before landing and telling Brownie what a great job he was doing. He was so out of touch and living in a world so far removed from the vast majority of people that no matter what he says, it sounds like he’s full of s&^%.

This is important stuff for people to think about and it’s critical that whatever one thinks of the power and might of this nation, there must be an understanding that, as much as providence has blessed this nation with bountiful land and resources and isolated us from much of the rest of the world by two great oceans, we are also blessed with ideals setting up a challenge to each of us to be the best we can be and to be the best nation we can be. Through thoughtful argument, intellectual discourse, diplomacy, and “a decent respect for the opinions of mankind,” we can alter the events that endanger our society and help lift other people up from the yoke of repression that gags and stifles them.