Fresh from a cuddly visit with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took time off from oppressing protesters to join in a statement about helping the oppressed, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela arrived the other day at a welcoming Venice film festival.
Why, you could hardly contain the hoopla as hundreds anticipated the showing of a documentary about what a terrific guy he is. The film is the work of Oliver Stone, the director whose cinematic imagination reached years ago through a mountain of contrary evidence to the conclusion that the CIA murdered John F. Kennedy.
and people still trust his judgment?
Of course, Stone is hardly alone among Hollywood types cheering this socialist tyrant from the sidelines – we also have Kevin Spacey, Sean Penn, Danny Glover and Tim Robbins – and the more dismaying news comes next: Some Washington types point to Chavez as a model to emulate.
I am not talking about President Obama’s once giving him a hearty handshake, or the precious few words said about despotic mistreatment of the Venezuelan populace, but about Mark Lloyd, the diversity chief of the Federal Communications Commission. In videotaped, Internet-available remarks, he said Chavez was leading a great democratic revolution and implied he was doing great things to deal with Venezuelan media.
Coming from someone who has written about how the federal government has to get tougher on radio stations – taking some stations away from those who own too many, getting more exacting on license renewals and assessing sky-high fees for certain kinds of perceived abuses – the assessment by Lloyd is pretty scary. Chavez’s government is aiming to close as many as 100 politically pesky radio stations and is also moving legally against Globovision, an uncooperative TV network.
Additionally, journalists have been beaten and a new law can put them in prison if they write too critically about the government.
Among other despotic moves pointed out by observers, Chavez has made the judiciary a puppet of the executive. The country has become miserably corrupt. Opposing Chavez can cost you dearly in a dozen different ways, such as an inability to get certain kinds of jobs. Chavez’s acquiescent legislature has passed a bill requiring that the schools teach the marvels of his political ideas and allowing the government to decide who gets to go to universities and to teach.
Among other despotic moves pointed out by observers, Chavez has made the judiciary a puppet of the executive. The country has become miserably corrupt. Opposing Chavez can cost you dearly in a dozen different ways, such as an inability to get certain kinds of jobs. Chavez’s acquiescent legislature has passed a bill requiring that the schools teach the marvels of his political ideas and allowing the government to decide who gets to go to universities and to teach.
For a while, high oil prices were coming to the rescue of the economy, but Chavez has wrecked the state-run oil company, prices have come down, economic growth has become economic decline, the country has one of the highest inflation rates in the world, and thanks to the evisceration of the private economy on top of everything else, the standard of living has been going down for everyone.
Chavez is continuously courting the poor, but their only advances during his time in office have been related to the oil price surge that has now gone away, according to an online article by Francisco Rodriguez, a professor and former Venezuelan official who cites government statistics.
Ah, for the good old days, not just in Venezuela but in Hollywood. Go back to 1940, and there was Charlie Chaplin making a movie called “The Great Dictator.” It was about Adenoid Hynkel – actually, Adolph Hitler – and showed him up for the brutal buffoon, the monster, the anti-Semitic goon that he was. It’s reported that the movie helped people in their understanding of what the world was up against and that it lifted morale in Britain once war had begun.
The journey from Chaplin’s cold-eyed view of reality to Stone’s mushy leftist romanticism is a long one, and all in the wrong direction.
