Abraham Cooper and Harold Brackman: The Trouble with Chavismo
[Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, where Harold Brackman is a historian and consultant. For more information, see www.wiesenthal.com.]
With Americans worried about unemployment, the deficit, immigration, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and more, it's not surprising that some are looking abroad for other approaches to governing. Even Venezuela's Hugo Chávez is being touted by some as having figured out a better way to take care of his people. During a particularly frigid winter in the Northeast, Chávez even worked with former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy to sell cheap oil to poor New Englanders.
But a look at the Chávez regime's first decade should disabuse everyone but Oliver Stone - the director of a new documentary fawning over the strongman - of the notion that today's Venezuela should be regarded as a role model.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a report last winter that tracks Venezuela's descent into authoritarian rule. The costs to date include fair elections, an independent judiciary, uncensored media, and freedom of religion....
Chavismo has...had repercussions for Venezuela's Jews, a historically prosperous and stable community that has been scapegoated by the despot. With roots going back to Simon Bolivar's time, Venezuelan Jews managed to survive the Nazi era relatively unscathed by the fascist eruptions that scarred much of Latin America. But since coming to power in 1998, Chávez has revealed himself to be less the latter-day Bolivar he claims than a reincarnation of the fascist Argentine leader Juan Perón. In fact, the inspiration for Chávez's plans to do away with Venezuela's traditions of democracy, pluralism, and tolerance is the late Argentine Peronista and Holocaust denier Norberto Ceresole.
Read entire article at Philadelphia Inquirer
With Americans worried about unemployment, the deficit, immigration, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and more, it's not surprising that some are looking abroad for other approaches to governing. Even Venezuela's Hugo Chávez is being touted by some as having figured out a better way to take care of his people. During a particularly frigid winter in the Northeast, Chávez even worked with former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy to sell cheap oil to poor New Englanders.
But a look at the Chávez regime's first decade should disabuse everyone but Oliver Stone - the director of a new documentary fawning over the strongman - of the notion that today's Venezuela should be regarded as a role model.
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a report last winter that tracks Venezuela's descent into authoritarian rule. The costs to date include fair elections, an independent judiciary, uncensored media, and freedom of religion....
Chavismo has...had repercussions for Venezuela's Jews, a historically prosperous and stable community that has been scapegoated by the despot. With roots going back to Simon Bolivar's time, Venezuelan Jews managed to survive the Nazi era relatively unscathed by the fascist eruptions that scarred much of Latin America. But since coming to power in 1998, Chávez has revealed himself to be less the latter-day Bolivar he claims than a reincarnation of the fascist Argentine leader Juan Perón. In fact, the inspiration for Chávez's plans to do away with Venezuela's traditions of democracy, pluralism, and tolerance is the late Argentine Peronista and Holocaust denier Norberto Ceresole.