Saturday, March 30, 2019

Turning a blind eye

I feel sure that Juan Guaido is a fascist. The United States has never supported anyone but fascists in Latin America. This is not a complaint merely against the administration of Baldy but of every administration since April 13, 1945; and not just in Latin America. Dispatch of the sinister Elliot Abrams confirms it.

I have no objection in principle to knocking over brutal despots although the American record and practice has been disastrous not only for us but even more so for the people that we claimed to be helping. But if you knock over only leftists and democratic regimes and never interfere with rightists and fascist regimes your country is fascist.

The list of democratic regimes attacked by the United States since Roosevelt died is sad and long. It includes Iran, Guatemala,  Congo and Chile; the list of countries where we supported the fascists against leftist and democratic regimes is 10 times longer. Racism was often part of the mix. I remember attending movies in the South in the '60s where the feature was preceded by little documentaries about how if we did not support South Africa the Communists would take over. The proof? Photos of a fishing trawler in the South Atlantic.

Meanwhile democracy is under attack in a country that used to be that oight to be at least as much a concern to North Americans as Venezuela, but there is less about this country in the Post and Times then there was when the big issue was imports of frozen orange juice. Of all the newspapers that I read, the only one that is taking Brazil seriously is The Guardian. In the last few days it has run  stories about glorification of the murderous rightwing dictatorship and a lengthy background story about what that dictatorship was like.

Today's story occurred during the administration of Jimmy Carter even though he probably had more genuine concern for democracies than any president since Roosevelt. But he was unable -- if he tried and I do not know that he did -- to surmount the ignorant, hysterical, brutal national security apparatus.

16 comments:

  1. No newspaper will tell you it either, but every relevant cabinet down here in Brasília, be it at the legislative, judiciary or executive, is under surveillance by a revamped secret agency under the presidency and the military orders.

    Everything old is new again.

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  2. The '30s were 'a low, mean decade' and we're going through another one.It is hard to know how such a breakdown can affect practically the whole world. For some areas, like eastern Europe, the return to fascism is a default to the norm but for others it isn't. India, for example.

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  3. Harry, what is it with you and uncaused effects?

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  4. Nobody but you thinks fascism doesn't have causes

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  5. Harry, according to you Clint Eastwood is a fascist, and communists walk with the angels they insist they don’t believe in.

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  6. I never said communists walk with angels. If you are going to go that low, just go.

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  7. Considering how liberally you slime people with terms like racist, or fascist, and how you have sanitized the acts of communists the world over, you have no room to complain.

    How is Venezuela working out for you?

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  8. The US government is working hard to force a fascist government on Venezuela as it does everywhere in the hemisphere.

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  9. Okay, let's take that as read.

    How could that possibly be even remotely as existentially awful as socialism has turned out to be in Venezuela?

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  10. Oh, and one more thing: how about providing a useful definition of "fascist" so that the rest of us can distinguish it from anything with which Harry disagrees?

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  11. The other day, on BBC, there was a revealing comment from a Venezuelan refugee. He told the reporter he realized he had a problem when he saw middle class people losing weight.

    Fascist capitalism was a disaster for the poor, as have noted before.

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  12. Fascist capitalism — whatever the heck that is — hasn’t heck all to do with Venezuela.

    There is a website called VenezuelaAnalysis. It will give you all the items you could ever hope for why Venezuelan socialism is so perfectly wonderful.

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  13. I did not say Chavismo is wonderful; I said the previous capitalist government was awful.

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  14. I said the previous capitalist government was awful.

    That's as may be. It wasn't a patch on Venezuala's wonderful, wonderful, socialism.

    Which is ending up exactly where socialism always does. Which makes one wonder how droolingly stupid all of Chavismos promoters were, and remain.

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  15. Your indifference and ignorance of a system that allowed most of its people to starve for generations reveals all.

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  16. Your indifference and ignorance of a system that allowed most of its people to starve for generations reveals all.

    So which is it, am I indifferent, or ignorant? Can't be both, Harry.

    Since I have no idea which system in Venezuela allowed most of its people to starve for generations, how about enlightening me?

    Google is no help.

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