Welcome to Casting the net, Liberal Conspiracy’s daily blog review.

Hugo & Me
Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is a tricky figure for the left. The Classical Liberals (quite rightly, IMO) loathe him for his socialist and militarist leanings (not to mention his land reform programme), and the leftie progressives are uncomfortable with him because of the hint of totalitarianism that now lingers in Caracas. However, that doesn’t mean that us Lefties can’t smother a chuckle when the chubby South American leader sticks it to the Man – that man being, of course, the clown in the White House. And we could be forgiven for grinning whenever Chávez pulls off one of his crazy stunts (such as giving cheap oil to the “impoverished” people of London), which are designed to bate those on the Right, and quite brilliantly, almost always have the desired effect. What we don’t do of course, is defend Chávez and openly support him.

(It’s old news now but…) Earlier this week Hugo Chávez lost a referendum that would have allowed him to stay in power until 2050 and complete his Socialist revolution. This has, somewhat obviously, given some on the Right reason to gloat. Danny Finkelstein took the opportunity to call the President a “dreadful windbag”, highlighting earlier attempts by Chávez to bifurcate the referendum into a vote for George W. Bush or himself. However, few left-leaning blogs have stepped forward in defence of Hugo Chávez – allowing the Right to wallow in seeing the wings of the “Bolivarian hero” clipped.

A couple of prominent blogs have commented on the referendum (including he-who-must-not-be-linked-to). Conor Foley on CiF mentioned how Chávez’s gracious acceptance of defeat, and the result itself, proved “how far off the mark European and North American perceptions of Latin America tend to be.” Foley goes on to criticise the competence of Chávez’s opposition, but it’s hardly a glowingly supportive piece. Fellow conspirator Shiraz Socialist is scalding in his conclusion, calling Chávez “a demagogue, a shyster and an enemy of working-class democracy.” Jeeesh! No sitting on the fence there.

Then yesterday I received a recommendation for a piece by Zigfrid of Renaissance Virtues, who openly declares: “I support Hugo Chavez.” Interesting, no? Let’s see what “Zigfrid” has to say: –

I do so not because I agree with everything he says, or his personalist style of politics – because I don’t. I support the chavista process because it is a genuine and radical effort to achieve social justice and a popular model of democracy in a society denied either of those things for too long.

So is Chávez’s radical version of democracy just the tonic for Venezuela’s woes? Of course it’s a complex question, but Zigfrid denies us any grey, demanding that we pick sides: –

But I just think that in this world you are either on one side or the other – I’ve never had much time for people who sit scrutinising their navels as history gets made around them by braver, more committed sorts.

Washington or Chávez. We must pick one, apparently. Well, as Chávez has allied himself with a certain Iranian president, this writer finds himself in something of a pickle. But our blogger has some comforting words: –

…in the case of Chavez he has committed himself to a revolution through democracy, it’s Fidel with referenda. Whether what is going on can be called a revolution in that case is of course open to question – it is much better conceived as a process of radical reform within the constitutional rules of the game.

So Chávez is just a radical democrat. Interesting. The undoubtedly informed Zigfrid goes on: –

It’s true the Chavez model is not a Jefforsonian one – politics by horizontal negotiation, veto points that mean decision-making is slow and difficult, often to stop majorities getting their way. There is much to be said for this anti-majoritarian impulse.

Discuss.

Elsewhere
Richard Adams/GU Blogs – Supersizing Osama bin Laden
Polling Report – The best Prime Minister we never had
Jeremy Lott/CiF – Mitt and Mormonism
New Statesman – Wanted: an anti-Establishment insurgent for the third party
Peter Black AM – Loophole
Colin Ross – The final Liberal Democrats Leadership Hustings, and a decision!
Zebra-Mbizi – Bank of England Nitwits.
Dadblog – The Blonde Map of Europe
The Very Fluffy Diary of Millennium Dome, Elephant – Miranda Grell and Rik Willis: an apology… would be nice

If you would like your blog or site to be considered as source material for future reviews, drop me an email at aaronh [at] liberalconspiracy [dot] org with the relevant url. I can then enter it into my RSS reader and monitor it for suitable content to be included. Likewise, if you have a specific article/post you feel deserves a little more traffic, get in touch.

About the author
Aaron Murin-Heath is an occasional contributor. He is a writer based in Newark-on-Trent and Tallinn, Estonia. He is both socially and economically liberal. Aaron blogs at tygerland.net.
· Other posts by Aaron Murin-Heath


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