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Venezuela: The Revolt of the Spoiled Brats continues

"We categorically reject the results," Henry Ramos, spokesman for the Democratic Coordinator, the umbrella of 27 political parties that opposes the government, said in a televised announcement. "They have perpetrated a gigantic fraud against the will of the people." --Quoted today in the New York Times.

I first came across term "The Revolt of the Spoiled Brats" in an email discussion with Al Giordano. To get an idea of what this really means in visual terms, examine these pictures.

Then continue to the rest of this story, where I'll give you my take on what they mean.

For those whose browsers won't load them, there's a huge poster of a picture of a very white sexy model with ample cleavage whose hands appear to be about to open her pants. "Claro que SI," says the headline. "YES, of course." If you get the feeling that it's a bit on the lewd side, I will not try to talk you out of it. Without meaning to defame womanhood, I would say that it looks like an ad for an escort service.

Contrast that with the news photo below of smiling dark-skinned kids surrounded by colorful Venezuelan flags holding a home-made poster that says, "Uhhh... Ahhh... Hugo Chávez ¡No se va!" (Roughly, "Uhhh... Ahhh...  Hugo Chávez Do not Go!)

To me it's prostitution vs. innocence. The opposition mainly consists of people who are customed to getting laid on their clout, not their charms. But the people getting screwed are not the slutty white model, but the innocent kids. The Spoiled Brats never really wanted the referendum in the first place because they knew they didn't have the votes. They just wanted to make noise. Now that the results are in, they want to keep making noise. They will never concede defeat.

It's like those ridiculous exchanges you get into with right wingers when you challenge their facts. They never even acknowledge that you are challenging their facts. They shift ground to some other issue. When you keep trying to get them back to the facts they finally blow up and call you names and then block your email.

Their whole lives are devoted to domination of others in a hierarchy of master-slave relationships. They pay for their right to be the master to those below by being slaves to those above. The only fact involved is power.

If a slave challenges a master, the slave is terminated, whether emotionally (in the case of relatives), financially (relatives and employees) or physically (suppresion by beating, torture, imprisonment or exile, and death).

The Venezuelan opposition prototype resembles the old-line Cuban exile, but Mexico offers a more appealing possible outcome. It's interesting to me that for the most part the Mexican Revolution was able to come to an accomodation with the losers. There was a considerable amount of fighting in the post-revolutionary consolidation period, but as far as I know, there was no massive exodus. The losers soon integrated into Mexican society on new terms.

This is obviously a simplification, as there were many abusive incidents on both sides. The fact is, however, that Vicente Fox came to power as a direct descendant of the blood-crazed religious post-revolutionary guerrillas known as Cristeros and even used their battle cry in his election campaign. The Cristeros were defeated in battle, but they didn't leave Mexico and they weren't ejected. They went on to form Acción Nacional and, eventually, to legitimate particpation in the political process.

I've read a lot of convincing descriptions of the PRI as a pseudo-democracy masking a dictatorship that seem reasonable enough on the surface. They do not take into account the cultural substrate of the Mexican political system that goes back to the days before the Conquest. Democracy doesn't work quite the same way in Mexico as it does in political science text books.

This is a too long and complex a thesis to discuss here. Suffice it to say that Mexico values accomodation over confrontation. "A bad settlement is better than a good fight," they say. They have a practical, earthy attitude toward the distribution of power that reminds me very much of Confucianism. Even the very wealthy recognize these limits. Whether or not the PRI or the PAN administers Mexico, the traditional values of Mexican courtesy and hospitality will always come first. People here know when to let something go and move on to something else.

That's the next lesson that the Spoiled Brats have to learn. Unfortunately, the Bush administration will probably continue financing them to never give up. Even the ultra-liberal American Progress newsletter describes Chávez as "an increasingly authoritarian ruler," but fails to provide a single example of his authoritarian tactics. Authoritarian compared to whom? Chávez brought a whole new way of life to a country that used to be the kind of place where troops routinely massacred peaceful protesters. In 1989, at least 1,000 people are estimated to have died in what became known as the Caracazo. That was just one of the many outrages that have characterized Venezuela's tortured history.

Immediately after their anti-Chávez coup Carmona forces shut down the main democratic institutions, rounded up key Chávez activists, beat many of them up and killed some of them before paratroopers rescued Chávez. Pro-opposition Caracas Metropolitan Police have killed thousands of Venezuelan dissidents over the years, including Chávez supporters they are said to have shot during the anti-coup demonstrations and then blamed on the Chávez side.

The Chávez forces haven't engaged in mass murder. He's allowed the opposition-controlled newspapers and five mainstream TV channels to attack him 24/7 with the filthiest lies and distortions. Contrast that with the pre-Chávez days when Venezuela's newspapers used to appear with large blank spots where government censors had removed articles they didn't like.

The Bush government may be restrained by the way the price of oil fell when the referendum results were announced, but it's not anything Chávez can count on from this ideologically-driven administration. While it's true that John F. Kerry is a member in good standing of the American power elite, perhaps he's absorbed the lessons of the Cuba embargo, and will seek accomodation rather than confrontation with Chávez because he is a very practical politician. In any case, it's time for both Bush and Kerry to abandon the Spoiled Brats and let the people of Venezuela have their own way about running their own country.

Posted by jules_siegel at August 16, 2004 10:59 AM | TrackBack