What Was That Saying About Power?
From the Washington Post, a snippet from Hugo Chavez, discussing Bolivia’s recently elected president, Evo Morales:
Why do I get the idea Chavez didn’t do so well in his history classes?
“We have to create, one, two, three Bolivias in Latin America, in the Caribbean,” [Chavez] said echoing a quotation from Argentine hero Ernesto Che Guevara. “Only aiming for power can we transform the world.”
Why do I get the idea Chavez didn’t do so well in his history classes?
Comments
#1 2006-01-31 19:28 (Reply)
Chavez isn’t out simply to repeat history. He’s out to make it, in a truly Nietzschean fashion, creating his own future. Check out these pieces from the latest US News & World Report:
“The Hugo Factor”
“A slight lean left”
It’s certainly not a given that the spread of socialism in the Southern hemisphere is an absurd possibility.
#2 2006-01-31 21:34 (Reply)
Unfortunately you don’t need to know history to make history. Chavez is wrong, but he knows his way better than any other politician in the hemisphere. Underestimating him is dangerous.
#3 2006-02-01 16:21 (Reply)
That’s a great quote -- we are lucky that Che Guevara (and Castro) didn’t have an oil-funded money machine. Oil is money -- money is power -- and that is what makes Chavez, and very soon Morales, dictators who may be more in the image of Saddam Hussein, than Robert Mugabe or Kim Jong Il or the generals in Burma. Note also Putin’s early moves to get control of Russia’s oil revenues. For more on this, see here (PDF).
#4 2006-02-25 16:03 (Reply)
Interesting documentary on Hugo Chavez:
http://obscuredtv.com/therevolution.php