Marching On Chavez
Briefing | By Lance Nation | September 4, 2008
On December 2, 2007, Hugo Chávez’s attempt to grant complete power to his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and install himself as Venezuela’s dictator failed. An average Venezuelan student decided not watch every
liberty stripped from Venezuelans and led 200,000 people on marches
against Chávez’s constitutional reforms. For his efforts, Yon Goicoechea is this year’s recipient of the Milton Friedman Prize for Advancing Liberty.
“Chávez is not Venezuela. There is another different Venezuela that is
growing in our land. Another different Venezuela, with a new
perspective of life, with a new perspective of government, and with a
new [sense] of modernity,” Goicoechea said when accepting the award.
In his acceptance speech, Goicoechea explains that his goal was not only to stop a tyrant, but to start a revolution:
We cannot be defined by dictators any more . . . And, now it is our time to make a revolution: the revolution of ideas, the revolution of ideals, and the revolution of progress. I think the only revolution possible in Latin America and other poor countries is the revolution of making a state with solid, stable, and free institutions. But, also a revolution that makes citizens know and recognize their own capacity to overcome poverty and to solve their own problems.”
Yon believes that “humans have the capacity to get better all by themselves.” To Americans this notion is simply absurd; we all know that the government must help people in need, especially the poor, because they are incapable of helping themselves . . . silly Yon. However, as Yon explains, “Poor people are not stupid. They don’t have to be cared [for] by the government. They have to be left alone by the government. Everyone can be better, they just need the opportunity.” “Everyone can be better, they just need the opportunity.” Yon understands this opportunity exists when government interference is minimal. Yon understands “[overcoming] poverty, the great enemy of Latin America, is through liberty because the only way to overcome poverty is through human capacity to innovate, through human creativity, through human work.”
Lance Nation is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia
7 Comments | Post a Comment
Dave makes some very interesting points about Chavez’s democratic ways. Chavez does seem to be exhibiting some level of democracy. Unfortunately, that is the way many dictators start. Hitler was in fact voted into office. It was after getting into office that he slowly manipulated the system to his own benefit and eventually threw off his cloak and became the dictator he always intended to be.
Digressing, I believe I could write volumes on the use of a very sad situation wherein a woman grieving the loss of her son was given a microphone and national attention by the media sources. Luckily in this country of 300,000,000 people, we don’t see it necessary to put every person in front of congress and most people can see the transparency of this situation. If you want to go to that point, please find the mother of every young man in Detroit that has been killed this year and put her in front of a microphone and let her talk about putting the mayor of Detroit, the Governor of Michigan, the House and Senate members on trial.
I find it interesting to learn how great a country (and political system) Venezuela has when it comes from, what I blatantly assume is, a whining American twit. Spend some time abroad in Europe (a ‘civilized’ region) and understand the advantages of your freedom (which you imply you have been so deprived of here), then understand why people routinely kiss the ground upon return to this great country. The United States is imperfect (as you would love to point out); yes, but in the end, to plagiarize a statement made in the past, the United States is the worst place in the world to live… with the exception of everywhere else.
PS - Since you are so heavily into free speech, Davyboy, why not go down and open your own newspaper there?
This amazing country is like a devoted wife: you may not love everything she does, but in the end, realizing that with [all of] her drawbacks, she is a blessing beyond anyone else and that is what makes her important and great. And understanding that while you see her imperfections, she sees ours, and we are a reflection of her. She has problems, but working with her kindly to find a solution instead of standing on the corner and calling her a ‘whore’ will never accomplish anything or help you mature yourself.
Just because she didn’t make your bed in the morning doesn’t give you reason to pee in her coffee at the next sunrise. 
And when he was at rge UN it was this tyrant who blabbered about the smell of sulpher and BUSH had been there HE WAS SMELLING HE OWN HORRID STENCH Its time for venuszailians to have this scum returned to cuba in spades
Chavez is certainly a bombastic politician - no doubt about it.
Yes, his remarks at the UN was not in good taste.
One thing, though, I’m thinking we in this country may owe a small debt of gratitude to Chavez.
President Bush I, after this President’s election, in an interview stated that his son would like to see a union, much like the EU - for the Western Hemisphere. That’s not verbatim, but the general idea.
When the leaders of the hemisphere first met in Mexico after that, I expected to hear an announcement of something like that. It didn’t come.
The I began to take notice of the jabs and rancor between this President and Chavez.
That led me to wonder if Chavez didn’t put a monkey wrench in this President’s plan for the hemisphere. I wonder if perhaps this rancor was actually due to the fact both wanted the same thing, except both wanted to be ‘leader’.
The last time I saw Vicente Fox on Larry King, he mentioned that Chavez was difficult and ‘he refused to work with them on trade’.
So, I’m thinking Chavez might not have stopped the idea of a Western Hemisphere Union, but he may have stalled it.
Chavez may be starting his own little campaign to get one going by his agreements with other SA countries as we are with CAFTA and the agreement with Peru. Perhaps each is trying to get it going by increments - both seeing how many they can get in their own ‘union’.
Something to think about.
We have absolutely nothing to do with the unrest in Venezuela - right?
September 4 at 11:10 pm | #1 | Link
“Hugo Chávez’s attempt to grant complete power to his United Socialist Party of Venezuela and install himself as Venezuela’s dictator failed.”
-Lance Nation
Venezuela voted to remove term limits on the office of president, similar to countries like France or Australia. The reforms were voted on, and they did not pass. It’s a strange dictatorship that allows the people to vote on reforms. Stalin must be rolling in his grave.
Here is an interesting quote from Goicoechea:
“The national government is looking for violence….if they do not let us freely express ourselves and manifest our discontent with the government via the voting box, they are looking for us to burn the city down.”:
http://aporrea.org/contraloria/n118335.html
That evil Chavez won’t let Goicoechea and his friends freely express themselves! How awful! Let’s look at example at how they are repressed. When the student protests against the RCTV shutdown happened last year, the student movement demanded to speak in front of the National Assembly. They Assembly accepted, which is another unusual move for a dictatorship. (I am still waiting for Cindy Sheehan to speak in front of Congress). Goicoechea and his buddies were invited to debate students who were government supporters. Douglas Barrios spoke first for the opposition, and then they began to leave. They were convinced to stay, and after a student spoke in support of the government, Goicoechea spoke for less than a minute, and then the opposition did leave. The opposition knows hot to protest, but they’re not very good at debating their position. Here’s a transcript of the “debate”:
http://tinyurl.com/2d229m
They stormed out of the Assembly, but left a copy of their “speech,” which showed that their walkout was scripted. The document was signed by ARS Publicity, a company owned by Globovision. How interesting.
After running away from the debate, Goicoechea collected his half million dollar Milton Friedman Prize money, and he and his revolutionary friends organized another protest at the mall:
http://tinyurl.com/6xdj9f
Then they all went shopping together as they discussed their “revolution.”