Journalist Andres Martinez
travelled to Venezuela to see what the decade-long rule of Hugo Chavez
over that country had brought about. The results were interesting and
illustrate that Chavez is recreating the same failed communist formula
for a new century:
The president and the bishop
are at it again. Their long-standing argument over whether Jesus Christ
was a socialist seems to go something like this: "Yes he was." "No he
wasn't." "Was too." "Nah-ah." I love reading the newspaper in Caracas.
This morning the government also published lists of folks who bought
their quota of dollars at the subsidized rate, supposedly to travel,
but never left the country. Shame on them! And once again, El
Universal's columnists were in a total frenzy, speculating over how far
the government's resolve to make all education socialist would go. Will
sixth-graders be handed AK-47s to defend the revolution?
Desperate
for a firsthand glimpse of the positive side of Chávez's revolution—and
to talk to folks who aren't making plans to flee the country—Amanda and
I set up a visit to one of the government's vaunted "barrio adentro"
missions. This is a comprehensive facility in the working-class
neighborhood of Catia, underwritten by the state oil company, that
offers medical care, employment, and housing for some of Venezuela's
poorest. I was especially eager to chat with some of the Cuban doctors
who work at these clinics. In Cuba last year, people kept complaining
to me that too many of their doctors were on such missions in
Venezuela. Apparently, Chávez and his people are getting something in
exchange for all the free oil and ideological solidarity provided to
Havana.
There's talk later in the article of T-shirts adorned with socialist icons from the past and present:
I
grabbed a copy of the booklet containing the text of the proposed
changes and pulled up a chair next to an old woman wearing a shirt
bearing the whole trifecta: images of Che, Fidel, and Hugo. She eyed me
skeptically, if for no other reason than I wore a plain blue shirt.
I wonder if they also have T-shirts available in Caracas of the cover Tariq Ali's 2006 book,
Pirates of the Carribean?
