With these weeks speeches by Ahmadinejad and Chavez we saw once again the pundit class talk about how each was by an unhinged madman. Granted, they both said a lot of kooky things – especially Chavez – but this is once again the punditocracy and the media being lazy and automatically filing people away as “the next Hitler”. This devalues the inhumanity of Hitler and what he did as he tried to take over the world. Go ahead and call a mass killer like Bin Laden a madman, and even Saddam Hussein qualifies for bloodthirsty dictator status – but until these guys actually do more than talk tough and screw their people over, we should shelve the “crazed madman” talk.
Ahmadinejad and Chavez are tinpot leaders who say things we don’t like, oppress their people, and bring shame to their nations – but they aren’t “crazed madmen”. They both know exactly what they are doing and the buttons to push in doing so.
This, friends, is a crazed madman. Let’s not cheapen what happened to the world when he was alive.
Our esteemed host has impressed me! Too many of my friends on the loony left see Señor Chavez as the new wave of the socialist future, because he talks a good game, but like all of the socialists who preceded him, abuses democracy and oppresses his subjects.
I guess that that’s what happens when people like the lovely Mrs Sheehan are the ones conveying much of the opposition message.
But it does lead to a serious problem for the Democrats, one our host has tried to address previously, and that is: what serious proposals do the Democrats have for the electorate to consider? I know that our Democratic friends are combitching about President Bush’s policies in Iraq, but I sure don’t know what they’d do differently, considering how many voices are saying so many different things.
Both of them are also sitting on top of enormous reserves of oil, which presumably gives them carte blanche to say anything they want. Or so they believe.
Hey, socialism can come easily to Mr Chavez, because his country has those oil reserves; he’s giving away other people’s money!
Of course, even with that, the average poor Venezuelan lives on less than $400 a month. His socialism has been far more talk than action.
Before anyone shoots their festering gobs off about Chavez, please provide evidence of “oppression” in Venezuela. Try let’s say, comparing Chavez to his predecessors. For that matter compare him to the House of Saud, Uzbekistan, Columbia or Egypt -y’know, the good guys..
Is there an epidemic of short term memory here? Why does Chavez harbor this irrational hostility?
Psst. Here’s a hint
“what serious proposals do the Democrats have for the electorate to consider?”
The first step to having a clean bed is to remove the child who keeps persistently shitting in it.
On a related matter, the comments by Rangel and Pelosi, coming out against Chavez’s attack of President Bush, were classy moves and both deserve a great deal of credit. Tom Harkin? Not so much.
Oliver’s right. When we compare others to the Nazis, we cheapen the horror that those b**tards perpetrated against the world.
Let’s save the Third Reich analogies to folks who really deserve it, like the US Military and conservative bloggers.
Tinpot leaders who say things we dont like. How very astute. Perhaps it might be wise, before we act all high and mighty, is to look at Venezuela, honestly. Where is the proof of oppression? Just because this mis-administration says so, then it must be true. The average person in the US has no idea what goes on outside their little bathrooms. For those uninformed, there is a world, beyond Teaxas. Where was the outrage from you so-called “educated” purveyors when the US Mission in Cuba provides assistance in attempting to destablize the Cuban Govt? Did you loudmouths cry foul when the US gave support in the distrous attempt to depose Pres. Chavez? Why did you infantiles keep quite when it uncovered that US companies were complicit in helping steal the Mexican elections? Remember when Rummy compared Pres. Chavez to Hitler? From all this one gets the distinct impression that as long as one from the US belittles or cals a foreign silly names, its okay. Now let some from outside this country call that disaster in the WH a name, you folks become all outraged. Oh! by the way, are you outraged that we proovide safe haven to terrorists like Bosch, Posada Carriles, Roger Noreiga and Otto Reich. Get a dose of reality before you go spouting your mouths off. Oh! perhaps you pious, sanctimonious gas bags should ask busk and his bungling brigade why they cut the subsidies for heating oil to the poor, and it took a tin pot like Pres. Chavez to come to the rescue. Or perhaps you can ask the Bungling Brigade if they feel good about poor students getting a free education while our poor have the doors shut in their faces.
The first step to having a clean bed is to remove the child who keeps persistently shitting in it.
Posted by: Dr. Anatole Gavage-Huskanoy
ROFLMAO!!!
Varsi, you make a good point. The level of debate and critical thinking in this country is at an all time low.
We forget very easily how we helped prop up and support oppresive regimes in the past (Iran, Panama, Chile) and try to pass ourselves off as these paragons of righteousness.
I thought Chavez’s comments were funny, and judging from the reaction of the other delegates, much of the UN did too. Regardless of what any of these parrots say, Chavez and Amadinnerjacket are not the pariahs that they’ve been made out to be.
They love their children too.
The bedshitting analogy is Atrios’s, I believe.
Also, Chávez and Ahmadinejad were chosen by their supporters in clearly fair elections (Chávez by a landslide). What about that f–king fraud Bush? Two stolen elections in a row.
I can understand the nitwit sycophants of the right piling on Chávez, because they do what their masters tell them to do. But it is rather disgusting to see so-called progressives lay into Chávez without checking the facts.
Also, let’s leave the Hitler talk alone, unless we know of what the hell we speak. There are no monsters on this planet, just ordinary human beings doing monstrous things.
Bush isn’t the Devil; that’s giving him too much credit, which Chávez knows (so did his listeners, which is why so many of them were laughing at Chávez intentional hyperbole. Political theater! Imagine that!) Hitler was no superhuman evil being; as far as we know, he never killed so much as one Jew. And don’t give me that b.s. about him ‘giving the orders,’ either. As the Nuremburg Trials made clear, “just following orders” is no excuse for committing war crimes and other atrocities. Sure, Hitler was a very bad man, and probably off his rocker, but the German people followed him willingly into war and genocide. At one point, Germany had nearly twenty million armed and trained men, the vast majority of whom were not Nazis. Most of the Germans who volunteered to butcher Jews weren’t Nazis. But they all fought and did horrible things, anyway.
Sorry for the long history lesson, but the point is important. We can piss on the Iranians or the Cubans or the Venezuelans all we want, but they aren’t the ones who invaded, occupied, and destroyed a sovereign nation under false pretenses. They aren’t the ones giving blind support to the nation that needlessly pulverized what was arguably the most secular and Western-friendly little country in the Middle East. Before we start tossing labels around at other countries and their leaders, we need to clean up our own bed, as the quote above so eloquently states.
Dr Anatole wrote:
Assuming that this refers to President Bush, even if the Democrats win control of both Houses of Congress, you don’t get to remove President Bush.
And if by some miracle you did, you’d wind up with President Richard Cheney!
And if by some miracle you did, you’d wind up with President Richard Cheney!
Well, he’d be under intictment pretty soon too.
About Ahmadinejad-First of all, try a better translation:
But the actual quote, which comes from an old speech of Khomeini, does not imply military action, or killing anyone at all.
(snip)…it is just an inexact translation. The phrase is almost metaphysical. He quoted Khomeini that “the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time.” It is in fact probably a reference to some phrase in a medieval Persian poem.
http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html
What would you do if you were the leader of a country next door to a soverign nation that had NO WMD’s or active nuclear program, yet got invaded anyway?
If you knew you were the next distraction? If you knew the oil was only going to last so long? If you knew that Israel has nuclear weapons? If you knew crazed Wahaabists are killing your fellow Shites in your neighboring invaded country and will probably start killing your citizens soon?
If we don’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons, why don’t we sell them non-breeder technology?