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Belafonte says, "Bush is the Greatest Terrorist in the World."
Submitted by Elizabeth Rathbun on January 11, 2006 - 12:57pm
Singer and activist, Harry Belafonte, led a UNICEF goodwill delegation to Venezuela Jan. 8th (Sunday) to meet with Hugo Chavez. Known to be outspoken about his beliefs, Belafonte told Chavez that millions of Americans support the socialist revolution of Venezuela and called Bush,
"the greatest terrorist in the world."
Many of the goodwill delegation, including pioneer Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers Union, were impressed by the 6 hour-long meeting with Chavez. However, UNICEF followed up with a statement that Belafonte's words did not represent the views of the organization, rather that his comment expressed his opinion as a private citizen.
Early this week, Chavez cited how the U.S. was blocking the sale of Brazilian military training planes to his country and that he would turn to China instead. The U.S. had made an agreement with Brazil to restrict sales of planes with American technology. Chavez said,
"We'll wait to see if Brazil solves the problem. If not, China also makes training planes, warplanes and BOMBERS."
Belafonte, generated some applause with his
" Viva la Revolucion!"
I'm with you Harry. Viva Chavez!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5532836,00.html
Hooray! Viva for Tyranny! Viva shortages!
Harry Belafonte is a horse's posterior.
Apparently you missed this Guardian article about Chavez's wonderful contribution to the liberty and prosperity of the inhabitants of Venezuela:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/venezuela/story/0,12716,1683002,00.html
Belafonte right on
Bush is an out of control, thoroughly incompetent and dangerous extremist who has exponentially increased terrorism in the world, reduced our safety and who, himself, is a terrorist by accepted UN and other definitions of the word.
Whether Venezuela needs to nationalize aspects of its coffee production or not has nothing to do with the truth of Belafonte's statement.
Ginny: Apologist of Tyrants and Terrorists
Whether Belafonte supports a tyrant who is driving his economy into the ground and despoiling citizens of their property says a lot about Harry Belafonte's credibility.
Let me get this straight, Bush is guilty of al Qaeda's and others' decisions to murder civilians by the bus load? If you really cared about the Geneva Conventions or any standards by which terrorism are measured you would be outraged at the people actually going about the business of murdering civilians as their stock-in-trade.
I suppose if some right-wing yahoo assaulted you, you would be responsible for having provoked him. Your ethical thinking is horribly twisted by your knee-jerk tendency to blame America first.
Not that I'm questioning your patriotism or anything...
Come on!
This isn't about al Qaeda. Countries around the world supported and participated in the efforts to rout out and capture al Qaeda. Nobody thinks badly of America for what it did there.
He's talking about places like Iraq-- a country that did not attack us. Saddam and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Belafonte is also talking about his (and others') belief that Bush has been behind attempts to remove Chavez from office.
Jenni Simonis
"Come on" yourself
In the first place, it's hardly accurate that "nobody thinks badly of America" for its efforts against al Qaeda--an organization that is active in Iraq.
Secondly, Iraqi forces attacked U.S. and British air forces regularly in the years preceding the invasion of Iraq, in violation of the terms of peace agreed to at the close of the war to eject Iraq from Kuwait.
Whether you agree with the decision to invade a recalcitrant Iraq as part of a broader regional strategy (and not because Saddam was involved in 9/11, since he wasn't), it's not terrorism. To call Bush a terrorist is to debase the currency of the term and to trivialize the real problem that terrorism is for the world today.
Idiots like Harry Belafonte don't seem to realize that there are governments and other actors who really do oppose liberal democratic society and that by attacking the preeminent democratic power, one aids them.
I invite you, Jenni, to read the Guardian article I cited and then argue whether Belafonte shows sound judgment in supporting someone like Chavez. Then take a look into how Chavez has been manipulating Venezuela's democratic institutions and imagine what Harry Belafonte could rightly say about George Bush if he had made similar moves.
This is what I don't get: However distasteful you may find Bush, however questionable you may think some of the measures he has taken from a rationale of emergency, how is it that you can find yourself so insouciant when you encounter real tyranny, real government abuse of civil and economic rights? That's what makes Belafonte such a horses posterior, and those who fall for his foolishness.
Different group
The al Queda group in Iraq is a different group, which is why they call themselves "al Qaeda in Iraq."
When people talk about al Qaeda, they're talking about the one in Afghanistan that was responsible for the attacks on 9/11. Nobody faults us for going after them.
But when it comes to Iraq, countries all over the world disagree with us going in and attacking them. And it was an attack-- it was a pre-emptive attack. We were attacking them before they could do anything to us or others. Come to find out, that WMD's that we were supposed to have attacked the country for never existed.
But I'm not going to sit here and argue the point with you. It's obvious from your comments that you're one of the "you're with us, or against us" people, and nothing will change your mind. Unlike you, I realize people are going to disagree with me. But that doesn't make them aupporters of terrorists, apologists of terrorists, etc.
Jenni Simonis
Same Franchise, but a minor point anyway
Jenni,
You might recall that the coalition involved in the Iraq invasion was 35 countries strong, including the most militarily powerful country in Europe. I would invite you also to consider whether all the countries opposed to the U.S. had noble motives for doing so.
Why is it, I wonder, that so many people are only too ready to impugn the motives of the U.S. and blithely subsume its adversaries within a vague notion of some "international community" dedicated to peace and love?
I often challenge my hard-left friends to seriously examine France's foreign policy of today and tell me with a straight face that it's less cynical than U.S. foreign policy of the 1970s. It might be instructive for you to take a look at who France associates with, who it sells arms to, etc. If that's not enough to make your hair curl, take a look at Russia's utterly amoral foreign policy.
I don't think you have to be with me on Iraq war policy or you're against me overall. Not at all. And I affirm the importance of criticizing any U.S. government when warranted, and of our freedom to disagree about when it's warranted. But I still see a perverse focus on the supposed evil of Bush and America when genuinely awful threats exist elsewhere--Iran, for example. What do you think about that? Probably the U.S. fault, according to you.
Again, what irks me is that if Bush were to harm this country's institutions to one thousandth of the degree that Chavez has perpetrated, Belafonte's defenders would trumpet it to the high heavens. Why this blindness about genuine impositions on democratic institutions and civil liberties in Venezuela?
Luckily there are plenty of reasonable people on the left who are outraged and disgusted with Chavez. For example, Randy Paul at the Beautiful Horizons blog who has a post (with links) on Chavez today.
Right Wing Robot Talking Point
I have no "knee-jerk" tendency. I have been studying this unAmerican, unelected, disgraceful executive for 5 years now. Before you fall further into your robotic comments about "blaming America" be advised that I laugh out loud at that talking point BS. I'm a former Army officer. I put the "blame" squarely where it belongs, on the criminal neocon cabal that has stolen our country and the supine, invertibrate, corporate koolaid media that has pandered to its every fascist move.
Your "assault" analogy is pretty off base. We had Saddam contained and disarmed. Scott Ritter, David McKay, etc. were all 100% correct. As for ethics, if you support this regime and its lackies in Congress like Delay and Ney...whose ethics are horribly twisted? As for economic issues in Venezuela, they have nothing to do with the Bush regime's criminality. If you think Bush is for free market competition you are in for an education. He is for global big corporation WTO and military dominance and ownership of all markets by privileged, government approved and loyal cronies. Look up "fascist" in the future and there should be a picture of Bush, Cheney, Rummy and Mussolini all right there.
Hold On, The Jack-Booted Thugs Are At the Door...
Hey, you forgot Hitler! Funny, if you read that Guardian article I linked to above you'll see that if there's any jack-booted intimidation, confiscation, etc., going on, it's in Venezuela, not George Bush's America. Chavez even has the uniform and the graniloquent rhetorical style. All that's missing is Mussolini's efficiency!
I can see that your years of study have made you a very astute observer of such matters.
Hey, keep the faith. The Chavezes of this world need all the support they can get, especially when there are plenty of intelligent, non-Kool-Aid imbibing people on the left that see him for what he is. Forget about me, take it from them.
By the way, I loved your non-robotic, totally original analysis of world affairs. First time I'd heard those talking points!
Fascism: Look it up
Hitler was not a fascist, Fascism grew out of the idea, sponsored and made real by Mussolini, that a corporate-military cabal should "be" the government, all wrapped up in the flag with a fervent nationalism and often cozy with a fundamentalist state church. Hitler was a maniacal racist warmongering dictator. Bush is only partly that. He is far less intelligent, well spoken, savage and cunning. He's more of an ignorant, selfish, spoiled brat teenager with little or no capacity for real leadership.
if there's any jack-booted intimidation, confiscation, etc., going on, it's in Venezuela, not George Bush's America.
Dude, there's this thing called Gitmo -- look into it. Also millions of US citizens have been spied on illegally by Bush's NSA. But you're missing the point. Fascism does not require jack-boot authoritarianism. Huge corporations essentially run this country, its Congress, its Supreme Court and its media, through the Bush regime. That's the essence of fascism. There is no violence required (except to our Constitution of course, and we've seen nothing but the shredding thereof from the first black days of 2001.)
I want to assure you, though, I am a centrist, a lawyer, a small business woman (well, not that small), a former Nat'l Guard Army Officer, and a patriot. I deeply love this country and I never "blame" it. I blame the Bush regime that stole office in 2000 and refuse to obey the law. My views are progressive and centrist in the fashion of Harry Truman and Howard Dean. I believe in free markets that are truely fair (not controlled by giant unaccountable monopolistic, fascistic corporations), I believe in fiscal responsibility and social tolerance, government that protects the common good not the corporate good, and I believe in "reality based democracy" as opposed to "faith based empire". If you want to call that "left vs. right"....that's your problem. I just call it American.
Chavez Helps Venezuelans - The Bottom Line.
(I also posted my comment under new posts, but here it is again.)
I’m so sorry that I missed the excitement!
Actually, it’s a complete falsehood about Chavez ruining the Venezuelan economy.
The U.S. opposition programs have hurt the Venezuelan economy infinitely more. (A U.S. backed oil strike in 2002-3, a U.S. backed coup attempt in 2002 and support of austerity measures and privatization programs under the IMF and World Bank prior to Chavez) have had an overwhelmingly negative impact on the economy there. Venezuelans suffered greatly under this skewed and corrupt system from 1970-1998 that benefited the wealthy and corporations.
To qualify for World Bank loans,Venezuela devalued its currency, reducing wages and increasing prices of everything at the urging of the United States. They trusted the American’s advice and got screwed. The economy shrunk, the middle class collapsed and poverty skyrocketed.
Per capita income fell 35% during that time frame, and that was the worst scenario in the history of Venezuela. This is well documented in a July 2005 report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, based in Washington D.C. and many other places too, if you take a look at the sources cited in the report below.
http://www.cepr.net/publications/venezuela_2005_06.pdf
The Bush administration frowns on spending for social services programs to help the poor – it is seen as an entitlement. On the other hand, Chavez has installed price protections or subsidies like those on coffee so that prices don’t go through the roof. Perhaps, he must be tired of the price of commodities doubling, tripling, and quadrupling under previous conservative policies? Has the U.S. government done anything to help its citizens pay the increased price of gasoline? They gave oil companies more tax breaks.
That the U.S. and other corporate media report inadequately about the intent of these programs Chavez would put in place to help his people doesn’t surprise me. To make another economic system look like it is achieving something by benefiting people does not make corporate interests who profit from unfettered capitalism feel secure. Mainstream newspapers take in millions of dollars in advertising from the same corporations who invest in Venezuela. (This even includes the Guardian which has international ads.)
Meanwhile, Venezuela is offering discounted oil to poor Americans who have been cut off from the U.S. government assistance program. Venezuela has bartered with Cuba for doctors and healthcare services, and with Bolivia and Argentina for agricultural products. What is the U.S. doing to help U.S. citizens in a similar fashion? Healthcare and food subsidies under Chavez have increased the true income of 46% of the population, but this is never correctly explained in many articles that cite increasing poverty rates.
Chavez has stopped a downward economic trend of 35% that occurred from 1970-1998 by reining in run-away inflation and introducing programs that redistributed the income of Venezuelans. It is true that cumulative economic growth has been flat under Chavez, but he has had to contend with many destabilizing influences. (No thanks to the U.S.)
The wealthy do not like to give an inch under a socially-democratic system that redistributes income in the other direction and usually complain about being robbed and having their ‘private property’ possessed by the state. Chavez is nice to not have their rear ends publicly kicked for sheer greediness. Some of them even flee Venezuela and go to America where the wealthy are treated like aristocracy.
To single out one incident like coffee being confiscated by the National Guard doesn’t capture the realistic picture of what is occurring in Venezuela. The fact is that there has been a tremendous improvement in the living conditions of the poor since Chavez took over: in healthcare availability, programs to support them, and in trade exchange or bartering of Venezuelan oil for agricultural and many other products.
In the face of an economic recession which occurred in 2002-2 from an oil strike and other countering influences, it is a miracle that Chavez has managed to sustain the economy as well as he has and improve the living standards of his people as well as he has.
Seeing a report which acknowledges the value of services to the poor over monetary income would benefit you greatly, Mr. Idler.
The website www.thirdworldtraveler.com also provides more history behind the true result of U.S. backed foreign policy on Venezuela and other Latin American countries. This cite includes the contributions of many well-regarded journalists.
What she said.
Thanks, Elizabeth.
Fun
I'll start by saying I'm looking forward to reading the CEPR piece - even though I should note the link is dead.
My co-contributor Idler led me here - a fun conversation you're having, even as you're largely talking past each other. I especially like the "Come on" and "Come on Yourself" exchange - good titles.
As much as we've dumped on Latin and South America since the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine - and we have, and a lot - Idler's right to note that Harry Belafonte's a twit. Seriously, Hugo Chavez is nothing to cheer. Last time I checked, people on the Left were pissed at Bush for dumping/stretching the rule of law; why's it cause for celebration when some dude in Venezuela does it? Pretty much everything we've accused Bush of - intimidating the press, making highly incautious statements against political enemies, etc.- Chavez has done as well. The man's a thug. What's more, he's a thug with fewer checks than Bush will ever experience.
I'm getting at something pretty simple: what Chavez is doing today in Venezuela is remarkably similar to Rome's bread and circuses. He's chucking money at "the people" - don't get me wrong, it's a nice change from the status quo ante - but don't expect much out of the guy over the long term. Now that he's got power, watch how he wields it. I've been watching him, oh, these past five years and the signs aren't encouraging.
So, even as I'm sufficiently familiar with the austerity plans imposed by the Washington Consensus to have formed a pretty negative opinion of them, I don't think Chavez - who behaves remarkably like the Middle East dictators that we're now so embarrassed about - is any kind of answer.
Oh, and to say that Hitler wasn't a "fascist," that just doesn't add up. Sure, the species in Italy was officially called "Fascist," but Hitler's Germany shared the same state/corporatist relationship. And to even mention those in the same sentence as Bush's America trivializes the starkly horrifying realities of the Nazi regime. The simple fact that you're here and I'm here saying Bush is a twit day after day says it all really.
Fun Reply
Jeff,
Thank you for stopping by. I will ask Elizabeth to double check the link and correct it, and I appreciate your letting us know. I also appreciate that you came here to share your perspectives. The level of Harry Belafonte's twitness (twititude?) is something we could certainly debate more, but it seems to me there are two separate issues here, and I think the wires are a bit crossed. This topic involves 1) Belafonte's criticism of Bush as a terrorist and 2) Belafonte's support of Chavez, and Chavez's economic policies generally.
I would like to contend that his criticism of Bush is right on the mark. Your ad hominems of twitishness and Idler's contribution of horse's posterior do not really refute the fact of Bush's abject failures and incompetence in foreign policy that justify his being described as a terrorist. He will go down in history as the "fear" president...or perhaps Cheney will, since he's the real president anyway.
As for 'trivializing' the horrifying reality of Nazi Germany -- Idler is the one who brought up Hitler in the first place and tried to throw him into the mix with Bush, Cheney, Rummy, and Mussolini under the definition of fascism. My contention mirrors Thom Hartmann's on this point. Hitler was not really so much of a fascist as he was just a belligerent insane socialist dictator in party run state. Mussolini was more of the idiot, puppetlike, instrument of corporate-mafioso Italy as Bush is here to the corporations and theocrats that own him. That's why the parallel is so fitting.
As for Chavez, Elizabeth has made some very important points and they are persuasive but I'll try to get that link working so we can get the whole story. The situation certainly bears watching, and I hope it improves. But Chavez is much less a thug than Bush, and at least he was elected. Bush never was.
Corrected CEPR link
The corrected link is:
www.cepr.net/publications/venezuela_2005_06.pdf
Hope you can get it now!
Terrorists, Tyrants, and Thugs?
It appears the worst thing Chavez has done in Idler's example is to institute price controls and to threaten to nationalize the coffee industry.
Well, Richard Nixon had wage and price controls, and Harry Truman threatened to nationalize steel. Were they thugs too? Nixon was a tyrant, I'll go along with that.
I'm not sure Chavez would be a great President by American standards, but he beats what they had before. As noted by the NY Times editorial board, "The U.S. should not further feed Mr. Chavez' ego and give him further excuses for demagogy by treating him as clumsily as it has treated his hero and role model, Fidel Castro, for the past four and a half decades."
Certainly Bush is an awful President by American standards, although he would probably look pretty good to Zimbabweans, for example.
One reason for some enthusiasm about the direction of Latin America these days, it that for good or ill, they are making their own destiny. If Chavez doesn't work out, at least they did it their way. It's pretty well demonstrated that OUR way doesn't work for most of these countries, mostly because our capitalists and bankers, and their own rich, impose conditions on them that Americans would never stand for.
In places like Colombia where they are hostage to the U.S., the rich, and the drug-runners, there is little hope. And little democracy.
If we leave a country alone for a few decades, they may come out of it all right. For example, Mexico, which they pretty much screwed up on their own, and may be in the process of correcting on their own.
Chavez was democratically elected, in a process that was cleaner than any of Bush's two "elections". And still, the U.S. backed a coup attempt and tried to manipulate their elections. If we stand for democracy, we need to leave democratically elected governments alone, even if we don't agree with all their policies.
The greatest test of Chavez as a leader will be when it comes time for him to give up power.
They may be miserable, but they did it their way!
So even the New York Times laments Chavez' demagogic tendencies but it's a hard sell here. That makes me feel a little better. Salon even has a blog lamenting the unfortunate consequences of Chavez's "Boliviaran" revolution, but some how it's "right wing" to lament it here.
Again, don't take my word for it:
http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/
Personally, I don't have any enthusiasm for demagoguery or the manipulation of democratic institutions which Chavez has indulged in. Whether you like the cut of his ideological jib from the distance of a thousand miles or so, I think you'll find that whatever the shortcomings of the previous "administration" they didn't involve the personalization of government institutions that Chavez has aggressively pursued—and achieved.
I have to say Al, for an obviously bright guy, you choose a strange mode of argumentation. You're saying, in essence, that it's somehow pleasant to reflect that Venezuelans (if we accept your optimistic assessment of their rectitude)may be walking off a cliff, but they're walking off a cliff of their own volition.
Wouldn't you at least rather that they chose a path that would genuinely be in their interest? What would be the harm in lamenting their regrettable choices? What virtue is there in their taking a self-destructive path for the sake of asserting their independence?
Another interesting viewpoint on Latin America
Is Washington Losing Latin America to Democracy?
By Ed Nelson
more, at
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_20593.shtml
Whether you agree or disagree, my point is that the more we interfere with other countries, the more they can blame us for their problems and avoid responsibility for them. We also perpetuate regimes like Castro's by lending him a foreign bogeyman to distract his people with.
JFK: Castro's Best Friend
Castro tried to install nuclear missiles. John F. Kennedy made the terrible mistake of interfering, perpetuating Castro's regime by lending him a foreign bogeyman to distract his people with.
What an idiot JFK was!
US blocks Spain plane sale to Venezuela
13 January 2006 (Reuters, via Al-Jazeera)
The United States has refused Spain permission to sell 12 transport and maritime surveillance aircraft containing US technology to Venezuela.
A US embassy spokesman in Madrid said on Friday that Eduardo Aguirre, the US ambassador to Spain, told Spanish officials of the decision on Thursday.
Venezuela is the world's fifth-biggest oil exporter and provides subsidised heating fuel to tens of thousands of poor people in the US, but its military spending has stirred concern in Washington, increasingly at odds with Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, over his self-described socialist revolution.
The aircraft are part of a $2 billion Spanish deal to supply ships and planes to Venezuela.
The spokesman confirmed a report in Friday's edition of El Pais newspaper, which said the US believed that the aircraft sale to Venezuela had the potential to complicate the situation in the South American region. It did not elaborate on what "situation" in South America might be "complicated" by Venezuela having better aircraft.
Alternatives
Spanish state radio quoted defence ministry sources as saying the aircraft sale would go ahead and that the manufacturer, EADS-CASA, was in contact with French companies to provide substitute technology, although this could make the aircraft more expensive.
EADS-CASA, the Spanish division of the European aerospace giant EADS, could not be reached immediately for comment.
Spanish media reports said the US components were mostly in the engines and electronic equipment.
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, the Prime Minister of Spain, has defended the sale, saying Madrid would not bow to US policies.
Other standoff
The US is also trying to block an arms deal between Brazil and Venezuela. Celso Amorim, the foreign minister of Brazil, said on Wednesday that his country saw signs that the United States was trying to block the sale of Brazilian-made military aircraft to Venezuela.
He said his country would try to persuade Washington not to interfere, Amorim said.
Chavez accused Washington on Tuesday of trying to weaken Venezuela's military power. He said he would wait to see if Brazil could solve the problem over the planes, which also include US technology.
If it could not, he suggested that Venezuela could buy similar aircraft from China.