I Saw it Coming

Yesterday I saw this story and almost posted my reaction

The amendment, which applies to all elected officials, must be approved by a referendum within 30 days, a vote correspondents say is set to be close....

...He (Chavez) said it would be dangerous to remove a captain from his ship halfway through the voyage.

My first thought was how this is exactly the wrong attitude in terms of developing new political movement in any Latin American country. A captain ... or shall we say more accurately a caudillo, is the last thing a movement challenging the conservative status quo needs. It's absolutely essential that social change not depend on the charisma or power of one leader. Besides being anti-democratic it can only to a very limited perspectives on the most pressing issues of the day, developing a crew of 'yes-man' instead of the type of critical thinkers you need. This leads to the kind short-sighted and/or horribly ill-informed social and economic policies that plagued the first ten years of the Cuban revolution.

To put it simply, the boat analogy is terrible. Obviously leaders are needed to achieve any real social change. However given the success leftists have had in Latin America with a single leader possessing a "charismatic personality and enough of a populist program" if the success of the Venezulan revolution depends on just this one person then there will be very little chance of significant and lasting positive change.

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That all said, I am writing this now because I was going to note one other thing yesterday. I wondered how long it would take for a liberal posting on Venezuela to refer to this ballot initiative in Venezuela as Chavez's plan to be president for life.

Well it wouldn't have taken long. Commenting on a story involving oil Kevin Drum states:

I suppose the companies who are bidding on the Orinoco projects may be counting on Chávez failing in his attempt to become president for life, and are thus figuring they won't have to deal with him in the long term.

The amendment calls for an elimination of term limits. Like, say, what exists now in Canada for the prime minister (and in many other countries for their leaders).There is no excuse for this kind of sloppiness by a "progressive" blogger of Drum's stature. This is especially poor coming from an American who very well realizes that Senators have no term limits and most are there f***ing forever.

There is plenty one can very legitimately criticize in Venezuela. But playing this wingnut type of game is very destructive.