Venezuela, it's always Venezuela
Topic: General News.

In its new years predictions for 2006 the WSJ listed Venezuela as among this country's top "Global Threats" along with Iran. As many commentators have pointed out---on both the left and right---this administration has almost completely ignored Latin America while obsessively focusing on the Middle East. With the leftward shift of governments in the region: Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil, Chile, Argentina and maybe even Mexico very soon etc.; the right wing is sounding the alarm and becoming increasingly shrill about the administration’s neglect of our southern backyard and in particular its lack of action against Hugo Chavez.

Why does it always seem to come around to Venezuela? This isn't the first time we've had problems with Venezuela. The Hays and Cleveland administrations had to deal with territorial disputes involving business interests in the area in the 19th century and TR's Corollary' to the Monroe Doctrine---wherein we added the entire Western Hemisphere to our "manifest destiny"---was in reaction to another Venezuelan strongman, General Castro, who hadn't paid his debts to his European lenders. When the Germany, Britain and Italy blockaded Caracas in order to collect that debt, TR stepped in to solve the problem; not only because he found using force distasteful when it came to collecting debts but because the Europeans---our business rivals---were also horning in on our sphere of influence. Now, again we have the Spanish trying to sell boats to Chavez and the Russians selling him arms, but this time it appears W. is busy elsewhere and this is making the multi-nationals and their ideological flacks very worried.

Funny how things never change.

The enemies change, but the rhetoric hardly changes. The bottom line is the same: somebody or some ideology is trying to threaten our dominance in the world. At a yard sale many years ago I found a five volume set of John Birch society books and as an extra bonus I found the twelfth printing of something called "The Blue Book" written in 1958 which was Robert Welsh's attempt to give us the score in the Cold War and to "Draw the present battle lines on the world's ideological and political map."

Welsh's panicked appraisal of the impending communist take over of the world back then seemed like the rambling of a crackpot to most of the mainstream political elite and he railed against what he saw as the inaction of the Truman and Eisenhower administration's inattention to the growing global threat of Communism. (Nixon and Reagan, however, were known to court the John Birchers from time to time.)

Axis of Evo:

Judging from a column by Mary Anastasia O'Grady in the WSJ on Jan. 27, though, it would seem the Birchers have finally taken over the insane asylum. O'Grady writes that Evo Morales, the new Bolivian president, has "built a cabinet of radicals and Marxists militants, purged the Bolivian military and signed a pile of 'agreements' with his Venezuelan mentor Higo Chavez. There are reports that Cuban security agents are already working for the new president much as they did for Chavez."

Robert Welsh warns us from the grave: "The communists are now in complete control of Bolivia and Venezuela....And Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela, who says he is not a communist but has admitted he was a Marxist...seems to be taking the lead in plots and plans to overthrow the very few remaining anti-Communist governments in Latin America. Right now he is giving powerful help ---probably the most powerful, next to our own government---towards the overthrow of Batista in Cuba by the Communist Fidel Castro, and the establishment of a Communist beachhead ninety-miles from our shores."

O'Grady writes," It's hard to find anyone not hoping that an Evo-led Bolivia, built on equality under the law, property rights and healthy competition will emerge. [I.e. let us rape your natural resources.] Sadly, though, white guilt is not likely to get off so easily. [What?] The reality is that the Cuban model of totalitarian 'equality' is the now the dominant force shaping the Morales government."

Robert Welsh: "Now I know plenty of writers, commentators and officials will tell you that NehruNis not a Communist but a 'dynamic neutralist,' and that Nassar is not a Communist but an "Arab nationalist.' But the bellwethers of all such opinion molders are, by and large, the same people who...five years ago [insisted] that Achmed Sukarno was not a Communist but an Indonesian George Washington....The widespread acceptance of these views is, in my opinion, merely more proof of the success of Communist propaganda."

O'Grady, too, points out that the present day "bellwethers" of opinion molders have "greeted the Morales presidency with romantic optimism....His fiery rhetoric laced with old fashioned Latin populism, his violent background and his hardline friends abroad---all have been played down in favor of a 'give-him-a-chance' attitude."

You see, this Evo could be another Mao or Sukarno, don't be fooled. "Communist [or present day Chavez appeasers] sympathies and even actual Communist subversion are daily made more respectable by the actions of our government [Cuban baseball?] , our great universities [Re:David Horowitz], much of our press {the NYT] and by the complacency of our people."

Don't take that cheap heating oil, you're helping sow our own destruction. Wear more sweaters for America! People wake up! Exxon's profit margins are tiny, W. can't afford to heat the homes of the poor or pay for school lunches anymore; there's no use in any of it if you're dead. The pentagon needs that $439 billion budget and only a communist would say the costs of fighting the "emergencies" in Afghanistan and Iraq should be included in the overall budget.

Geez....where's Ann Coulter when you need her?