Jon Lee Anderson is a reporter I've long admired–since reading Inside the League: The Shocking Expose of How Terrorists, Nazis and Latin American Death Squads Have Infiltrated the World Anti-Communist League, which he co-wrote in 1986. But his latest piece for the New Yorker, "Slumlord: What Has Hugo Chavez Wrought in Venezuela?" (1/28/13–subscription required), reads almost like a parody of corporate media coverage of an official enemy state.
"For decades…Venezuela was a dynamic and mostly stable democracy. As one of the world's most oil rich nations, it had a growing middle class, with an impressively high standard of living…. Most other Latin Americans had come to regard the country as a beautiful place for beautiful people."
Then Hugo Chavez came to power: "His pronounced goal was to elevate the poor," Anderson writes. "In Caracas, the nation's capital, the results of his fitful campaign are plain to see":
After decades of neglect, poverty, corruption and social upheaval, Caracas has deteriorated beyond all measure…. Venders wade through the gridlock, hawking toys, insecticides and bootleg DVDs, while drug addicts wash windshields or juggle for change. Spray-painted graffiti covers facades; trash is piled up on roadsides. The Guaire River, which runs through the heart of the city, is a gray torrent of foul-smelling water. Along its banks live hundreds of homeless indigents, mostly drug addicts and the mentally ill.
Anderson goes on like this for 11 pages. The astute reader will note that Chavez has not been in power for "decades," and at one point the reporter does note that "by the time Chavez assumed power, in 1999, the city center was neglected and run-down." But how it fell to this state from what Anderson calls "the good life in Venezuela" is not discussed; nor is anyone blamed for any of Venezuela's problems other than Chavez himself. This is, as the subhead says, a portrait of what Chavez has wrought.
And Chavez's problem, aside from what Anderson calls his "typical grandiosity," is that he takes things that don't belong to him. Architecture professor Guillermo Barrios, whose judgments the story returns to repeatedly, says that Chavez's urban policy "can be defined by confiscation, expropriation, governmental incapacity and the use of violence." Later, talking about people living in abandoned buildings, Barrios fumes, "The political discourse that has justified the invasions, the outright thievery, has come out of Chavez's speeches."
The bulk of the article is devoted to a half-finished skyscraper called the Tower of David, abandoned since 1993, that's been inhabited by squatters since 2007. Weirdly, Anderson seems to feel genuine moral outrage at the fact that people have turned a useless ruin into a home:
For many caraquenos, the Tower is a byword for everything that is wrong with their society: a community of invaders living in their midst, controlled by armed gangsters with the tacit acquiescence of the Chavez government.
When Anderson tours the building later in the piece, it seems relatively peaceful, but he never really gives up the idea that there's all sorts of scary violence there that he never sees. The violence that is apparent is to the sacredness of private property, and that seems to trouble the New Yorker's correspondent. A Venezuelan journalist describes the Tower's residents as "refugees from an underdeveloped state living in a structure that belongs to the First World."
When the Tower's leader defends their occupation, saying, "We rescued it with the vision of living here in harmony," Anderson sneers, "This was a minority opinion." For proof, he turns again to Barrios: "The Tower of David wasn't a beautiful example of self-determination by the people but a violent invasion."
Of course, the idea that the Chavez-hating architect represents the majority opinion in Venezuela more than the Chavista community leader is dubious. As Anderson admits toward the end of the article, Chavez has won "one election after another." But that just makes Venezuelans "the victims of their affection for a charismatic man, whom they allowed to become the central character on the Venezuelan stage, at the expense of everything else."
Everything else? You'd be shocked to learn after reading the New Yorker piece that Venezuelans have done quite well economically under Chavez's administration, with per capita income rising 58 percent since 1999. And as average income has risen, Venezuelan wealth has become markedly more equally distributed (Extra!, 12/12), so the gains for the poor have been even greater (FAIR Blog, 12/13/12).
Anderson's acknowledgment of this could hardly be more grudging: "The poorest Venezuelans are marginally better off these days," he writes. It seems like for the New Yorker, rising standards of living for the poor don't matter much when weighed against the fact that rich people lost some property they weren't using.
About Jim Naureckas
I comment as a supporter and appreciator of FAIR and a long-term admirer of Mr. Naureckas. His characterization of Mr. Anderson's writing — "outraged", "sneering" seems unfair to me. His point about the troubles coming long before Chavez arrived is well taken, but Mr. N. seems outraged himself that anybody should point out imperfections in Mr. Chavez plans, programs or achievements.
If it wasn't for the fraud perpetrated on the world by institions like the Federal reserve, IMF, and the world bank the distribution of resources throughout the world would be very different.
Contrary to the New Yorker article the biggest thieve are the ones who print this fiet counterfief currency and robs countries like Venezquela of it's resources.
Someday the world will have more equitable economic systems that don't include exploitative institutions like the federal reserve, IMF, or the World bank.
This loathing of Chavez isn't difficult to dissect.
For all his contradictions, his adminstration has done something that all the good liberals at the New Yorker just can't countenance.
He has backed up his rhetoric with real world results, not the empty gestures and quarter measures that compel them to raise their voices in rapturous praise of the likes of Dear Misleader.
You don't have to place the man on a pedestal to acknowledge the gains made by those at the bottom of Venezuelan society.
And that's an example that can't be allowed to be seen as inspiration for those elsewhere to emulate
Or, heaven forfend, expand upon.
What would the oh so politically correct have to wring their hands over then?
Right on the mark although you perhaps could have also mentioned the unsuccessful coup attempt on Chavez. This along with the usual economic threats have lead to a large increase in per capita GNP and as you note hope for the "99%" and an awakening of democracy that we can only hope for in the US. Admittedly Chavez has been helped by global demand for oil but his leadership of Latin America away from US dependency and poverty has been an overall quite positive influence.
Why does the New Yorker hate democracy? Is it jealousy, fear or just plain mammon? The people of Venezuela have elected him four times in honest elections, notwithstanding an armed coup d'etat financed by the US.
What part of the definition of the word "democracy" am I not seeing? The part that says a government is only entitled to be elected if it meets the approval of the US? It's an old story–Guatemala, Iran, Haiti, Vietnam, Chile, Nicaragua, etc., their duly elected governments are not democratic if they don't elect the US approved candidate. And if they're not democratic, they are per se against the national security of this country…and the gloves are off.
And the drones will kill.
And Obama continues that proud tradition.
Sounds like Anderson got duped by the pernicious opposition in Venezuela. Hope he doesn't report on Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina next. He'll end up frothing at the mouth when the disgruntled bourgeoisie tell him how much they hate their presidents too because they are friends with Chavez and support his policies.
The pic of kids coming home from school to the tower says it all. I wondered if Mr. Anderson understands the importance of that.
Of course the New Yorker only cares about the fact that poor people are using something that was abandoned by the rich. They're pompous jerks. Being surprised at this would be like being surprised that the leader of NARAL is pro-choice.
Though Jose Marti lived and loved in New York for a time, there is a monument to him in Havana, not NY. Strange sitruation for a man who loved the US and it's constitution as much as he did.
Actually, there is a monument to Jose Marti in New York–in Central Park: http://www.nycgovparks.org/parks/centralpark/monuments/982
The point is that it is difficult to get a piece published in the US that says good things about the Chavez Era in Venezuela, but any criticism gets an easy airing.
I'm so glad FAIR did this story. As I read the New Yorker piece, my outrage grew and grew. I thought of writing a letter, but it seemed as if it wouldn't be very effective; they publish so few and they'd be unlikely to publish mine. I too thought Jon Anderson was a good writer. What has happened to him? And for that matter, what has happened to the New Yorker? I guess it just depends on whose ox is gored. Goring the rich would not be popular in such a magazine, I guess, at least not in the serious way that a story in Chavez requires.
This is a marvelous revelation of what The New Yorker, with its highbrow image, thinks of anything that benefits the poor. Hallelujah! While Chavez most likely isn't perfect, he's a good guy. He truly is.
I find the comment that Venezuelans are "the victims of their affection for a charismatic man…" rather irritating. Are we not victims of our affection for a charismatic man in this country, a man whose foreign policies are now worse than George Bushes? A man trust upon us out of nowhere by the main stream media? At least Chaves had the cajones to stand up and fight, literally, for what he believed in. He put his life on the line which is more than these knaves and fools we've had for president lately would dream of doing.
I have spent 2-3 months in Venezuela every year since 2000. I lived in Caracas from 1984-1991. I do not recognize the Caracas described in the New Yorker article. The historic areas of Caracas have been renovated. Under governments previous to Chavez, they were almost in ruin. The teleferico to the top of the Avila has been repaired. The metro has been expanded. Overall Caracas has improved… except for increased traffic congestion (more people can afford cars) and the crime rate. The statement about the wealth of Venezuela and the middle class is untrue pre-Chavez. Post-Chavez the middle class as well as the working classes are doing better. There was only a facade of democracy before Chavez with the two major parties, Accion Democratica and COPEI representing the same business interests and taking turns governing. Someone at the New Yorker should have done some fact checking before publishing this article.
Well done. The U.S. media's portrayal of Chavez has been propagandistic to say the least. While I simply won't pay to read the article, from what I have read here and in the New Yorker's abstract Anderson's piece seems quite uninformed.
I am going to bet Anderson's account of 1990s Venezuela before Chavez makes no mention of the Punto Fijo pact of the 1950s or El Caracazo in 1989. No one can write accurately about Chavez's rise to ascendancy without some basic knowledge of these tremendously significant events.
Instead of historicizing Chavez's presidency, Anderson makes glib and erroneous claims about Venezuela having had "an impressively high standard of living." Yet, in the 1990s everyone I knew in Venezuela could rattle off the country's 80% national poverty rate as a fact. Most people also had lived through the state's violent repression of protests by poor slum dwellers against austerity measures implemented by then-president Carlos Andres Perez, which came to be known as El Caracazo. The massacre was as significant to Venezuelans as 9/11 has been to Americans.
Any Venezuelan also knows that Chavez planned his coup against Andres Perez as an act of revolt in response to the massacre. When Andres Perez was jailed on embezzlement charges, most people took this to be confirmation of his government's corruption. And, of course, all this occurred against the backdrop of a power-sharing agreement between the two major political parties after the dictatorship fell in the 1950s. Chavez's rise was a major rebuke of this power-sharing agreement, and every Venezuelan knows this basic history.
Too bad Anderson does not know it, or that he couldn't better inform American readers. If he had, he wouldn't have been able to make such totally erroneous characterizations of Venezuela's social/political climate before Chavez. Begin there, and then I will read more.
@PamelaCollett: Thanks for your first-hand account. It is very hard to find any on-the-spot accounts of Venezuela today here in the U.S. Yours has more credence than anything else I have read lately in the NYT, NY-er, etc.
Naureckas is spot on. Couldn't believe what I was reading…. Anderson has compromised his standards and reputation by this piece and the editors of the New Yorker should be embarrassed they published it. One would be quite credulous to see this as reporting rather than propaganda–especially the theme of the headline and the piece, that Chavez is responsible for problems that actually predated his accession to power by decades, and the blinders to the views of most Venezuelans. Guess they don't count because they are poor. Shades of Jeanne Kirkpatrick! A bit scary, too; does this piece signal a new coup is coming and the US positioning their 'favorite' to succeed Mr. C?
THANKS FOR THIS ARTICLE AND NO THANKS TO THE NEWYORKER.
FUNNY . AT FIRST I READ THE TITLE QUICKLY AND THOUGHT THAT "SOME" NEW YORKERS WERE UPSET THAT HOMELESS PEOPLE IN THE U.S. WERE LIVING IN AN ABANDONED
SKY SCRAPER! OF COURSE, THEY WOULD NEVER BE ALLOWED TO LIVE IN AN ABANDONED SKYSCRAPER HERE! AND, OF COURSE, "SLUMLORDS" AND SLUMS ARE NOT HERE! NO POVERTY IN THE U.S., RIGHT? MAYBE THE NEWYORKER SHOULD ANALYZE OUR PROBLEMS.
Reality: The New Yorker represents the bankers and limousine liberal over-class. That's what New York itself is about….money money money for the owners of society. They promote the interests and advancement in power of self promoting Harvard educated elites who pretend to favor the under class, when it is a ploy intended only to benefit their own to create more political power.
The elites of the D and R Parties have the common goals of reelection, more power, more money for rich cronies, and the use of the best propaganda that an MSM and money can buy. They want the common folk to think one or the other Party offers something in it for the masses. Carlin's American Dream rant says it best. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acLW1vFO-2Q
I am a long-time subscriber to The New Yorker and have been well and deeply informed by it about a myriad of subjects of interest to me, but I have to wonder what the publication of the ideologically one-sided article about Chavez portends for the future of the magazine. Something seems to be happening in the world that is tied to the Middle East. Since the election indicating the collapse of the progressive or liberal part of the electorate, Israel is now virtually free to annex the West Bank and banish uncooperative Palestinians to Jordan or other Arab states. The Islamic countries seem prepared to accept that reality and are moving politically to benefit from it. Virtually all nations are ascribing to neoliberalism to the point that it will soon become the dominant economic and political system of the world. It may generally better than fascism, but the poor, will barely notice a difference. Once Israel ethnically cleanses the West Bank, other nations can do likewise with their poor ethnic populations without so much as a guilty conscience. If the Chosen People of God can do it, then it must be OK. Articles like Anderson's are easy to write.
Have y'all seen the Irish movie "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"? It's an on-the-spot news film of the 2002 coup and counter-coup and a must see. I love The New Yorker and have subscribed for 50-odd years. The writing qua writing is generally excellent. Relative to other mass-circulation U.S. mags, it's generally liberal or left-liberal in outlook. It has published some really striking investigative journalism by Seymour Hirsch and others. When it comes to Cuba and Venezuela and the new developments in South and Central America, however, its articles, like this one by Anderson, are often appalling.
It make pure sense that the have to write bad things about Venezuela, if the wrote good things then the people here would see that the whole "austerity" thing is a complete lie designed to hide the fact the people who claim to be leaders are actually nothing more than thieves and cheats.
He may not be as in fashion as he was but Micheal Parenti said it best "The uber-riche only want one thing; it all". They will not be happy until they have the people of earth paying for to breath the air and drink the water.
So in the meantime we have the folks who are the "Running Dogs of Capitalism for the Uber-riche" lying for them.
I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Venezuela in 1969. I can tell you that the "good old days" were nothing like what this New Yorker writer implies. Wealthy white Venezuelans lived amidst squalor and poverty. The income discrepancy was stark. It was not essentially different from much of South America except that with the huge petroleum income you would have expected better. As a Peace Corps worker, I was required to live and work with the poor (the majority), but, as an American, I was welcomed into the homes of the wealthy as well. They were well aware of how their bread was being buttered. The democracy of Venezuela was subservient to American, that is, corporate interests.
Chavez went up against that arrangement and our official reaction is totally understandable. It is all about profits, but it doesn't help that Chavez is such a grandstander as well. It's not to say that Chavez is an angel; he certainly has his share of corruption and incompetence in his government. Venezuela, the US, and the world at large have a long way to go to achieve true social justice and equality, but there is no question that Chavez's Venezuela is a far cry better off than the one that I saw in the 60's.
It is just frustrating that Amercan readers are intellectually lazy and unwilling/unable to ferret out the truth for themselves.
Good lord, the New Yorker, too? A darn shame. I used to like that publication.
Anything that rebukes the Washington Consensus (i.e. pro-austerity) narrative must be vilified, lest Americans wake up and realize they've been duped.
I have overheard few Venezuela emmigrants who have condominiums in Miami and claim that Chavez had read the book by Bellamy LOOKING BACKWARD and that is why he is acting as he does. Here are two pages that may have changed Chavez.
I first saw the light in the city of Boston in the year 1857. “What!” you say, “eighteen fifty-seven? That is an odd slip. He means nineteen fifty-seven, of course.” I beg pardon but there is no mistake. It was about four in the afternoon of December the 26th, one day after Christmas, in the year 1857, not 1957, that I first breathed the east wind of Boston, which, I assure the reader, was at that remote period marked by the same penetrating quality characterizing it in the present year of grace, 2000.
These statements seem so absurd on their face, especially when I add that I am a young man apparently about thirty years of age, that no person can be blamed for refusing to read another word of what promises to be a mere imposition on his credulity. Nevertheless I can earnestly assure the reader that no imposition is intended, and will undertake if he shall follow me a few pages, to entirely convince him of this. If I may, then, provisionally assume, with the pledge of justifying the assumption, that I know better than the reader when I was born, I will go on with my narrative. As every schoolboy knows, in the latter part of the nineteenth century the civilization of to-day, or anything like it, did not exist, although the elements which were to develop it were already in ferment. Nothing had, however occurred to modify the immemorial division of society into the four classes, or nations, as they may be more fitly called, since the differences between them were far greater than those between any nations nowadays, of the rich and poor, the educated and the ignorant. I myself was rich and also educated, and possessed, therefore, all the elements of happiness enjoyed by the most fortunate in that age. Living in luxury and occupied only with the pursuit of the pleasures and refinements of life, I derived the means of my support from the labor of others, rendering no sort of service in return. My parents and grand parents had lived in the same way, and I expected that my descendants, if I had any, would enjoy a like easy existence.
But how could I live without service to this world? you ask. Why should the world have supported in utter idleness one who was able to render service? The answer is that my great-grand father had accumulated a sum of money on which his descendants had ever since lived. The sum , you will naturally infer, must have been very large not to have been exhausted in supporting three generations in idleness. This, however was not the fact. The sum had been by no means large, it was, in fact, much larger now that three generations had been supported upon it idleness, than it was at first. This mystery of use without consumption, or warmth without combustion, seems like magic, but was merely an ingenious application of the art now happily lost but carried to great perfection by your ancestors, of shifting the burden of one’s support on the shoulders of others. The man who had accomplished this, and it was the end all sought, was said to live on income of his investments. To explain at this point how the ancient methods of industry made this possible would delay us too much. I shall only stop now to say that interest on investments was a species of tax in perpetuity upon the product of those engaged in industry which as a person possessing or inheriting money was able to levy. It must not be supposed that an arrangement which seems so unnatural and preposterous according to modern notions was never criticized by your ancestors. It had been the effort of lawgivers and prophets from the earliest ages to abolish interest, or at least limit it to the smallest possible rate. All these efforts had, however, failed, as they necessarily must so long as the ancient social organizations prevailed. At the time at which I write, the latter part of the nineteenth century, the governments had generally given up trying to regulate the subject at all.
By way of attempting to give the reader some general impression of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the relations of the rich and poor to one another, perhaps I cannot do better than to compare society as it then was to a coach which the masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely along a very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hunger, and permitted no lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered with passengers who never got down, even at the steepest assents. These seats on top were very breezy and comfortable. Well out of dust. Their occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great demand and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach a man could leave his seat to whom he wished, but on the other hand there were many accidents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of the coach persons were slipping out of them and falling to the ground, where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one’s seat, and the apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a constant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode.
But did they think only of themselves? Was not their very luxury rendered intolerable to them by comparison with the lot of their brothers and sisters in the harness, and the knowledge that their own weight added to their toil? Had they no compassion for fellow beings from whom fortune only distinguish them? Oh, yes, commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing or to a particularly steep hill. At such times, the desperate straining of the team, their agonized leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing hunger, the many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable displays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the passengers would call down encouragingly to the toilers of the rope, extorting them to patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in another world for the hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves and liniments for the crippled and injured. It was agreed that bit was a great pity that the coach was so hard to pull, and there was a sense of great relief when the especially bad piece of the road was gotten over. This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was always some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all would lose their seats.
It must in truth be admitted that the main effect of the spectacle of the misery of the toilers at the rope was to enhance the passengers’ sense of the value of their seats upon the coach, and to cause them to hold on to them more desperately than before. If the passengers could only have felt assured that neither they nor their friends would ever fall from the top, it is probable that, beyond contributing to the funds for liniments and bandages, they would have troubled themselves extremely little about those who dragged the coach.
I am well aware that this will appear to the men and women of the twentieth century as incredible inhumanity, but there are two facts, both curious, which explain it. In the first place, it was firmly and sincerely believed that there was no other way in which society could get along, except the many pulled at a rope and the few rode, and not only this, but that no very radical improvement even was possible, either in the harness, the coach, the roadway, or the distribution of the toil. It had always been as it was, and it always would be so. It was a pity, but it could not be helped, and philosophy forbade wasting compassion on what was beyond remedy.
The other is yet more curious, consisting in a singular hallucination which those on the top of the coach generally shared, that they were not exactly like their brothers and sisters who pulled at the rope, but clay, in some in some way belonging to a higher order of beings who might justly expect to be drawn. This seems unaccountable, but as I once rode on this very coach and shared that very hallucination, I ought to be believed. The strangest thing about the hallucination was that those who had but just climbed up from the ground, before they had overgrown the marks of the rope upon their hands, begun to fall under its influence. As for those whose parents and grandparents before them had been so fortunate as to keep their seats on top, the conviction they cherished of the essential difference between their sort of humanity and the common article was absolute. The effect of such delusion in moderating fellow feeling for the suffering of the mass of men into a distant and philosophical compassion is obvious. To it I refer as the only extenuation I can offer for the indifference which, at the period I write of, marked my own attitude toward the misery of my brothers.
Thanks Jim. I am happy knowing that others know. I'll check it out next time I'm in Central Park.
P.S. It will probably being on a tear or two.
When you're writing for the glitterati of New York's upper crust, and the legions of wanna-bes throughout the country, and perhaps the world, you tend to slant your writings towards the biases of your audience.
A shameless smear of John Lee Anderson's article. He is pretty clear about what disturbed him, Torre de David is occupied and in part organized by at a self confessed mass murderer. someone who he thinks is liable to snap again. Does he need to witness a murder in person to know it is a dangerous place? What kind of bizarre standard of reporting is that?
This is a really poor piece by FAIR.
To the peace corps volunteer, Venezuela has gotten much much more oil revenue per person than it had during the previous booms. Yet people are still living in filth and squalor. With a direct cash transfer there would be no poverty in Venezuela, instead Chavez has spent about a trillion in oil income for about the same poverty reduction as his neighbors achieved.
As to Venezuela proving austerity can be avoided, that is a nice laugh. Venezuela has oil revenue Europeans can only dream of yet pays debt rates higher than Greece, that is no alternative at all, its just where Greece was 5 years ago in a debt to GDP ratio. Eventually Venezuela will need to make a correction, no matter who is in charge.
There is a class of people in the developed countries who from their very comfortable circumstances, living in placid ignorance in their lovely well ordered countries find narcicistic pleasure advertising better still playing the glamorous role of wannabe defenders of social justice and third world revolutions they know nothing about . They criticize the past ( perhaps justifiably) but they have no clue as to what the reality of living under one of the messianic megalomaniacal regimes they so proudly defend is all about . Venezuela has seen its considerable oil income rise 7 fold during Mr Chavez regime, a gift ot the much maligned globalization helping raise the price of oil with the advent of the new chinese and hindian middle classes . Enough money to provide all the poor occupying the tower of David with decent housing and living conditions , and yet the gross mismanagement and corruption of the Regime has instead frittered away all this wealth in providing pinata parties (not sustainable living conditions ) to those they seek to convert into their fanatized followers while allowing a new class of boliburgueses with good government contacts a road to inmmense and corrupt riches. At the same time violent crime rates have rise 10 fold , Caracas is now more murderous than Iraq or Mexico or even war torn colombia . The murder capital of the world . People who visit dont have the knowledge of things that people who live here year round and who for whatever reason often have first hand access to information that almost never gets known published or reported ( venezuelans of whatever ideological bent can count on a tight circle of friends and relatives and former associates who live inside the whale of inner government decisions) .
If everything has gone to hell in a handbasket as NorskeDiv and bill blass suggest, why do the people reelect the man? It sounds to my ear as if some oil companies "want their country back."
God Bless the Rich!
Let the Tea flow!
I agree with bill bass' comment and NorskeDiv's.
As a Venezuelan, it is hard to see my country deteriorating. I have been in the US for almost 10 years now, but I do go every year to visit famly and friends, and stay in touch with them. It is SAD!
Corruption is breathed everywhere! It is true that some are better off. Those who work for government jobs, who are forced to go to marches and help Chaves'z party or they will loose their jobs (yes this DOES happen!). Those who vote for him because they don't want to loose their jobs and their monthly income, not because they agree with his politics. Those who like the idea of being handed crumbs in order to survive. Those who like the idea of taking over a house that does not belong to them just because the owner may have another house. (My grandmother passed away and my mother has been trying to sell the house. It is a daily struggle and stress, making sure that "invaders" don't take over the house.)
The income per capita may have risen, but what about inflation? I have not seen the official number, but in my opinion, people may be worse off, or if not, even and not have gained anything. Increasing the income per capita 50% does nothing when goods are 200% more expensive now than they were 10 years ago.
Owning a house or a car is now such a far dream to some middle class people, whereas before, it was at least a possibility. I must say that if someone holds a government job, they may be able to afford one now. There have also been some type of loans offered by the government, making it easier for some people to buy a house/car. This is a good thing.
When people go to hospitals, they have to bring their own supplies, bed sheets, EVERYTHING! Unless they go to a Cuban hospital. (I have nothing agains Cuba or Cubans, just stating a fact here)
The heart of my city was torn down with plans of there being a "train or subway system". Well, it is still not in existance and the city is still torn down.
My question is, with all of the income Venezuela has seen in the past 10 years, should people still be living in abandoned buildings? should they be forced to invade another's property? Should the condition of the government housing be so poor? should hospitals be so out of supplies? I don't think so. The country should be soooo much better but it isn't.
But the problem is unfortunately not only Chavez. It is the corruption that has been in Venezuela since well before Chavez. Also the lack of enforcement of the law. Crime is out of control!
Why is it that his family, friends and supporters are so well off financially? answer: corruption. People without credentials are getting all types of jobs because they are the son of a friend, the friend of a friend, the neighbour of a friend, Chavez's cousing, brother, etc, etc..
See, the problem is not capitalism, socialism, communism. Man has had the same desires and wants for thousand of years. When one person or a group wants/desires more money, power, influence, then problem arises.
Lastly, in my opinion, no one should be president for more than 2 terms. I don't care if he/she is the best president in the world. If people like the politics of the president, then another person in the party should be nominated. I was for Chavez initiallly and have seen how power has corrupted him.
To answer steve shuttleworth's comment. My theory and that of many others is that he was re-elected again (and this time it was VERY close, he has lost a lot of support by the way) because of what I said earlier. Those people, who have a decent paying government job, do not want to let go of that security. It is scary and I understand their situation. They have families they have to support.
My hope is that balance, peace and good standards of living are achieved in Venezuela. Not only for those who support one party but for ALL Venezuelans.
Thanks for your article Jim. I was getting ready to write a nasty letter to the New Yorker. You have articulated my sense of Mr. Anderson's piece perfectly.
The sense of the Anderson article I am getting — granted, without having read it, only relying on this review and the posts below — is that this is a wholesale ad hominem attack on Chavez.
I would have been pleased if Jim had called Anderson out on this point alone. Eliminating serious, egregious errors in logic will do more to dispel rumors and lies than even the most articulated critique such as Jim supplied.
Pointing to the "personal" nature of the New Yorker article would force Anderson and other opponents of equality to answer to the actual EFFECTS of POLICY rather than the nonsense that proliferates from informal fallacies.
Not a criticism of Jim's work, btw. Just pointing out a shortcut to get at the guts of all this.
Well, I finally got to the rest of the mag. On P. 70, Jill Lepore has a "critic at large" article entitled "The Force: How much military is enough?". Besides citing several books on the subject and giving a nice background historical synopsis, Ms. Lepore does a devastating (IMO) expose on the House Armed Services Committee and its chair, Rep. "Buck" McKeon. So don't write off The New Yorker.
@Jonathan and @Pamela: Actually, therealnews.com, with its limited resources that it does have, HAS done some decent journalism on Venezuela and Chavez's efforts to improve the quality of life for its poorest citizens. Try this one for size: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=9127
Ok, so I admit to reading The New Yorker from time to time. But I read it with the awareness that its drolleries and "our precious little-world" point of view have a blind spot as big as say, the entire world minus the wealthy residents of America, Canada and a couple European countries? This is the magazine equivalent to NPR — that is, Nurturing the Persecuted Rich.
Thanks @nodifference for the url to realnews.com. Much different approach to what is happening in Venezuela.
[...] A paradigmatic example of the unfair right-wing criticism of Hugo Chavez: condemning him for making an abandoned skyscraper available for poor people to live in. [...]
I think Bill Bass and JH already made my point, but here it is:
To those who think Chavez is being treated "unfairly", and that things in Venezuela are better than ever (including, but not limited to, the author of this piece) why don't you pack your things, and come down here to check it out? Come here, to the "socialist paradise", so you can praise Chávez all day long…
I could help you to find a place to rent, but geez… It's so hard these days. Due to the new laws enacted by the chavistas, no one is willing to rent anything…
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190504577038533596342536.html
Also, I can't make you any promises about taking you out for a walk in the city: If you appreciate your life, you will avoid going out during the nightly hours, as this is the time when most kidnappings happen…
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xtpyjs_secuestro-express-en-el-hatillo-caracas-venezuela_news#.UQdHFRDPJZI
(By the way Mr. Naureckas, I fail to see in your review of Mr. Anderson's article what he does mention about crime, and the level of fear that everyone feels in Caracas. What about that?)
Ah, and if you want to buy butter, milk, flour, or something as ordinary and mundane as chicken, be prepared to fight for it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5cHKnaHkJ8o
The delight of food shortages…
The point was not that squatters are living in this tower per say…….the point is that squatters are LIVING in this TOWER!If the white house went broke(oh wait it is)and squatters were living there, the outrage is not at the squatters.It is at the system that allowed it to happen.
I think your characterization of the tone of the article as "sneering" is exactly right. I did a slow boil while reading it. As one commenter pointed out, the photo of schoolchildren returning home seriously undermines the whole "OMG! Nothing works here!" message of the article. And, how does the retelling of Chavez's horrific experience in prison square with Anderson implying that the prison problem is a problem of the Chavez regime?
You know, perhaps Anderson should stay here in America. There are no shortage of squalid conditions that have not been fixed by politicians promising solutions. But, solutions that don't work (and actually heighten misery) ar A-OK when they're "free markety".
…or I'm thinking Anderson could go to Haiti or Mexico where broad based prosperity and security reigns because they've followed the Washington consensus rules.
Klassy Chavez had a boat load…. nay a planet load of petro dollars to do as he wished for his people.The fact that he did "some things" that were positive for his people that really amounted to so little in the end(though we can argue that)shows a level of malfeasance ,and incompetence scarcely to be believed .If Obama were to crack open his wallet and send his brother(who lives in a hut)2oo bucks,that would be a years salary.So in one sense that is a lot.In another it is a disgrace.Chavez is a disgrace.Billions and billions come in, and only a trickle flows out to the poor people he so lauds.Yet I suppose even that little is enough to buy their hearts and minds.Forget his mutant politics.His bombastic bloviating..He has been a lousy steward of his countries wealth.A lousy PR spokesmen for the perception of his country, and his people. He is like woody the woodpecker.A little troublemaker yapping about while he bangs his head(and the heads of his people)into a tree.In other words a socialist!
I meet occasionally few Venezuelan emigrants here in Florida. They all have fat accounts in the Bahamas’ banks and lament now that they are no longer favorites of the Chavez government. But even though they hate his changes, they admit that the poor in general are better off now, and have better chances under Chavez, than they did under the previous governments.
Michael, facts are not as important as are perceptions; people will tolerate a lot, if, they perceive that there is hope with the current government, and its leader at the hem. FDR gave people hope that he will solve their economic plight; people who believe in better future are not demoralized, they go out and act on the promise of their leader, and try to prove him right. Hope is a mother of all mankind that is the greatest gift that Chavez gave to his people, the poor people that is. He has my vote, my approval. I wish that our President would copy Chavez; we may reduce the % of the homeless, the unemployed, and yes the poor.
Some more corporate crapola:
http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/letter-to-the-new-york-times-ombudsman-on-hugo-chavez/
I've not lived in Venezuela for few months as tourist, but for 26 years as permanent resident in one of the red zones of Caracas. I read the whole article by Anderson, and if at parts inaccurate, the general idea can't be more realistic.
I was born in rather interesting time, right in the 80s, after few decades of progress and rapid economical growth. My grandparents, just like many other immigrants from Europe (especially Spain, Germany, Portugal and Italy) saw this country as their best chance to attain a better life quality, and many did, they came here with nothing and got to be part of the mid class during the 70s.
Venezuelans were, nonetheless, starting to get disillusioned with the path the country was taking. Corruption was the inevitable by-product of the accelerated progress. Still, Caracas attracted thousands of persons from other cities during 80s, 90s and 00s. – Let's not forget that while there was progress, this was mainly seen in the capital, the other states were relegated to the background, no roads, no electricity or running water, small towns during 1980 were still living in the past.
This massive migration Caracas faced was more than it could bear. Caracas is small, no more than 1,930 km². People started settling down in slums up the mountains surrounding the city, something that wasn't unknown at the time, but was rare before. Our stable warm climate enabled this further.
During the second half of the 80s Venezuela got very unstable politically, many scandals surrounding major political figures, it reflected in the economy as well. And then came the attempted coups, which I must remind everybody here, were organized by Hugo Chavez himself. This political restlessness just worsened our economy, Venezuela wasn't anymore the good place for investment it used to be. Banks broke, investors fled, unemployment grew and insecurity started skyrocketing.
These are the circumstances that allowed Chavez to seize the power, when I was barely a 12 years old girl.
Now well, what has allowed Chavez to keep the power is the fact he's much smarter than his adversaries want to concede. It's not the revolution, the revolution is an artificial hope-fodder. Chavez succeeded at making the poor think, they were entitled to get things from the government, because they had already suffered enough. It's not that people don't have the will to work, they do, but they were convinced they deserved special treatment. And in my personal opinion, this is what "the new wave socialism" is really about.
The poor doesn't love Chavez because he's a great man empathetic to their hardships, they adore Chavez like a kid loves Santa Claus. If anyone reading this has ever taken the time to see his shows, read the letters people sent him, you would know this is true. Everybody is asking for something, no one is really asking for opportunities to EARN their things.
And this is exactly what this government has really achieved, precluding the opportunities for the rest of us to earn our own things. The insane exchanging laws, the high prices of private education (public education here today is a total joke, where people are indoctrinated to praise "our leader"), the high prices of houses and apts; the average young person will never be able to buy his own place, or pay his own medical assistance, he has to recur to the bones the government throws us.
Don't be fooled for a second, public medical care is a nightmare, it always was and it's worse now. They lack the means to give a good attention, in most cases, and they're simply overcrowded of people waiting for attention that might be too late when they get it. We always have the chance to go to Cuba and get a free surgery, right? My neighbor did that, 3 years ago, returned home blind.
Chavez has indeed done good things too, not everything is terrible, there are many things that were built during the last decade, the metro system got improved, etc. In closer inspection you'll see all these have been built during election years.
Corruption just didn't just disappear magically, every single enterprise subsided by the government got a long chain of people making illegal profits out of it. I wonder if this is what the author meant with "Venezuelans have done quite well economically under Chavez's administration", if so he's right.
Just my two cents, it might not be what you expect this country to be, but it's my reality and the reality of most people I know and live with.
Do all Venezuelans in the U.S. have "fat accounts in the Bahamas"? Well, maybe I'll have to ask my brother for a handout of that…
(By the way, what a load of BS Bozidar Kornic)
I think everyones (besides Bill Bass, JH, and now Lisbeth) is missing the point here:
If Venezuela is doing so great, why the poor have to live in abandoned buildings? Why the government can't provide adequate housing for them?
Would it be, because Venezuela isn't doing great? Would it be, because the country is deeply indebted, even though it has lived through one of the longest periods of high oil prices (its main source of income)?
(By the way great comment Lisbeth)