Ave Cincinnatus
Over at the tomb of the Grantites, they continue to hang onto the coattails of Hugo Chavez - urging a yes vote in the constitutional amendment.
A detour - two early American presidents did two amzaing things - the first, george Washignton, resigned after two terms. War hero, general, fatehr of the nation, inspiration for the only truly national party (the veterans) he could have ruled for life. he could, if he'd tried, gone for dictator. He didn't, he retired. His successor did something even more amazin, he got voted out of office. Almost unheard of. he went. Admittedly, behind all this lay teh militias, and their implied threat, but still, the American revolution carried off its most splendid coup - power can change hands at the ballot box - and it survived.
Chavez has institutionalised turn limits - no office hodler in the land can even try for indefinite tenure. He created the Bolivarian Constitution which limitted the president to two terms. Now he wants the president to be the exception - claiming that he is the artist whose vision is being carried out. He wants to add to that the power of decree.
For the good of whatever advances have been made in Venezuela, pace the old Grantites, Chavez needs to be rebuffed - the lesson must be rammed home - a movement is more than one man. What the world needs is an example of genuinely popular democratic change, not another fucking caudillo.
Labels: Hugo Chavez, Referendums, Venezuela
posted by Bill at 09:19
1 Comments:
off topic but is this another cigarette paper moment , Bill .
David Cameron plans to create the Conservative Co-operative Movement...to steal the clothes of Robert Owen, founder of the Co-operative movement and since dubbed the father of English socialism... Mr Cameron's argument is that the Co-operative movement is not necessarily socialist and, by using the title Pioneer Schools - after the Rochdale Pioneers - for his first proposals under this new co-operative approach, he is harking back to the very early days of the movement before it was irrevocably aligned with socialism.
"The co-operative principle captures precisely the vision of social progress that we on the centre-right believe in - the idea of social responsibility, that we're all in this together, that there is such a thing as society, it's just not the same thing as the state," he said.
Similarly, his statement that the movement will campaign for "public ownership of public services and public facilities", does not mean he believes in state ownership of those services.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7084502.stm
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