New Fascism

That is still one of my all-time favorite pictures.

For quite a while, we have been hearing Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez talk about his idea of “new socialism” or “Bolivarian democracy”. In recent months, he has assumed control of broadcast media and instructed his lackeys to deport any foreigners that espouse negative views of his government.

Chavez has now unveiled his proposition for a new constitution and he is swinging for the fences.

“We have to change the geometry of power”.-Hugo Chavez

For sarters, Chavez wishes to be able to run for president indefinitely; no term limits.

He seeks to nationalize production and supply of all natural gas and coal to go along with the state controlled oil industry that is already in place.

His proposal will recognize the existence of “social” property and grant the state additional power to “expropriate” private property. Large, private landholdings will be outlawed.

In addition, under his proposal, the government will control the central bank and international reserves.

Let’s say, for instance, that there is a citizen who believes in the premise of the “new socialism”, that the government should have control of the media, energy supply and production, ownership of property and the money but, he/she doesn’t think that one guy with a parrot on his shoulder, should have control of this government for an open ended period of time.
For this, Chavez has conveniently bundled all of these proposals together so the individual has to vote on the entire thing.

So, we have the “new socialism” or “Bolivarian democracy”. This is one of those instances where people make up new language to describe something where existing terminology would suffice quite well. You know, like in baseball, a pitcher used to have good “control”, now he has good “location”. Control-location; it’s the same thing. New socialism-fascism; Bolivarian democracy-tyranny; that’s all.