Police in Venezuela are rounding up gay/lesbian/bi/trans folk into vans and hauling them to jail by the dozens, according to reports. "Our IDs and mobile phones were taken away, we were beaten, [and] our sexual orientation was insulted." (Thanks, Antinous)
Homophobia in Venezuela
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Homophobia in Venezuela
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Can't you just feel evolution coming to a screeching halt and quickly rolling backwards...
Is there some weird reason why fascist ideologies seem to work out the same way? Adoration of the charismatic leader, purported threats from outside the country, and then rounding up a minority group or groups of choice.
I'd suggest anyone leave before getting blamed for burning down the Venezuelan equivalent of the Reichstag.
I guess Hugo Chavez is just following in the example of his idol Fidel.
Wow! Godwin's Law is working fast tonight.
Cicada, here's some reading on authoritarianism for you. The Authoritarians by Prof. Bob Altemeyer: http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/
I guess Hugo Chavez is just following in the example of his idol Fidel.
Cuba will probably have gay marriage before the US. They've made some big changes in the last decade.
Antinous:
If that happens, is not thanks to Fidel, who is not in power anymore. So, the comment about Fidel is right.
Its hard to avoid Godwin's Law when you have a charismatic dictator rounding up the gays. Viva socialism!
You should be aware that the police have also rounded up and tortured a Chavista activist recently... The police force in Venezuela is no fan of Chavez and have been implicated in a number of anti Chavista moves over the years
They've made some big changes in the last decade.
So has the U.S., yesterday's setback in Maine notwithstanding.
It seems to be more of a case of police brutality which happens in pretty much any country that I can think of.
As far as dictator vs democratically elected leader argument, I'll leave that for others to comment.
if you read the article this quote comes from, you'll find that:
Article 21 of the 1999 Venezuelan constitution states that all persons are equal before the law and, consequently, discrimination based on race, sex, creed or social condition is prohibited.
On this basis, the Supreme Court ruled in March 2008 that no individual may be discriminated against by reason of his or her sexual orientation in any way that implies treating him or her in an unequal fashion.
His niece is very into gay rights. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7314845.stm
Fidel said in 1992 that homosexuality is a “natural human tendency that must simply be respected”. Looking at world leaders over all, that would still put him in the more progressive half.
Sean Penn, who just played Harvey Milk, is going to interview Castro. I wonder if the subject will come up.
Viva socialism!
And please stop calling Chavez a socialist. He's a grasping, power hungry dictator, but he's no more socialist than Bush. He's just using that as an excuse while he robs the store.
@Cicada:
I suppose there is a wide range of opinions on Chavèz -- I reserve my judgement considering the amount of bullshit that's been spewed by right wing think tanks (and conveniently+consistently relayed by Xeni) -- but calling him a "fascist" is not just wrong, it displays an amazing level of ignorance.
"Fascist" is not a synonym for "bad."
There are lots of words to choose from in the dictionary. If you don't like any of them, it's even ok to make a new one up.
"Fascism" refers to a particular ideology. Fascists used to kill socialists on sight. Chavez is a socialist. I could rhetorically ask you to read up on the Spanish civil war, but that's too much I guess.
Fascism's never had a monopoly on homophobia, either. Around the time of fascism, Britain treated gays no better than what is alleged here. Ask Alan Turing about it if you don't believe me.
Chavez is a populist demagogue, like Ahmadinejad, Huckabee or Limbaugh. He will be a socialist if the people will vote for a socialist, and a dictator if the people will vote for a dictator. Perhaps he has no true colors.
«He's a grasping, power hungry dictator, but he's no more socialist than Bush. »
I know you're going to disenvowel me for that, but that's absolute nonsense. He's not a dictator, having been elected, and re-elected, and won a recall vote.
You're probably referring to his changing of the constitution to remove term limits; guess what, many democratic countries don't have term limits. And while News Corp. tried to pass it as making him "president for life," the change merely lets him run for *re-election*.
I have no idea what you mean by claiming he's not an actual socialist, or comparing him to Bush who certainly never claimed to be one. He most certainly implemented wealth redistribution, regardless of what your appraisal of it is.
@Ito: well that's your opinion. It's also coincidentally that of the Heritage Foundation or the American Enterprise Institute. But I'm not going to ascribe those to any kind of evil inclination on your part. After all, I can't read your mind. Can you read Chavez's mind?
Anonimous #9:
Citation needed. Which police force? There is not a single police force in Venezuela. And the Metropolitan Police of Caracas is controlled by Jacqueline Faría, who the very democratic Chávez elected himself instead of Antonio Ledezma, the major elected by the people, who was stripped from most of his authority and real control of the city.
So much democracy here...
Nixar:
So, he is soooo democratic that he put Faría instead of Ledezma to control the capital, right? That in the states where the opposition won, he took airports, ports and other revenue sources, and he appointed special Vicepresidents for the regions, in order to exert control.
Can you understand Spanish? If so, see the interview that Jaime Baily made to him, where he clearly rejects being a socialist, before getting in power. He was proud of being a golpista, before turning golpista (coup maker) into a bad word for his opposers, after 2002. Do you want to see the video where he is proud of being a golpista?
Redistribution of wealth? ROFL!!!
Here, the marginal tax rate for the highest bracket is lower than it was during Bush in the US. ROFL!!!!
Nixar:
So, he is soooo democratic that he put Faría instead of Ledezma to control the capital, right? That in the states where the opposition won, he took airports, ports and other revenue sources, and he appointed special Vicepresidents for the regions, in order to exert control.
Can you understand Spanish? If so, see the interview that Jaime Baily made to him, where he clearly rejects being a socialist, before getting in power. He was proud of being a golpista, before turning golpista (coup maker) into a bad word for his opposers, after 2002. Do you want to see the video where he is proud of being a golpista?
Redistribution of wealth? ROFL!!!
Here, the marginal tax rate for the highest bracket is lower than it was during Bush in the US. ROFL!!!!
Antinous: Fidel and his government made the life of many gays a hell in Earth during many years. He never apologized, AFAIK, so, whatever he said 1992, fuck the pig. He has gay blood in his hands too.
er um Fascism?
That was too easy. Use some lube maybe? (feel free to disenvowel )
He most certainly implemented wealth redistribution
Yeah, he redistributed it right into his Swiss bank account.
I lived in Venezuela in the early 1990's under right-wing president Carlos Andres Perez, and the same thing happened to my gay friends on a fairly regular basis. Whatever you may think of Chavez, this problem has been around a lot longer than he has.
«Yh, h rdstrbtd t rght nt hs Swss bnk ccnt.»
cld b mn nd nt th lck f rlbl src.
cld ls pnt t tht hs ppnnts d nt hv prblm wth thr wn swss bnk ccnts.
r cld jst nt tht t rmnds m f rpblcns prjctng thr wn sns n lbrls.
I look forward to a public comment from Sean Penn on his thoughts on his close friend's treatment of the gay community in Venezuela.
Or I could just note that it reminds me of republicans projecting their own sins on liberals.
Nixar,
I'm a communist. I dislike Chavez because he pretends to be a socialist in order to gain power and wealth. Implying that anyone who doesn't like your pet dictator is right-wing is a failure of argument on your part.
Everything that happens in Venezuela is Hugo Chavez's doing?
The police in many American cities practice racial profiling and routinely abuse African American citizens. Is this Obama's fault.
As an above commenter says, there are many police organizations in Caracas. Some contain many anti-chavistas. I'll wait for a more detailed report to find out which one's specifically are accused of these outrages and what, if anything, the national government will do about them.
Interesting that among the links on the right margins labeled "Related IPS Articles" is one from last December entitled "
Rights-Colombia: Where Homophobia Totes a Gun" about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people in Columbia being routinely *murdered* by guerillas and right-wing paramilitaries. If you've been keeping up you know that the paramilitaries in Columbia are the State security services and that Columbian Pres Uribe is intimately involved with them. That one was never posted on boing boing.
Homophobia is a problem throughout Latin America. But it is only news to Xeni if Hugo Chavez can somehow be implicated. This is getting tiresome.
But it is only news to Xeni if Hugo Chavez can somehow be implicated. This is getting tiresome.
Speaking of tiresome, how is it that you (and several others) almost only ever show up on BB to defend repressive Latin American pseudo-socialist regimes? Is there a Cheerleaders for Chavez website?
The inanity of folks citing Godwin's law is that, plain and simple, national socialism of all sorts has so consistently proven itself as violent, bigoted and prejudiced to minorities that it MUST be mentioned. Those who would so easily cite this silly "law" in dicsussion and debate offer no additional insight into the debate except to puff up for a small moment with a self-absorbed and meaningless "gotcha" which is no "gotcha" at all. When the fascist side of various forms of national socialism rears its ugly head, citing Godwin's supposed law offers no insight into the event nor discussion about it.
Speaking of tiresome, how is it that you (and several others) almost only ever show up on BB to defend repressive Latin American pseudo-socialist regimes? Is there a Cheerleaders for Chavez website?
Because, in my lifetime the demonization of the leaders of Official Enemy nations in the mainstream US media has routinely been the prelude to war.
When I was a teenager Muammar Gaddafi was "a madman" and "a threat" and that was used as justification to bomb Libya, (killing one of his daughters).
Milosevic was "mad" and a "dictator" so NATO bombed Kosovo, thus precipitating genocide against the Albanians there who were previously certainly repressed but not being ethnically cleansed.
The Sandinistas were only a few hundred miles from Brownsville, Texas! According to Ronald Reagan and the media that was on bended knee to him.
Pres Aristide was smeared in the US media preparatory to a US-backed coup that put in place a genuinely repressive military regime.
Of course, twice Saddam was a "a madman", with who "killed his own people", and had a repressive regime. And now that problem's solved and Iraqis can now be repressed by a US-backed (and thus not "mad") elected regime and killed by foreigners as well as their countrymen.
Most of the above were actually anti-democratic and repressive. Aristide and Chavez were/are not. The Sandinistas are a mixed bag. (I'm no fan of Daniel Ortega.) But in any case the overheated rhetoric that is thrown about has served to justify armed intervention in countries where it has done no one any good, and actually done horrible harm to people.
Meanwhile, US-clients like Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, Tudjman in Croatia, Rios Montt in Guatemala, and presently Uribe in Columbia perpetrated worse outrages with hardly any comment in the US press. No drumbeat of condemnation in the mainstream press.
So I do what I can, in my small way, to try to counter the belligerent rhetoric against Chavez, Morales and Correa because I see it as incorrect and unjust but, most importantly, because the "Chavez is a dictator meme" is preparing the ground for war.
«Spkng f trsm, hw s t tht y (nd svrl thrs) lmst nly vr shw p n BB t dfnd rprssv Ltn mrcn psd-sclst rgms? s thr Chrldrs fr Chvz wbst?»
Régms? h s t's nt jst Chvz y hv prblm wth, wh ls? ll ths prtnd (ccrdng t y) sclsts?
Wht s t, Pncht nstlg, pnstlg? r r y n lm f th Schls f th mrcs?
Nixar, that's not quite fair. Just because one (wrongly, in my opinion) thinks that Chavez is "repressive" doesn't mean one is a fascist.
If only Hugo knew about this. I'm sure he'd put a stop to it.
Fuuny the way Nixar avoids to reply any of my arguments.
Hey, Nixar, have you tried to google "Arne Chacon Escamillo"?
Or, can you explain me why both Chavez daughters and Mario Silva (worse than Bill O'Reilly, imho) are getting free public housing?
http://sivih.mopvi.gob.ve/beneficiario.php/beneficiario_consulta/editBeneficiario/beneficiario_beneficiario_id/1001573/ventana/ventana1
http://sivih.mopvi.gob.ve/beneficiario.php/beneficiario_consulta/editBeneficiario/beneficiario_beneficiario_id/1098691/ventana/ventana1
http://sivih.mopvi.gob.ve/beneficiario.php/beneficiario_consulta/editBeneficiario/beneficiario_beneficiario_id/1098766/ventana/ventana1
Or, can you explain me how people that were poor 8 years ago are buying banks now?
Or, can you explain me how a luggage with 800K dollars found its way to Argentina on a plane of out national oil company?
Or, if wealth re-distribution is so hot, can you explain our high VAT and low taxes for the rich? Even lower than Bush's tax cuts.
This jerk is a corrupt traveling all around the world while our country crumbles to the ground.
PS: Carloz Andrés Pérez was NOT a right winger. He was even a member of The Socialist International: http://www.lainternacionalsocialista.org/viewArticle.cfm?ArticleID=79 and was his vice-president, with Brand as president. He nationalized our oil and made social programs. How is he remembered today? As the thief he was and as incompetent ruler, and Chávez will be remembered as much worse, despite all the astroturf and excuses made today.
And refusing to acknowledge that somebody is a bad ruler or a tyrant, just because Americans think, is as silly as refusing to criticize America and saying "my country, right or wrong".
And a lot of people here are critical of other authoritarian regimes around the world, but, IIRC, Mubarak is a lot quieter than Chávez and is not traveling the world babbling on how his govt. is the way, so, it is understandable that Chavez gets more bad press. Anyway, I have publicly criticized Mubarak and other US allies, so your argument is not valid in this case.
The comparison with Bertrand Aristide is quite appropriate indeed, voline. I initially believed the official line on him, that he had begun abusing power for his own benefit. Then I found out (on democracynow.org) it was mostly US propaganda.
I'm not saying Chavez is a saint. I'm not giving him a blank chèque. I have no reason to believe what he says.
There one thing I'm absolutely certain of: his opponents lie and have no credibility. That doesn't mean everything they say is false; it just means that everything coming from them, I will take as a lie until proven otherwise.
A telling example is that of that private TV channel (TV Globo?) If you listened to the US propaganda, he was trying to silence his opponents. Nevermind the fact that he could (and should IMO) have closed them down for good in 2002 when they supported the coup against them; their airwave license was coming up for renewal, and it wasn't renewed.
Guess what, that shit happens all the time in democratic countries. Frequencies are a public resource, it's up to the administration to allocate them. Now you can contest the policy behind said allocation, but in itself it's not an infringement on freedom of speech. The channel was not prevented from broadcasting on cable or the internet AFAIK. Sure, it's not going to have anywhere the same revenue, if at all, but their business model is not a human right.
GuidoDavid, I think anonymous' refering to an incident a couple of weeks ago, where a pregnant woman and her partner were detained and tortured by the DISIP; her mother reported on that, and the woman later underwent medical examinations which confirmed torture. What's really disturbing is that they are all Chavez supporters, and later pulled back on their declarations and denied everything that happened, so as to "not give the Right arguments against Chavez" (their own words!). Aporrea.org, which was the first to report, even deleted every related content from their site. Talk about blind fanatism, huh?
unpublished, surely.
@Nixar: so the fact that others have stolen money and fattened their swiss bank accounts means that its ok for Chavez to do the same thing? , remember ten years ago that he promised he was different?. The fact that he has been voted in repeatedly despite being one of the most awful venezuelan presidents of all time, only confirms that the elections have been constantly rigged, which is quite easy since those dreadful electronic voting machines.
this is not socialism!
socialism is based on the recognition of inherent equality and a desire for fairness and justice.
hugo chavez is, as has been pointed out, an authoritarian demagogue. like the u.s. has almost always had an outside enemy to target and take the spotlight with one hand to hide what the other hand is doing.
godwin's on second...wow. though the reichstag is still germany's parliament building. when it was burned down in 1933 hitler blamed the political left (communists) and was voted to greater power. sound familiar?
conservatives throughout history have blamed progressives for social ills and used fear and hatred tactics to increase their own power.
conversely, socialist revolutions are by the people. that is, society.
Nixar,
You're way out of line. I'm criticizing Chavez from the Left. I support Morales, Correa and Castro. I view Chavez as a Mugabe wannabe.
You've said that several times. Why? Is there money missing?