Nikolas Kozloff

South American populism has always had a rather unsavory connection to anti-Semitism. For example, the case of Brazilian President Getulio Vargas, whose government tolerated anti-Semitic acts during the 1930s. At the time Brazilian nativism, which included anti-Semitism as one of its major components, was common amongst intellectuals and the elite press. Vargas tolerated an ugly rightist movement called Integralism that was reminiscent of European fascism. The Integralists, led by an intellectual named Plinio Salgado, advocated anti-Semitic positions and republished Nazi propaganda. With a membership of 1 million, the Integralists were an ominous force on the Brazilian political stage. Known for their Green Shirts, the Integralists staged rowdy street rallies and saw Jews, Masons, and Communists as dangers to society.

 

Though Vargas later banned Green Shirt rallies, the populist leader and his followers seemed to share some of the Integralists' positions. Vargas himself had an anti-Semitic confidant, General Newton Cavalcanti, who in turn was one of the chief military allies of the Integralists and Salgado. In the late 1930s, Vargas' own Minister of Justice Francisco Campos, a sympathizer with the Italian fascist cause, led discussions about the need for a new comprehensive anti-Jewish policy. Under the influence of Campos and others, it wasn't long before the regime adopted restrictive immigration quotas and Jews were denied entry visas into the country.

 

At its best, South American populism can advance the interests of poor and disenfranchised groups by pushing through popular programs and mobilizing the masses. There's always been a somewhat questionable nationalistic underside to populism however. Populist leaders may seek to cast themselves as the cultural epitome of the nation while railing against ill-defined internal or external threats. Populists, as I explain in my recent book Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008), whip up their own popularity and mythology by emphasizing a personal crusade. Master orators, populists employ fiery, emotional rhetoric to establish a psychological connection with the people. Hardly content to work within conventional political channels, they conduct militant street rallies and mass mobilization of civil society to achieve their long-term objectives.

 

Because they are ideologically inchoate, populist movements may rely on nationalism to keep their heterogeneous and multi-class coalitions together. In this sense, anti-Semitism can be considered convenient as a kind of unifying glue. While Vargas employed anti-Semitism for political benefit, he was hardly the only populist leader to cultivate such a strategy. Juan Perón, a populist from Argentina, was apparently innocent of anti-Semitism though he tolerated anti-Semites in his entourage and condoned anti-Semitic violence carried out by nationalists whose political support he found essential. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, a more recent populist, has not been immune from charges of anti-Semitism. It's a subject that the left is not very eager to address, though the issue has now become impossible to ignore.

 

Even before he came to power, Chávez maintained a bizarre connection to an anti-Semitic political figure named Norberto Ceresole. An Argentine sociologist and political scientist, Ceresole identified with Peronism and denied the Holocaust. In 1994, Ceresole came to Venezuela and became one of Chávez's mentors. At the time, Chávez had just been recently pardoned by President Rafael Caldera for a botched 1992 military coup. In 1995, Ceresole was exiled from Venezuela by Caldera for the Argentine's alleged ties with Islamic terrorists. Ceresole returned three years later after Chavez's victory in the presidential election. He then authored a book entitled, Caudillo, Ejército, Pueblo (Leader, Army, People) about the Chavez revolution. The introductory chapter was titled, "The Jewish question and the State of Israel" and it blamed Israel and the world Jewish community for his exile. In his book, Ceresole claimed that Jews used the "myth" of the Holocaust to control the world. It was up to Latin America, Ceresole argued, to fight against "the Jewish financial mafia." Though Chávez distanced himself from Ceresole after he became president, his association with the Argentine anti-Semite is a big, black mark on the Venezuelan leader's political record.

 

To get a sense of the Jewish community in Venezuela, I visited a Sephardic synagogue in Caracas in 2006. It was rather difficult to gain admittance to the building: I had to submit a photocopy of my passport to a security guard and convince the staff that I was indeed Jewish. The ceremony itself was rather traditional with the sexes clearly segregated: during the chanting, women sat on the balcony while men and boys remained on the first floor. Afterwards, I approached one man and explained that I was a foreigner in Venezuela and was interested in getting some perspective on the Jewish community. "When would you like to discuss the subject?" he asked. "Why not now?" I answered. "That's impossible," he said, turning abruptly and exiting the building.

 

I was a little put off by the man's attitude, though his siege-like mentality was somewhat understandable in light of the circumstances. Two years earlier, the police had raided a Jewish club in Caracas that also included a school. The authorities claimed they were looking for weapons and explosives, but none were ever unearthed. The police showed up at the Jewish school at 6:30 in the morning, surprising 1,500 students in the building. The raid coincided with a high profile Chávez visit to Iran, a key Venezuelan geopolitical ally. The following year, Chávez delivered a Christmas speech in which he remarked that "the descendants of those who crucified Christ" owned the riches of the world. "The world offers riches to all. However, minorities such as the descendants of those who crucified Christ" have become "the owners of the riches of the world," the Venezuelan president said. The president's defenders said Chávez was referring to the capitalist descendants of Christ-killers, and not the Jews.

 

Returning to New York after my Caracas sojourn, I saw Chávez speak at Cooper Union University in Manhattan. The Venezuelan president was in town to deliver his by now infamous broadside at the United Nations, labeling George Bush "the devil." Some people in the audience wore red, Chávez's official color. Interestingly, I also noticed a group of Hassidic Jews dressed in formal attire. In a rather bizarre twist, Chavez at one point turned to the Jews and proclaimed that he had some Jewish friends and that Jews were treated well in Venezuela. The remark struck me as rather paternalistic at best and a little condescending at worst. It was the kind of thing one might expect to hear from Southern whites intent upon proving their supposed tolerance towards blacks, i.e., "I have a lot of black friends."

 

Right about this time, my first book entitled Hugo Chávez: Oil, Politics and the Challenge to the U.S. was released. Because of Chávez's incendiary remarks at the UN, I got a flurry of calls from the media. One right-wing radio host railed against me for defending the Bolivarian Revolution even as its leader was associating with the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "a Jew hater." I responded that I was no friend to Iran's political leadership but that it was understandable in a geopolitical sense why Venezuela, a key energy supplier, would seek to cultivate ties to another oil producing nation. My interviewer however, keen to take advantage of this ammunition, kept on bringing the conversation back to Iran. I mentioned many of Chávez's positive social programs in Venezuela but felt increasingly uncomfortable with my assigned role in the discussion.

 

The right has constantly harked on Chávez's friendship with Iran, while the left shrinks from mentioning the growing diplomatic alliance. That's because Iran has criticized Israel and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. It's a moral failure however: Ahmadinejad is a religious fundamentalist and stands against women's rights as well as organized labor. He has little in common with the secular left with its Enlightenment traditions and openness to religious minorities. Like Ceresole, Chávez's former mentor, Ahmadinejad has described the Holocaust as "a myth." Chávez, unbelievably, calls the Iranian leader "one of the great fighters for true peace."

 

Chávez's provocative behavior continued as the Venezuelan leader blasted Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon. While the Venezuelan leader should be commended for his criticism, he used unusually strong rhetoric, accusing the Israelis of behaving like "Nazis." Then, when Israel launched its offensive in Gaza two years later, Chávez once again leapt to the defense of the Arabs. It's a perfectly understandable response, but Chávez's rhetoric went completely over the top when he likened the Israeli occupation to "the Holocaust." Not content to leave it there, Chávez then turned on Venezuela's Jews, remarking "Let's hope that the Venezuelan Jewish community will declare itself against this barbarity. Don't Jews repudiate the Holocaust?"

 

Chávez made his remarks on state-run television, which has become increasingly hostile to the Jewish community. Like Brazilian media at the height of the Vargas era, Venezuela's TV and Web sites have fanned the flames of anti-Semitic sentiment in recent years. The host of one program entitled The Razor has publicly questioned the loyalty of leading Jewish figures. Aporrea, a pro-government Web site, published a supposed "Plan of Action" which called for "confiscation of properties of those Jews who support the Zionist atrocities of the Nazi-State of Israel and [the] donation [of] this property to the Palestinian victims of today's Holocaust." Shortly afterwards, two dozen heavily armed special police from the Venezuelan Interior Ministry searched a Jewish community center in Caracas, ostensibly searching for weapons or evidence of "subversive activity." Once again, the raid resulted in no arrests or seizure of property. The Venezuelan Jewish community denounced the raid as unjustified and aimed at inflaming anti-Semitism.

 

Chavez has insisted that he is tolerant of all religions and cultures. Like Vargas and Perón however, some of his supporters are openly anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish graffiti has increased in Caracas, lending some credence to Jewish leaders' complaints that Chávez's broadsides have created a poisonous atmosphere. Things only got worse when up to 15 people recently attacked a Caracas Sephardic synagogue, possibly the same one I visited in 2006. The assailants damaged Torah scrolls and threw them on the floor. They also painted slurs such as "Death to the Jews" on the walls of the synagogue. Even worse, a guard was held at gunpoint and found the next day on the floor of the building. To this day, the circumstances and motivations of the attackers have not been satisfactorily clarified or explained.

 

To his credit, Chávez denounced the incident. However, his moves to mollify the Jewish community come too late. Already, Venezuelan Jews are leaving the country in droves; the population has decreased from 16,000 in 1998 when Chávez was first elected to 12,000 today. Moreover, Chávez and his allies have refused to own up to their own irresponsible rhetoric and aggressive posture towards the country's Jews. Far from it: pro-government media has claimed that the attack on the Caracas synagogue was a frame up by the CIA and Mossad. While in theory that's a possibility (during the U.S.-funded Contra War against Nicaragua during the 1980s, President Reagan spread the ugly rumor that the Sandinistas were anti-Semitic in an effort to boost public support for his Central America policy), it seems more probable, in light of recent history, that the attack was launched by Chávez hotheads.

 

The mainstream media has predictably leapt on the Synagogue attack as yet one more instance of Chávez's drive towards authoritarian rule. The left meanwhile has been completely absent from the debate, hoping the whole issue will simply go away. That's unfortunate. All too often, the left accuses the right of attempting to whitewash the various misdeeds and crimes of regimes that do the bidding of U.S. foreign policy abroad. It would appear however that the left is doing the exact same thing right now in terms of Venezuela, opening itself up to the charge of hypocrisy.

 

In his attempt to unify Venezuela in a political and cultural sense, Chávez has opened the door to ugly anti-Semitism. In this sense, he is falling in the unfortunate footsteps of previous populist leaders such as Vargas and Perón. For the left, the lesson should be clear: while there's nothing wrong with applauding the many positive social accomplishments of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, this shouldn't come at the cost of sacrificing one's own critical and analytical faculties or covering up misdeeds when they need to be aired.

When historians look back, they will point to Obama’s inauguration as a missed opportunity. At the zenith of his popularity, the new President might have used his bully pulpit to declare the need for a good economic stimulus, one which would have aided people who were strapped for cash. Instead of delivering a cliché-ridden, mundane and thoroughly unmemorable speech, Obama should have talked forcefully about the need to expand programs such as unemployment insurance and food stamps. He might have made a poignant plea for providing relief to state and local government which had been pummeled by the ever deepening recession. If he had gone back to campaign mode, eloquently rallying the crowd on the Washington mall for an equitable stimulus to reverse worsening inequality brought on by the GOP, he would have really gotten his presidency off to a bang.

Obama had the country in his hands and the Republicans at his mercy. But now, it looks like the GOP has the upper hand. What happened? In an effort to attract House Republican support for the stimulus, Obama fashioned about one third of the package out of tax cuts, which the GOP loves. For all his gracious overtures, Obama was rewarded with a complete and total rebuke: not a sole Republican Representative voted for the $819 billion bill, which passed 244-189.

Having been snubbed in the House, Obama now got clobbered in the Senate. For a week at least the GOP went on the offensive on the cable news shows, talking about the need to rein in wasteful spending. The momentum started to shift, and Obama found that he had to beg for every last vote. At the end of the day he managed to attract three moderate Republicans and the Senate reached a tentative deal, but only at a tremendous political price: the final bill amounting to $780 billion shaved off more spending, “much of it among the most effective and most needed parts of the plan” according to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman. The deal was particularly damaging, Krugman adds, because it cut out $40 billion in aid to desperate, cash-strapped state governments.

What went wrong and how could Obama’s political clout have gone down so dramatically in just two or three weeks? In a sense, the young President’s failure to rally public opinion is perplexing. During the presidential campaign, the Illinois Senator demonstrated exceptional ability to organize, inspire and mobilize millions of supporters. But Obama failed to successfully capitalize on his mass base to help pass the stimulus, choosing instead to concentrate much of his effort on courting Republican lawmakers. Not only did he fail to sway the GOP to his side, but the President probably discouraged many within his old base which was ready to take on entrenched interests.

At long last Obama seems to have realized the gravity of his situation and has turned up his rhetoric somewhat by attacking the Republicans and Wall Street. This coming week, he will embark on a PR blitz by traveling to Elkhart, Indiana, and Fort Myers, Florida, where he will conduct town hall meetings to whip up support for the recovery package. Imagine for a moment however if Obama had hit the ground running and carried out a poverty tour immediately following his inauguration. He could have staged a number of high profile rallies in public parks or stadiums across the country, talking about the need for a good stimulus. Imagine the psychological impact had Obama held a couple of mass marches through poor neighborhoods where people faced housing foreclosures. The President would have dominated the cable news cycle for a week or more through this type of strategy, making the GOP’s messaging campaign that much more difficult.

He could have rammed a better stimulus bill through the House, perhaps even amounting to more than a trillion dollars, and then dared the GOP to filibuster in the Senate. At this point, with the country tilting in his direction, it would have proved problematic to say the least for the Republicans to be obstructionist. Best of all, if Obama had gotten a good stimulus he would have been better positioned to take on future political battles such as health care. Instead, however, he finds that he must defend a very lukewarm bill that will probably not succeed in getting the country out of recession.

Hugo Chávez: The Master Populist

Though it might seem strange to say so, Obama might have learned a trick or two from Latin American populists like President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela during his recent scuffle with Republican lawmakers. Unlike Obama, who has distanced himself from his core base since winning the election, Chávez has understood the importance of mobilizing people before, during and after electoral campaigns. Indeed, if Chávez had not mobilized the poor and disenfranchised it is doubtful whether he would have had such a long and enduring presidency [Chávez has been in power for ten years; his term expires in 2012 unless the President succeeds in passing a constitutional referendum which would allow him to run again for another six year term].

Like Obama, Chávez came to power at a time of acute economic and political crisis. Instead of resting on his laurels however, the President set about encouraging so-called participatory democracy through such mechanisms as the new 1999 constitution which declared the need for popular mobilization. Civil society participated in the drafting of the constitution through a variety of forums, workshops and committees.

Chávez followed that up by creating the Bolivarian Circles in 2000 which had originally functioned as community groups studying the Venezuelan Constitution. Later, the Circles began to address larger concerns such as health and education. During the 2002 coup which briefly dislodged Chávez from power, the Circles played a pivotal role in mobilizing people in the streets in defense of the President. Chávez later created the so-called Electoral Battle Units which got out the vote for government candidates.

After winning reelection in 2006, Chávez experimented with other forms of popular democracy. Under the guidance of the Ministry of Popular Participation and Social Participation, the authorities spurred the creation of the Communal Councils, local groups concentrating on public works projects. At the neighborhood level, council members were elected and each oversaw a separate issue such as youth services or health care.

On a psychological level, Chávez has proved to be a master of communication. A skillful orator speaking in a colloquial style, Chávez quickly bonded with the masses. The President routinely derided vaguely-worded enemies such as “the oligarchy.” Chávez also created his own TV call in show, Aló, Presidente!, which drew him closer to ordinary people.

For Latin American populists, it’s extremely important to create a sense of accessibility. If the people do not believe they have access, the populist will be unsuccessful at creating vertical ties between leader and the masses. In addition to his media strategy, Chávez has cultivated ties to his supporters by holding mass marches and rallies. He has even fashioned an official color for his supporters: red. Indeed, as I explain in my recent book, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008), color has served as an important badge of belonging and party identification for the Chavistas.

Obama’s Failure to Mobilize

Obviously Obama is not going to mobilize people to write a new constitution, create communal councils or give his followers an official color. Venezuela and the United States have a vastly different political culture and Chávez and Obama are totally dissimilar in terms of their temperament and style. Nevertheless, the idea of popular mobilization is hardly a foreign one to the United States, and there have been plenty of instances in the twentieth century when popular presidents have pushed their agenda by unconventional means.

During the Depression for example, Franklin Roosevelt relied on civil society groups to implement and carry out government policies. Rather than impose wage and price regulations to stabilize the economy, the government’s own National Recovery Administration allowed business associations to establish standards and actually empowered unions to enforce the rules. By supporting the Wagner Act and labor’s right to organize, Roosevelt got much needed union support and was able to mobilize new blocs of voters. The mobilization of civil society and the growth of the industrial union movement proved essential in Roosevelt’s re-election in 1936 and deepened the President’s commitment to social democratic reform in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

We haven’t seen mobilization on that kind of scale for a long time though there are some more recent examples. In 1981, Ronald Reagan delivered multiple televised addresses and urged his supporters to call their members of Congress and demand tax cuts and reduced government spending on social programs. The President’s strategy paid off when people called Capitol Hill and Reagan’s legislation was passed over the objections of the Democratically-led House.

Obama is uniquely positioned to remake politics through the internet and to spur more popular engagement. Unlike Reagan or FDR, or recent Latin American populists for that matter, Obama has an amazing thirteen-million name contact list with 2 million volunteers. No president has ever entered office with this much information, which could truly revolutionize progressive politics. “It is a mechanism that could truly morph the power structure in Washington,” notes a recent article in Esquire magazine, “waking up the unused, overslept public…and making an end run around lobbyists and interest groups.”

Recently, Obama launched the formation of a new group known as “Organizing for America” which seeks to continue the grassroots advocacy of the presidential campaign and capitalize on the e-mail list. But up to now, “Obama 2.0” has failed to live up to its full potential. Belatedly, Organizing for America sent out an e-mail on January 30th, urging supporters to hold “house parties” designed to discuss the economic collapse and back Obama’s stimulus. By that point however, the GOP had already taken to the airwaves, effectively blunting the President’s message. What’s more, house parties are hardly the most effective method of grassroots organizing.

Could Obama be America’s first “techno-populist”? He has certainly squandered his first opportunity, begging the question of what the President has in store for Organizing for America. Perhaps, Obama has been listening too closely to party hacks such as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel who has disdain for the netroots. Or, perhaps Obama simply saw web organizing as a cynical tool to get elected and later abandoned. Either way, ignoring Web activism is hardly a positive blueprint for political success. While Obama is only in his third week at the Oval Office, his failure to achieve a meaningful stimulus will have far reaching consequences for his presidency.

In late 2007, Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez narrowly lost a vote on a constitutional referendum which would have allowed the President to run again in future elections. Hardly discouraged, he pressed forward. On Sunday, people will vote on a similar referendum and in the event that Chávez wins, he could stand for reelection in 2012.

That’s an outcome which the opposition seeks to avoid at all costs. What Chávez really wants, the opposition claims, is to become a fledgling tyrant and to institutionalize his own personal power. Originally elected in 1998, Chávez is now serving his third term in office. While pushing his referendum, the Venezuelan President has said that he needs more time in office in order to secure vital socialist reforms.

For Chávez, holding the referendum is a big gamble. If he should lose on Sunday, the opposition will be able to claim its second straight victory. Already, the right is feeling more emboldened following its decent showing in local elections last year. As a result, victory on Sunday might lead the opposition to call for a presidential recall in 2010.

Currently polls show Chávez with a slight lead, but if the President simply ekes out a victory this could reinvigorate the opposition which had been swamped by Chávez in previous elections. Perhaps, if the President had done more to groom and promote a political successor, the Chávez forces would be in a more politically advantageous situation right now. By tirelessly campaigning for his own right to reelection, Chávez has given ammunition to the opposition and, arguably, imperiled the future of the so-called Bolivarian Revolution which has done much to bring social and economic benefits to Venezuela’s neediest.

The dilemma over the constitutional referendum underscores a larger problem. At long last, Chávez forces are running up against the structural limitations which characterize populist regimes. A charismatic leader, Chávez has established a tight bond with millions of Venezuela’s poor. Indeed, one might argue that the fervor that many feel for Chávez verges on the religious. Given this high level of adulation, finding a political successor to Chávez is a challenging task.

Possible heirs might include Julian Isaías Rodríguez, a former vice-president and Attorney General; Diosdado Cabello, a former army Lieutenant Colonel, Vice President, Minister of Interior and Justice and Governor of the provincial state of Miranda; José Vicente Rangel, who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Defense, or Jorge Rodríguez, who worked as a director of the National Electoral Junta as well as the nation’s Vice President.

There are a number of other promising and intriguing figures associated with the Chávez regime which I profiled in my new book, Revolution! South America and the Rise of the New Left (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008), including the young Andrés Izarra, who headed up Telesur, a satellite news station partially funded by Venezuela, and Nora Castañeda, who was appointed by Chávez to head the Women’s Development Bank in Caracas. Izarra and Castañeda however don’t have much of a political base and are even greater long-shots than Isaías Rodríguez, Jorge Rodríguez, Cabello or Rangel.

The fact that Chávez forces have not come up with alternative leaders is not very surprising in light of recent history. Chávez-style populism, which in certain respects resembles earlier Latin American populist variants, is characterized by an enormous focus on the individual leader and his dominant power—similar to the paternalistic hacendado on the traditional hacienda. In the populist model there’s a great deal of emphasis placed on unquestioned decision making power and seemingly “god-like” qualities that permit leaders to interpret the needs of the people and to chart the future trajectory of the state in order to satisfy those needs.

Populists whip up their own popularity and mythology by emphasizing a personal crusade. They rail against ill-defined “oligarchies,” entrenched political parties, local elites, the church or media establishment. Indeed, populists may seek to set up their own rival media in order to create a sense of public accessibility. Master orators, populists employ fiery, emotional rhetoric to establish a psychological connection with the people. They may seek to build up an image of themselves as the cultural epitome of the nation, while meanwhile channeling nationalism against various and sundry political threats. Hardly content to work within conventional political channels, they conduct militant street rallies and mass mobilization of civil society to achieve their long-term objectives.

While populist regimes in Latin America haven’t been particularly revolutionary, some have achieved a significant degree of economic redistribution. They may even succeed in empowering disadvantaged and disenfranchised groups for a time. The problem however is that populism is difficult to sustain in the long-term. Ideologically inchoate, populist movements rely on their leaders to provide vital political glue. Populism is socially heterogeneous and may succeed in bringing together a multi-class coalition, but only temporarily.

In the absence of a charismatic leader, populist movements may fall apart or languish. Will popular forces be able to advance in Venezuela if their leader falters? If Chávez does not win on Sunday or achieves only a modest victory, this question will be sorely put to the test.

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In a careless slip of the tongue in August, 2006 Virginia Senator George Allen shot himself in the foot and ended his political career. During a campaign rally Allen pointed to a man of Indian descent and remarked “This fellow here, over here with the yellow shirt, macaca, or whatever his name is. He’s with my opponent. He’s following us around everywhere. And it’s just great.”

Allen’s supporters began to laugh.

“Let’s give a welcome to macaca, here,” the Senator added. “Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia.”

The word macaca is an ethnic slur meaning either a monkey that inhabits the Eastern Hemisphere or a town in South Africa. In some European cultures, macaca is also considered a racial slur against African immigrants.

Allen’s infamous outburst was captured on video and circulated widely on the internet after the footage was posted on YouTube. The Senator’s campaign manager dismissed the issue with an expletive and insisted the Senator had “nothing to apologize for.” But once the story started to circulate, Allen sought to salvage his career by claiming that the word had no derogatory meaning for him. He then said he was sorry.

The issue however did not go away. S.R. Sidarth, the man who Allen had slurred, remarked that he suspected the Virginia politician singled him out because he was the only nonwhite face amongst about 100 Republican supporters. “I think he was doing it because he could, and I was the only person of color there, and it was useful for him in inciting his audience,” Sidarth remarked. “I was annoyed he would use my race in a political context.”

Allen’s stunning gaffe contributed to his defeat in the 2006 election when the veteran politician lost against long-shot Democrat Jim Webb. Some Republican strategists believe that Allen might have been a contender for the 2008 Republican presidential ticket if he had not made his macaca gaffe.

Racist Rhetoric in Bolivia

Such ethnic slurs have no place in modern politics and yet the United States continues to openly support backward and racist figures in South America who hurl such insults with wanton abandon.

Take for example the case of Rubén Costas, an opposition figure in Bolivia. Speaking to his followers last month, Costas called indigenous socialist President Evo Morales a “macaca.” Costas has also insulted Morales as an “animal” and a “monkey.”

Fair skinned and European looking, Costas hardly resembles Bolivia’s indigenous president Morales. Elected Prefect of the energy-rich, western department of Santa Cruz in 2005, Costas has become a key advocate for greater regional autonomy and a thorn in the side of the La Paz government.

Costas, like many of his white and mestizo racist followers, regard the Indians in the highlands with contempt. The Santa Cruz politician would like to retain control over the lucrative gas industry and deprive the cash-strapped government in La Paz of much needed revenue.

Following Costas’ election, the right opposition escalated its pressure on the Morales government, organizing protests in the city of Sucre against the President’s proposed Constitution which would have given the country’s indigenous majority a greater say in political decision making. An advocate for powerful business interests, Costas was also one of the right wing politicians who called for a referendum on autonomy for Santa Cruz. When 85% of the residents of Santa Cruz voted for autonomy, Morales called the vote illegal and nonbinding.

A demagogic populist who likes to stir ethnic hatreds, Costas continued to up the ante last month. As a result of Morales’ victory in an August 10 recall referendum, the Santa Cruz politician called the President “murderous” and demanded that Morales cease his “bullying.”

Speaking in a plaza full of his supporters, Costas said Bolivia should say “no to the big foreign monkeys.” It was an obvious racial barb aimed at Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a key Morales ally [physically, Chávez has indigenous-African features].

When asked by the Brazilian magazine Terra whether he would retract his statements about Chávez, Costas remarked “I don’t regret it at all.” The Santa Cruz politician said that “monkey” was based on the concept of gorilismo, “a term which is very common in Latin America to refer to soldiers. We can’t forget that Hugo Chávez is a military coup plotter who has turned himself into a neo-populist.”

Our Man in Bolivia

Even as he was escalating the racist rhetoric, Costas sought importantly allies. On August 25th, he met with U.S. Ambassador Philip Goldberg. Though the diplomat claimed that he had met Costas in public while on a routine trip to Santa Cruz, the meeting provoked suspicion amongst Bolivians that the United States was supporting the lowland opposition movement. A portion of U.S. aid to Bolivia is directed towards eastern provincial governments that are the nexus of opposition to Morales.

The La Paz government, desperately fighting to keep the country together, expelled Goldberg and accused him of conspiring with the conservative opposition. Having made a blunder and seriously imperiled U.S.-Bolivian relations, the State Department made things worse by retaliating and expelling the Bolivian ambassador to Washington. Coming to the aid of a friend, Chávez ordered the expulsion of the U.S. ambassador in Caracas. Predictably, the State Department again seriously erred, this time by expelling the Venezuelan ambassador.

The diplomatic tit-for-tat brings political tensions to new heights. Last week, anti-Morales sentiment reached a crescendo when protesters burned government offices in Santa Cruz. Anti-government activists also took over several natural gas installations in the east. Morales, who called the protests a “civil coup,” ordered additional troops to the eastern provinces to secure gas and oil installations. The protesters have been fighting Morales supporters with clubs, machetes and guns. In all, more than 30 people have died in the fighting.

Even Virginia Senator George Allen, a politician with a long history of making racist comments, ultimately realized that he had made a mistake and apologized at long last. Not so Rubén Costas, a figure who is unabashed about his views. Far from shunning racist leaders like Costas, the United States has embraced the Bolivian opposition. By doing so, the Bush White House has seriously inflamed U.S.-South American relations even more.

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Prior to Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican Convention, I was preparing an article arguing that John McCain’s VP pick would lead to the implosion of the Republican Party and imminent defeat in the November election. After watching Palin deliver her speech however, I realized I would have to scrap my plans. While Palin certainly didn’t say anything of substance, the Alaska governor was poised on stage and even managed to get in a couple of memorable zingers. Amongst the chattering classes on TV, the consensus seems to be that Palin vaulted over her first political hurdle and overcame initial widespread skepticism towards her candidacy.

This election is fast sizing up as a showdown to see who can effectively capture the votes of the so-called Reagan Democrats, perhaps the most shiftless, fickle, hyper-nationalistic and racist constituency within the U.S. electorate. Geographically located in the Rustbelt and Midwest, they are susceptible to vicious GOP strategizing seeking to paint Obama as a cultural elitist and a highbrow intellectual. Palin, who the GOP wants to cast as a working class hero, could emerge as a major headache for the Democrats in key battleground states.

Roseanne and Palin: A Psychological Analysis

Spunky and scrappy, Palin is akin to Roseanne Barr, an Emmy-awarding comedian who had a hit TV show on ABC between 1988 and 1997. The show portrayed a working class family struggling to get by on limited income in small town Illinois. Roseanne herself was dominant and caustic but had a wry sense of humor. In sheer economic terms Palin bears little resemblance to Roseanne: the Alaska Governor makes a yearly salary of $125,000 and her husband Todd has done quite well for himself as a commercial fisherman and oil production manager.

In a sense however these economic differences are irrelevant since Palin comes off as culturally working class. She didn’t attend elite colleges, which is always considered an asset amongst the Reagan Democrats. What’s more she was an athlete in her youth and earned the name of “Sarah Barracuda” because of her intense basketball play.

Roseanne’s husband Dan, played by actor John Goodman, was a lot more portly than Palin’s husband Todd. In other respects however the Palin household bears some similarity to Roseanne’s family. Take for example the TV character Becky, Roseanne’s eldest child. Like Bristol Palin, who had premarital sex and got pregnant at the age of 17, Becky also ran into trouble when she skipped college and eloped with her boyfriend. She eventually wound up living with him in a trailer park.

Working Class Women in the November Election

On the face of it, Bristol’s underage sex life would seem to undercut her mother’s candidacy as this deviant behavior clashes with the Alaska Governor’s longtime emphasis on Christian morals. On the other hand the reality is that teen pregnancy is a feature of many white working class families. As a result some women might identify with Palin’s situation and see the Alaska Governor as more “authentic” in their eyes.

On the surface at least one might think that women who work and juggle family and jobs would identify as feminists and not support Palin’s candidacy. However, many feel uncomfortable with the feminist label because they see it as too liberal or secular. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Democratic strategist Susan Estrich remarked, “I have been hearing from women, especially women who didn’t go to Harvard or Yale Law School, saying, ‘Hold on, this is a woman we can actually relate to. The very fact that she could go from the PTA to the vice presidency is the story they connect to—without regard to her position on abortion.”

The Democrats should pray that Palin never gets as popular as Roseanne: the TV show became a national sensation. Though the program declined somewhat by the mid- to late 1990s, in its first few years it consistently racked up high Nielsen ratings. In the 1989-1990 Season Roseanne even tied the Cosby Show for #1.

Palin vs. Biden: Will the Real Working Class Hero Please Step Up?

At the convention, the GOP sought to build up Palin and the working class narrative by playing uncool classic rock like John Fogerty and, of course “Barracuda” by Heart. It’s a cultural strategy that the Democrats have sought to counteract when they introduced Joe Biden. When Obama trotted out his running mate in Springfield, Illinois loud speakers played Bruce Springsteen’s “The Rising” in the background.

The song is about a firefighter who gives his life while trying to save others in the World Trade Center on 9/11. The last verse takes place at his funeral, with his wife and kids in attendance. “The Rising” is a good song to be sure but somewhat odd for a campaign rally. It doesn’t really matter though: the reason the Party played the song is that Springsteen is a working class icon and appeals to Reagan Democrats.

With all of the calamitous domestic and foreign policy problems confronting the country, it’s absurd that the Culture Wars should once again figure so prominently in electoral politics. For better or worse however, the Obama camp will have to convince the fickle Reagan Democrats that Biden is more working class than Palin. It’s not an easy task anymore since mainstream media pundits, particularly men, won’t want to be perceived as bullying the Alaska political neophyte.

Shrewdly, Palin herself laid down the gauntlet in her convention speech. “I’m not a member of the permanent political establishment,” she said. “And I’ve learned quickly these past few days that if you’re not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone. But here’s a little news flash for those reporters and commentators. I’m not going to Washington to seek their good opinion. I’m going to Washington to serve the people of this great country.”

Palin’s line drew some of the loudest cheers of the night.

Most Americans don’t make a habit of waking up in the morning, heading straight outside to shoot wild game and then frying up moose burgers. Nevertheless, in this electoral season it has become obligatory for politicians to defend hunters and their so-called “way of life.” Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, John McCain’s vice presidential pick, is but the latest example of this most barbaric and retrograde of American political traditions.

A woman from an exceedingly macho state, Palin takes pride in her hunting skills. She has even gone as far as taking her daughter out with her on caribou shooting expeditions. In passing on the hunting lifestyle to her daughter, Palin is merely following in the footsteps of her father who in turn took her as a child to hunt moose. What is the governor’s favorite food? That would be moose stew, of course! A longtime member of the National Rifle Association, Palin once proudly announced that her freezer was full of wild game.

No friend to wild animals, Palin has offered incentives for people who kill wolves in an effort to boost Alaska’s predator control program which so far has failed to meet expected numbers. The incentives include offering 180 volunteer pilots and aerial gunners $150 in cash for turning in gruesome legs of freshly killed wolves. Outraged by Palin’s predator control program, environmentalists have argued that bounties have no place in modern wildlife management.

By picking Palin as his running mate, John McCain helps to shore up the macho, frontiersman constituency. The Arizona Senator is hardly an avid hunter and has had a rocky relationship with the National Rifle Association. During a speech before the group in May, McCain sought to soothe sore feelings by portraying the Democrats as a common enemy. “They claim to support hunters and gun owners,” he said. “If… Sen. Obama is elected president, the rights of law-abiding gun owners will be at risk.”

Mitt Romney: Seeking to Prove Varmint Credentials

It’s not the first time that the issue of hunting has come up in the presidential campaign. During the primaries Mitt Romney was keen to emphasize his hunting credentials and erase the perception that he was some kind of effeminate easterner. “I purchased a gun when I was a young man. I’ve been a hunter pretty much all my life,” he remarked in New Hampshire. “I’ve never really shot anything terribly big,” Romney said. “I used to hunt rabbits. Shooting a rabbit with a single-shot .22 is pretty hard, and after watching me try for a couple of weeks, (my cousins) said, `We’ll slip you the semiautomatic. You’ll do better with that.’ And I sure did.”

The next day however, the Romney campaign said the former Massachusetts governor had gone hunting just twice — once as a teenager in Idaho and in 2007 with GOP donors in Georgia.

But then Romney explained that it was his staff that had gotten it wrong and that he had indeed hunted rabbits and other small animals for many years, mainly in Utah. Taking a “second shot” at the issue, Romney said “I’m not a big-game hunter. I’ve made that very clear. I’ve always been a rodent and rabbit hunter. Small varmints, if you will. I began when I was 15 or so and I have hunted those kinds of varmints since then. More than two times.”

Huckabee Hunts For Votes in Iowa

By waffling, Romney fell right into Mike Huckabee’s trap. Speaking on Face the Nation, the former Arkansas governor said Romney was wrong to suggest he was a lifelong hunter and that his opponent’s comments strained credibility. “I think it was a major mistake,” Huckabee said. An avid outdoorsman, Huckabee had hunted for twelve years, mostly ducks, deer and turkeys.

“It would be like me saying I’ve been a lifelong golfer because I played putt-putt when I was 9 years old and I rode in a golf cart a couple of times. I think American people are looking for authenticity. Match their record with their rhetoric.”

Hoping to cultivate that “authentic” image, Huckabee took an hour and a half to hunt pheasant eight days before the Iowa caucus. Flanked by about a dozen reporters, the former Arkansas governor wore a microphone from CNN as he went shooting with Dude, his 3-year-old bird dog, and Chip Saltzman, his campaign manager, at his side.

In the first half hour, Huckabee, Saltzman and a friend shot three birds. Their last shot flew over the heads of reporters, one of whom cried out: “Oh my God! Oh my God! Don’t shoot. This is traumatizing.” Moments later when Huckabee took a break, a reporter yelled out: “Who are those birds? Romney? Thompson?” “Well,” Huckabee responded, “these three birds all said they would not vote for me on caucus day. You see what happened?”

Connecticut Indoorsman and Lone Vegan

Traditionally the Democrats have not gone as out of the way to court the gun-toting, hunter crowd. During an interview with grist.com, an environmental Web site, Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd was asked “Are you an outdoorsy fellow? When you’re not in the halls of Congress or on the campaign trail, do you like to escape to the natural world?”

Dodd responded, “No. I don’t try to pretend I’m something that I’m not. But I live right on the Connecticut River, I have for 26 years, and the lower Connecticut River Valley is one of the most wonderful environmentally sensitive areas in the world. It’s stunningly beautiful. We do a lot of fishing in that lower valley area. But I don’t pretend to be a great hunter.”

Needless to say, Dodd went on to drop out of the presidential race after the Iowa caucus when he placed seventh.

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich hardly did much better than Dodd during his own quixotic campaign for the White House. Kucinich has pressed for stronger regulation of pain and distress in animal research, has worked to help protect whales from harmful navy sonar and supports rural sanctuaries to protect farm animals. As early as 1995 he became a vegan and is currently the only vegan member of Congress.

Such progressive stances notwithstanding, Kucinich did not do well in the primaries and withdrew from the race in early 2008.

Hunting Exotic Prey in New Mexico

New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, a good shot who had the prey to prove it, did slightly better than Dodd and Kucinich. Ever since 2004 Richardson had taken up hunting and fellow outdoorsmen praised the governor’s skills.

Relaxed in his Capitol office and dressed in blue jeans, cowboy boots and a silver bolo tie with turquoise — Richardson told the Associated Press that he began hunting because he “wanted to go one step beyond” the skeet shooting he’d done in the past. With skeet, clay targets are flung into the air at different angles.

The politician had bagged traditional game such as elk and turkey but also stalked the exotic: he shot an oryx, a long-horned antelope native to Africa, during a guided outing in 2005 on a New Mexico ranch owned by media mogul Ted Turner. Richardson said it was his most memorable hunt.

The governor downed the oryx with one shot from at least 100 yards. He had the oryx head mounted and kept it in a downstairs room at the governor’s mansion. Richardson’s other hunting trophies are displayed in the building: a set of bull elk antlers and a stuffed wild turkey.

And what happened to the elk meat? “We ate it — at the mansion,” said Richardson.

Richardson owns a 12-gauge Browning over-and-under shotgun, which he uses for hunting birds including quail and dove. He borrows rifles to hunt big game such as elk, deer and the oryx. During campaign appearances, Richardson proudly mentioned how he had been endorsed by the National Rifle Association.

Early during the primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire, Richardson aired a TV commercial filled with western images. The ad opened with New Mexico landscapes and included scenes of Richardson hunting with two other people and riding horses with his wife, Barbara.

Being Macho in a Man’s World

Once Richardson exited the race three contenders were left in the race: John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Edwards hunted when he was young and grew up in rural areas where owning a gun was part of a way of life. In an interview with the Associated Press Edwards said he grew up hunting deer, rabbits and birds but didn’t hunt any longer. “I think it’s important for us to respect the right to own firearms and to use them for protection,” he said. “I don’t think, though, that it means anybody needs an AK-47 to hunt.”

Edwards didn’t seem to connect as well culturally with poor whites as hunter Mike Huckabee. Once the former North Carolina Senator was out of the race, Clinton sought to court hunters by playing on her own personal history. By February, having already been roundly defeated by Obama in a slew of primaries, she told a crowd pleasing tale about shooting a duck when she was Arkansas First Lady.

“I’ve hunted. My father taught me how to shoot,” she told a crowd at the Labor Temple in rural northern Wisconsin. “I remember standing in the cold water. It was so cold, you know, at first light. I was with a bunch of my friends, all men. And they all were playing a trick on me, and said, ‘We’re not going to shoot, you shoot,’ cause you know what they wanted to do. They wanted to embarrass me. So the pressure was on. So I shot, and I shot a banded duck.”

Clinton lost the Wisconsin primary but continued to hark on the hunting issue.

“I disagree with Senator Obama’s assertion that people in our country cling to guns and have certain attitudes about trade and immigration simply out of frustration,” she began, referring to the Obama comments on small-town Americans that set off a political tumult.

She then introduced a fond memory from her youth.

“You know, my dad took me out behind the cottage that my grandfather built on a little lake called Lake Winola outside of Scranton and taught be how to shoot when I was a little girl,” she said. “You know, some people now continue to teach their children and their grandchildren. It’s part of culture. It’s part of a way of life. People enjoy hunting and shooting because it’s an important part of who they are. Not because they are bitter.”

Obama on Animal Rights

Unlike much of the Republican field and some of the Democratic contenders, Obama has shown a bit more compassion towards animals. During a candidate’s town hall meeting outside Las Vegas, a woman shouted out at Obama, “What about animal rights?” Obama responded that he cared about animal rights very much, “not only because I have a 9-year-old and 6-year-old who want a dog.”

Obama added that he sponsored a bill to prevent horse slaughter in the Illinois state Senate and had been repeatedly endorsed by the Humane Society. “I think how we treat our animals reflects how we treat each other,” he said. “And it’s very important that we have a president who is mindful of the cruelty that is perpetrated on animals.”

To his credit Obama has not gunned down animals with television crews in tow, as in the case of Mike Huckabee. Nevertheless the Illinois Senator supports the right to hunt wild game.

In April 2007 he said: “I don’t hunt myself, but I respect hunters and sportsmen.”

Hunting and the American Psyche

Needless to say hunting in American politics is hardly a new phenomenon. In Rough Rider in the White House: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of Desire, Sarah Watts writes:

“In 1885, returning East after a bighorn hunting trip to Montana, Roosevelt had another studio photo made. This time he appeared as a self-consciously overdressed yet recognizable Western cowboy posed as bold and determined, armed and ready for action. ‘I heartily enjoy this life, with its perfect freedom,’ Roosevelt wrote, ‘for I am very fond of hunting, and there are few sensations I prefer to that of galloping over these rolling, limitless prairies, rifle in hand.’ Though himself a New Yorker, Roosevelt enjoyed demeaning the tame outdoor pastimes of Easterners. He preferred his Western life of wild horses, wild terrain, and wild game to Eastern foxhunting, he wrote in 1884 to Lodge, an Eastern patrician and foxhunter. Western hunting required natural buckskin shirts, rifles, and rugged cow ponies, Roosevelt said, rather than tailored red coats worn during scripted jumps over fences chasing a ground-dragged scent. ‘A buffalo is nobler game than an anise seed bag,’ and one could kill buffalo only in the West. In 1883, when he had killed his first buffalo, Roosevelt spontaneously danced a ‘war dance’ that he repeated thereafter in a lifetime of famous hunting. In the aristocratic gentility of the hunt club, no member would ever have allowed himself such freedom.”

It’s remarkable to consider that more than a hundred years after Teddy Roosevelt donned his cowboy outfit politicians are still falling all over themselves to prove their backward and retrograde hunting credentials. On the other hand, with the entrance of Sarah Palin into the presidential race the country has the opportunity of holding a long overdue debate about hunting and animal rights in wider U.S. society. Unfortunately, the media seems more intent on talking about the Alaska Governor’s pregnant daughter.