Opinion

The Water Cycle:

Hugo Chávez: Douchebag?

With Kevin Ferguson

Remember Cynthia McKinney? Democratic congresswoman from Georgia, daughter of ousted congressman Billy McKinney, and apparently staunchly anti-getting lip and pro-punching cops? Bear with me if you don’t. Her Dad, when he was still a representative, made the following infamous quote about why his daughter’s 2002 congressional campaign was in despair: “Jews have bought everybody. Jews. J-E-W-S.” Yeah. It wouldn’t seem all that damning if she didn’t have a consistently anti-Israel voting record and steadfast opposition from every Jewish interest group in the nation. Good morning, suspiciously anti-Semitic!

The problem with Cynthia is a case study for a serious issue that lies inside US liberal politics. McKinney could have, at any moment, received the Green Party 2004 (2008?) Presidential nomination based on her notability and her staunchly progressive voting record. The party’s willingness to endorse McKinney would have been unconscionable, but the ends, allegedly, would justify the means. The ends would have been a higher percentage of the presidential vote, the means being fielding a fucking wacko into the presidential race.

It spreads, too: currently everyone who supports universal healthcare must support Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, right? Well, no, while he has done a lot of great work on the social justice front, he’s also in the process of silencing political opposition, rigging elections, and frightening the Venezuelan people. And nowadays unabashedly leftist groups and persons (KPFK, Green Party, Greg Palast) have time and again shown their full support for

Chávez by ignoring his transgressions and focusing on the few positives in his record.
So I guess, then, that if I support immigrant amnesty, an Iraq pullout, proportional representation, de-militarization, social justice and, of course, universal healthcare, I align myself with Chávez, Aristide, Cindy Sheehan (bitch went CRAZY on us), Palast, Ramsey Clark and the rest? I have the same values as most of them (see above) but I can, like most, see a corrupt government for what it is.

Interestingly, there were/are radicals (for lack of a better word) who showed a similar grudging support to cold war-era USSR and thus to Stalin. It was easy for a lot of those radicals to take the bad with the good: yes, a few people were getting killed, but I bet a lot more Russian lives are saved through universal healthcare! It left a lot of people like us, the rational people, feeling marginalized.

To the inevitable argument that this issue is so esoteric and irrelevant that it couldn’t possibly have any relevance in today’s discourse: bullshit. This, to me, is the only useful thing I can say. If I argued for an Iraq pullout (something relevant) I’d not only be preaching to the choir, but wasting its time. The need for a revolution is obvious; I’m just telling you to stop rallying behind douche bags to get one.