Comments on: Obama-Chavez: The Handshake heard around the world

By: sofia

sofia — Mon, 04 May 2009 00:06:32 +0000

mayo 3,2009 cuando leí el libro de Galeano, o mejor dicho emècé, vi que no era más que usna muestra de izquierdismo equivocado, invocando a la autocompación y a bajar el nivel de los pueblos latinoamericanos. Cuando salió el libro de Marcos Cantera Carlomagno, LAS VENAS TAPADAS DE AMERICA LATINA, me di cuenta que lo que estaba leyendo era la explicación clara de lo que nos pasa. En cuanto a los comentarios que hacen otras personas sobre la reacción del presifente OBAMA, mirando varias veces en los informativos de distintos canales de cable, considero que no fue más que una reacción de sorpresa y de educación frente a lo que no esperaba, y al hecho de estar recibiendo ese inesperado regalo

By: Lester Hunt

Lester Hunt — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:27:55 +0000

Bravo! An excellent statement.

By: Deanna

Deanna — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 21:09:41 +0000

Maybe, someone can suggest to Amazon.com that they offer both books together (“Veins” and “Guide”) with a discounted price, so that people who are overwhelmingly buying out the Galeano book won’t have a one-sided, distorted view!!!!

By: Kolya

Kolya — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:58:47 +0000

I confess that I have not read any of Galeano’s books, but Plinio Apuleyo’s book is a good one. How about Carlos Rangel’s “Del buen salvaje al buen revolucionario”? A great book. It was written over thirty years ago, but it still holds up very well.

By: Milonga

Milonga — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 20:49:28 +0000

I think the book that Obama should have had under his sleeve was “Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot” by Plinio Apuleyo, Carlos Montaner & Álvaro Vargas Llosa, presented by Mario Vargas Llosa where the authors intelligently challenge and rebuke all the populist ideologies and myths described in “Veins”. There’s also an excellent book by Marcos Cantera Carlomagno called “The Blocked Veins of Latin America” (Venas Tapadas de América Latina), that I don’t think has been translated to English: http://www.entrelibros.com.uy/cgi-bin/entrelibros/buscar/112955932475?isbn=9789974675100&funcion=ver
For those that read Spanish, there’s an excellent comment on the book.

By: tejano maracucho

tejano maracucho — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:34:28 +0000

why did obama neglect to respond to chavez’ gift with a copy of “animal farm” by george orwell
for spanish speakers it is ” rebellion en la granja”
i brought 100 copies to venezuelan friends 8 years ago and the message past over all most all of thier heads.
that is how chavez stays in power.

By: Kolya

Kolya — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 02:52:01 +0000

Hayek and Friedman could also be rather dogmatic in their views. Let me offer a few words that Richard Posner wrote shortly after Milton Friedman’s death (Posner is a pragmatic economic conservative.) It’s mainly about Friedman but Hayek is mentioned at the end.

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I find slightly off-putting what I sensed to be a dogmatic streak in Milton Friedman. I think his belief in the superior efficiency of free markets to government as a means of resource allocation, though fruitful and largely correct, was embraced by him as an article of faith and not merely as a hypothesis. I think he considered it almost a personal affront that the Scandinavian nations, particularly Sweden, could achieve and maintain very high levels of economic output despite very high rates of taxation, an enormous public sector, and extensive wealth redistribution resulting in much greater economic equality than in the United States. I don’t think his analytic apparatus could explain such an anomaly.

I also think that Friedman, again more as a matter of faith than of science, exaggerated the correlation between economic and political freedom. A country can be highly productive though it has an authoritarian political system, as in China, or democratic and impoverished, as was true for the first half century or so of India’s democracy and remains true to a considerable extent, since India remains extremely poor though it has a large and thriving middle class–an expanding island in the sea of misery. What is true is that commercial values are in tension with aristocratic and militaristic values that support authoritarian government, and also that as people become economically independent they are less subservient, and so less willing to submit to control by politicians; and also that they become more concerned with the protection of property rights, which authoritarian government threatens. But Friedman seemed to share Friedrich Hayek’s extreme and inaccurate view that socialism of the sort that Britain embraced under the old Labour Party was incompatible with democracy, and I don’t think that there is a good theoretical or empirical basis for that view. The Road to Serfdom flunks the test of accuracy of prediction!
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By: amieres

amieres — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 22:16:55 +0000

“I will never understand … why the US is now the great empire that is to blame for all the corruption, poverty, illness, etc. in the 3rd world countries”

Indeed, but then again, historic distortion and misinformation is one of the fundamental tools of fascism. It’s such a powerful and surprisingly easy to use tool.

By: Deanna

Deanna — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:37:28 +0000

Deananash, I wish this book could be translated to Spanish (unless it already is) and made available to every Venezuelan. It’s simple enough that even the most “illiterate” (although there are no illiterates in Venezuela, according to Chavez and cohorts) would understand what they have been going through and continue to do so. On another topic and related in a way, is the continued insistence of many developing countries in Africa, LA and Asia on the guilt of the so-called empire (the US) for their present troubles. This is because many of their so-called leaders still believe in the “dependency theory”, evils of slavery which forcedly emigrated peoples from their native lands, the sacking of natural resources from Africa, Asia and LA by the “empire”, etc. However, these so-called intellectuals still tend to be blind to certain facts: that slavery did not start with the exploration and exploitation of the colonies; slavery existed long before that and actually practiced by the same people on their own; that the US came late into the colonial game and never really had a colony of its own. I would even venture to say that they freed at least three colonies from the Spaniards: Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and at least to the Philippines brought universal health and education to the population which Spain never did. One of the first acts of the US government when they took over those former Spanish colonies was to send medical doctors and teachers to those islands. Thus, I will never understand (unless the people who blame the US are not so historically savvy) why the US is now the great empire that is to blame for all the corruption, poverty, illness, etc. in the 3rd world countries.

By: firepig

firepig — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:48:30 +0000

“And he thinks others are as star struck as he is,”

exactly !more than likely he doesn’t see how many others can see right through that.