Venezuela's new school curriculum

NPR (audio), Global Voices

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, is currently attempting to ramrod a new school curriculum into place, one that, unsurprisingly, is focused primarily on creating "young patriots," by which he means citizens who support him and his social policies.

The program, opposed by many Venezuelan parents as an attempt to indoctrinate their children, glorifies Latin American socialist revolutionaries, teaches that capitalism is a tool to subjugate the common people, and blames the United States for Venezuela's ills. Private schools would also be required to follow this curriculum under the plan.

This is an outrage against individual liberty and academic freedom. The place of an education system, particularly one that is publicly funded, should be to teach students factual information, not to feed them propaganda designed to make them loyal to the current ruler and to stir up hatred against that ruler's perceived enemies (in this case, the United States). Of course, it has been plain for some time now that Chavez has no interest in actually maintaining civil liberties in his country; quite the opposite, he aims to become a socialist dictator. He's already well on his way, nationalizing entire industries left and right, most recently the cement industry. He is unfit to lead, and one can only hope that his people will realize that before it is too late.

It's official. Hugo Chavez is now a dictator.

Well, I haven't posted in awhile, but this has jolted me back into bloggerdom.

BBC, The Times

Venezuela's governmental assembly has granted President Hugo Chavez the power to rule by decree for the next eighteen months. What this means, in rough terms, is that for the next year and a half, the gigantic socialist weasel gets to do pretty much whatever he wants.

What he wants is to nationalize (read: steal the resources of) the oil and gas industries, rob those who have earned affluence in order to give it to those who have not, and remove term limits on the Presidency so that he can effectively remain in power indefinitely. Given that he was just handed nearly absolute power, I would not be surprised in the least if he decreed himself more time to rule by decree at the end of the 18 months.

To quote Revenge of the Sith: "So this is how democracy dies. To thunderous applause." Though it would be entirely accurate to say that, ironically enough, this is an example of democracy (as opposed to republicanism as in the government system, not the party) in action.

Hugo Chavez to try to remove term limits on his office

Seattle Times, Bloomberg

Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, recently won reelection with 63% of the vote, giving him his second, and under Venezuela's current constitution final, six year term in office.

But that's not good enough for him. He's following through with his pre-election threat: He is now moving to remove term limits from Venezuela's constitution so that he can be reelected continuously.

I don't care whether you're left, right, up, down, or center; screwing with your country's constitution to suit your needs once in power is an idiot, power-grabbing thing to do, especially when done as a step towards implementing a failed economic and political system. His efforts are failing already, if a move to devalue the bolivar again is any indication. When you have to actually make a law banning your citizens from buying foreign currency to prevent outflow of capital, then maybe it's time to rethink your economic situation.

North Korea pisses me off

Okay. On most days when I decide to post to this weblog, I try to post my opinion and analysis of important current events, and to do so with a level head. On those days, I try to stay objective and offer rational discourse. Today is not one of those days. Today, I'm posting a rant. General warning: This post contains profanity.

Pyongyang Chronicle.

How dare the North Koreans? How fucking dare they? Kim Jong-Il's government is literally starving the North Korean people, even instructing them to breed fucking rabbits for food, and now they go and not only tell their citizens that they have power and heat when they clearly do not, they tell them that we the people of the United States are not only without power ourselves, but are stealing oil from South Korea and causing thousands to freeze to death? The gall of the North Korean propagandists is just fucking appalling. Seeing this and yet being unable to do anything about it is possibly one of the most frustrating things I have ever faced, and this does nothing but rub it in.

And what's worse? The people buy this. It's drilled into their heads from birth that North Korea is the most prosperous country in the world, and that all others are far worse off. And what's even better? There are people over here, in the United States, who like North Korea. I've heard it said. If you're one of them, click here. Fucking Communists...

In conclusion, the Dear Leader, Kim Jong-Il can take his propaganda about how bad I have it and shove it up his ass, along with his entire government, economic policy, and ideology. That is all.

Man, I needed that.

Cuba, Venezuela call for democratization of the UN

Tell me, why am I laughing so hard that I'm in danger of falling out of my chair right about now?

There's all kinds of hilariousness going on right now at the summit of the so-called Non-Aligned Movement in Havana this week. First, as linked above, the world's dictatorships are calling to make the United Nations more democratic. As long as they don't have to do the same for their people, why not, right? One nation, one vote, no matter how authoritarian that nation may be internally, sure sounds great to them, I have to imagine.

In other news at the summit, North Korea blamed the United States for the lack of world peace yesterday, a truly hilarious proposition coming from a nation that refuses to formally end it's state of war with the United States even though the armistice that ended the fighting of the Korean War was signed in 1953. It has been over 50 years and there's still no peace treaty. Talk about your barriers to world peace.

But the best of all, I think, is when the summit declared that democracy is a universal value, but also stated that "no one country or region should define it for the world." So yeah, a republican form of government is great, as long as we get to employ Newspeak to redefine the term.

Here's a crazy idea: Let's democratize the UN. We can go about it like this: When a nation is democratized, they get to sit on UN councils and have a vote in the General Assembly. Until then, they get to have all the voting and participation rights their citizens have. How's that for a proposal, Fidel?

Chinese Communist Party members take censors to task

Well, a friend of mine asked me to render my opinion on this a couple weeks ago, and I suppose late is better than never. (Sorry about the lack of updates; this is directly due to my current lack of reliable Internet.)

New York Times (registration required to view)

Several members of China's Communist Party, including a former propaganda chief and a former secretary to Mao, have circulated a joint letter condemning the recent forced shutdown of the popular Chinese newspaper Freezing Point by the party's Propaganda Department. (Yes, the government agency is actually called that.) The letter did not reference the recent censorship of Google China or Beijing's other online censorship campaigns.

This is significant not because of the protest itself (Chinese editors and reformists have been protesting censorship for years, sometimes at the cost of their own freedom), but because it is in fact senior Party men who are doing the protesting. This could indicate that the winds are changing in China; if Party officials are attempting to curry favor with the reform movements, then it could mean that they feel threatened by them, which is wildly significant. If my (admittedly cynical) interpretation is correct, and they're doing this out of what they perceive as their self-interest rather than a sudden libertarian change of heart, then it means that Communist control is seriously weakening in China to the point where several of the Party's core members feel that their chances are better opposing the Party than standing silent.

Let's all hope so.