Antonio Gonzalez Commentary: Kerry Rejects Chavez (Today on Tavis Smiley)

[AP]

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry has rebuked the endorsement of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Commentator Antonio Gonzalez talks with NPR's Tavis Smiley about the current crisis in Venezuela, and evaluates Kerry's rejection of the controversial leader's support.

http://www.npr.org/rundowns/rundown.php?prgDate=30-Mar-2004&prgId=14
(6th segment from the top)

Gonzalez says Kerry should be ashamed for saying what he said. He says that advocating intervention in VZ is every bit as bad as advocating intervention in Iraq or anywhere else.

He says that this sends a bad signal to voters -- that Kerry is a flip-flopper on interventionism. Says that Kerry never would have said what he said about, say, Mexico or Canada.

I shoud note that I think this is definitely NOT a reason not to vote for Kerry. However, I do feel that the issues raised are the most important in the world today. This is about increased corporate power coming to a head with the drive for increased democracy -- it's about the conflict between flowing wealth up and narrowly or down and broadly among a middle class on a very big scale. Corporations will get the profits which they will use to drive democracy into submission in America from ripping off countries like VZ. We should take this as seriously as the poor people in VZ take it.

So it's important to talk about this.

[peacetalksforall]

1. Until someone wants to convince me otherwise, I think Kerry on

Venezuela is despicable and scarry.

[Classical_Liberal]

2. You're right.

.

3. Hard truths

Kerry's doing stuff like this is precisely why my mother who volunteered for Adlai Stevenson's campaign when she was 16 in 1952 (yep, an old line Democrat, capital D) sounds more and more like she's going to vote for Nader each time I talk to her.

That's what she tells me.

[mmm]

4. very disturbing

At very least he is pissing off the elected leader
of a foreign country. Why?

[peachy]

5. Kerry is way off base

Here we go again with the corporate sponsored DLC candidate trying to prove that he's tougher than the repug.

Who's party is going to nominate this guy? I'm not prepared to call it mine...

[AP]

8. I'm not sure if it's that simple.

I find Kerry's position very confusing.

There can't be very many Americans who even appreciate the dynamics of this issue. To them, this means nothing either way.

I guess, obviously Kerry was taking some heat for that whole debate about foreign leaders liking him. That was a double edged sword. Not many Americans are going to vote for the person whom they think the rest of the world wants as president, and, in fact, many Americans might think that that's a reason NOT to vote for a guy.

But to chose Chavez as his whipping boy was strange, since he really is a symbol of a global battle which so clearly has the fascists on one side and democracy on the other, and Kerry really lined up with the wrong side.

Hell, Kerry should have gone off on Chirac. Chirac's a right winger who was on the wrong side of the Haiti issue and who was on the way out the door anyway, and many Americans already think of France as a bigger threat to America than they think VZ is.

[CabalBuster]

6. Kerry is showing his true colors....

And those who say he is not VERY different than Bush are right. They agree about Iraq, Patriot Act, NAFTA, No Child, and support Imperialistic Wars. The reason I won't vote for Kerry.

Those who are "hoping" he will change and reverse course once he is elected are delusional. Lesser of two evils is still evil. I am voting Nader.

[AP]

9. Kerry isn't the solution to the problem. But he's definitely the right...

...next step.

Carlos Ortega thinks that 10-15 years of dictatorship are what's needed to destroy the drive for more democracy and a more equitable distribution of wealth (now that Chavez has whetted the country's appetite for social justice).

Well, we're going to need 12-16 years of democratic presidents to save America. I can take 4-8 years of Kerry, if it's followed by John Edwards, who seems to be on the right page on this issue, and seems to know what's really threatening America.

[ieoeja]

10. Good Reason to Vote for Kerry

I've never considered not voting for him. His support for a Massachusettes constitutional amendment banning gay marriage just about broke my heart, but Bush is so much worse.

I am not so certain on the Venezuela issue. It sounds like Chavez is simply attempting FDR type reforms placing Kerry on the wrong side. But I haven't heard anyone I care to trust even weigh in on the matter.

Your point makes it a lot easier voting for Kerry. Where will the country be centered after four more years of Bush versus four years of Kerry?

This is, of course, the exact opposite of what the Naderites say. They say we have to move further to the Right to energize people for a move to the Left. This may be true if your hope is violent revolution. Otherwise it makes no sense whatsoever. By today's standards, Ronald Reagan would be a centrist. The country didn't take a sudden lurch to the Right. It has been dragged that way over the course of two decades plus.

[AP]

11. American government is (sensibly) designed for incremental change.

The only way to move left is by moving left in increments.

We've let the right move incrementally to the right for the past 30 years without appreciating how they've done it (tax code and "free" trade -- or at least, free capital, for example).

It's time to start moving to the left with the cunning and foresight that has been used to move us to the right.

At this point, voting for Kerry is part of that cunning foresight and strategy. Even Nader knows that much.

[legin]

12. Yup AP

it's what I been thinking very recently.

We use Kerry to get rid of bush*, and then to be diplomatic about it, we 'reconsider our options'.

Going directly from A to B would be nice in an ideal world, but it looks like we may have to take the 'scenic route' in the real one.

[legin]

13. Given the above

I think I would prefer Kerry-Clark over Kerry-Edwards.

[AP]

14. Clark is on the board of directors of the NED which is actively

funding the opposition in VZ.

I'd prefer John Edwards because in the second last debate he said that America needs to stop having good relations with the House of Saud and other dictators who anti-democratically run countries, and start having good relationships with the citizens of these countries.

He said we need to help build public schools for the people, and not build business relationships with the oligarchs.

In VZ, Chavez is all about building schools for the poor. In VZ, Carlos Ortega, an opposition leader, thinks that he needs 12 years of dictatorship to douse the flames of democracy that Chavez is stoking. That's the guy the NED wants to see run VZ.

Perhaps Kerry's statement about Chavez suggests he will go with the NED candidate.

I'm hoping he goes with the the other one.

We're talking about making progress eventually. Not the "same old same old."

[YIMA]

7. dang

so disapointing

[cleofus1]

15. I will vote for Mr. Kerry...

I'm sure I will disagree with him strongly on some issues, this is one of them...