Did Chavez Exploit the Uneducated?
The Chavez "death watch" was growing out of control, so it was with some sense of relief that I heard the news of his actual demise.
Nothing personal, of course. I didn't know the guy - just what was reported in the media. But a commentary by Mary O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal caught my attention the other day, as she discussed post-Chavez Venezuela. She asserts that "chavismo" will live on after its namesake. But what particularly grabbed me in her commentary was when, at one point, she asserted that part of Chavez success was due to his ability to manipulate an uneducated population through envy.
Is envy the product of a lack of education? It can be. Here's a snip from Mary O'Grady's column:
You don't think so? You believe our population is "educated"? If so, then what sort of standard do you apply to judge whether folks today are educated? Of course, some people are educated, but out of the 330 million of us, do you think most of us are?
And as for a government "skilled in propaganda," well, many if not most governments these days can make that claim, the U.S government included, I'm afraid. You don't think so? What would you call the recent tax law change that targeted "the rich"? Once you categorize a group of people, in this case "the rich," you're talking class conflict - the class of "the rich" against, I suppose, the rest of us.
Notice, the categorization isn't the "oligarchy" - those who benefit from the unholy alliance between the federal government, big business and Wall Street who have managed to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us. No, the class targeted was "the rich," defined simply as someone who earns a certain amount of income in a particular year. No matter that you have a special skill that the marketplace values, or that you worked your butt off. Nope, the simple fact that you make a certain amount of money this year makes you a target. That's class conflict, and it was played like a fiddle by the President and the Democrats until they came away with tax laws that targeted that class, "the rich."
Meanwhile, I was straining my eyes and ears to look for and hear the groundswell of protest rising up from our "educated" population, who would clearly see through all this and reject any attempt to be manipulated by politicians who would play with people's emotions to further their political careers. I looked and listened and...hardly a peep.
So when Ms. O'Grady speaks of the Venezuelans as uneducated, let's not puff ourselves up with pride and brand others as uneducated before we take a good long look at ourselves. Just because the media reported Chavez's behavior as it did, and just because it may have seemed a bit over the top to many of us, don't think for a minute that the sort of class conflict he used to manipulate a large segment of the Venezuelan people isn't being used right here in the U.S. by our own home-grown Chavez wanna-bees.
Postscript: As if on schedule, the following report regarding students graduating NYC public schools:
Nothing personal, of course. I didn't know the guy - just what was reported in the media. But a commentary by Mary O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal caught my attention the other day, as she discussed post-Chavez Venezuela. She asserts that "chavismo" will live on after its namesake. But what particularly grabbed me in her commentary was when, at one point, she asserted that part of Chavez success was due to his ability to manipulate an uneducated population through envy.
Is envy the product of a lack of education? It can be. Here's a snip from Mary O'Grady's column:
"...the myth that Chávez was on track to make the poor rich and simply ran out of time. Amid a largely uneducated population and with a government skilled in propaganda, class conflict will still be easy to whip up and chavismo will haunt Venezuela for a long time to come."But let's excise a part of that quote now:
"...a largely uneducated population and with a government skilled in propaganda, class conflict will still be easy to whip up..."Ask yourself whether we can apply this to the U.S., to our own population. The answer: yes.
You don't think so? You believe our population is "educated"? If so, then what sort of standard do you apply to judge whether folks today are educated? Of course, some people are educated, but out of the 330 million of us, do you think most of us are?
And as for a government "skilled in propaganda," well, many if not most governments these days can make that claim, the U.S government included, I'm afraid. You don't think so? What would you call the recent tax law change that targeted "the rich"? Once you categorize a group of people, in this case "the rich," you're talking class conflict - the class of "the rich" against, I suppose, the rest of us.
Notice, the categorization isn't the "oligarchy" - those who benefit from the unholy alliance between the federal government, big business and Wall Street who have managed to enrich themselves at the expense of the rest of us. No, the class targeted was "the rich," defined simply as someone who earns a certain amount of income in a particular year. No matter that you have a special skill that the marketplace values, or that you worked your butt off. Nope, the simple fact that you make a certain amount of money this year makes you a target. That's class conflict, and it was played like a fiddle by the President and the Democrats until they came away with tax laws that targeted that class, "the rich."
Meanwhile, I was straining my eyes and ears to look for and hear the groundswell of protest rising up from our "educated" population, who would clearly see through all this and reject any attempt to be manipulated by politicians who would play with people's emotions to further their political careers. I looked and listened and...hardly a peep.
So when Ms. O'Grady speaks of the Venezuelans as uneducated, let's not puff ourselves up with pride and brand others as uneducated before we take a good long look at ourselves. Just because the media reported Chavez's behavior as it did, and just because it may have seemed a bit over the top to many of us, don't think for a minute that the sort of class conflict he used to manipulate a large segment of the Venezuelan people isn't being used right here in the U.S. by our own home-grown Chavez wanna-bees.
Postscript: As if on schedule, the following report regarding students graduating NYC public schools:
Nearly 80 percent of New York City high school graduates need to relearn basic skills before they can enter the City University’s community college system.(Read the rest HERE.)
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