Today's edition of the NY Times reads, at some point, the following: "Bush, Replying to Chávez, Urges Latin Americans to FollowU.S." And as I read Elisabeth Bumillier's contribution to my knowledge of territories that lie beyond the limits of this little island (the United States, that is) I start wondering about the ambiguity of Bush's words, even more, about their perversity, all among which are given by their vanity.
As you surely know, at some point Latin America in general was ruled by dictartorships. Most of them were simply just military-ruling dictatorships. I'm sure you are also aware that such dictatorships were - as in the case of Allende's Chile - American sponsored, controlled, advised and produced military dictatorships. No one that knows a couple of things about Latin American history would denie this. Even with his infamous stupidity, I'm sure Bush is also aware of this. This should be enough, then for you to realize the gravity of the following claims, taken from Bumillier's contribution to the cited Newspaper:
"The administration worries that the region may slip into the authoritarianism of the past, or that other leaders like Mr. Chávez may emerge. “Only a generation ago, this was a continent plagued by military dictatorship and civil war,” Mr. Bush said. “Yet the people of this continent defied the dictators, and they claimed their liberty.”
The ambiguity: Is Bush telling us - i.e. Latinamericans - that it is the existence of populist presidents such as Chávez which gives place to military dictatorships, the same which we've been fighting so hard against. And, thus, that we should avoid supporting such governments and, instead, follow the libertarian path offered by the US? Or is it more, as I think, Mr. Bush offering a very thoughtful advise. Is he, by any chance,telling us that it isthe existence of populist rullers as Chávez which gives place to America's military, economic and criminal strategies to destroy such governments. Which, as should be expected, easily turns into American sponsored, controlled and produced military dictatorships of Latin America.
Whichever reading you follow, the vanity of the claims arises inevitably for we are forced to thank Bush for the piece of advise since, it seems, he is really trying to help: Latin America should, no matter how, avoid military dictatorships. And if we know they are a product of the United States government's vanity and ambition, why not avoid it? I see this as vain, for there is no more vanity than showing off so publicly the extent of your power and even more to make it so evidently that it may pass as something kind, something normal, as if it should be expected.
And this vanity gives place to perversity. Doing wrong knowingly, willfuly and, as seems to be the case, with premeditation and advantage, strikes me as a paradigm of perverseness. A perversity coming from such vain and arrogant claims has found its pairs in history around the 1930's, when somebody else, just like Bush now, claimed to have a solution and made sure everyone else believed him. Let us not forget, as Herr Göbels used to say: a lie that is told a hundred thousand times becomes truth. And vanity helps repeting contents for hundreds and thousands, and hundreds of thousands of times.
may we be careful enough to avoid this vanity, and perversity
