Venezuela: The slippery fall of the Banana Curtain

The terminal crisis of Venezuela's populist experiment proves the Cold War isn't over. It has just changed names and geopolitical scenarios. 

Between 1945 and 1989, the Iron Wall ran from the Baltic to the Adriatic, dividing free Western Europe and Communist-occupied Eastern Europe.  But the fall of the USSR and the Berlin Wall didn't end the Cold War. It only ended what we could call now Cold War I.

Soon after, the  USSR's vassal states and sponsored agents -from formal communist parties to diverse fronts such as "human rights" , "anti-globalization" groups and NGOs- regrouped into new alliances in different regions of the world around petrol-rich sponsor states. 

Between 1999 and perhaps 2019, these countries built a new wall, which we could call the Banana Wall dividing the Americas, with rich-oil Venezuela playing the regional role of a Soviet Union and proclaiming the "Socialism of the 21st Century". Economist long time Latin American editor Michael Reid explained the rise of the new Wall in its book "Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America's Soul" 

The impending fall of the Venezuelan "chavista" regime shows how that new map (see above) is organized. Red for Venezuela's allies (Russia, China, Middle East, Bolivia, Cuba), blue for the free world. Here's how the world looks during this Cold War II:

1. Latin America: The self-denominated "Bolivarian Socialism" or "Socialism of the 21st" inspired -and commanded- by Cuban Castroist system, took over Venezuela's vast oil reserves and went on to finance satellite regimes in Nicaragua,  Honduras, Equator, Bolivia and Argentina. With Castro's and Chavez's deaths and the typical self-destruction provoked by the state-controlled economy, Venezuela is the last and most critical piece to implode. This might spawn positive repercussions in all the region, such as an economic recovery and a reduction of the mass migration and the consequent burden of humanitarian crises in neighboring countries. In the long run, if Venezuela recovers, it could repatriate its most talented people, who where the first to emigrate to US, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. If Brazil and Argentina (Mexico seems to be going in the opposite direction for now) recover as well, part of the Venezuelan diaspora will stay and contribute to that as well.
2. Middle East's three major forms of authoritarian regimes: (1) Former pro-Soviet dictatorships like Iraq, Syria and Lybia supported by Putin's Russia  ; (2) Iran's theocracy spreads its influence over Iraq, Palestine and Syria as well, often in alliance with Russia and (3) Stateless terrorism: ISIS and Al-Qaeda displaced Hezbollah and PLO , branching out Boko Haram in Sub-Saharan Africa.
3. Eastern Europe (former Soviet Bloc): Classic communism has turned into populist nationalism and state-ran, crony capitalistic, xenophobic dictatorships seizing power by elections in Poland and Hungary. Putin's Russia took over the role of the USSR as military power seizing control of the region Putin considers its backyard. The military invasion of Crimea was the parting shot of the new oil-powered Russian dictatorship.
4. Far East: Post-Mao China evolved towards a "Market-Communism" system -to use Deng Xiaoping's labeling- and spread aggressively through and undeclared "trade invasion" to take over Africa, Latin America from US sphere and control their natural resources. The "trade invasion" provoked a strong protectionist backlash in Western Europe and US. Obama's appeasement policy turned into a "trade Cold War" with Trump's election.

The complacent and lethargic EU had a harsh wake-up call with Brexit and -like the rest of the West- has now to face that the Cold War isn't over, just rearranged.

The faster the West begins to face the realities of a Cold War II, the better the outcomes will be. Populism menaces as much liberal democracies as Communism and Fascism did during the previous Cold War I. Like then, Cold War II will channel the confrontation by non-military means, such as populist propaganda (anti-elite discourse, anti-immigration, anti-free trade) , co-opting democratic institutions through "direct democracy" subterfuges such as referendums like Brexit, Catalan independence or others over walls or annexations.

The map of those countries that support Venezuela's dictatorship and those who support its interim democratic government draws the lines of this brave new world we have to deal with.

As a 1930s folk American saying goes: "denial is not a river in Egypt". It is more like a Rubicon that the free World has to cross if it wants to remain free.

Where does the United States stand? Under Trump's presidency, that's everybody's guess, but unlike Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia, US has term and constitutional limits that may prevent it from veering away from its institutions and rule of law.

Beyond Trump -who has supported Russia but confronted Venezuela and China- the United States will continue to lead this Cold War II world. The fall of Venezuela's dictatorship will certainly debilitate the "Banana Curtain" that divided Latin America for two decades already, but "sleeping cells" of left and right-wing populism will remain in each country, waiting for the next economic downturn to take over. Such is the case of Argentina's peronism and kirchnerism, Brazil's PT now in opposition.

With Mexico going towards left-wing populism and US'a foreign policy in the hands of nationalistic hawks, Cold War II is far from over.  

Standing up Against "Speech policing" : Lessons from George Orwell and Heberto Padilla

The closest my generation got to the great George Orwell must have been the great and unfortunately late Christopher Hutchins, who wrote precisely about the former explaining why going against "group thinking" is so important.

Hitchens and Orwell criticized with some of the most beautiful English prose I read the anomalies and hypocrisy of the Left. Here is a brief excerpt from Orwell's "1984" explaining "newspeak" (bold is mine):

"Whether he went on with the diary, or whether he did not go on with it, made no difference. The Thought Police would get him just the same. He had committed— would still have committed, even if he had never set pen to paper— the essential crime that contained all others in itself. Thoughtcrime, they called it. Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever. You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner or later they were bound to get you [...] 

“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten. . . . The process will still be continuing long after you and I are dead. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. Even now, of course, there's no reason or excuse for committing thought-crime. It's merely a question of self-discipline, reality-control. But in the end there won't be any need even for that. . . . Has it ever occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?”

Orwell charged against totalitarian control of the language back in the 1930s, when the Left (to which he belonged to the point of volunteering to defend Barcelona during the Civil War) was in full ascent, before the Moscow trials shredded the last vestiges of civility in the Bolshevik dictatorship.

Silencing dissenting voices was (and is) a lamentable characteristic of Left-wing incivility, one that is required for suppressing unpleasant facts.

I was young enough to witness one equivalent to the Moscow trials when Castro's dictatorship jailed and forced laureate poet Heberto Padilla to the humiliation of public apology for "crimes against the revolution" for his poetry. On top of being critical of the government (very midly, for our standards), Padilla was also homosexual, another condition that the Cuban regime treated as an "illness" (here an eerie parallel with our Christian Right) with internment camps and electroshock "cures".

I am old enough also, to witness the suppression of free speech and tolerated infringement of our First Amendment rights by Left wing campus organizations, as in the case of Charles Murray, a scholar whose work -which the protesters haven't read- was deemed "unfit" for a presentation in campus to the point of physical aggression to the liberal hosting professor.

This kind of uncivil behavior in campus is not only condoned by intimidated administrators that do not take stronger measures to guarantee the speakers' (and a majority of the students interested in listening to different ideas and points of view) but also by those Far Left web and press venues that justify and created the concept of "political correctness" and now extended it to its natural logical sequel, the institution of "free zones" where free speech is not tolerated on behalf of not hurting "beliefs" or racial, gender or sexual orientation "identities".

Gross infringements on freedom of speech like these come in two forms of uncivility: "hard" , suchs as mobbing and physically impeding free speech and "soft", with the institution of "speech policing" under "political correctness" rules (as defined by those in control of speech) and the most recent institution of "safe zones" where those claiming to be "harmed" by "hate speech" can demand free speech to be turned off.

A good discussion -and rejection- of these abuses is long overdue. They have turned upside down the function of higher education institutions -from safe places for dissent and argument to congregations of mutually intolerant sects and their dogmas.

Those in the moderate, classical liberal Left of the spectrum -as President Obama is widely considered to be (with the probable exception of the Alt and Far Right that equate him with Saul Alinsky) have spoken against "safe zones" and other forms of Left-wing incivility:

Yet, they seem not to be strong or convincing enough for some campuses administrators to act like the University of Chicago did, formulating explicit condemnation of incivil practices.

For those who defend "safe zones" as if college students were unable to survive a debate of ideas without suffering irreparable psychological harm, perhaps this commencement speech by Chief Justice John Roberts may give some healthy suggestions:

Few things are more mind-building that a stern practice on scholarly debate. That's what our universities and high schools have been teaching for more than a century:

Civility can't harm anybody. Or perhaps we should debate it?

Here is an example from Intelligence Squared debates about this topic:

References & Sources:

IQ2us
Orwell, G. Politics of the English language