On Jun 18, 2009, at 1:34 PM, Eric Beck wrote:
>
> <snip happens>
> But this has done nothing to relieve Chavez--and when I say "Chavez,"
> I don't of course just mean the person--of the feeling that the U.S.
> is out to get him. It's as if every moment of silence from the U.S. is
> a provocation, more evidence of subterfuge.
IOW, Doug was mistaken in assuming that you were speaking merely of Chavez's thoughts on Iran when you wrote "persecution mania".
W.r.t the rest of your argument that the USA is relatively uninterested in Chavez/Venezuela, the fact that you start out with a grudging acceptance of U.S role ("stance" as you term it) in the 2002 coup admits that paranoia would not be unhealthy on Chavez's part, especially in light of given US involvement in Latin America (which I think was Carrol's point). We probably have room for agreement on what [part] of Chavez's fears are accurate.
On Jun 18, 2009, at 1:05 PM, Shane Mage wrote:
> On Jun 18, 2009, at 12:43 PM, ravi wrote:
>> If Chavez has an opinion, about exactly one situation, that turns
>> out to be wrong, it wouldn't be a "persecution mania".
>
> "persecution mania" is about the most charitable possible
> characterization of Chavez's siding with a police state regime
> engaged in massive repression against a democratic uprising, and
> even glorifying the "Islamic Revolution!"
>
Charitable perhaps, but incorrect definitely. And Eric Beck's response (quoted above) makes it clear that no further defence of my point above is needed.
On Jun 18, 2009, at 1:05 PM, farmelantj at juno.com wrote:
>
> Well, I think it would be hard to
> top Galloway's own invectives for
> Hitchens, who he described as
> "a drink-sodden former Trotskyist popinjay"
>
> ---------- Original Message ----------
> From: ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org>
> Or, at least, more fancy string of invectives:
>
> On Jun 18, 2009, at 12:27 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
>> chauvinistic, homophobic, authoritarian-apologist
>
Exactly, but at least Bhaskar Sunkara is trying!
--ravi