The revolution's endlessly malleable bogeymen
This line, from Hutton’s take on last year’s Youth Festival, got me thinking:
“When I was here in 2000-2002 I don’t remember anyone using the word imperialism. The subject just didn’t come up.”
It’s interesting to consider the way Chavez’s rhetorical bogeymen have transmogrified over the years. If I remember correctly, it went something like this:
1994-1998: Corruption
1999-2000: Puntofijismo
2001-2002: The Oligarchy
2002-2004: Coup-mongering
2005- : American Imperialism
Am I missing a bogeyman here? Do the dates look about right? It would take some fairly stomach-turning research in the Alo, presidente archives to confirm – I’m just not up to it.
What’s weird is the way the switchover is never explicitly justified or even acknowledged and yet, once it happens, it’s absolute, Orwelian. This revolution has always been about opposing imperialism, we have never been at war with Eurasia.
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