left without directions

If anybody had doubts about Hugo Chavez’s project of remaining in power forever, it evaporated yesterday with Venezuela’s congress approving an extension of the current term and the possibility of endless re-elections for the bolivarist leader. Added to this the closing of oppositional newspapers and TV stations and the circus is ready for a lefty pseudo-democracy.

At the same time, in the north things are not going much better either. As much as I wish the democrats win the White House next year, the sequence Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush-Bush-Clinton? bothers me a lot . If this does not seem like a democracy but a sophisticated kind of aristocracy, what else can it be?

But back to Chavez, it is very sad to see that a significant part of the left in Latin America prefers to ignore the attacks on democratic rule and the dismantling of the Venezuelan institutions, cheering each bragging of the colonel. In this way, the chavistas left and the North American religious right are on the same boat: bragging might win elections (unfortunately) but does not improve anybody’s life.

Has anybody has seen Venezuela’s social indicators improving? Illiteracy, child mortality, sanitation? And what about the indicators in the US following a trajectory of inequality for many years?

Meanwhile we, the people, seem lost and absolutely orphans of proposals that can diminish inequality and at the same time to reward personal efforts.

I have recently finished reading “what the left should propose” from Harvard’s Mangabeira Unger and will write about it soon. The title of this post already gives a hint on how I see the book, but it is nevertheless worth reading.