but you can’t take the venuzuela out of chavez

chezJoel.com remains 100% independent of all political factions in Venuzuela.

“They shouldn’t call it the 700 club,” my old friend Clint groused, “they should call it the double-oh-seven club.” I laughed, raised my beer and drank to that. The next day Chavez showed his ideological cousinhood with megalomaniac Sadaam Hussain by calling for Pat Robertson’s extradition.

Whether Rev. Robertson’s words were wise or not, I have this to say to foreign dictators intent upon meddling with the civil rights of American citizens: get on your apparatchik hobby horse and ride out, goat roper.

Is it just me or do the slobberiest of crazy-eyed leftists seem to be lacking in any sense of proportion? They evince all the humor and perspective of a three legged moose on an ice floe. I just love to troll VHeadline.com so I can hear them screech about the evils of bourgeoise democracy (as opposed to regular democracy) and carp about how even “capitalist demons” admit that government’s power doesn’t come from God. Phah!

I particularly enjoyed Arthur Shaw’s spicy commentary Can Chavez hold out until the revolutionary proletariat matures in Venezuela? He writes:

Universal eligibility for participation in the electoral side of the state does not along [sic] imply democracy because this feature is commonly present in cheap and fake bourgeois democracies … like those in the US and UK.

Democracy in the unqualified sense requires a lot more than just electoral participation by the poor and exploited.

We Americans would do well to take this to heart: just because any non-felon among us may vote, hold public office, own guns and shoot pumpkins on the weekends, start a blog, newsletter or glossy magazine and lambast our commander in chief for the Bushy-McChimp-Fuhrer we can’t believe Pat Robertson won’t admit he is, none of that means we have democracy in the unqualified sense, because, because…well, that’s obvious isn’t it, you reactionary bourgeoise swine entrail-hoof-snout scum SUVs?

Returning to brother Karl Marx…

And, may I say that I, for one, welcome our new Karl Marx overlords…

…the identification of democracy whatever its content with a form of dictatorship is today … and was yesterday … distasteful and abhorrent to middle class democrats and liberals who visualize “democracy” as the coming to the new Kingdom full of pure freedom, liberty, bliss, and license. In deference to the sensibilities and the semantics of the middle class democrats … who are strongly disposed toward fantasies … we must more or less withdraw from this self-evident identification. By and large, the middle class “participates” in democracy by becoming the tail of the bourgeoisie while the middle class fantasizes about the “absolute freedom of the individual, no less” that bourgeois democracy is supposed to bestow on the whole population, most are whom are actually and savagely being held down.

Ah, Camelot. We hardly “participated” in ye. And what a tail of woe this is, with our Sam’s Clubs and Costco’s foisting deep discounts upon a democratic American middle class so strongly disposed toward fantasies. So what if we can band together as liberals united by the visualizing of the new Kingdom, and ban Walmart from our tasteful suburban communities? We may grow oranges, but isn’t it time we woke up and smelled the coffee of the true dictatorship which is our pure freedom, liberty, bliss and license? Stop reading if this makes any sense.

In the United States, the politically conscious and politically active sectors of the working class should ally with the democratic bourgeoisie to restore bourgeois democracy which the GOPs, under George W. Bush, have destroyed while the GOPs retain, according to US Senator Robert Byrd, only the “cloak of legality.” This principle should define and shape the participation of the conscious and active workers in US politics.

The scuttlebutt I’m hearing is that the venerable and wise Senator Robert Byrd would finally be confirmed as cheif justice of the Supreme Court if only he could get back that darned cloak. Damn you, Grand Old Parties! But Arthur follows this zinger with another tragic nutshell:

But lamentably, the politically conscious and active sectors of the US working class are somewhat small and not very conscious and almost completely inactive.

See, now I’m lamenting. Like a polar bear clambering onto an ice floe.