How to be a good loser

[vostoklake]

Hugo Chávez, much like Artie Fufkin from Polymer Records, admits that he fucked up the timing.



"We did massive, we saturated, we over saturated. That's what it is, It's me, I did it, I fucked up, I fucked up the timing, that's all, I fucked up the timing, I've got no timing, I've got no timing, I've got NO timing. You know what I want you to do? Will you do something for me? Do me a favor, just kick my ass, okay? Kick this ass for a man, that's all, kick my ass, enjoy! C'mon, I'm not asking, I'm telling with this, kick my ass!"

Seriously: can you imagine the riots in the street, the screams of fraud, the begging for armed intervention from American B-52s that would have happened if the opposition had lost by that margin? As an old Russian with a goatee once said, the measure of a revolutionary is how well they handle defeats.

(As an aside, I hope that when the reforms are proposed he cuts out some of the dodgy-looking ones which were probably shoved in there by dodgy bureaucrats.)

Comments

[monja-alferez.livejournal.com]

The mainstream media here in the US are not offering much commentary on how graciously Chavez is handling this setback. He is showing utmost respect for the democratic process, and that undermines the right-wing thesis that he is a wannabe Stalinist dictator. Hopefully he is gaining credibility through his handling of the situation.

I'm trying to remain upbeat. The revolution down there is making major progress. They've just officially launched the Bank of South America to counteract the IMF and World Bank, and a constitutional assembly in Bolivia just approved a new constitution, though a referendum is still needed to put it into effect.

And I studied abroad in Ecuador earlier this year. My Spanish professor is a relative of the new president, Correa, and she arranged for us to meet him. At the time we were supposed to meet him, however, a student demonstration was taking place outside the presidential palace over funding for a technical college. Correa opted, as he should have, to meet with representitives of the student protestors instead of us. I was disappointed that I didn't get to meet him, as I have a lot of respect for much that he has done thus far in his political career, but I was absolutely thrilled to see a win for democracy in Latin America , first-hand. In a land that has been plagued by rightist dictators for decades, democracy is finally developing. Can you imagine a US president graciously meeting with a group of protestors to hear their demands, only a couple of hours after they gathered?