Radical tourists have been deluded pimps for Venezuela

[Valin]

The Guardian:

Lefty westerners who trawl the world for revolutions to praise are no better than sex tourists in search of ‘exotic’ thrills

Nick Cohen

May 21 2016

 

Radical tourism is no different from sex tourism. In both the political and the coital, the inhabitants of the rich world go to the poor to find the thrills no one will give them at home. . .

 

For years, the top radical tourist destination, the political equivalent of the Pattaya Beach brothel, has been Chavista Venezuela. Hollywood stars, the leaders of the British Labour party and Spanish “popular resistance”, and every half-baked pseudo-left intellectual from Noam Chomsky to John Pilger has engaged in a left orientalism as they wallowed in “the other’s” exotic delights. . .

 

Venezuela stroked all their erogenous zones. Hugo Chávez and his successor Nicolás Maduro were anti-American and “anti-imperialist”. That both allied with imperial powers, most notably Russia, did not appear to concern them in the slightest. Venezuela, cried Seumas Milne in the Guardian, has “redistributed wealth and power, rejected western neoliberal orthodoxy, and challenged imperial domination”. What more could a breathless Western punter ask for?

 

Never underestimate the power worship of those who claim to speak for the powerless, or the credulity of the supposedly wised-up critical theorist. . .

 

(Snip)

 

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H/T Power Line

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonus Clip....really really deep thoughts from Sean

 

 

Sean For Goodness sake buy a new pair of pants!