Chavez and Thaksin: A Tale of Two Socialists and Western HypocrisyTony Cartalucci Image: When is blood-red socialism OK (Thailand) and when is it ruthless autocracy (Venezuela)? The answer depends on whether or not you serve Wall Street and Londons international order. Contrary to popular belief, socialism is not a unified global ideology and is instead like any tool only as good or bad as the hands it finds itself in. The use of socialism by two governments no more indicates an affiliation than would guns in the hands of two opposing armies on a battlefield. The piece begins with: HE was lionised as a hero by the Western Left, of course, but it would be hard to find a leader in recent history who more comprehensively betrayed the wellbeing of his country than Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. He was driven by an irrational, demagogic and self-defeating antagonism towards Washington that blinded him to his nations best interests. The rambling narrative of the Australian equates to condemning Venezuela for not opening itself up to Western exploitation, domination by corporate-financier monopolies, and the folly of its challenging of the Wests campaign of global aggression from Mali, Libya, and Syria, to Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The Australian condemns Chavez populist economics and ends its piece by stating: Thumbing your nose at Washington and aligning your country with the worlds worst dictatorships is a recipe for disaster. Those who come after Mr Chavez should see that and change course. Thumbing your nose at Washington and its interests is indeed a recipe for disaster, as has been thumbing your nose at brutal empires throughout human history. Your nation will become the target of covert military operations, terrorism, political subversion, and economic sabotage, the very root of Venezuelas current malaise. Thumb your nose long and hard enough at the West, and you may even become subject to an outright invasion, as was the case in Iraq, Libya, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Or, you may suffer a long-term proxy war, as Syria now faces. In reality, the Australian reveals what Hugo Chavez was really guilty of. Not of being a ruthless autocrat, or of being a socialist, but of being independent and for having the nerve to challenge the extraterritorial interests of an increasingly violent and unhinged West. Thaksin Shinawatra Populist, Socialist, Ruthless Autocrat, and Darling of the West. The Australians editorial board itself has lent support to his despotic, nepotist regime, currently led by his own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, defending him as a progressive, pro-democratic force in Thailand. In a 2011 Australian news article preceding Thailands national elections, no where is found the same venomous language directed at Chavez in describing Thaksins own populist/socialist schemes. No mention at all is made of Thaksins grotesque human rights record the worst in Thai history, his intimidation of the press, and his habitual assault on any and all who challenge him. Indeed, while the Australian calls Hugo Chavez a ruthless autocrat, it was Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand who mass murdered 3,000 innocent people over the course of 90 days during a so-called war on drugs where police were sent into the streets to conduct extrajudicial executions. It would later be determined that most of the those murdered were not even involved in the drug trade. Human Rights Watch (HRW) would confirm this in their 2008 report titled, Thailands war on drugs, a follow up to the much more extensive 2004 report, Not Enough Graves. To this day Thaksin counts his war on drugs as one of the many highlights of his 2001-2006 stint in office. And while the Australian fails to remind readers of this inconvenient fact, other Western propagandists, such as the Economist, boldly defend the mass murder that took place under his ruthless regime. In its op-ed titled, Thailands drug wars: Back on the offensive, the Economist states: Faced with soaring methamphetamine abuse, Mr Thaksin ordered the police to draw up blacklists of suspected traffickers and to act decisively and without mercy. The Economist would also go on to say: On the streets of Khlong Toey, the largest slum in Bangkok, there is nostalgia for Mr Thaksins iron-fisted drugs policy. The 2003 crackdown drove up prices, smashed trafficking networks and forced addicts into rehabilitation programmes. In drug-ravaged communities, where the ends tend to justify the means, that was enough to turn Mr Thaksin into a hero. The Economist finishes its op-ed by lamenting that the then military-led government which ousted Thaksin in 2006, had not kept up Thaksins abhorrent, extrajudicial campaign of mass murder: You might expect a military junta with sweeping powers to have kept up the fight against such illicit activity. Anti-narcotics officials say that drug seizures have risen since the military coup in September 2006. And more recently, the Huffington Post hosted Stanley Weiss of the Business Executives for National Security (BENS) and his op-ed titled, The Oracle of Thailand, where he praises Thaksin Shinawatras populist-socialist policies and suggests the US would be better off if it applied his Thaksinomics across America. Weiss openly admits that Thaksin Shinawatra, despite being a convicted criminal and living in exile, is running the country by nepotist proxy. Yet, he defends what he considers a brilliant exploitation of Thailands desperately poor, notoriously under-educated rural population, spinning it as: The great innovation of Thaksin and Pansak (along with U.S.-trained academic Somkid Jatusripitak) was the increased role of government in the allocation of credit, as Chulalongkorn University Professor Pasuk Phongpaichit writes. But not just anywhere: Thaksinomics focused the governments attention on the poor and rural areas of Thailand. Arguing that a country is a company and a company is a country, the self-described CEO Prime Minister approached the national economy like a business, looking for ways, as Pasuk explains, to mobilize any dormant or unexploited assets including unused natural resources and neglected human resources. Tapping unused reserves of credit in the state banking system, the team created one rural credit fund after another. To lower household expenses, they offered low-cost housing and health insurance; provided subsidized credit for buying taxis and provided loans for children to get to school. One might wonder how that is any different than what Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela, who also won over the population in part by using state money to subsidize his support base. The difference is simple: Hugo Chavez used socialism to co-opt the population in opposition to the Wall Street-London international order, while Thaksin Shinawatra co-opted Thailands rural poor on behalf of Wall Street and Londons interests.Weiss BENS front is lined with representatives of Americas Fortune 500 who have played a pivotal role in both Thaksin rise to power, and his continued relevance in Thai politics. Thaksin had been prime minister from 2001-2006. Long before Thaksin Shinawatra would become prime minister in Thailand, he was already working his way up the Wall Street-London ladder of opportunity, while simultaneously working his way up in Thai politics. He was appointed by the Carlyle Group as an adviser while holding public office, and attempted to use his connections to boost his political image. Thanong Khanthong of Thailands English newspaper the Nation, wrote in 2001: In April 1998, while Thailand was still mired in a deep economic morass, Thaksin tried to use his American connections to boost his political image just as he was forming his Thai Rak Thai Party. He invited Bush senior to visit Bangkok and his home, saying his own mission was to act as a national matchmaker between the US equity fund and Thai businesses. In March, he also played host to James Baker III, the US secretary of state in the senior Bush administration, on his sojourn in Thailand. Upon becoming prime minister in 2001, Thaksin would begin paying back the support he received from his Western sponsors. In 2003, he would commit Thai troops to the US invasion of Iraq, despite widespread protests from both the Thai military and the public. Thaksin would also allow the CIA to use Thailand for its abhorrent rendition program. In 2004, Thaksin attempted to ramrod through a US-Thailand Free-Trade Agreement (FTA) without parliamentary approval, backed by the US-ASEAN Business Council who just before 2011s elections that saw Thaksins sister Yingluck Shinawatra brought into power, hosted the leaders of Thaksins red shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD). Image: The US-ASEAN Business Council, a whos-who of corporate fascism in the US, had been approached by leaders of Thaksin Shinwatras red shirt street mobs. (click image to enlarge) The council in 2004 included 3M, war profiteering Bechtel, Boeing, Cargill, Citigroup, General Electric, IBM, the notorious Monsanto, and currently also includes banking houses Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Chevron, Exxon, BP, Glaxo Smith Kline, Merck, Northrop Grumman, Monsantos GMO doppelganger Syngenta, as well as Phillip Morris. Photo: Deposed autocrat, Thaksin Shinawatra before the CFR on the even of the 2006 military coup that would oust him from power. Since 2006 he has had the full, unflinching support of Washington, Wall Street and their immense propaganda machine in his bid to seize back power. Since the 2006 coup that toppled his regime, Thaksin has been represented by US corporate-financier elites via their lobbying firms including, Kenneth Adelman of the Edelman PR firm (Freedom House, International Crisis Group, PNAC), James Baker of Baker Botts (CFR), Robert Blackwill of Barbour Griffith Rogers (CFR), Kobre Kim, and currently Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam Peroff (Chatham House). Robert Amsterdam of Amsterdam Peroff, would also simultaneously represent Thaksins red shirt UDD movement, and was present for the inaugural meeting of the so-called academic Nitirat group, attended mostly by pro-Thaksin red shirts (who literally wore their red shirts to the meeting). Additional support for Thaksin and his UDD street-front is provided by the US State Department via National Endowment for Democracy-funded NGO Prachatai. Time to Grow Up Hugo Chavez used socialism to build a support base, because if he didnt, Wall Street and London would do it themselves with their proxy opposition front in Venezuela just as they have done in Thailand with Thaksin Shinawatra. The proof is in the Wests own narrative, where they hypocritically celebrate Thaksin Shinawatras Thaksinomics while condemning Chavez Chavismo. It would appear that socialism is only OK if it is used to co-opt the population for the interests of Wall Street and London. Thumb your nose at the West, and it doesnt matter what socioeconomic strategy you employ, you are a ruthless autocrat whose days are numbered and whose memory will be immediately defiled upon your passing. Governments do not adhere to political ideologies, they simply use them when and where profitable. In the US where a corporate-financier oligarchy literally writes the policy for politicians on both sides of the aisle, the use of socialism and free market economics is done in tandem to achieve a multitude of goals that would be impossible using only one or the other. While the West itself placates its population with socialism, such policies are condemned when employed contra to their interests, especially when used to galvanize a population against Western advances as was the case in Chavez Venezuela. In reality, socialism is but a single tool. An entire nation cannot be sustained upon it, no more than an entire house can be built using only a hammer. The true test of a government is not whether it uses socialism or not, but with what other tools it employs it. A nation must seek to build upon socialisms stop-gaps with sustainable, pragmatic solutions. Outside of Wall Street and Londons international order, many nations are doing just that, but progress is difficult to gauge when the West arrays the summation of its influence and power against such progress. The story of Chavez and Thaksin illustrates the double standards and hypocrisy hidden in plain sight and casts doubts on narratives proposing anyone using socialism is part of a unified global cabal. Such a notion falls flat unless financial and political ties can be documented. In the case of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela, the chasm between his movement and the Wests use of socialism couldnt be any deeper or wider. 