Chavez Goes After "Bourgeois" Golf

There will be no unturned rock in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela. The autocrat has gone after education - seeking even to turn private schools into bastions of "red" socialism indoctrination - the state media has turned into an arm of his propaganda machine and the private, opposition media has been consistently harassed with some of outlets having their licenses revoked, electoral law has been amended to allow his a third [and fourth, and ...] term, and so on.

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Now Chavez has turned his sights on "bourgeois" gulf. The government has already nationalized tomatoes processing plants and ranches, among other lands, and now the state is nationalizing golf courses.

Officials are trying to nationalize two more courses, if successful the number of courses will decline from 28 pre-Chavez to 18. The golf courses are mostly in oil rich cities and initially built for American oil workers. The Americans left a long time ago and Chavez nationalized the oil industry upon coming to office. The golf courses, to Chavez, represent the old establishment and not the new socialist one he wants to usher in.

In his weekly television show, Chavez stated that he respected all sports, but the golf's is not a people's sport - which people? for the socialist some people are always expendable - and he also mocked gold carts as a reflection of the shiftlessness of the players.

“Let’s leave this clear, Golf is a bourgeois sport," Chavez stated.

When the government starts to nationalize, investments stop. Thus it is not surprising that a planned new course on a Venezuelan island - Margarita Island - has since been postponed due to worries among investors. Why brother to invest if the state is just going to steal it?

What are the plans for the hated courses? Chavez and company either want to erect new housing - as they have when they took previous courses - or the two aforementioned courses will house a new campus of Chavez's Bolivarian "University" - a community center of indoctrination. Venezuela faces a housing shortage for investors face putting their money in the country.

Ironically, Chavez's friends in Cuba - the Castro brothers - are supportive of the game. Western investors are building up to 10 new golf courses in the communist island nation with blessing from the Cuban government as a way to lure tourists. Chavez sends Cuba free oil in exchange for Cuban medical expertise and security and intelligence aid.

Even after the horrors of Stalin, Mao, Pol Put, ect..., there are those who still romanticize socialism. There is nothing romantic in the government deciding what you can do in every aspect of your life. This is socialism: an effort by ruling elites - like Chavez - who want to dictate every aspect of life for "the people" in an effort to make "the people" fit a myopic image he has. Instead of man being an individual with his own pursuits, he is made into an undistinguished block with no other purpose but to serve a means to an end that the socialist planner desires. "You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet," socialists are found of saying about the killing fields that often result when some individuals refuse to go along with the socialist planners' ideas. Somebody should remind these contemptible individuals that they are not breaking eggs, but human beings.