Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Farce [Hardcover]

A.C. Clark (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A. C. Clark’s book is a devastating exposé of Hugo Chávez’s authoritarian regime. By providing historical context, an insight into the political, social and even psychological complexities that helped Chávez undermine democracy from within, and clear examples of the assault against freedom and private property in Venezuela, The Revolutionary Has No Clothes will serve to demythify the Bolivarian farce that has duped not a few intellectuals in the West.” —Alvaro Vargas Llosa, The Independent Institute

“A. C. Clark’s extensive research successfully demythologizes the Chávez regime and gives a vivid exposé of life under his presidency. The Revolutionary Has No Clothes is an important contribution to the international debate on contemporary Latin American politics and should be read by anyone who has an interest in Hugo Chávez and the socialist movement he purports to lead.” —Vanessa Neumann, Ph.D., Editor-at-Large, Diplomat

“Venezuela somehow escapes the U.S. State Department’s classification of ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism.’ We can only hope officials at Foggy Bottom quickly get a copy of A. C. Clark’s superbly researched and documented book. Their ‘oversight’ would then be inexcusable. This book is an excellent antidote to the reams of misinformation gushing from Hugo Chávez’s U.S. propagandists—including the hundreds on his payroll.” —Humberto Fontova , author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: Encounter Books (September 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594032599
• ISBN-13: 978-1594032592
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,709,086 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A much-needed antidote, December 16, 2009

By 

Martin N. Pettet - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Farce (Hardcover)

The lack of critical - and even objectively neutral - writing in English on Hugo Chavez is mirrored by the curious deference of successive administrations to one who has described the US as "the most evil regime that has ever existed" and has pledged himself eternally to its obliteration. The reasons for this state of affairs may be quite complex, but are at least partly due to a completely unfounded edifice of mythology that has grown up around this leader among the global left as some kind of unassailable champion of "progressive" causes. Quite the opposite is, in fact, the case, and this book tries unabashedly in its own small way to correct the imbalance.. Aside from chronicling and illustrating Chavez's blatant character flaws -- the lying and deceit, the conceit and narcissism that borders on insanity, the ignorant bombast, the extreme vulgarity, the contempt for democracy and the cynical use of it to consolidate his personal power, the alliances with rogue dictators of all stripes -- aside from all this, Clark also casts a glance at his many high-profile international supporters and apologists, noting how easily highly respected academics such as Noam Chomsky and Brian Leiter can relapse into pure intellectual sloppiness as soon as they start on the subjct of Chavez - perhaps because his visceral hatred of the United States so clearly mirrors their own home-grown shadow-selves. Clark also devotes a chapter to the extensively funded Venezuelan lobbying network in the US, and the blatant hypocrisy of one spending such a vast fortune doing business and cultivating public relations in a country he claims to despise.
The research that has gone into this book is considerable. It deserves reading at the highest levels, though whether that will happen is a matter of doubt. One wonders how much more Hugo Chavez will have to do to attain the real international notoriety that he clearly craves, but what he has already done to the small peaceful nation that he has inherited and taken over is itself a crying shame.

10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Study of the Failures of "Revolution", October 6, 2009

By 

Laurence Zimmerman "Argie" (Maryland, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Farce (Hardcover)

Very quick and interesting read (I read it in one day) about the failures of the "Bolivarian Revolution." This book has a more scholarly tone than "The Enemy Closer to Home" and examines Venezuelan history from age of Simon Bolivar until the present. It explains to a Western audience, certain intricicies about Venezuelan culture and life. I especially agree with his assessment of race in Venezuela. Most Venezuelans are "mixed race" or "criollo" as they liked to be called. Racism is most prevalent in the Venezuelan media, but on a daily basis it is much harder to discern. Neighborhoods and friendships often include a multitude of skin tones that is unseen in places like the US. Similar to president Bush, Chavez once enjoyed approval rates of over 90% and due to his expertise in alienating just about every sub-group in Venezuela, his popularity has plummeted. He wins elections by forced votes, if not outright fraud and seems set to stay in power for for at least the next decade. All the while, the Venezuelan people continue to suffer and Western sycophants lick his boots.

14 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Another Recycle Of The Same Right-Wing Attacks., October 2, 2009

By 

Mr. Fellini "Fellini" (Orange County, California United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Revolutionary Has No Clothes: Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian Farce (Hardcover)

"The Revolutionary Has No Clothes" by A.C. Clark is a quick little read that serves no other purpose than to recycle many of the same, tired talking points of the right-wing when attacking Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. With little originality and much, curious venom, Clark keeps in place the tradition of other such writers like Humberto Fontova and his savage attacks against Cuba, who don't write works of scholarship but instead long stomps and rants over a political situation which frustrates them. Clark does not appear to have many credentials except his degrees as noted in the book jacket, and his work smells more like a quick xerox copy of accusations already published in other books such as "The Threat Closer To Home" by Douglas S. Schoen and Michael Rowen (the book was a big hit on Fox News). Luckily, there are much better works of scholarship available on Venezuela, and books of this type disappear quickly into the fog, as did most of those books screaming about the "Cuban threat," the "Nicaraguan danger" or Saddam rebuilding Babylon in the 1980s and 1990s, and we can't forget the current, larger string of books on Iran, some calling on bombing the country to hasten the return of Christ.

One aspect of Clark's book which does make him stand out from the very small batch of recent anti-Chavez books is the very personal tone of the book which reveals more about himself than about Chavez. Clark appears to have an snobbish attitude towards the classic, provincial Venezuelan, devoting page after page soley to Chavez's language and roughneck attitudes. In one passage, Clark attacks the author Bart Jones, who's book "Hugo" remains the best biography available on Chavez, because Jones in his book included testimonies by those who have been friends of Chavez, claiming Chavez was a "ladies man" in his younger years and that he tries to avoid getting too involved with women. For some bizarre reason, Clark throws a fit, attacking this as the classic myth of women being attracted to "revolutionary figures." Clark then attacks Jones for writing that it is quite typical for Venezuelan men to be involved with various women, Clark even calls this an offense to "Venezuelans who don't commit adultery." Is this serious scholarship? A big deal is made over the way intellectuals and writers such as Jon Lee Anderson, describe Chavez racially. Clark hates the idea that Chavez is considered to represent the darker sector of Venezuelan society, using bizarre racial comparisons and claims to discredit such notions. Again, Clark here reveals more about himself than of Chavez.

Clark regularly bashes Chavez as a tyrant who signals the second coming of Hitler (no joke, he literally attempts to make direct comparisons), but interestingly enough, he then goes on to defend figures in the region with much more horrendous human rights records. Chavez is known for his insults hurled at regional right-wing leaders, and Clark here wags his finger bitterly, slamming Chavez for calling George W. Bush "the Devil" (as if most Americans would disagree with the description), and for bashing figures such as Mexico's Vicente Fox, responsible for horrific human rights abuses such as the invasion of Atenco in 2005, Aznar of Spain (who dragged Spain into the Iraq war) and Colombia's Alvaro Uribe (currently ranked as the region's #1 human rights violator). Clark apparently believes these are figures the rest of the world admires, maybe only the kind of people you find in his closed, conservative circle. An entire section is devoted to defending Uribe's bombing of Ecuador in 2008, an action condemned by the entire region since it signaled an attempt to introduce Bush and Israel's "doctrine of preemption" to South America.

Other sections of the book simply recycle old accusations which come across as fantasies such as Chavez hosting Hezbollah and Hamas in Venezuela. Clark, like other right-wing pamphlets, offers vague evidence, quick conclusions and no smoking gun to prove any of this. For Clark the smoking gun is that Chavez condemned the Israeli invasion of Gaza and has criticized the brutal Israeli occupation. In sentences and passages Clark reveals the classic prejudice that Palestinian resistance automatically means "terrorism." And why would Hezbollah fly to the jungle terrain of Venezuela when it could just as easily train in Iran, and in fact has become a formidable fighting force by training in its own indigenous territory?

One of the biggest points of disagreement between the left and right when it comes to Venezuela is the 2002 coup against Chavez which failed when popular action and rebellion within the armed forces ended the coup, sent the coup plotters fleeing to Miami, Colombia and Panama and restored Chavez as the elected president. Clark keeps the same line in place as other right-wingers and also appears to have lifted some material from the book "The Silence And The Scorpion" by Brian Nelson. Like Nelson, Clark tries to paint the coup as some sort of democratic uprising which was hijacked by corrupt suits. Like Nelson he also dismisses the detailed scholarship of Eva Golinger in her excellent book "The Chavez Code," defending the Bush administration against claims it was involved in the coup. He even goes after the exact same document Nelson attacked, a document which clearly shows the Bush White House caught a whiff that something was being planned. Of course Clark never discusses the other, much detailed information on how the right-wing opposition has attempted to destabilize Venezuela for a decade which Golinger cites in her book. Clark also agrees with Nelson that the coup was some sort of spontaneous event, but better scholars such as Tariq Ali in his book "Pirates Of The Caribbean," details how the man who became the coup's puppet president, Pedro Carmona, was being fitted for his presidential sash WEEKS BEFORE the coup in Spain. Another target here of attack is the documentary "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised," the best filmed document on the coup by a group of Irish filmmakers who were caught in the middle of the coup as it happened and filmed everything. Calling it biased and even bashing film critic Roger Ebert and others for praising it, Clark then cites a very biased, right-wing counter film for reference.

The trickiest, most misldeading sections of the book deal with current laws in Venezuela and how others have interpreted the political situation in the country. Clark takes a few pages to bash Noam Chomsky, dismissing him as "ignorant" of Venezuelan politics (which is like dismissing Paul Krugman as ignorant on economics) and then actually goes on to say that Chavez's relationship with Venezuelan law is actually more extreme than Hitler's policies in Nazi Germany. This is almost too ridiculous to even be worth mentioning. For a detailed analysis of Venezuelan law and policies under Chavez, the best source remains "Changing Venezuela By Taking Power" by Gregory Wilpert, a work Clark attacks with very weak arguments and no detailed rebuttles. He also bashes Wilpert's excellent website, calling it "vague," which is no such thing when one visits it and reads the detailed analysis and articles on current Venezuelan politics. For some reason Clark also attacks intellectuals like Chomsky for praising literacy efforts in Venezuela, attacking the notion that American children do not read as much as Venezuelan children. Clark seems to live in a Fox News, conservative wonderland where it is impossible for the Third World to actually do more reading than children in the glorious United States where we continue ranking below most of the world in literacy levels.

"The Revolutionary Has No Clothes" is a fast-spun attempt to disinform the population on Venezuela and Hugo Chavez, who is not a perfect person by any account, but he's not exactly establishing the Fourth Reich in South America. The worth of this book is especially brought down by Clark's strange little conservative fits, he seems to concentrate more on personal habits and prejudices than on any real discussion of Venezuela's situation. Some passages make it seem as if someone's political program should be dismissed simply because he once used an expletive in public, or because he was once "a ladies man." And as stated earlier, these are faults Clark cares much more about than the real, serious human rights abuses carried out by political figures he defends in the book. "The Revolutionary Has No Clothes" has no bite, and might soon end up either out of print or filling the shelves at your local dollar store.