Siga-me

Roberto Henry Ebelt

A revista THE ECONOMIST publicou, no dia 11 de março passado, em seu site, um artigo sobre o mais recente fenômeno populista latino americano que morreu não se sabe exatamente quando (síndrome de Neves?) nem onde (Cuba? Venezuela?).

O mistério que as ditaduras esquerdistas (isso é uma redundância, pois com a abertura política da velha Burma, conhecida no Brasil como Birmânia e, ainda mais tarde, como Mianmar, só restam ditaduras esquerdistas e teocracias de caráter ditatorial sobre este sofrido planeta) fazem sobre seus "deuses" impede-nos de acreditar em qualquer coisa que seus líderes apresentem como fato. No momento especula-se que Chávez Frias (e põe frias nisso) tenha morrido antes do dia 05 de março e que o defunto velado e carregado pela massa de manobra venezuelana não tenha sido mais do que um boneco (de cera ou outro material sintético) com a aparência do aspirante a ditador comunista. O ex-caminhoneiro, por sua vez, já informou que não será possível manter o cadáver do tenente coronel em exposição permanente, como seus gurus, VLADIMIR ILYICH ULYANOV, vulgo Lênin e MAO TSE TUNG , devido a problemas ocorridos no "embalsamamento". Mas vamos ao artigo da THE ECONOMIST e comentar o vocabulário:

BACK in the 1990s Latin America seemed to have turned the page on military rule and embraced democracy and free-market economics, with the sole*, beleaguered (= sitiada, bloqueado, isolada) exception of communist Cuba.

*Sole: como adjetivo significa o adjetivo único e suas variações.

Como substantivo, sole é o nome do peixe que, em português, chamamos de linguado (parece uma sola de sapato).

The American soles are a family of flatfish found in both freshwater and marine environments of the Americas

And then along came Hugo Chávez, a bumptious (=presunçoso) Venezuelan former lieutenant-colonel
(= ex-tenente coronel venezuelano) who, having staged (= tendo executado) a failed military coup [kú] against a democratic government, got himself elected (conseguiu se eleger) as president in 1998.

Mr. Chávez proceeded (tomou atitudes no sentido de) to dominate his country for more than 14 years until his death this week from cancer. His secret was to invent a hybrid regime.

He preserved the outward forms (as aparências externas) of democracy, but behind them he concentrated power in his own hands and manipulated the law to further (= para fomentar; para aumentar) his own ends (objetivos).

He bullied (=intimidou) opponents, and encouraged the middle class to emigrate. He hollowed out (=esvaziou) the economy by mixing state socialism and populist redistribution with a residue of capitalism. And he glued (colar; grudar; juntar com auxília de cola) it all together with the crude but potent rhetoric of Latin American nationalism. Mr. Chávez claimed (afirmou) to be leading (estar liderando) a “Bolivarian revolution” against the “empire” (ie, the United States).

It did not seem to matter that Simón Bolívar, the Venezuelan hero who liberated much of South America from Spanish colonial rule, was an Anglophile conservative.*
*Mentir é o esporte favorito de comunistas.

Chavismo turned out (= resultou) to be a remarkably successful formula: Mr. Chávez won four elections by margins ranging from sweeping to comfortable and lost only one of his six referendums.

In October he won a new six-year term, though campaigning was restricted by his illness, which was graver (graver = more serious) than he admitted. He spawned (=gerou, produziu) imitators elsewhere in Latin America, financing an anti-American alliance of like-minded leaders and client states. And he was the savior of communism in Cuba, his aid keeping the Castros in power while slowing the transition to capitalism in a bankrupt island ( numa ilha falida).

Two things lay (=duas coisas jazem, encontram-se) at the heart of Mr. Chávez’s success. The first was his own political talent. Born in provincial obscurity, he proved to be a natural performer and communicator, with an unmatched (=incomparável) ability to empathize (= habilidade promover empatia) with ordinary Venezuelans, combined with plenty of cunning (=muita astúcia).

If Nicolás Maduro, his appointed vice-president and anointed (=ungido) successor, possesses any of these skills (=capacidades), he has yet to reveal them (ainda precisa mostrar que as tem)

The second and bigger factor was that Mr. Chávez had the immense good fortune (= sorte) to come to power just as an unprecedented commodity boom ( = crescimento rápido e inesperado de uma commodity - petróleo) was about to get under way (= estava prestes a acontecer).

As the oil price soared (to soar = subir às alturas) the dollars rolled in, without the Bolivarian revolution having to work for them. Mr. Chávez used this windfall (=unexpected good fortune) to buy himself popular support, with social programs and handouts (=donations).

The oil-fuelled bounty (a recompensa movida a petróleo) seemed to vindicate (to vindicate = justificar) his claim that before his advent, Venezuelans had been impoverished by “neo-liberalism”.

Chávez Frias en su Dassault Falcon, de origen francés. Cuesta 26 millones de dólares. En Venezuela se dice
que Chávez le regaló un yet así a Fidel Castro. Todos vieron cuando se lo presto a su amigo Manuel Zelaya
para hacer su show en Centroamérica a costa del erario venezolano.

My words: Quando você for se queixar do PT, lembre-se que existem coisas muito piores, embora Lula fosse o queridinho de Chávez Frias.

Have a nice weekend; at least one South American problem seems to have been taken care of.