Gucci Socialists

By Thomas Lifson

Venezuelans seem to be feeling their oats after rejecting Hugo Chavez's attempt to install himself in the presidential palace for life. A YouTube video is causing a sensation there by exposing the hypocrisy of one of Hugo's top minions.

First came the limousine liberals, mocked for their scorn of private enterprise while enjoying its fruits. Then came the Gulfstream Global Warmists, avoiding the hoi polloi riding on airliners while scolding soccer moms for lugging gear in their SUVs. The spectacle of Denpassar Airport in Bali unable to accommodate even a fraction of the private jets ridden by crisis mongers attending the UN Climate Conference -- people who were unwilling to fly commercially, but who insist the rest of us must decrease our "carbon footprint"-- will long be remembered.

Now, from Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, we have the first widely-recognized Gucci Socialist. Reuters reports

Venezuelan Interior Minister Pedro Carreno was momentarily at a loss for words when a journalist interrupted his speech and asked if it was not contradictory to criticize capitalism while wearing Gucci shoes and a tie made by Parisian luxury goods maker Louis Vuitton.

"I don't, uh ... I ... of course," stammered Carreno on Tuesday before regaining his composure. "It's not contradictory because I would like Venezuela to produce all this so I could buy stuff produced here instead of 95 percent of what we consume being imported."

Here is a link to the YouTube video that is causing a sensation in Venezuela.

Chavez, like his mentor Fidel Castro, loves the rhetoric of socialist austerity. But theVenezuelans I met there were a fun-loving lot, and appreciated their luxuries as much as anyone. In the era of cell phone videos (thank-you, capitalism!), it is hard for the hypocritical commissars to hide the disparity between their rhetoric and their personal habits. Add YouTube as the distribution mechanism,

Hat tip: David Paulin