Denouncing Hugo Chavez -& other sports of the rich, infamous & stupid

[Demeter]

OpEdNews.com

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dan_welc_061018_denouncing_hugo_chav.htm


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October 18, 2006

Denouncing Hugo Chavez - And other sports of the rich, infamous and just plain stupid

by Daniel Patrick Welch

Nancy Pelosi apparently has so much time on her hands, and so few other issues to address, that she saw fit to unload on Hugo Chavez following his appearance before the U.N. in New York. Most readers are familiar by now with Chavez' provocative swipes at "Devil" Bush and his comment that the titular head of U.S. empire had left the place reeking of sulfur from his earlier appearance...Is this run-of-the-mill Pablum of the Poor what angered Democratic Party leaders so? It could hardly have been the more substantive complaints in Chavez' brief address: the observation that the permanent veto of a few mega-powers is an undemocratic throwback that taints the entire mission of the U.N. (Gasp! What insolence!). Or that the refusal to issue visas to several members of Chavez' staff reeks of political payback thoroughly inappropriate for the geographic host of an international organization (ingrate!).

Denunciations, repudiations and other useless gestures have long been a substitute for real action and a smokescreen to reassign proper targets of outrage. When Nelson Mandela visited the US as the apartheid regime was crumbling beneath his lifelong struggle, it was demanded of him that he "repudiate" Mohamar Khadafi and Fidel Castro. Pictures were circulated of the supposedly embarrassing hugs that would make uch "repudiation" necessary...Mandela refused, of course, clearly seeing the absurdity of bowing to pressure from the erstwhile funders of his oppressors to denounce those who had supported his struggle for decades. Black protesters of the Vietnam War, urged to patriotic duty to kill communists and children halfway around the globe, demurred with a similarly poignant retort: "No Viet Cong ever called me 'Nigger.'"

POLEMIC ON THE DEMOCRATS AND THEIR HISTORY OF SINNING AND HYPOCRISY--HITS A FEW SORE POINTS!

Authors Website: http://danielpwelch.com

Authors Bio: (c) 2006 Daniel Patrick Welch. Reprint permission granted with credit and link to http://danielpwelch.com. Writer, singer, linguist and activist Daniel Patrick Welch lives and writes in Salem, Massachusetts, with his wife, Julia Nambalirwa-Lugudde. Together they run The Greenhouse School (http://www.greenhouseschool.org). Translations of articles are available in two dozen languages. Links to the website are appreciated at danielpwelch.com.