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Edited on Sun Mar-16-08 01:35 PM by Peace Patriot
run a scrupulously lawful, PROGRESSIVE government for ten years.
His country is a member of OPEC. It is his OBLIGATION, as president, to maintain good relations with other OPEC countries. Venezuela is an independent, sovereign country, with the right to make friends and form relationships with other countries that benefit its people. Chavez was elected--in an election system that puts our own to shame for its transparency--to, among other things, conduct foreign relations. He is good friends with Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, with Argentina's president, Cristina Fernandez da Kirchner, with Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, with Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, and with Nicaragua's president, Daniel Ortega, and has good relations with Uruguay's president, Tabare Vasquez, Chile's president, Michele Batchelet, with the RIGHTWING president of France (with whom he was working closely to free FARC hostages), with the center/right leaders of Paraguay, with China (working on an oil deal) and with numerous others.
There have been high profile, friendly, mutually beneficial meetings and events between Chavez and many of these leaders, that are news in South America, but somehow never get headlines here. It is a completely distorted picture of Chavez and Venezuela to group him with Ahmadiniajad, and paint him as a warmonger ("eat shit and die, mutha fucka!"). It's like the AP 'news' stories that invariably describe him as "the leftist president of Venezuela, friend of Fidel Castro."
And I will give you just one example of why Chavez meeting with, and being friendly with, Ahmadiniajad might prove beneficial. The Chavez government recently proposed 69 Constitutional amendments for a VOTE OF THE PEOPLE in Venezuela. Among them was an amendment for equal rights for gays and women. These amendments lost in a very close vote (50.7% to 49.3%)--more than likely influenced by Venezuela's particularly rightwing Catholic clergy. The Chavistas are PROGRESSIVES. They oppose sexual and every other kind of oppression. Why presume that Ahmadiniajad will influence Chavez and Venezuelan society rather than the other way around? Is it not possible that extending a hand in friendship to the Iranians--who are targeted for nuking by the Bushites--might help liberalize Iran, or at least reduce fear and paranoia in Iran, to prevent rash actions and encourage development of better policy?
If it's Israel you're worried about, the Bushites don't care about Israel. They would expose Israelis to a nuclear war, and at the least to strong retaliation that could conceivably annihilate their small country, to get Iran's oil. That is all Bushites care about. That's all they care about in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Argentina--destabilizing these countries with large infusions of USAID-NED cash and covert budget money (OUR money) to topple their democratic governments and restore global corporate predator control of their oil.
Diplomacy, peace, trade--these are the answers to everyone's safety and prosperity--not the "eat shit and die, mutha fucka!" attitude, which you so unfairly and wrongfully ascribe to Hugo Chavez. That is Bush's attitude. That is the attitude promoted by the war profiteers here, in Israel and in Colombia. That is the attitude that will bring more catastrophe.
Chavez provided free and low cost heating oil to America's poor, in several states. Is that "eat shit and die, mutha fucka!"? Or is that a good example of what our own government should be doing? He doesn't hate us. He hates Bush, or rather Bushitism. And I'm with him on that. Neither he nor his supporters nor their strong allies throughout South America have ever hated the people of the United States. But they have good reason to hate what our government has done in our name on their continent. They are trying to undo that damage, now, with real democracy, social justice and regional self-determination. In fact, they are showing us the way OUT of fascist dictatorship BACK TO democracy. Don't fall for this demonization of their leaders. It is 100% bullshit--in the interest of greed and war.
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