VIVA CHAVEZ !!!!

Good piece, except:

"Yes, he's authoritarian..."

Actually he is not. Venezuelans enjoy a level of near-direct democracy we can only wish for here in the US. The shrill propagandists tell us that the constitutional amendments will purportedly make Chavez a "dictator" because, among many clearly beneficial changes, will include the removal of term limits.

Many perfectly democratic republics don't have presidential term limits. One could argue that presidential term limits themselves could actually be undemocratic, by limiting the peoples consent for truly popular and effective leader like FDR. Remember that the 22nd amendment that limited US presidential terms was largely a Republican backlash against a possible repeat of three-term FDR's economic populism.

But, what a strange dictatorship Venezuela is! All their amendments require majority approval by referendum by all Venezuelans! We have nothing approaching this level of democracy here in the US. Were we in the USA ever able to directly vote on the 22nd or any other constitutional amendment? Or, critical legislation like the USA Patriot Act? Or, decisions to invade another nation? If we were Venezuelans, we would have.

The anti-Chavez BS and outright lies from the propaganda machine is so deep one literally need wings to stay above it. An article by one very good soaring bird of political analysis is here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18755.htm

See also Clifton Ross, 'Keith Olberman's Jaundiced Rant:
Trashing Chavez':

http://www.counterpunch.org/ross11232007.html

Anyone who understands that georgedubbyabush is satan - and has the keen olfactory sense to sniff him out - is okay in my books. You go Hugo.

Hugo for prez !!!

We live in a class society.

It is clear by his actions, Hugo represents the working class.

"The very poor can now go to a designated home in the neighborhood to pick up a hot meal every day. The elderly have monthly pensions that allow them to live with dignity. Young people can take advantage of greatly expanded free college programs. And with 13,000 Cuban doctors spread throughout the country and reaching over half the population, the poor now have their own family doctors on call 24-hours a day."

Hugo can't represent both classes. This is a contradiction that can't be reconciled. It does not matter what you "think" it can't be done. The two classes represent antagonistic poles of the capitalist economic system.

In our country, it should be clear that the Republicans represent the ruling class. They make no bones about that fact, and are unapologetic to anyone.

The democrats say they would like to represent the working class, but they take most of their money from the ruling class, and so they have a huge conflict of interest. The democrats are much more dangerous then the republicans because they pretend to speak for the working class.

It does not matter what you call yourself. Republican, democrat, socialist, fascist, independent, etc. It is not about what you say you may do someday. It is about what you are actually doing.

Hugo makes no bones about who he represents, and is unapologetic to anyone. For this he is feared by the international ruling class.

If you sell you labor in the market place then Hugo represents your interests. You should support him for this reason and this reason only. If he stops representing your interests then you should stop supporting him.

"Ironically, Chavez was criticized for two initiatives that most Americans would like to see implemented in the U.S. — health care and increased oil company taxes."

Thanks for standing up for Hugo Chavez. He has managed to stay alive in the face of great hostility from the US ruling class.

It isn't ironic that Chavez was criticized for implementing reforms that Americans would like- it's the class war, as an earlier poster pointed out.
Americans need to stop identifying with their oppressors just because they are the same nationality. Maybe as our super rich flee to Dubai we will stop thinking of them so fondly as "us".

Just as puzzling as Olberman's swipe at Chavez are the attacks by Jon Stewart (albeit infrequent) on his show.

Perhaps the performance that Chavez put on at the UN where he mocked Bush and compared him to Satan are so unsettling to even moderate or progressive Americans that they refuse to acknowledge the benefits that he has brought to Venezuela's poor and make them hyper-critical when he commits a faux pas.

Excellent article! When I feel discouraged about the direction our US is going, I visit VenezuelaAnalysis.com which unfortunately is most every evening. It really picks me up to read about the progress of Venezuela. Hats off to Hugo Chavez!

The link to Venezuelanalysis.com is http://www.venezuelanalysis.com in case anyone might like to visit it and read about their wonderful progress. In the previous post, I mispelled it.

PJD: Shhhhhhh! Everybody knows that you're not allowed to say anything good about anything Chavez does unless you first trash him as a human being. Otherwise the Democrats won't take you seriously.

Muchas gracias a Hugo Chávez and the Venezuelan people for demonstrating to the world an alternative to gringo capitalism.

Chavez has alienated the wealthy, the business establishment, thousands of upper-class student protestors

Elites alienate themselves by declining the solidarity pie. Chavez only shouted "let them eat pie" and smeared it in their faces. They should be grateful. Long live the Bolivarian Revolution and may people power, enlightenment, and responsibility expand to all corners of the earth.

Is it so shocking that a king would tell a peasant to shut up?

We forget how much blood these royal murderers shed in order to keep their power, how willing they were to plunge the world into ruin rather than give up their own divinely-granted grandeur & power.

The successors to kings have done the same -- they prefer to fund terrorist armies to promote civil war & genocide to accepting true equality.

How the average person can continually be taken by the flim-flam merchants of today is a mystery. Hugo Chavez, one of a growing number of left leaning leaders in South America, is giving the people of Venezuela a fresh start. After years of getting the short end of the stick they have had enough. He should be supported, especially by Olberman. I am very disappointed in Keith.

"Latest polling numbers in Venezuela (Datanylis, which has usually picked winners in Venezuelan elections and referendums) have Chavez losing next Sunday, amid a high turnout. He says that anyone who votes no is a ¨traitor¨."

From http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20071124-1011-venezuela-constitutionpoll.html:

The election-related question – "If a constitutional referendum were held next Sunday, how would you vote?" – was included in a survey with a total of 100 questions carried out as part of a monthly poll by Datanalisis for its group of 340 clients, most of them businesses, Leon told the AP.

Datanalisis' October poll showed Chavez ahead among those who said they planned to vote, Leon said.

He predicted that much will depend on efforts to get voters to the polls.

"In no way does that mean those numbers indicate Chavez is going to lose," he said. "It's still very, very volatile."

Their more than a little corporate web site is at http://www.datanalisis.com/default.asp.

We need more courageous leaders like Chavez and less demagogues like Olbermann. He's all talk and no substance. With Democrats, the rhetoric is always beautiful but when real action is needed, they side with the elite (see Pelosi, Reid, Conyers, etc.)

Olbermann sells the corporate lie that we have a real, though 'spineless' at the moment, opposition party in the US, and for that alone he's nothing but another lying media whore.

Chavez on the other hand is about ACTION. Poverty has decreased in Venezuela and he exposes the US for what it is: a declining bully of which currency is in the toilet and which owes billions to the real world superpower: China. The US is on its way down.

Unlike Bush, Chavez didn't need mobsters on the Venezuelan Supreme Court to put him in power, he was legally elected twice in landslides. He's ahead in the polls by double digits right and I'm glad to see leftists like Chavez being elected in larger numbers in South America right now.

Painting all the university students as being pulled from the "elite" is just dishonest. The students are representatives of all classes, from very rich to very poor. They do, however, overwhelmingly oppose Chavez's referendum to extend his powers to the tune of 9 to 1. Chavez says that those that disagree with his referendum are "traitors". He may have more "traitors" on his hands than he knows.

Wow! In this day and age, someone helping the working poor. and that is so NOT south american leader-like. no wonder the US hates him. he's taking money from the uber-rich and distributing it among those that create the GDP. how unfair is that? gawd, don't these people know their place? (my apologies for being so sarcastic)

I can't believe you people! When was the last time you actually spent some time in Venezuela? Oops, I forgot, you all live inside your "progressive" bubbles in la-la land. Get real!!