Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Hugo Chavez and US hypocrisy

The US government, mainstream media, and big oil, (who sleep in the same bed) have done their best to demonize Hugo Chavez, the outspoken leader of Venezuela. Chavez threw big oil companies out of Venezuela and nationalized the nation's oil because foreign oil companies were raping the oil resources. He argued that oil proceeds should be used to help the poor and has attempted to redistribute wealth by providing the poor with free food, medicine, and education, paying for his social programs with oil money. Additionally this past winter he offered oil to the poor in the US at discount prices. Meanwhile Exxon-Mobil earns mind boggling profits of one hundred million dollars per day. What has Exxon-Mobil done for you? Who then, would you like to see end up with your gas money; the poor or Exxon-Mobil?
President Bush is indignant because Chavez would not renew the broadcast license of a TV station that participated in an attempt to overthrow him, and some US politicians are highly critical calling it an infringement of the right of free press and refer to Chavez as a dictator, forgetting he has faced the people five times in elections.
We can only speculate as to what Bush would do if CBS participated in an attempt to overthrow his administration. We know what he has done to news outlets that do not give the slant he wants. In November of 2001 the US dropped a 500 pound bomb on the Al-Jazeera news station in Kabul, bombed their office in Baghdad in 2003, and imprisoned numerous reporters with one still being held at Guantanamo because we did not like what they were broadcasting. We also know through leaked British memos, that Bush wanted to bomb their main headquarters in Qatar but Tony Blair talked him out of it. None of this bothered the ardent free speech advocates who are so critical of Chavez. I am confused; do you call this "double standard" or "hypocrisy", or both?

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