(DV) Random: Hugo Chavez and the American Slug

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Hugo Chavez and the American Slug:
Pat Robertson’s Call for Assassination
by Jack Random
www.dissidentvoice.org
August 27, 2005

Christian fundamentalist Pat Robertson, with his unabashed call for the assassination of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, has secured his reputation as America’s most reprehensible and idiotic spokesperson.

Pat Robertson is a slug, a substandard intellect, and an embarrassment to every bible-thumping advocate of the Christian crusades he claims to represent. God forgive you if you count yourself among them.

Hugo Chavez is not Saddam Hussein. He is not a former American ally turned rogue agent. He is not a dictator or even a communist. He is a lawfully and overwhelmingly elected democratic leader. He is a champion of democracy and the working class. He is a cog in the right wing, neo-liberal-neocon machine.

Hugo Chavez is a Bolivarian.

Americans over the age of forty ought to remember Simon Bolivar. Until Americans turned against all people’s movements in Latin America (and the world), Simon Bolivar was given his due in every American history text as the father of Latin American democracy.

There is no stronger advocate of democracy and the principles of Simon Bolivar in the contemporary world than Hugo Chavez.

There is no greater proof of America’s hypocrisy than the undeniable fact that our government twice attempted and twice failed to overthrow the president of Venezuela. There is no greater testament to the character of Hugo Chavez than the fact that he has not sold out under unimaginable pressure.

Place yourself in the sizable shoes of Hugo Chavez. You have withstood two attempts on your presidency, in violation of every tenet of international law, and now you face an American president who refuses to denounce a call for your assassination.

Would you continue to ship Venezuelan oil to American ports as Hugo Chavez has?

What is the unforgivable crime of Hugo Chavez? He has asked the questions that cry out to be asked and he has dared to demand answers. He has pointed out the obvious truth that the neo-liberal “free trade” package is a prescription for eternal poverty. He has demanded that Latin American leaders stand up in defense of their peoples. He has challenged the New World Order which is nothing short of an old world concept of dominance by the wealthiest elite and enslavement of the working class.

In all the world, there is no greater champion of true democracy and the working people than Hugo Chavez. That is precisely why the American government is so determined to defeat him by any and all means, legal or illegal, moral or morally reprehensible. That is precisely why the call of a fundamentalist slug for his assassination is greeted with a wink and a nod.

I tell you plainly: There is no greater, stronger, more righteous leader on the planet than Hugo Chavez and America’s determination to depose him is absolute proof of our moral poverty.

I assure you that the world does not perceive these events with the passivity of Americans. It is not a small and insignificant matter to attempt the overthrow of lawfully elected governments. What happened in Venezuela and Haiti was not a weekend story, second bill to the abduction of an unfortunate woman in Aruba or a runaway bride.

America is the two-ton infant with a thousand nuclear options.

Much has been made of the decline in support for the American president yet, according to a recent poll, some 60% of Americans still want our soldiers to remain in the quagmire of hatred and violence in Iraq.

Americans remain the most uninformed people on the face of the earth. We are obsessed with steroids in sports (unless it is our favorite white athlete), runaway brides, gay marriages, serial killers, celebrity couples and royal weddings, yet we are willing to send another thousand or two thousand soldiers to their graves for a war that has lost all moral grounding.

What more can be said that has not already been?

We desperately need to make it real. We need to visit every grave of every American, Italian, Australian, British, Polish, Spaniard, Portuguese and Iraqi who has lost his or her life in a war about non-existent weapons of mass destruction. We desperately need 24-7 coverage of the damage we have done in every corner of the globe.

Yes, we have done good things as well but we have done them as a cover for war, oppression, theft and economic domination.

How long can we continue to live in the dream of American virtue? How long can we pretend that we are always right, just and decent by virtue of our heritage -- a heritage that includes the willful genocide of American natives? How long can we pretend that we are the innocent victims of the most powerful propaganda machine the world has ever known when, really, we have known the truth all along?

Wake up, America! Good and decent nations are aligning against us. We cannot rule the planet by fear.

Wake up to reality before we awaken to the nightmare of our own demise.

Leave Hugo Chavez alone.

Jack Random is the author of Ghost Dance Insurrection (Dry Bones Press) the Jazzman Chronicles, Volumes I and II (City Lights Books). The Chronicles have been published by CounterPunch, the Albion Monitor, Buzzle, Dissident Voice and others. Visit his website: www.jackrandom.com.

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* Pat Robertson is Not Christian! by Reverend Graylan Scott Hagler