You Go, Hugo

I watched about 20 minutes of Hugo's controversial speech at the UN yesterday, and knew immediately all of the US media coverage would focus on the fact he referred to Bush as a devil who left a stench of sulfur behind at the UN podium.

Not surprising that no one is actually looking at Chavez's rather pointed and specific criticisms of US hypocrisy, which sounded like a Chomsky for Dummies litany of past and current bad dealings by DC with its own citizenry and the third world. Chavez had books by Chomsky with him, and actually lifted Hegemony or Survival up at one point during his speech and flipped through several pages to accentuate his point about Uncle Sam's misdeeds and true motives.

Yes, I worry that Hugo is modeling himself on Fidel a bit too much, and read in the NYRB a short series listing some of his actions which might prove rather injurious to democracy in Venezuala. But as with Fidel, if we'd not tried to kill or overthrow Chavez right off the bat, we might have been able to cultivate good relations with him instead of turning him into an electrifying anti-American icon.

Not that the world doesn't need a few electrifying anti-American icons, whatever anti-American means. I suppose anti-imperialist would be a more accurate description.

MSNBC was reporting yesterday that Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks had called George Bush a "dumb fuck" in a new movie. They referred to this as a "slur" and "putting her foot in her mouth." Actually, she's speaking truth to power.