If you hate Hugo Chavez, then FIGHT what created him-U.S. imperialism in the Americas. [View all]

[Ken Burch]

Hugo Chavez gets a lot of stick from those who say they dislike his "authoritarianism".

But if they really want to stop what they see as authoritarianism, those who hate Chavez and the methods he has used need to do something they have so far refused to do...study the history of this hemisphere.

The choices Chavez made were not arbitrary...they were not random...they were based on his study and analysis of over a century of American arrogance and intervention throughout Latin America.

They were shaped by every economic blockade we launched, every coup we staged, every corporate theft of wealth and resources, every aggressive action our leaders ever took throughout the hemisphere.

It was that heritage that drove him to the choices some so sanctimoniously object to here...the lack of ABSOLUTE democratic purity(as if there have been many Latin American countries that were democratic utopias), the distrust of opponents, the attempts to limit propaganda against his revolution and in favor of restoring the right-wing past.

If you don't want to see any more Chavezes, then work like hell to get THIS country to do what it should always have done...LEAVE THE AMERICAS ALONE!

If we had a democratic hemisphere, a hemisphere where governments could get elected and carry out the program it promised to bring in for the people, , WITHOUT the risk of blockade or coup, WITHOUT "trade deals" that force that government to rule for "El Norte" rather than the good of those who elected it, there would be no need for the kind of things that Hugo Chavez felt he had to do.

It was never about Chavez being a willing despot(if he's a despot at all). Nor was it ever about him wanting power for power's sake...the man isn't Stalin, or even Napoleon. It's about the choices a small, poor country has to make when trying to stand up for its rights against an arrogant U.S. regime(this isn't said about any particular administration, since we've never had a U.S. administration with a decent, progressive policy towards Latin America).

To stop the things that offend your precious "democratic sensibilities", you have to take your stand against centuries of arrogance on the part of OUR country.

And if you won't do that, you have no right to condemn what countries to our south do to preserve their sovereignty and their dignity...because you will have helped force them to do those things.

It really is that simple.