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Maybe because he has such a great smile. He really does.
Or, rather, I'm a worshiper of oil profits being used to benefit the poor. Schools, adult literacy classes, job training, medical care, community centers, community councils with real power, help to small business and co-ops, low cost housing--that's what a country's resources should be used for--bootstrapping the poor, not enriching global corporate predators and a tiny rich oil elite.
I'm a worshiper of transparent elections--of elections run on OPEN SOURCE programming code, with a whopping FIFTY-FIVE PERCENT of the votes counted by hand, just to make sure--as they do it in Venezuela, with hundreds of international election monitors on hand. (--and, in case you haven't noticed, we have 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code, in all voting machines, owned and controlled by RIGHTWING BUSHITE CORPORATIONS, with virtually NO audit/recount controls--and nobody can watch it, because it's all SECRET).
I'm a worshiper of public control of our public airwaves, and kicking global corporate predators off our public airwaves, in favor on small independent producers. I like competition. I hate monopolies, especially fascist monopolies. But Chavez didn't go nearly as far as I would go. He merely denied a license to continue using the PUBLIC airwaves to ONE corporation, which had participated in the violent, rightwing military coup attempt against the elected government, and had actively supported suspending the Constitution, the National Assembly, the courts and all civil rights. (I have to laugh when these jokers talk about "free speech." You know how long "free speech" would have lasted, under their junta? --long enough to throw leftist broadcasters--all two of them--out of airplanes to their deaths.)
I'm a worshiper of equal rights for gays and women--which the Chavez government champions and tried to get passed by the voters as a constitutional amendment.
I'm a worshiper of maximum citizen participation in government and politics--which the Chavez government actively promotes.
I'm a worshiper of DEMOCRACY--of the vast poor majority in South America, at long last, having a RIGHTFUL say in how their government is run.
I'm a worshiper of South Americans finally getting together, and forming trade and political alliances, to counter ruinous, U.S. fascist/corporate interference in their countries and their region.
As for Chavez himself, no, I don't really worship him, or any leader. I do admire his courage and his ideas, and his ability to attract the talent to IMPLEMENT his ideas, in Venezuela, and in the region, with new institutions like the Bank of the South. But Chavez, like any politician, needs to be closely watched and criticized. The Bushite/Associated Pukes meme that he is a "dictator" is ridiculous, however. It is not criticism. It is a bald-faced lie. Ask the President of Brazil, Lula da Silva, who said, "Chavez can be criticized on many things, but not on democracy." Da Silva also called Chavez "the great peacemaker," in the recent U.S.-instigated war plan, using Bush Cartel client state Colombia against Ecuador and Venezuela--which Chavez successfully de-fused. (--war TRAP, I should say.) Ask Nestor Kirchner, recent former president of Argentina, who, when the Bushites sent down word that Latin America leaders must "isolate" Chavez, replied, "But he is my brother!"
Ask any leader in South America--apart from the two who are in league with Bushites (Colombia's Uribe, and possibly the corrupt "free tradist" Alan Garcia in Peru)--if Chavez is a "dictator." The presidents of Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua...they will laugh in your face, as will most the people of South America. It is, indeed, an insult to Venezuelan voters--and to all of South America, which has worked so long and hard on creating democratic institutions--to aver that one of their shining examples of the result of these efforts--Venezuela--has elected a "dictator."
You can admire someone's leadership and ideas without worshiping them. Anti-Chavez posters at DU don't seem to understand the distinction, perhaps because they themselves tend to worship bullies like Bush and Uribe. You will rarely hear anti-Chavez posters at DU say anything against these real bullies--slaughterers of thousands of innocent people in Colombia, millions in Iraq, torturers, warmongers, war profiteers. Yet they accuse those of us who know the facts of "worshiping" Chavez. And they play cute little tricks like this, posting an anti-Chavez thread, and then immediately jumping in with comments like, "You are a brave, BRAVE man to poke at the heavy duty Flamers!", or a photo of blond dolls with their heads up their asses, as if to say that anyone who comes here and defends Chavez cannot think for themselves, are "flamers," are kneejerk "leftists"--or whatever it is they are trying to say.
Like the rightwing military coup plotters in Venezuela--and Bushites everywhere--they want to shut down discussion, to prevent reason and analysis, to prevent the presentation of facts and to instigate "flame wars"--people "shouting" at each other, like we see on the brainless fascist TV 'political' talk shows. Nuanced opinion is not allowed. You either worship Chavez, or you want him assassinated by the Bush Junta. Nothing in between. Understanding of his policies, and of what is really going on in South America, is not the object of posts like this. But I thought I would give it a try anyway, as I laugh at Mickey Mouse Chavez and his winning smile. What a shot! And, hey, Mickey Mouse was a HERO, don't ya know? He was small, and he often made mistakes, but he was not a bad guy.
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