Josh

Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela

After the speech he gave at the United Nations on September 20th he’s suddenly taken over the airwaves here in the US. Many people are wondering about the applause that his speech received. Was it because they agreed with him and he had the balls to say it? Or was it just because it was an entertaining speech? Was it both?

Background

Born in 1954, Chavez is a career military man. He graduated from the Venezuelan Academy of Military Sciences in 1975 and entered the military. He later went on to pursue a graduate degree in political science but he never finished his degree.

Chavez and his fellow students developed what they called “Bolivarianism”, inspired by Simon Bolivar. The main ideas behind Bolivarianism are:

• Venezuelan economic and political sovereignty (anti-imperialism).
• Grassroots political participation of the population via popular votes and referenda (participatory democracy).
• Economic self-sufficiency (in food, consumer durables, etc…).
• Instilling in people a national ethic of patriotic service.
• Equitable distribution of Venezuela’s vast oil revenues.
• Eliminating corruption.

(Wikipedia.org)

In 1992, Chavez planned a coup d’etat against the then Venezuelan President Carlos Perez. The coup failed and Chavez turned himself over to the government. He was freed from prison in 1994 after being pardoned by President Rafael Caldera.

Four years later he began to campaign for the Venezuelan presidency and in 1999 he became Venezuela’s 53rd President.

My Thoughts

Why did I choose Hugo Chavez as the first person to highlight? Because I partly agree with him; President Bush’s foreign policy sucks. “President” Bush is what’s wrong with the world.

“The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples — to the peoples of the world,” Chavez said. “What would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? . . . I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people, think. They would say, ‘Yankee imperialist, go home.’ ”

(Washington Post)

One of these days, Afghanistan and Iraq are going to backfire worse than they already have and we’ll be left wondering where all our “power” went.

Instead of taking military action all over the world, we should be more focused on the fact that millions of people are dying because of AIDS and poverty. What would make us a more liked super power isn’t bringing “democracy” to the world but rather bringing health and posterity.

Categorized as tysk