Venezuela's Chavez: A Marxist who hates Spam

The American Thinker ^ | Jan. 10, 2005 | A.M. Mora y Leon

[Kitten Festival]

Venezuela's Marxist dictator, Hugo Chavez, has begun confiscating farms and ranches, a violent act worthy of Zimbabwe’s ethinc cleansing, marauding socialist tyrant Robert Mugabe. Like Mugabe, his made his first target a wealthy British aristocrat. But unlike Mugabe, who openly reveled in barbarism, Chavez is using stagecraft calculated to create a melodrama that will excite his supporters, while putting the rest of the world to sleep. And he's doing it to conceal reality

Staged with troops, cameras, peasants waving machetes, circling helicopters, Chavez's cow drama aligns “the people” against the 32,000-hectare cattle ranch of Lord Sam Vestey, a British-accented villain perfect for Chavez's political production.

Lord Vestey, known as 'Spam' by his friends because of his family's origins in the meat-packing industry, was just the first target. He's one of England's richest men, a friend of Prince Charles, and heir to a colonial legacy dating to the 19th Century. For Chavez, he is a perfect stock character. Who could sympathize with such a black-hatted capitalist, all but twirling his mustache in Chavez's first little expropriation? (The AP certainly ate it up). How could Spam even notice the loss of his farm, given his money?

But let's take a closer look at Spam.

[Kitten Festival]

Poor Lord Spam. Chavez wants to steal everything he's got.