Posted on 11/06/2007 5:38:13 AM PST by 3AngelaD
...I reread " Ten Days That Shook the World," the famed account of the revolution by John Reed, the American journalist and fellow traveler. Then...last week's press reports of the recent encounter between Hugo Chávez, the Venezuelan president, and Naomi Campbell...The Western weakness for other people's revolutionary violence, the belief in the glamour and benevolence of foreign dictators, and the insistence on seeing both through the prism of Western political debates, are still very much with us.
...Though better known for her taste in shoes than for her opinions about Latin American economics, Campbell nevertheless turned up in Caracas gushing about the "love and encouragement" Chávez pours into his welfare programs. Wearing what a Venezuelan newspaper called "a revolutionary and exquisite white dress..." she praised the country for its "big waterfalls."...Campbell did not mention the anti-Chávez demonstrations held in Caracas the week before; proposed constitutional changes designed to let Chávez remain in power indefinitely; or Chávez's record of harassing opposition leaders and the media.
But then, that wasn't the point, just as it wasn't the point when actor Sean Penn, a self-conscious "radical" and avowed enemy of the American president, spent a whole day with Chávez...Penn wanted a country where he would win adulation for his views about American politics, and the Venezuelan president happily provided it...In fact, for the malcontents of Hollywood, academia and the catwalks, Chávez is an ideal ally. Just as the sympathetic foreigners whom Lenin called "useful idiots" once supported Russia, their modern equivalents provide the Venezuelan president with legitimacy....
As for Venezuelan politics, or the Venezuelan people, they don't matter at all. The country is simply playing a role filled in the past by Russia, Cuba and Nicaragua -- a role to which it is uniquely suited...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
VERY interesting! Penn is a wanna-be idiot. Anything for publicity.
It seems she has taken on a more sensible style of reporting lately. She is a decent writer, but has the intellect and morals of a socialist for the most part. I’m surprised to see her denigrating a Socialist hero. Maybe she grew a brain? A puzzling dichotomy of views.
useful idiots
Though better known for her taste in shoes than for her opinions about Latin American economics, [Naomi] Campbell nevertheless turned up in Caracas gushing about the "love and encouragement" Chavez pours into his welfare programs... she praised the country for its "big waterfalls."...Campbell did not mention the anti-Chavez demonstrations held in Caracas the week before; proposed constitutional changes designed to let Chavez remain in power indefinitely; or Chavez's record of harassing opposition leaders and the media... Sean Penn, a self-conscious "radical" and avowed enemy of the American president, spent a whole day with Chavez... Penn wanted a country where he would win adulation for his views about American politics, and the Venezuelan president happily provided it... In fact, for the malcontents of Hollywood, academia and the catwalks, Chavez is an ideal ally.Thanks george76 for the "useful idiots" ping.
I’ll be quite happy if Sean Penn chooses to stay there.
...or maybe bumps into one of the angry anti-Chavez mobs in the street. I’m sure he won’t be carrying his Katrina-era rifle.
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