---Hugo Chavez---Fidel Castro
Venezuela's Chavez Declares Revolutionary Campaign ("anti-imperialist revolution")--- Among the ``revolutionary laws'' whose preparation Chavez said he was personally supervising, the Venezuelan leader mentioned a land law that would target owners of vast unproductive estates. ``What do these estate owners think, that they're just going to merrily carry on?'' he said.
Chavez also lambasted members of Venezuela's business elite who have been among his most vociferous critics. Blaming them for opposition campaigns against him and conspiracies to destabilize his government, he also accused many of them of failing to pay taxes and falsely declaring business losses.
He singled out owners of banks, newspapers, TV stations and soft drink companies and said a new tax law was being prepared that would toughen penalties against offenders. He threatened confiscation of properties. ``That's justice,'' he said.
[Excerpted from] Hillary Clinton and the Radical Left--Ever since abandoning the utopian illusions of the progressive cause, I have been struck by how little the world outside the left seems to actually understand it. How little those who have not inhabited the progressive mind are able to grasp the ruthless cynicism behind its idealistic mask or the fervent malice that drives its hypocritical passion for "social justice." .....
If others could understand your truth, you would not think of yourself as a "vanguard." You would no longer inhabit the morally charmed world of an elite, whose members alone can see the light and whose mission is to lead the unenlightened towards it. If everybody could see the promised horizon and knew the path to reach it, the future would already have happened and there would be no need for the vanguard of the saints.
That is both the ethical core and psychological heart of what it means to be a part of the left. That is where the gratification comes from. To see yourself as a social redeemer. To feel anointed. In other words: To be progressive is itself the most satisfying narcissism.
That is why it is of little concern to them that their socialist schemes have run aground, burying millions of human beings in their wake. That is why they don't care that their panaceas have caused more human suffering than all the injustices they have ever challenged. That is why they never learn from their "mistakes." That is why the continuance of Them is more important than any truth. …………… (snip)
……But you never had the honesty-then or now-to admit that. You told the lie then to maintain your influence and increase your power to do good (as only the Chosen can). And you keep on telling the lie for the same reason.
Why would you admit that, despite your tactical support for civil rights, you weren't really committed to civil rights as Americans understand rights? What you really wanted was to overthrow the very Constitution that guaranteed those rights, based as it is on private property and the individual-both of which you despise.
It is because America is a democracy and the people endorse it, that the left's anti-American, but "progressive" agendas can only be achieved by deceiving the people. This is the cross the left has to bear: The better world is only achievable by lying to the very people they propose to redeem.[End Excerpt]
Fidel Castro Finds Heir in Chavez-- Chavez has yet to confiscate property of national and international landholders, and he hasn't jailed his political opponents. Unlike other democratically elected leaders who preceded him, Chavez hasn't sent thugs to rough up or arrest Venezuelan journalists. He courts foreign investment in oil and natural gas at the same time as he condemns the evils of ``savage neoliberalism.''
(November 8, 2001) -HUGO CHAVEZ SUPPORTERS ATTACK PARENTS protesting Chavez's education takeover--- A supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez holds a brick and threatens the parents and teachers who marched against the government's proposed education reforms in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Nov. 8. 2001. The demonstration ended in violence when the protesters were met by hundreds of Chavez supporters when they reached Congress.