From Mark Weisbrot:

One of the nice things about a blog is that you can provide a few details that don't fit in columns or op-eds that the mainstream press runs. Below is a column I wrote that ran during the past week in a number of US newspapers. It provides some background, missing from almost all press coverage, about why President Hugo Chavez might see George W. Bush as "the Devil:" namely, the Bush administration's involvement in the 2002 military coup that briefly overthrew Venezuela's democratic government, and the administration's continued intervention inside Venezuela, to this day.

Our enemies have convenient names for their nicknames. Like: Saddam Insane; Kim Jong Mentally-il; and Loony Bin Laden. Now there is another to add to the list...

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela made two remarkable speeches at the United Nations just four days apart on September 16th and 20th.  In the typical fashion of the mainstream media most every substantive point that Chavez made was ignored, which comprised most of his speaking itinerary, focusing on global economics and how to correct the increasing appalling gap between rich and poor internationally.

In the typical fashion of the tepid "excuse me" current Democratic Party, where the style favored by Joe Lieberman along with Fox pundits Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity is preferred to that of heretics such as Jim Hightower and Al Franken, two leading figures of what sadly passes these days for Republican Party opposition surfaced to denounce Hugo Chavez in conveying a warped interpretation of U.S. unity.

Perhaps it was understandable why Congressman Charles Rangel of New York City and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco sharply denounced certain Chavez remarks.  

They should have been greatly embarrassed since it took a leader of a South American nation to make the case that certain bona fide Democratic Party progressives used to make in what looms as an increasingly distant and scarcely observable past.

[cross-posted at And, yes, I DO take it personally]

the good news is that at least peru isn't having to contend with a fujimori comeback...

[cross-posted at And, yes, I DO take it personally]

Yesterday, the Boston Globe reported on a very interesting development involving Venezuela and the state of Massachusetts.

With the greatly increased energy prices and the winter already here for many in the northern states, this is really good news and puts our domestic oil companies to shame.

   

A subsidiary of the Venezuelan national oil company will ship 12 million gallons of discounted home-heating oil to local charities and 45,000 low-income families in Massachusetts next month under a deal arranged by US Representative William D. Delahunt, a local nonprofit energy corporation, and Venezuela's president, White House critic Hugo Chávez.

Today, Argentine President Néstor Kirchner is meeting in Caracas with Chávez.

To paraphrase the inimitable Yogi Berra, it was déjà vu all over again.  The recent Bush stop in Argentina and controversy surrounding Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez harkens back to a turbulent trip to Caracas in 1958 by then Vice-President Richard M. Nixon.  

After a hostile demonstration in which Nixon was spat upon former Costa Rican President Jose "Pepe" Figueres was asked why certain Venezuelans had seen fit to spit on the Vice-President of the United States.  "It's simple," Figueres was quoted as replying.  "You can't spit on a foreign policy."

The Nixon visit followed a series of events that left Venezuelans spitting mad.  The Eisenhower Administration had supported a brutal military dictator, Marcos Perez Jimenez, on whom the Pentagon bestowed the U.S. Legion of Merit.  The support was directly related to the bullish support American steel and oil interests received.  By New Year's Day of 1958 Venezuelans had enough and launched a revolt that removed the dictator from power.

Regrettably what followed was far from halcyon bliss.  An unpopular junta controlled by Pedro Estrada, the National Security Police Chief, assumed power.  Amid continuing discontent it was learned that the American Ambassador to Turkey, who had been assigned previously to Venezuela, sent a Christmas card to Estrada exhorting him to "keep up the good work."