Marc Choquette
Assistant Perspectives Editor
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s Sept. 20 comments to the United Nations should have sent a red-flag warning to every American. This is some of the strongest anti-U.S. rhetoric ever heard, among the ever-growing dissent around the world.
“Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world,” Chavez began.
He added Bush, “… came [to the General Assembly] to share his nostrums to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.”
High-ranking U.S. politicians simply ignored Chavez’s comments and dismissed him as, as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif, put it, an “everyday thug.” Bush has labeled the self-described democratic socialist a threat to democracy. The media took it further, with the New York Post calling Chavez a “jerk” and the “Caracas crackpot.”
Chavez’s comments obviously crossed the line. It seems that he may be the one who was inebriated when deciding his choice of words for the speech, referring to our president as an “alcoholic” and “sick man,” while speaking a day later at a church in Harlem, not forgetting the earlier “devil” references.
The inner political mentality in me says there is another reason why he decided to use such despicable rhetoric. It is the same technique that did not work for Howard Dean. The only connection between the “yeeeeahhhhh” and the comparisons to Satan are that they both make front pages of the news. They are attention-grabbers.
But the major difference between Howard Dean and Hugo Chavez is that, while Dean is skiing in Vermont, Chavez seems to be working on trotting the globe to unite the growing dissent against the United States.
Chavez is convinced the United States has become an imperialistic power, yet at the same time says he is hoping that we will “awaken” and elect a “better” president. He insists he wants to be friends with the United States yet insists dialogue and progress are impossible with our current president.
Chavez explained his comments with TIME Magazine, saying, “Bush has called me worse things — tyrant, populist dictator, drug trafficker, to name a few.
“I’m not attacking Bush; I’m simply counterattacking. Bush has been attacking the world, and not just with words — with bombs. I think the bombs he’s unleashed on Baghdad or Lebanon do a lot more harm than any words spoken in the United Nations.”
What should be of concern for the United States is that Chavez is looking for a non-permanent seat for Venezuela on the U.N. Security Council, thinking his vote would be a voice for the developing countries and because he feels there is world consensus of a need to “block the cannons of the U.S. empire,” that needs a voice on the Security Council.
Among what was not widely published, the Sept. 22, Los Angeles Times picked up on the events happening with Chavez the day after his U.N. speech. He was in Harlem to announce he was more than doubling the 40 million gallons of heating oil he has been donating since last fall to eight states in the northeast to help cope with home heating issues among the less fortunate.
The AP reports he will now be providing 100 million gallons of oil from Venezuela to go into the homes of needy Americans who can no longer cope with the skyrocketing price of oil to heat their homes all winter. The addition will now provide heat from 1.2 million more people in nine additional states.
A Harlem florist, whose building is being heated this winter from the oil subsidies, was quoted as saying, “It should start with our president, but it is starting with the president of Venezuela.”
As the Sept. 22 Philadelphia Daily News reports, Chavez was also one of the first foreign leaders to offer aid to the devastated region that Katrina ravaged. This aid was refused by the Bush administration. The oil program talks with individual states, avoiding the federal government.
If help for the disadvantaged has to come from Venezuela, maybe the United States should re-examine things here. Chavez is a nutcase with his use of vocabulary, but it cannot be ignored that actions speak louder than words and Chavez’s oil bartering is a good way to make good ties with other developing nations, in addition to possibly getting that seat on the Security Council.
The fact is that there are a lot of countries out there that are more against U.S. policy than those that are for it. Chavez knows this, and he is playing off it, knowing as any other should know, that oil talks these days.
Should Chavez receive more respect for his generosity toward less fortunate Americans? Yes, he should, but making such asinine comments about our commander-in-chief is not going to win him many friends in the United States, especially among political leadership.
Yes, the tactic of attention grabbing worked for Chavez. Yet it remains to be seen what effect these comments will have down the road. With all that has happened in politics over the past few years, anything is possible.
09-28-2006