I am responding to the propagandist article “Chavez clashes with Bush family’s ideas of gov’t.” What this paper in my opinion has come down to is that it sounds to similar to the Pravda during the Soviet Era of Russia (and somewhat of the same today) and to the Cuban counterpart-Prensa Latina, which are both owned by the state.

I find it quite interesting how Hugo Chavez supporters/apologists would celebrate him as an elected leader. How would they ignore who Chavez has been friendly on the world stage such as the dictator Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe (who came in the same way as he did), Fidel Castro (who has supported international terrorism and how the author ignores Cuba’s support for the PLO, ETA, Tamil Tigers and American terror groups such as the Weather Underground and Black Panthers), Vladimir Putin who is to have allegely ordered the hit on the anti-Putin journalist, Hu Jintao of China, the dictator of Belarus and of course the dictatorship of Lybia. There were other leaders who used the democratic process to gain power such as the Nazis with Adolf Hitler, Mussolini with the Fascists and even the Imperial Japanese employed the democratic process. But Chavez acts like any other American politican when he lobbys a candidate in another country (as it were his own province) to tow his line which alone should count as a form of imperialism but there doesn’t seem to be a contradiction to Chavez supporters/ apologists.

I also find it quite laughable at Chavez’s rhetoric equaling Bush to the “devil” at the same time American oil companies do business with Chavez such as Citgo, Occidental Petroleum (which is linked to Al Gore Sr. along with Republican leadership such as Bush Sr. and the late Richard Nixon) and Citizens Energy Corporation (which is linked to the Kennedys under Joe P. Kennedy II and son). It’s quite strange how Chavez does business with the “devil” and how his critics scorn the American president as a “dictator” even while their boy supports world tyrants as those I have mentioned before and his supporters/apologists have rewritten the history of international terrorism altogether.

And of course to the author I wonder what the world thinks about other nations such as Russia and China blocking harsher sanctions against the Communist dictatorship of North Korea, getting rich off Sudanese oil while there is a genocide taking place and need I mention Putin’s alleged involvement with the murder of the anti-Putin journalist?

So I end here to Chavez supporters/apologists why does Chavez love to attack the American president as the “devil” while he gets rich off oil companies linked to the American president and other American leaders? What I find here is that this paper has become almost like the Soviet Era Russian Pravda or its Cuban counterpart-Prensa Latina. It is pure example of disinformation and a cover up of double standards with someone like Chavez and this paper has not changed that much since I have noticed this trend throughout my time at CSUN.

– Maxwell Hoffman, history major