Past performance is no guarantee of future results:
Most of what you read or hear in mass media about President Hugo Chavez is always negative, his faults exaggerated, his discourse distorted and his achievements ignored. The reality is quite different.
Hugo Chavez was beloved by millions around the world. He changed the course of a continent and led a collective awakening of a people once silenced, once exploited and ignored. Chavez was a grandiose visionary and a maker of dreams.
An honest man from a humble background who lived in a mud hut as a child and sold candies on the streets to make money for his family, Chavez dreamed of building a strong, sovereign nation, independent of foreign influence and dignified on the world scene. He dreamed of improving the lives of his people, of eradicating the misery of poverty and of offering everyone the chance of a better life — the “good life” (el buenvivir), as he called it.
—“Opinion: Chavez was a maker of dreams,” CNN.com, March 7th, 2013.
Kiev isn’t the only part of the world protesting this week, protestors in Venezuela have been standing up against the government of President Nicolas Maduro. Since protests began in Venezuela, there have been five fatalities, the most recent one today after one protestors was fatally shot in the head. The opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, turned himself in to authorities yesterday, and is currently facing trial on charges of terrorism and murder. And covering the protests is turning into a very rough and arduous task, as one CNN reporter revealed that his crew’s equipment was taken at gunpoint by plainclothes police officers.
Karl Penhaul explained the “difficulty of covering this story on the street” by recanting how “a group of armed thugs” motorcycled through the crowd and eventually set their eyes on the CNN team.
“The men on motorcycles rounded on us, the next thing I knew I was staring down the barrel of a chrome-plated nine-millimeter pistol and three armed men then proceeded to rob our crew of all the camera gear, all the transition gear as well.”
They later learned those were most likely plainclothes cops.
—”CNN Reporter: Venezuelan Cops Confiscated Our Equipment at Gunpoint,” Mediate, today.
Again, which tinpot socialist dictators have CNN not supported in its 35 year history?
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