GLOVER LOVES CHAVEZ

What is it with some of these Hollywood types? Last Thursday, September 21, Hugo Chávez visited the Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem. Actor Danny Glover was all smiles. He embraced the on-his-way-to-becoming-a-dictator leader of Venezuela and called him “a very visionary man.” If I recall correctly, Mr. Glover and Harry Belafonte visited Venezuela this year to praise the virtues of socialism and bash President Bush. The way I read them, their antagonism goes deeper than a partisan-fueled dislike of our President’s work. Before they loved Castro, and now they love Chávez. It seems to me they prefer socialist or communist systems to our democratic way of government. If not true, I apologize, but that is my perception.

If a majority of Venezuelans are dumb enough to elect this brute as President in the upcoming elections, it will not be long before he turns the country into his own plantation, as Castro has done in Cuba. Chávez is slowly but surely dismantling the democratic institutions that usually check and balance the power of the government. Some Venezuelans feel the poor are worse off than before. Instead of money for health, housing, education, and social services, Chávez is using the country’s riches from petroleum to achieve his political aims.

Some of the money goes into subsidizing and keeping Castro and the Cuban economy afloat. He has made similar commitments to Evo Morales in Bolivia. Furthermore, Chávez is spending petroleum dollars to bribe other nations. He hopes to gain one of the two Latin American nonpermanent seats on the U.N. Security Council. If he succeeds, it will give him a global platform from which to augment his campaign against President Bush and the American way of life. Make no mistake about it. Chávez does not want us to elect another president. He wants us to become communists a la Castro’s Cuba. That is the reason he promotes all-the-way-to-the-left Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance.

Chávez talks about the medical attention his people are receiving from Cuban doctors, but he does not mention these so-called doctors are nothing but hired slaves. The Cuban government owes them. They get minimal pay and have to go where Castro tells them to go. To avoid mass defections, Castro does not allow them to travel with their families. As I said before, these dictators run their countries as if they were the owners of a plantation.

My question to people like Danny Glover is, what is it that attracts you to these characters? Is it nostalgia for the days of black slavery? I doubt it very much. Then, why are you so set against the country that gives you the freedom to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Here in America you became famous. Here in America you have made a great living. More importantly, you did not have to sell your soul to do so. Granted, we are not perfect, but we are much better off here than in many other countries. Some of the people that do not make it in America have nobody else to blame but themselves. A lack of initiative and effort is a good part of the problem. Others do their best, but a lack of opportunity, environmental deficiencies, and other factors prevent them from reaching their goals. These we need to help.

If some people in Harlem or anywhere else in America are willing to trade freedom for handouts (from oil or whatever), then this capitalist and democratic country is not for you. Abandon our country. Do not try to undermine our way of government. Leave those of us who love America alone. Move to Cuba. Move to Venezuela. Celebrities like Danny Glover will do well. Regimes like the ones in Cuba and Venezuela can sure use good public relation advocates, as the Viet Cong did with Jane Fonda back in the 60's. The common people, however, will not do so well. Let them live there for a while as commoners. Let them experience what the masses have to go through to make a living. Then, let them try to complain or protest against the government, and see what happens. God bless America, land of the free, home of the brave!