I miss him. Never thought I'd say that about a political leader but I do miss him.

Screw it. Fuckers like Cheney keep polluting the air of this planet but someone like Chavez has to die?
There is your proof that there is no gawd.

The lack of respect for anybody that disagrees with neoliberal dogma. And it's shitty diplomacy too, leading from behind in all senses.

And it's interesting how several media outlets omitted the information about attendance, only saying that "Ahmadinejad was there". Trying to demonize the man even in his funeral.

From the article:

"In another unprecedented show of acknowledgment for the legacy of Hugo Chávez, an astonishing number of countries - a total of 14 - decreed official days of mourning in response to President Chávez’s death. Nine Latin American countries declared three days of mourning (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Haiti, Peru and Uruguay), while two more, Bolivia and Nicaragua, like Venezuela, declared seven days each. From other regions of the world, Belarus, Nigeria and Iran declared three, seven and one day of mourning, respectively."

Very few foreigners have been honored with three days of mourning in Brazil (Nestor Kirchner is one of them).

toward Chavez and, by implication, the Venezuelan people, by the entirety of the Corporate Press over virtually the entirety of the last decade and a half--an unbroken (or should I say, broken) record of lies and disinformation, that included even the BBC--even the Guardian!--and of course the cheerleaders for the slaughter of a million innocent Iraqis--the New York Slimes. It got to be utterly ridiculous.

That's how they all earned their new names--the Associated Pukes, Rotters, the Wall Street Urinal (even before Murdoch). (The BBC are now the BBCons. And I'm working on the Guardian--they were terrible for a long time, but recently have started publishing "both sides," so we'll see.)

And I thought: Don't business people need to know what's really going on in the world? At least some of the time? Don't these rags and TV/radio horns worry AT ALL about their credibility? Not even a little bit?

Unbroken slander from beginning to end.

Then I began to think: But, but, but...don't our people need to know that much of Latin America is in revolt against us economically and politically, and are quickly becoming united in their opposition to U.S. interference, and also on positive grounds united on social justice, economic integration, real democracy and independence, and that this is an enormously important movement? Isn't it at least a remnant goal of the "free press" to inform us about this?

It's not just Chavez. It's the people of Latin America--in so many countries--Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Nicaragua and, before the U.S.-supported coup, in Honduras, and more. How can they be denying us this information? What does it MEAN that they are denying us this information? What does it mean that they give us no view of Latin America except that of the transglobal corporate rulers and war profiteers that run U.S. policy?

Have they completely lost any sense of independence from these entities? Any sense of journalistic integrity?

All of Latin America is mourning Chavez. Why? Because of something Lula da Silva said about him: "They can invent all kinds of things about Chavez but not on democracy!" Yes, he said that. And he meant it. And it is true. Chavez was a democrat with a small d. That was his heart and soul. Venezuelan democracy has never been better. There is absolutely no truth about their portrayal of Chavez as a "dictator." It is a lie. But it is more than that. It is a "Big Lie" of the Stalinist kind.

Repeat a lie often enough and loudly enough and you can make people believe it.

Chavez understood strength in numbers and was a compadre to other democratic leaders and to other peoples and countries seeking "New Deals" for themselves, and helped draw them all together. That is also why they mourn Chavez. He was a friend, a joiner, a helper. He was the inspirer and organizer of many ideas that had long been the desire of Latin American peoples who had suffered severely from U.S.-dictated economic policies, from "divide and conquer" tactics and from gross, murderous U.S. interference.

To be independent. To enjoy the fruits of their own labor. To use their own resources as they see fit. To elect the leaders THEY want. To see to their own general welfare and common good.

All the things that we, as a people, have held up as ideals and have tried to achieve for two hundred years.

The sad part is--I should say, the miracle is--that this leftist democracy movement in Latin America was and is NOT anti-U.S. It was anti-Bush Junta and is anti the elements of the Bush Junta that still dominate our government--anti U.S. "military-industrial complex" magnified a thousandfold by the Bush Junta. And these are horrors that most of us, here in the U.S., are also against. If Chavez had ever been allowed to speak unfiltered and undistorted to the people of the U.S., our people would have agreed with most of what he said, and they would have been opposed to most of what he opposed. He never opposed the U.S.--he never opposed us--he opposed war and exploitation, of which we, too, are the victims.

The relentless, universal campaign against Chavez--no exceptions in the media--none!--was, to me, remarkable, when I still had lingering illusions about the press here and related press abroad. I vainly hoped that they would still come around and at least try a little bit to be balanced and informative about this incredible political revolution in Latin America. They never did. They made him the "bogeyman" of it and are reviling him to this day--they are dancing on his grave.

They can't even report on his funeral with any journalistic dignity. The crap I just read from the Associated Pukes--which Thom Hartmann has commented on--was frigging unbelievable in its grossness and insult. The Associated Pukes said that Chavez shouldn't have wasted the oil money on people--on the poor, on education, on health care--but should have instead built skyscrapers like that wonderful sheikdom--of slave labor and Blackwater's private army--the U.A.E.!

THAT is a model for the world, according to the Associated Pukes--that dive, that putrid hypocrisy of prostitution and punishment, that launching pad for murder and dirty ops, that phony monarchy?

They WEREN'T KIDDING. It WASN'T "The Onion"!

Unbelievable insult to the man that all of Latin America is mourning and to the people who elected him, time and again.

So-o-o-o, my conclusion is--and it bears repeated statement--that much of what the Corporate Media does, and certainly everything it has done on Chavez and Venezuela, is to keep us--we, the people of the U.S.--disinformed. They couldn't affect the people of Venezuela, who were too smart for them, including the smarts to set up a real, honest, transparent election system (which Jimmy Carter recently called "the best in the world&quot . They couldn't affect most Brazilians or Argentines or Bolivians or others who know too much to believe their lies. WE are the sheep of the world who can be led over cliffs to our downfall, in war and bankruptcy. And they really, REALLY don't want us to know that real democracy is, in fact, possible and is ON THE RISE, and very successful, indeed, in our own hemisphere.