Language divides Venezuela:Chavez's blunt style speaks to the poor, fuels

March 11, 2004, 11:56PM

Language divides Venezuela
Chavez's blunt style speaks to the poor, fuels critics
By JON JETER
Washington Post
A QUESTION OF PROSPERITY
PRO -- "When Chavez talks, it is like he is one of us. He is the first president I've seen who talks to the poor and not just the high class. He includes us when he talks."

-- Pablo Rosales, 53, a cabdriver

CON -- "He uses such profanity. That is not how a world leader should present himself. He is like a cave man. He makes all Venezuelans look bad."

-- Adriana Ruggiero, 45, a dentist



CARACAS, Venezuela -- When he addresses the nation, President Hugo Chavez sometimes breaks into song. He sermonizes his supporters and taunts his foes. In January he called Condoleezza Rice, the White House national security adviser, "a real illiterate."
(snip)

Supporters and critics of Chavez have said that the president's salty, earthy and even profane speeches are anything but presidential. While Venezuela's poor, and its black and indigenous minorities, often find Chavez's use of blunt language appealing, wealthy and middle-class Venezuelans find it boorish and embarrassing.
(snip)

"There's no doubt that Chavez's strongest support comes from those sectors of Venezuelan society who have typically been the most excluded: blacks, indigenous people and the poor," Leon said.

"He speaks the language of the excluded," said Maximilien Arvelaiz, a Chavez adviser. "He doesn't just speak about the poor. He speaks to the poor."
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/headline/world/2445348

Jes' like our Courageous and Wise Leader.

--bkl

:)

They say that the minimum number of genes required for a living cell is about 150, maybe 200. President Bush will probably establish the minimum number of words required to tell lies.

--bkl

Two coup leaders, two peas from the same pod with the same cronyism masked by faux-populist rhetoric.

than Chavez (remember, they shot protestors in the head to create fake news for the private media companies during the COUP).

And it's crazier to think that Chavez is trying to pass a ton of political, economic and cultural power to the poorest VZ'ans because he's against democracy.

Two peas in a pod. My ass. They're transferring power in completely the opposite directions.

Only the Washington Post would imply that because Chavez doesn't pander to the middle and upper classes than he must be crazy or some kind of disliked rogue. The Washington Post must have forgotten, Venezuala doesn't "really" have a middle and upper class, not much of one anyway, and that's why and how Chavez came to power.

Somehow I'm doubting it was an honest mistake of research. All these fuckers do is plan for war.

Read or listent to any interview with Chavez. He refers to books constantly. He's always referring to historical texts (about liberation) and contemporary texts (criticising neo-liberalism).

In that discussion about Rice, he was saying that she should read books (and I believe he had already cited a bunch, or he subsequently referred to the ones he was talking about).

He said that Rice knows nothing about the books in his very long bibliography.

Of coruse, the Post would probably prefer that black Americans think he was a racist.

he's outsmarted them quite a few times now,
they don't like that at all, it undercuts their
delusions of class superiority.