Hugo Chavez - Man, Monster or Messiah?

Those would seem to be the options.  Depending on who's telling you, Hugo Chavez was either the most enlightened leader of the century who's lifted Venezuela out of poverty, or an economically clueless tyrannical despot. There's little suggestion he could have been anything in-between.

The usual double standards would seem to apply.  For example, it was wrong for Mr. Chavez to befriend the President of an oppressive theocratic state

But it was right for George W. Bush to befriend the King of an oppressive theocratic state

It was of course wrong for Mr. Chavez to meet mass murdering Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein

But it wasn't wrong for Donald Rumsfeld to meet him and sell him the weapons he used to commit mass murder

And it was wrong for Mr. Chavez to meet Colonel Gaddafi

But the same standard doesn't seem to apply to Tony Blair

This last one I'm not going to try and justify

Seriously though there's no end of solid economic reasons to believe that Hugo Chavez's socialist policies will in the long term have done more to harm than help the people of Venezuela.  And shaking hands with the likes of Saddam Hussein or Tony Blair is nothing to be proud of either.  But my point is that neither of these are the reason he's despised by Western politicians and the corporate media, particularly in the United States.  No one in the circles of power in Washington D.C. is lying awake at night losing sleep worrying over the future of the poor people of Venezuela. Hugo Chavez was not despised because he was a despot, he was despised because he wasn't their despot.  

In the short video below Abby Martin gives a somewhat more balanced view of Mr. Chavez and his relationship to the United States. 






Pro Chavez article from Global Research, touches on the speculative 'US gave him cancer question':
http://www.globalresearch.ca/hugo-chavez-humble-man-who-transformed-the-world/5325791

Article critical of Hugo Chavez's economic policies:
http://www.ecominoes.com/2013/03/the-hugo-chavez-legacy-stifled-economic.html

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