It is not mere coincidence that men like Chavez pander to the destitute and illiterate; they are the only means by which a despot can remain in power.  Amazingly, the American left “adore” Chavez; it is a conundrum if you listen to the rhetoric spoken for domestic consumption.  The bottom line is that the American left are socialists, and I suspect they would rather embrace than repudiate such men as Uncle Joe Stalin.

GREAT presentation, GM. 

Dear GM:

I lived, worked and traveled in Central and South America for 14 years. I have witnessed such things as shown in those photos in about every Latin American nation---and I have been to all of them. They show the Latin American form of government. It is represented not by the individual but by the mass.

And they import such things here. Remember those pro-illegal immigrant marches in the US? Those US cities took on for one day the form of any random Latin American capital. If we allow these illegals to nest here permanently, our Republic will come to resemble the shambles that is almost every government south of the Rio Grande.

Doug has a point. Perhaps Chavez would win a free election. But we will never know. Imagine if the Democrat Party ran every local, statewide and national election in the US. That is how most Latin American elections are held. Come election time there is almost always violence, chicanery and vote theft.

The most reasonable Latin nation is Chile. The most absurd one is Ecuador. The most violent one is Bolivia. The poorest one is Nicaragua. The wealthiest one is Brazil. The one with the best food is Mexico. The most criminal one is Paraguay. The prettiest women are in Argentina. The best backpacking is in Peru.

As an aside, one who believes any foreign media concerning Latin America is very foolish. It matters not if that media be the Economist or CNNABCCBSNBCBBCNPR or the New York Times. Many times I have been present at some event and then saw it reported in the media. It was as if there were two entirely different events on the same day in the same place at the same time.

Finally, let us not be worried that Chavez will form some sort of anti-US alliance with other South American nations. Every one of his neighbors hates his guts. Chavez had to go to Bolivia so that he could prance and prattle on about the US. Pardon me, but the US should worry about…Bolivia?