It is a testament to the power of mainstream "news" propaganda that almost everywhere you turn, be it newspapers or TV news or the internet, the prevailing view of Hugo Chavez' death is "thank goodness the dictator is gone, what a great opportunity for those poor Venezuelans to get out from under that stifling Chavez legacy."
While that view prevails in North America, it is about 180 degrees removed from reality.
Eight countries in South America have announced an official mourning period to honor Chavez. He was hugely popular in his country and well beyond.
If you look beyond the mainstream, there are many tributes to Chavez that go beyond White House talking points. This is an excellent example.
Chavez won election after election with popular vote numbers that the likes of Harper and Obama can only dream of.
That's because the poor and the working poor and the working classes in Venezuela recognized that he was the genuine article; a guy who came from where they come from and never sold his soul to the God of the "market."
He understood that the welfare of the regular folks in his country comes before the "right" of the foreign multinationals to repatriate their profits. That's why he nationalized the Venezuelan oil industry, which was the trigger that unleashed a generation of anti-Chavez propaganda in the US and Canada.
And made him hugely popular at home.
So when you read the nonsense about Chavez being a dictator, remember that he was the most democratic of dictators, one who was elected by the overwhelming majority of his people to govern in their interests, and not in the interests of foreign multi-nationals and the one percent who own the TV stations and the newspapers.
That's what democracy was meant to be.
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