Politics Done Right - Does America Need A Hugo Chavez?

Hugo Chavez died on Tuesday. I did an iReport for CNN and wrote the blog post “Venezuela's Hugo Chavez Dead: Hero Of The Poor And Middle Class In Words & Deeds”. I got excoriated for it both by many at the CNN site and via emails from as far as United Kingdom. I also got messages that said I was brave to take a position out of the mainstream of US thought. An exile from Venezuela took me to task because I did not live in Venezuela. Those who attacked me failed to see the most important point I was trying to get across. Hugo Chavez was the creation of the Venezuelan oligarchy, the Venezuelan plutocracy. He was that icon the poor and suffering middle classes placed their hope in to make a change. If we know that our media is corporate controlled and misleads or turn a blind eye to political shenanigans (misreporting of war in Iraq, Invasion of Panama, etc.), should we not explore how it addressed Hugo Chavez relative to his confronting the Venezuelan Plutocracy? The question is, with the American Plutocracy effecting one of the largest income and wealth disparity in the industrialized world, is there an American Hugo Chavez waiting to emerge?

Hugo Chavez