To me that's a generalisation as there are many Americans who don't think that way, but the ones that do hate chavez probably do so because of rising oil prices.

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Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

I appreciate that is true Donkey jote. I was speaking more on the average for Americans so you'll have to forgive the generalizing.

I think that's exactly it in a nutshell! It has absolutely nothing to do with caring about the people of Venezuela and everything to do with responding to their governments instructions that it's right to hate Hugo Chavez. And of course the root cause of that is Hugo nationalizing his country's oil resources and protecting those resources from pilfering by the US. This is of course common to the reason why the US is intent on defeating the Iraqi people.

It's not all that complicated is it!

Since you seem to have your finger on the pulse of all things social and economic, what is an "average American?"

I don't believe that most Americans "hate" Chavez. However we do not like his despotic behavior towards his countrymen, his support for terrorists and others who aid terrorists, his militant rhetoric and his attempts to politically destabilize the region.

Unsubstantiated crap.

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Viva Fidel

If there ever was in the history of humanity an enemy who was truly universal, an enemy whose acts and moves trouble the entire world, threaten the entire world, attack the entire world in any way or another, that real and really universal enemy is precisely Yankee imperialism

They talk about the failure of socialism but where is the success of capitalism in Africa, Asia and Latin America?

^^Imagine I've just repeated what my comrade said but in a way appropriate for a mod.

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Trust me, I'm a socialist!

There's power in a factory,power in the land, power in the hand of the worker. But it all amounts to nothing if together we don't stand, there is power in a union.
The union forever defending our rights, down with the blackleg, workers unite. To our brothers and our sisters in many far off lands, there is power in a union.
Money speaks for money, the devil for his own. - Billy Bragg

I understand what you're saying, I just like to remind y'all not to generalize sometimes. ;)

And yes, it is certainly "accepted" here for some reason that Chavez is a bad guy.

But I wouldn't call that the view of the "average American." Honestly, I think that the average American really doesn't care.

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

Tip: when trying to demonstrate that there is active and popular opposition to a leader (and I think that there is, at least more than Joe, for instance, will ever admit), it's better to cite things that aren't four years old.

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch