George Bush is the President of the United States and represents the entire country. Any demeaning public attack against him is viewed by Republicans and Democrats, and all Americans, as an attack on all of us.

I feel that I must speak out now since the Venezuelan government has been instrumental in providing oil at discounted prices to people in low income communities who have suffered increases in rent as heating oil prices have risen sharply. By offering this benefit to people in need, Venezuela has won many friends in poor communities of New York and other states. I am surprised that American oil companies have not stepped up to provide that kind of assistance to the poor.

Venezuela's generosity to the poor, however, should not be interpreted as license to attack President Bush. Those who take issue with Bush Administration policies have no right to attack him personally. It was not helpful when President Bush referred to certain nations as an "axis of evil." Neither is it helpful for a head of state to use the sacred halls of the United Nations to insult President Bush.

"Hugo Chavez abused the privilege that he had, speaking at the United Nations," said Pelosi, a frequent Bush critic. "He demeaned himself and he demeaned Venezuela."

Simon Bolivar led the fight for independence against Spanish rule in several South American countries in the early 19th century and is cited by Chavez as a political model.

Chavez, a vociferous critic of Bush and the United States, has allied himself with U.S. opponents Cuba and Iran and has led a resurgence of left-wing populism in Latin America.

"The devil himself is right in the house. And the devil came here yesterday. Right here," Chavez said as he stood at the U.N. podium where Bush spoke the day before.

"It smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of," Chavez said.

His remarks drew applause from many of the delegates.

Bush administration officials have not responded directly to Chavez's remarks.

"I am not going to dignify a comment by the Venezuelan president to the president of the United States. I think it is not becoming for a head of state," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday.

"Bush is an alcoholic, a sick man with a lot of hang-ups," declared the left-wing Venezuelan leader. "He walks like John Wayne."

Bush "doesn't know anything about politics, he got there because of Daddy," said Chavez, referring to Bush's father, George Bush, US president from 1989 to 1993.

"The United States should choose a president with whom you can talk and work," said Chavez.

Chavez was in Harlem to announce the expansion of a program to send cheap Venezuelan heating oil to poor New York families.

Chavez infuriated US officials with his sarcastic United Nations presentation Wednesday in which he said "yesterday the devil came here," referring to Bush's speech from the same stage 24 hours earlier.

"And it still smells of sulphur today, this table that I am now standing in front of."

Chavez then crossed himself, brought his hands together as if in prayer and looked up to the ceiling of the assembly chamber, prompting noticeable applause.

For former president Bill Clinton, the language that Chavez used in his United Nations speech was unfortunate. "Obviously I think he made a mistake to do it. I wish he hadn't done it," said Clinton on Wednesday. "He's not hurting us, just himself and his country."

Washington's UN ambassador John Bolton dismissed Chavez's speech as a "comic strip approach to international."

The US news media on Thursday was surprised to find Chavez's UN remarks harsher than those by Iranian President President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Iran who? Venezuela takes the lead in a battle of anti-US soundbites," read The New York Times.

The Washington Times featured front-page side-by-side photographs of Bush next to Chavez with his hands joined in prayer at the UN podium.

USA Today compared the Chavez speech to Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev's famous 1960 shoe-banging UN speech, and Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat's 1974 UN speech, delivered with a gun on his hip.

Charles Rangel, an opposition Democrat who represents Harlem in the US Congress and a harsh Bush critic, was not impressed by Chavez's rhetoric.

"You don't come into my country, you don't come into my congressional district and you don't condemn my president," he told US media on Thursday.

"If there's any criticism of president Bush, it should be restricted to Americans whether they voted for him or not," he said. "I just want to make it abundantly clear to Hugo Chavez or any other president -- don't come to the United States and think because we have problems with our president, that any foreigner can come to our country and not think that Americans do not feel offended when you offend our chief of state."

Late Wednesday at an event at Cooper's Union college in Manhattan, Chavez urged Americans to "wake up" and fight to change "for the good of humanity."

He also urged the crowd to "recover the heroic essence of the founders of this nation . . . who did not give their lives for an Empire to be born here."

Chavez emphasized that there was a clear difference between the US government and the American people. "One thing is imperialism and another thing is the people, the American society," he said.

Venezuela, Chavez told me, has more oil than Saudi Arabia. A nutty boast? Not by a long shot. In fact, his surprising claim comes from a most surprising source: the U.S. Department of Energy. In an internal report, the DOE estimates that Venezuela has five times the Saudis' reserves. However, most of Venezuela's mega-horde of crude is in the More...form of "extra-heavy" oil -- liquid asphalt -- which is ghastly expensive to pull up and refine. Oil has to sell above $30 a barrel to make the investment in extra-heavy oil worthwhile. A big dip in oil's price -- and, after all, oil cost only $18 a barrel six years ago -- would bankrupt heavy-oil investors. Hence Chavez's offer: Drop the price to $50 -- and keep it there. That would guarantee Venezuela's investment in heavy oil.

But the ascendance of Venezuela within OPEC necessarily means the decline of the power of the House of Saud. And the Bush family wouldn't like that one bit. It comes down to "petro-dollars." When George W. ferried then-Crown Prince (now King) Abdullah of Saudi Arabia around the Crawford ranch in a golf cart it wasn't because America needs Arabian oil. The Saudis will always sell us their petroleum. What Bush needs is Saudi petro-dollars. Saudi Arabia has, over the past three decades, kindly recycled the cash sucked from the wallets of American SUV owners and sent much of the loot right back to New York to buy U.S. Treasury bills and other U.S. assets.

The Gulf potentates understand that in return for lending the U.S. Treasury the cash to fund George Bush's $2 trillion rise in the nation's debt, they receive protection in return. They lend us petro-dollars, we lend them the 82nd Airborne.

Chavez would put an end to all that. He'll sell us oil relatively cheaply -- but intends to keep the petro-dollars in Latin America. Recently, Chavez withdrew $20 billion from the U.S. Federal Reserve and, at the same time, lent or committed a like sum to Argentina, Ecuador, and other Latin American nations.

Chavez, notes The Wall Street Journal, has become a "tropical IMF." And indeed, as the Venezuelan president told me, he wants to abolish the Washington-based International Monetary Fund, with its brutal free-market diktats, and replace it with an "International Humanitarian Fund," an IHF, or more accurately, an International Hugo Fund. In addition, Chavez wants OPEC to officially recognize Venezuela as the cartel's reserve leader, which neither the Saudis nor Bush will take kindly to.

Politically, Venezuela is torn in two. Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution," a close replica of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal-a progressive income tax, public works, social security, cheap electricity -- makes him wildly popular with the poor. And most Venezuelans are poor. His critics, a four-centuries' old white elite, unused to sharing oil wealth, portray him as a Castro-hugging anti-Christ.

Chavez's government, which used to brush off these critics, has turned aggressive on them. I challenged Chavez several times over charges brought against Sumate, his main opposition group. The two founders of the nongovernmental organization, which led the recall campaign against Chavez, face eight years in prison for taking money from the Bush Administration and the International Republican [Party] Institute. No nation permits foreign funding of political campaigns, but the charges (no one is in jail) seem like a heavy hammer to use on the minor infractions of these pathetic gadflies.

Bush's reaction to Chavez has been a mix of hostility and provocation. Washington supported the coup attempt against Chavez in 2002, and Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld have repeatedly denounced him. The revised National Security Strategy of the United States of America, released in March, says, "In Venezuela, a demagogue awash in oil money is undermining democracy and seeking to destabilize the region."

So when the Reverend Pat Robertson, a Bush ally, told his faithful in August 2005 that Chavez has to go, it was not unreasonable to assume that he was articulating an Administration wish. "If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him," Robertson said, "I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it. It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war . . . and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

There are only two ways to defeat the rise of Chavez as the New Abdullah of the Americas. First, the unattractive option: Cut the price of oil below $30 a barrel. That would make Chavez's crude worthless. Or, option two: Kill him.

Q: Your opponents are saying that you are beginning a slow-motion dictatorship. Is that what we are seeing?

Hugo Chavez: They have been saying that for a long time. When they're short of ideas, any excuse will do as a vehicle for lies. That is totally false. I would like to invite the citizens of Great Britain and the citizens of the U.S. and the citizens of the world to come here and walk freely through the streets of Venezuela, to talk to anyone they want, to watch television, to read the papers. We are building a true democracy, with human rights for everyone, social rights, education, health care, pensions, social security, and jobs.

Q: Some of your opponents are being charged with the crime of taking money from George Bush. Will you send them to jail?

Chavez: It's not up to me to decide that. We have the institutions that do that. These people have admitted they have received money from the government of the United States. It's up to the prosecutors to decide what to do, but the truth is that we can't allow the U.S. to finance the destabilization of our country. What would happen if we financed somebody in the U.S. to destabilize the government of George Bush? They would go to prison, certainly.

Q: How do you respond to Bush's charge that you are destabilizing the region and interfering in the elections of other Latin American countries?

Chavez: Mr. Bush is an illegitimate President. In Florida, his brother Jeb deleted many black voters from the electoral registers. So this President is the result of a fraud. Not only that, he is also currently applying a dictatorship in the U.S. People can be put in jail without being charged. They tap phones without court orders. They check what books people take out of public libraries. They arrested Cindy Sheehan because of a T-shirt she was wearing demanding the return of the troops from Iraq. They abuse blacks and Latinos. And if we are going to talk about meddling in other countries, then the U.S. is the champion of meddling in other people's affairs. They invaded Guatemala, they overthrew Salvador Allende, invaded Panama and the Dominican Republic. They were involved in the coup d'etat in Argentina thirty years ago.

Q: Is the U.S. interfering in your elections here?

Chavez: They have interfered for 200 years. They have tried to prevent us from winning the elections, they supported the coup d'etat, they gave millions of dollars to the coup plotters, they supported the media, newspapers, outlaw movements, military intervention, and espionage. But here the empire is finished, and I believe that before the end of this century, it will be finished in the rest of the world. We will see the burial of the empire of the eagle.

Q: You don't interfere in the elections of other nations in Latin America?

Chavez: Absolutely not. I concern myself with Venezuela. However, what's going on now is that some rightwing movements are transforming me into a pawn in the domestic politics of their countries, by making statements that are groundless. About candidates like Morales [of Bolivia], for example. They said I financed the candidacy of President Lula [of Brazil], which is totally false. They said I financed the candidacy of Kirchner [of Argentina], which is totally false. In Mexico, recently, the rightwing party has used my image for its own profit. What's happened is that in Latin America there is a turn to the left. Latin Americans have gotten tired of the Washington consensus -- a neoliberalism that has aggravated misery and poverty.

Q: You have spent millions of dollars of your nation's oil wealth throughout Latin America. Are you really helping these other nations or are you simply buying political support for your regime?

Chavez: We are brothers and sisters. That's one of the reasons for the wrath of the empire. You know that Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world. And the biggest gas reserves in this hemisphere, the eighth in the world. Up until seven years ago, Venezuela was a U.S. oil colony. All of our oil was going up to the north, and the gas was being used by the U.S. and not by us. Now we are diversifying. Our oil is helping the poor. We are selling to the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, some Central American countries, Uruguay, Argentina.

Q: And the Bronx?

Chavez: In the Bronx it is a donation. In all the cases I just mentioned before, it is trade. However, it's not free trade, just fair commerce. We also have an international humanitarian fund as a result of oil revenues.

Q: Why did George Bush turn down your help for New Orleans after the hurricane?

Chavez: You should ask him, but from the very beginning of the terrible disaster of Katrina, our people in the U.S., like the president of CITGO, went to New Orleans to rescue people. We were in close contact by phone with Jesse Jackson. We hired buses. We got food and water. We tried to protect them; they are our brothers and sisters. Doesn't matter if they are African, Asian, Cuban, whatever.

Q: Are you replacing the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as "Daddy Big Bucks"?

Chavez: I do wish that the IMF and the World Bank would disappear soon.

Q: And it would be the Bank of Hugo?

Chavez: No. The International Humanitarian Bank. We are just creating an alternative way to conduct financial exchange. It is based on cooperation. For example, we send oil to Uruguay for their refinery and they are paying us with cows.

Q: Milk for oil.

Chavez: That's right. Milk for oil. The Argentineans also pay us with cows. And they give us medical equipment to combat cancer. It's a transfer of technology. We also exchange oil for software technology. Uruguay is one of the biggest producers of software. We are breaking with the neoliberal model. We do not believe in free trade. We believe in fair trade and exchange, not competition but cooperation. I'm not giving away oil for free. Just using oil, first to benefit our people, to relieve poverty. For a hundred years we have been one of the largest oil-producing countries in the world but with a 60 percent poverty rate and now we are canceling the historical debt.

Q: Speaking of the free market, you've demanded back taxes from U.S. oil companies. You have eliminated contracts for North American, British, and European oil companies. Are you trying to slice out the British and American oil companies from Venezuela?

Chavez: No, we don't want them to go, and I don't think they want to leave the country, either. We need each other. It's simply that we have recovered our oil sovereignty. They didn't pay taxes. They didn't pay royalties. They didn't give an account of their actions to the government. They had more land than had previously been established in the contracts. They didn't comply with the agreed technology exchange. They polluted the environment and didn't pay anything towards the cleanup. They now have to comply with the law.

Q: You've said that you imagine the price of oil rising to $100 dollars per barrel. Are you going to use your new oil wealth to squeeze the planet?

Chavez: No, no. We have no intention of squeezing anyone. Now, we have been squeezed and very hard. Five hundred years of squeezing us and stifling us, the people of the South. I do believe that demand is increasing and supply is dropping and the large reservoirs are running out. But it's not our fault. In the future, there must be an agreement between the large consumers and the large producers.

Q: What happens when the oil money runs out, what happens when the price of oil falls as it always does? Will the
Bolivarian revolution of Hugo Chavez simply collapse because there's no money to pay for the big free ride?

Chavez: I don't think it will collapse, in the unlikely case of oil running out today. The revolution will survive. It does not rely solely on oil for its survival. There is a national will, there is a national idea, a national project. However, we are today implementing a strategic program called the Oil Sowing Plan: using oil wealth so Venezuela can become an agricultural country, a tourist destination, an industrialized country with a diversified economy. We are investing billions of dollars in the infrastructure: power generators using thermal energy, a large railway, roads, highways, new towns, new universities, new schools, recuperating land, building tractors, and giving loans to farmers. One day we won't have any more oil, but that will be in the twenty-second century. Venezuela has oil for another 200 years.

Q: But the revolution can come to an end if there's another coup and it succeeds. Do you believe Bush is still trying to overthrow your government?

Chavez: He would like to, but what you want is one thing, and what you cannot really obtain is another.

*******



Greg Palast, winner of the George Orwell Courage-In-Journalism Prize, is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War."

Harkin says Bush came to office saying he wanted a new humility in foreign policy in reaching out to other countries, but Harkin says Bush's actual policy has been heavy handed. Harkin says the anger against Bush is generated from the Iraq war, which Harkin says was "unnecessary."

Harkin says, "We tend to forget that a few days after 9-1-1 thousands, thousands of Iranians marched in a candlelight procession in Teheran in support of the United States. Every Muslim country was basically on our side. Just think, in five years, President Bush has squandered all that." Harkin says the U.S. has put billions of dollars into the Iraq war, when it could be helping poor countries with things like clean water, medical aid and education.

Mr Chomsky, professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a veteran critic of much of the foreign policy of Western nations, said he had not yet had the opportunity to read Mr Chavez's speech. He knew nothing about the boost to his book's sales but said the policy was well-known.

Mr Chavez commended the book, a detailed examination of US foreign policy and the American efforts to achieve so-called "full spectrum dominance", both to delegates and others.

He added: "I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because the threat is in their own house. The Devil is right at home. The Devil, the Devil, himself, is right in the house."

Hugo Chavez also could have explained what Chomsky had to say about this possibility in his most recent book, Failed States, in which he addresses the three issues he feels are most important - "the threat of nuclear war, environmental disaster, and the fact that the government of the world's only superpower is acting in ways that increase the likelihood of (causing) these catastrophes." Chomsky goes even further raising a fourth issue that the "American system" is in danger of losing its "historic values (of) equality, liberty and meaningful democracy (because of the course it's on)."

Reflecting the thinking and spirit of Noam Chomsky, Hugo Chavez delivered an impassioned speech yesterday to the assembled delegates who came to hear him. It's one likely to be favorably remembered many years from now. At its end, the delegates showed their appreciation and support by giving him a standing ovation (the longest one of all the leaders addressing the Assembly) in contrast to the cool and polite reception given George Bush the previous day who chose not to attend to hear the Venezuelan leader. Too bad he didn't as he might have learned from it if he stayed alert and paid attention. Citing the language in Chomsky's book in his hand, Chavez said: "The hegemonistic pretentions of the American empire are placing at risk the very existence of the human species (and) We appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our head." He went on to explain that earlier the President of the US attended an Organization of American States meeting and proposed a NAFTA-type trade agreement in both regions that is the "fundamental cause of the great evils and the great tragedies currently suffered by our people. Neoliberal capitalism, the Washington Consensus....has generated....a high degree of misery, inequality and infinite tragedy for all the peoples on (this) continent."

Hugo Chavez called George Bush "the devil" several times and said he came here yesterday and "from this rostrum (talked) as if he owned the world." He denounced the President's talk, said he's responsible for all conflict in the Middle East, and that those opposed to these policies are resisting his imperial model of domination. Chavez predicted the US empire will fall, said "What we need now more than ever....is a new international order," and that he wants to see a reinvented UN be part of what can help achieve it. He said the UN under its current rules "does not work" and must be changed to bring more democracy to the organization. He called for the "foundation of a new United Nations" and proposed four fundamental changes including the "need to....suppress....the veto in the decisions taken by the Security Council (because) that elitist trace is incompatible with democracy, incompatible with the principles of equality and democracy." He also called for expanding the Security Council to include developing nations as permanent members and wants to strengthen the role of the Secretary General. He stressed that today the UN body is "worthless" and needs to be "refounded."

Hugo Chavez is dedicated to the principles and spirit of the Bolivarian Revolution he gave the people of Venezuela and wants to spread it to the developing world as a counter-force to the US model of global dominance of the developed North over the less-developed South with the US as hegemon-in-chief. He called on leaders from the developing world to unite and resist to build a new world model based on social equity and justice. Judging by the reception Chavez got yesterday, it looks like he made some progress toward that goal, especially in Latin America that's become an incubator of resistance against the unipolar world the US is beginning to lose its grip on and in support of the multi-polar one Hugo Chavez wants to help create.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

http://www.sjlendman.blogspot.com

I am a 71 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.

It was my way of paying homage to perhaps my favorite puck band of all time, The Dead Kennedys. It was also one of my early attempts at expressing the anger I felt towards the dim and frightening path I saw our country taking. The first draft was more or less a laundry list of fairly creative ways I felt DUBYA should meet his maker.

I showed it to a few friends who informed me that some of they lyrics could be construed as threats made upon the life of DUBYA. Mind you, I am not afraid at all to stand up and speak my mind, especially when it comes to that ignorant, arrogant, scum-sucking moron who stole the White House in 2000, and claimed that 51% of the vote was a "mandate from the people". However, I wouldn't want to publish anything that might cross the line, and land my ass in deep do-do. So, I tamed it down a little. Now it's merely a litany of his lies, and transgressions. It may have lost its poison glands, but it still has some fangs.

So you can imagine how impressed I was when Hugo Chavez called DUBYA Satan. Of course, I found it even more amusing when he crossed himself, and made a comment about being able to still smell sulfur at the podium where DUBYA had spoken earlier. I guess it just goes to show there are people around the world who see DUBYA through the same turd-colored glasses through which I see him.

If ever there existed a true candidate for the next Antichrist, I think the case could be made that DUBYA is it! He has done more in his time to destroy human life, human dignity, and world peace than any American president I can recall. Even the evil Richard Nixon and the bumbling, drooling Ronny Ray-Gun pale in comparison to the evil that is (Curious) George DUBYA Shrub...err Bush.

As a way of continuing the hellish comparison to the son of perdition that presently inhabits the White House, I offer for the edification of my readers, the first glimpse of the lyrics to my song, Chimp In Chief. I offer this in homage to Jello Biafra, and the rest of the DK's. I also offer it as my way of saying that DUBYA is either Satan, or his one and only son, the Antichrist. No, I haven't put it to music yet, but I have some ideas.

Chimp In Chief
Lyrics by Pappy McFae
Originally penned around election time in 2004
This inception copyright 5/4/06

Satan with the chimp face, chimp face, chimp face
Satan with the chimp face on!

Puppet of the rich,
Republican bitch,
Driving America straight into a ditch!

Chicken hawk supreme
With a war wet dream
He's so fucking stupid, it makes me want to scream!

He didn't go to Vietnam
He had his rich dad and mom
Send him to the National Guard
No way he'd see metal shards
Or get that morning napalm smell
Or know any other kind of hell
The poor kids knew who went to fight
For a war that wasn't right
Silver spoon way up his ass
He watched as the war passed
Safe in Texas, not in hell
And still he went A.W.O.L

Satan with the chimp face, chimp face, chimp face,
Satan with the chimp face on!

Blood on his hands,
All across the land
At almost eight thousand the death toll stands

9/11 first
Iraq blood thirst
Floating bodies in floods, he has done his worst.

He let people die on 9/11
Sent over three thousand souls to heaven
Then started the Iraq war
To snuff out twenty-five-hundred more
Let's not forget Afghanistan,
At almost five hundred the tally stands
And yet that's not the full account
Of civilians that died in large amounts
In all the countries we destroyed
To help President Paranoid
Show his daddy he has balls
And show he has no heart at all

Satan with the chimp face, chimp face, chimp face,
Satan with the chimp face on!

Hurricane storm
Definitely warned
Yet he did nothing but keep his thumb warm

Up his dumb ass
That thumb did pass
While New Orleans flooded, and bodies floated past.

What I ask you could be meaner
Than to let Hurricane Katrina
Kill the poor as flood waters rose
While he deftly picked his nose
Ignoring warnings left and right
Leaving survivors for days and nights
Without shelter, without food
Who cares if the poor get screwed
As big as the Gulf of Mexico
Did he think it would really go
Away with to the power of prayer
He must have a skull filled with air

Satan with the chimp face, chimp face, chimp face,
Satan with the chimp face on!

How many more will have to die
From his stupidity and lies
Is his blood thirst not yet quenched?
How many souls will be wrenched?
He started with the Taliban,
And now he wants to nuke Iran
There seems to be no end indeed
To his blood lust, or his greed
Armageddon's on its way
He'll push the button on that day
And we shall all pay the price
Of the American Antichrist.

Satan with the chimp face, chimp face, chimp face,
Satan with the chimp face on!

By the way, if you are out there, Jello, and are reading this, I would consider it an honor if you would put it to music and record it.

Blessed be!
Pappy

http://radfaepappy.livejournal.com/

Harpist, unemployed blue collar worker, and Bush basher living deep in the heart of Texas.

Bush had cited Saddam's own hellish torture program as one of his many rationales for the US war of aggression -itself a hell on earth called "Shock and Awe" -the source of pictures of modern, mechanized, souless hell fire if not brimstone. After the attack and invasion, Bush boasted about how much better things were for the Iraqi on the street. That was just one of innumerable lies that this "deceiver of nations" has perpetrated upon the American people and the entire world. Had the Iraqi people been delivered? Into hell! None of this was told us. We were deliberately deceived. All the nations of the world were deceived.

"Iraq is free of rape rooms and torture chambers.

-"President" Bush, 2003 Republican National Committee Presidential Gala, Oct. 8, 2003

Uh huh! That was a lie that was told to all the nations of the world. There's more.

"The Iraqi people are now free. And they do not have to worry about the secret police coming after them in the middle of the night, and they don't have to worry about their husbands and brothers being taken off and shot, or their wives being taken to rape rooms. Those days are over."

-Paul Bremer, Administrator, [Iraq] Coalition Provisional Authority, Sept. 2, 2003

Another lie told to the entire world. The BBC's source, UN chief anti-torture expert Manfred Nowak, paints a vivid picture of reality and truth, a situation "...out of control" and a seemingly endless stream of abused victims traceable directly to the US-led multinational forces, security forces, militia groups and anti-US guerrillas. It's a picture of hell on earth:

The UN report says detainees' bodies often show signs of beating using electrical cables, wounds in heads and genitals, broken legs and hands, electric and cigarette burns.

Bodies found at the Baghdad mortuary "often bear signs of severe torture including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances".

Many bodies have missing skin, broken bones, back, hands and legs, missing eyes, missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails, the UN report says.

-BBC, Iraq torture 'worse after Saddam'

But Bush had assured the American people and the world that Iraq was better off now that the evil dictator had been deposed by an American army that Dick Cheney said would be greeted as liberators.

Because we acted, torture rooms are closed, rape rooms no longer exist, mass graves are no longer a possibility in Iraq."

-Bush, remarks at "Ask President Bush" event, Michigan, May 3, 2004

Now -Bush wouldn't deliberately lie through his teeth, would he? The reality in Iraq is a harsh light on the lie. The situation is much worse now; Bush brought to Iraq an American corporate apocalypse, in fact, a preview of the corporate hell that awaits the US.

But one hell at a time. Back to Iraq. Bush's civilian body count, likewise, continues to rise -250,000 dead civilians in Iraq and climbing.

The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 by U.S.-led coalition forces has been responsible for the death of at least 150,000 civilians.

-Information Clearing House

Each one of them is one count in the war crimes indictment that may one day be returned. Meanwhile, as Bush diverted more than $200 billion from needed services in the US, he has created, in Iraq, a hot bed for discontent, anger, hatred of US imperialism -a hell on earth. In short, Bush has created an incubator for real terrorism -not the phony stuff he exploits; rather, the real thing that will rise up against us in ways Bush will never, could never predict or understand, despite whatever Skull and Bones powers he may pray to in private. In a worst case, Bush may have sealed our fate, insured our doom.

Why did Bush embark upon this deliberate campaign of torture and atrocity? Why did the Bush administration inflame the middle east? Why did Bush pursue policies guaranteed to radicalize moderates and give cause to real terrorists? Why has Bush, in fact, endangered the people of the United States by making of our nation a rogue, outlaw state? Ironically, Bush cannot claim to have made us safer. To do so would remove the only issue around which he might hope to rally the American people: fear!

Whatever was discussed by Dick Cheney and his so-called "Energy Task Force", the result has been the American corporate takeover of Iraq. Surely, in that meeting, it was all planned and discussed just as Hitler literally auctioned off the Third Reich to Thyssen, Krupp, and I.G. Farben -a single meeting described vividly by William Shirer in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". Just as Hitler favored Farben, lucrative contracts were awarded to Dick Cheney's Halliburton, circumventing even the pretense of a bid process.

The liar-in-chief would have you believe that Iraq is better off. In fact, Iraqi civilians were abandoned to chaos, out-sourced torture, hunger, and -now - civil war. Nothing said by Bush about Iraq has ever been true. By every sane definition Iraq is lost -but for Halliburton, the very picture of a fascist corporate rule, things couldn't be better. Truth is, Iraq has been looted!

The New Testament tells us that Satan is a liar, the great Deceiver, who appears as an angel of light. It tells us that this great master of hoax and deception will lead many Christians into apostate Christianity to their own destruction. It describes him, in the book of Revelation, as the great deceiver of nations.

-Satanic Lie and Delusion

I'm an agnostic. But I am also a logical positivist who believes that a "thing" is defined by a finite number of "attributes" that are known to exist. If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and swims like a duck, it's a duck! Simply -if the "Beast" is defined as "deceiver of nations" ...well, who do you suppose that is? You get one guess.

It would appear that some one in the Middle East, a long time ago, wrote some stuff down that sounds a helluva lot like the hell on earth that Bush has since created in Iraq. Bush has made of himself a helluva "President"! Just ask Hugo Chavez - who understands better than anyone what Bush has in mind for Venezuela. It's a helluva plan.

Even without federal help, Alaska easily has enough resources and plenty of oil inside its borders to help its most needy if it chooses to. Currently the state has a Permanent Fund of $34 billion and a $2 billion budget reserve fund for a population of about 660,000 people. Still, each winter thousands of Alaskans can't afford to buy enough heating oil, especially since its price rose so dramatically in the past few years. Alaska has its own federally funded Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, but it's woefully underfunded and unable to provide enough help. So if the state and federal government won't do the job, Hugo Chavez said he would step in with financial aid through Venezuela's state-owned oil company PDVSA's subsidiary CITGO Petroleum Corporation. The money will be donated to state Native non-profit organizations as part of a greater effort that will also help other communities in the state. It's also one part of CITGO's overall program to provide 5 - 10 million gallons of heating oil to help Native Americans nationwide. The goal is to help thousands of poor Alaskans and Native Americans in other states stay warm in the winter in cases where they're unable to get help any other way.

Think of it. Tiny Venezuela has a population of about 27 million people that's 1/12th the size of the US. And it had a 2005 Gross Domestic Product of about $160 billion that's less than 2% of the US GDP of $12.5 trillion last year and less than half of oil giant Exxon-Mobil's $371 billion 2005 sales volume. Still Hugo Chavez is willing to share his nation's oil and financial resources so those in need in the US can get some of the help its own government won't provide and help other nations as well that don't have enough ability to do it themselves. Don't ever expect Exxon-Mobil to offer aid as its game plan is to manipulate oil prices for maximum sales and profit growth with little or no regard for social responsibility that would only lower them.

The Vision of Chavez's Democratic Bolivarian Revolution Vs. Bush's Belligerent Imperialism

Look at the difference between how Hugo Chavez governs at home and shares with others abroad based on the principles of social equity and justice compared to the way George Bush does it. He and his hard-right Republican allies believe it's right to take from the poor and plunder other nations abroad to benefit the rich and powerful at home. To do it he's been waging illegal wars of aggression almost since he took office and just declared a permanent "long war" clash of civilizations against 1.8 billion Muslims worldwide to subjugate and exploit them for the corporate interests he represents.

Hugo Chavez will stand for re-election on December 3 this year. His approval rating is so high (compared to Bush's low one), no opposition candidate can defeat him in a free, fair and open election although the Bush administration is planning an unknown array of dirty tricks trying to do it. Compare that to the way elections are now run in the US where the only sure way George Bush and neocon Republicans can win is by rigging the outcomes. They have to because growing numbers of voters are fed up with them and reject their failed policies of endless war against enemies that don't exist, tax cuts for the rich combined with reduced social services for everyone else to pay for them, and a crackdown on civil liberties to quell dissent that always happens in the face of injustice.

A lot more people would reject them as well if they knew and took to heart Founding Father and President James Madison's belief about the dangers of war and how it extends "the discretionary power of the Executive." He wrote: "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." And Abraham Lincoln once wrote while he was still in the Congress that "kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending....that the good of the people was the object." Both these now revered men would shudder at how right they were if they knew how fast those freedoms and greater good for the people have been lost under the Bush administration, its policies of universal repression, and plan to turn the US into a nation of serfs and then do the same thing all over the world and make ordinary Americans have to pay the bills for it and end up poorer as a result.

Things aren't this way in Venezuela and shouldn't be anywhere. Under the letter and spirit of the Bolivarian Revolution, the country is governed under a system of real participatory democracy where the people get to vote and those they elect actually serve them. In the US what's called democracy is only for the privileged few. All others are left behind in a system morphing toward modern-day feudalism based on how an earlier failed 20th century tyrant ruled which he explained in his own words - "(by) a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligent nationalism." Sound familiar?

The tyrant was Benito Mussolini, and he called it fascism, although despite his claim, he didn't invent it. Nineteenth century born and early 20th century philosopher Giovanni Gentile did, and he's sometimes called the "philosopher of fascism." He explained it in the Encyclopia Italiana saying "Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." Like all good dictators finding an idea he liked, Mussolini replaced Gentile's name with his own and claimed credit for it. Now in the US under George Bush it's showing up again as a feudal corporatocracy heading straight toward a full-blown version of the Mussolini/Hitler model, US-style with many of the same trappings - a messianic mission and appeal to patriotism to fight an endless war on terrorism sacrificing constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties to do it and enriching corporations that profit from it. And all this falsely couched in the "land of the free and home of the brave" rhetoric and spirit from "The Star-Spangled Banner" anthem all children are taught at an early age to sing in school with hands over heart and never forget.

Hugo Chavez represents a different vision. Among world leaders, he's the best hope to give democracy meaning again throughout the Americas and beyond, and that's why the Bush administration is determined to oust him before he spreads much more of his good will. The Chavez way is gaining ground because it's a new paradigm based on global solidarity, equality and political, economic and social justice that opposes the failed Bush neoliberal imperial world model more people everywhere are fed up with and want no more of. It's shown up on the streets of Mexico for weeks and again on Sunday when hundreds of thousands of people packed the great Zocalo square in Mexico City in support of winning candidate Lopez Obrador denied by massive fraud the office of president he won in July. They stand with him in solidarity and his intention to set up a parallel government after he's sworn in as its "legitimate president" on November 20. Hugo Chavez stands with him as well, and on Saturday at the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) summit in Havana accused Mexico's ruling party of stealing the election and destroying the chance for good relations with Venezuela.

There were more signs of discontent with the old order at the 16th annual NAM summit, attended by representatives from over 110 nations. At it, Hugo Chavez declared "American imperialism is in decline. A new bi-polar world is emerging. The non-aligned group has been relaunched to unite the South under its umbrella (in opposition)." At the summit's conclusion, a final document was drafted expressing support for Venezuela, its constitutional government and democratically elected President Hugo Chavez. It criticized US aggressive policies against Chavez and supported the right of the Venezuelan people to choose their own form of government, their leader and representatives, and their economic and political system free from foreign intervention. The document also expressed "firm support and solidarity for Bolivia" and Cuba including demanding the US end its economic, trade and financial blockade that violates the UN Charter and other international law.

It also acknowledged Iran's right to develop its commercial nuclear industry that's in full compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) based on known evidence about it. Further, it sharply criticized US foreign policy and its wars of illegal aggression as well as Israel's wars against Lebanon and Palestine and the US role in them. It also spoke out by implication against the unilateral US domination of the UN calling on this international body to do more to respect and better represent the needs and rights of smaller nations. The document affirmed the right of each nation's national sovereignty and was a strong rebuke of the US Bush administration and its imperial policies. In addition, it represented a strong statement of growing resistance to it from around the world that's likely to gain added resonance as long as Hugo Chavez is able to pursue his policies of putting the needs and rights of people ahead of those of wealth and power.

Other Unexpected Criticism

Chavez isn't alone as other critics are emerging in places as unexpected as the UK where British Labour Party 23-year veteran MP and former Cabinet Minister Clare Short just announced she's leaving New Labour because she's "profoundly ashamed" of the Government and Prime Minister Tony Blair's "craven" support for "US neoconservative foreign policy (that) has dishonoured the UK, undermined the UN and international law and helped to make the world a more dangerous place." She said she was "standing down (to) speak the truth and support the changes that are needed." She's not alone in the Blair government as growing numbers of other party "back-benchers" are joining her in a show of solidarity and disgust for a government allied shamelessly with Washington's corrupted notion of might makes right and the use of it in the pursuit of wealth and power as an end in itself.

Stay tuned for the coming chapters in this epic struggle for a new and better world vision and an end to the old one that doesn't work, never did or will, and that more people than ever are determined to free themselves from. It's what Abraham Lincoln meant when he once said: "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right, which we hope and believe is to liberate the world." It was the same message South America's great Liberator Simon Bolivar had when he once spoke of the imperial curse he sought to free his people from that "plague(d) Latin America with misery in the name of liberty." From the NAM summit in Havana, Hugo Chavez echoed similar thoughts in his address to the General Assembly on September 15. In it he said: "....let's unite in the South and we will have a future, we will have dignity, our people will have life....Let's unite to liberate ourselves, to exist, to self-construct the South."

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

http://www.sjlendman.blogspot.com

I am a 71 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.