I know that what I'm writing is true, so I believe I'm writing this for cathartic reasons. Hell...hopefully someone will read this, for whom it is a foreign argument.
When Donald Rumsfeld likens Chavez to Hitler it should come as no surprise to anyone. The United States has an established record of failing to support the "democracy" it so claims to love - especially in Latin America (see Chomsky).
Besides the analogy being downright fallacious, Rumsfeld's claim is so friggin' predictable as to be laughable. Of course we "hate" the Venezualan democracy - it is a country with considerable assets that elected a populist, which isn't to be tolerated. Heck, he might challenge the absolute right to private property in order to keep U.S. investors from profiting while his people die of malnutrition. However, if the press covers it at all, they will take the administration's word as though god's word.
Specifically, Rummy said the following:
"we've seen some populist leadership appealing to masses of people (average people who are dumb!) in those countries. And elections like Evo Morales in Bolivia take place that clearly are worrisome(to American rich people)."
"I mean, we've got Chavez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money,(He's dark-skinned! He should be poor and powerless!)" Rumsfeld added. "He's a person who was (unfortunately) elected legally -- just as Adolf Hitler (though much unlike my boss) was elected legally -- and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others (like Stalin, Mao, Satan, and Streisand)[Emphasis added is mine]."
Democracy is good, but democracy that produces popularly supported leaders becomes Hitler-democracy. Here, the masses have failed to support the ostensibly correct person, like someone who would sell them the air they breath - a good capitalist. Someone who would have supported the Multinational Agreement on Investments, which would have ripped any power over the marketplace away from the people who live in these exploited banana republics. You know, like a good little beaner should!
I genuinely suspect that this administration is trying to manufacture fear about the world because they know that a draft must soon be considered if the US is going to continue to commit men and women to Iraq, Afganistan, the Korean DMZ, and soon - Iran.
Will the Bush girls go? Will Billy Bush fight? Nope deferments for everyone - oh, except southern high school dropouts working at Wal-Mart and Subway.
Peace (Read a good book)