Quote Originally Posted by AuGmENTor
but is this guy for real? Or just another BS artist witha good line?
I think he's for real. Certainly the Revolution is for real and not some 'Orange/Cedar' psuedo-revolution which changes nothing except the people in power (and increases Western/US influence in the particular country).

There are real programs for social improvement. 40,000 Cuban doctors giving free medical care to the poor areas where there was NO such service before. Literacy programs along the lines of what happened after the Cuban Revolution (which literacized the entire population within 6 to 10 years). Using the country's resources to benefit the people of the country (and other poor people in the Americas, including in the US) rather than the elite. Building a co-operative alternative to the US dominated 'Free Trade Area of the Americas'.

Of course, the revolution isn't perfect (and I doubt any revolution anywhere, anytime will be perfect - they certainly haven't been in the past). But that's not a reason to not support it. Chavez more than any other is truly the biggest enemy of Washington in the world today - but not for reasons they would have us believe (terrorism, drugs, communism, dictatorship), but because he is the frontman for a radical grassroots change that is sweeping Latin America. He is to the 2000s what Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution were to Latin America in the 1960's.