Who is Hugo Chavez and why is he saying those terrible things about America?

Kevin Spacey became the latest in a long line of liberal celebrities to hold court with Hugo Chavez, the apparently anti-American president of Venezuala.

The talented Hollywood actor, who rocked the kasbah in K-Pax and L.A. Confidential, spent three hours with the president chatting about, amongst other things, the Venezuelan film industry. Chavez has just started a 13 million dollar film centre to 'rival Hollywood Imperialism.'

A drop in the ocean. 13 million dollars, for example, is the amount Daniel Craig is getting paid to return as 007 in the next Bond movie.

Spacey's visit follows the likes of Sean Penn, Danny Glover and anti-war Mom Cindy Sheehan. It seems no Hollywood liberal or anti-Bush icon can hold their head up high until they've shaken hands with Hugo Chavez.

America's right wing, of course, is outraged.

But why, exactly? I know I should be outraged at the antics of this anti-American icon, but I'm not entirely sure why. In fact, I know nothing about Hugo Chavez other than the fact that he's a 'baddy' in the same mould as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - if you believe what the right wing tell us.

Although if you believe the left wing, he's an anti-imperialistic icon.

Herein lies the problem with American politics and the dumb people (myself included) who claim to possess an opinion. We don't really have opinions of our own - we're just repeating whatever our favourite political pundit tells us.

So in an experiment practically unheard of in the Blogosphere, I am actually going to look up Hugo Chavez and find the real dope about him. In honor of that old Dustin Hoffman film:

Who is Hugo Chavez and Why is he saying those Terrible Things about America?

Hugo Chavez was born in a mud hut in 1954. A bit of a mutt, his heritage included Amerindian, Afro-Venezuelan, and Spanish ancestry. Both his parents were school teachers, but that didn't stop Chavez growing up to be a petty crook with a criminal record as long as his full name (Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías.) After countless arrests, the future president gained his education unwillingly at various military reform schools.

The reform school background led to a career in the military, in which Chavez would prove fairly successful. During his days in the army, Chavez also developed an interest in political ideology - specifically a type of left-wing nationalism that promoted the unification of Latin America.

This is where his political ambitions blossomed.

Years later, in 1992, things were pretty bad in Venezuela and security forces were coming down heavy on rioters and protesters, killing hundreds as they blocked the streets (and looted anything that wasn't nailed down.)

This gave Hugo Chavez the inspiration to overthrow the unpopular President Perez with a military coup d'etat. Unfortunately things didn't go as planned and Chavez was forced to surrender to the government, with almost a hundred of his men being slaughtered.

The coup was a failure, but it did provide Chavez with considerable media and public attention and revealed that the wannabe military dictator was popular amongst the people of Venezuela.

So just like Hitler before him (an unfortunate but valid parallel) Chavez decided to accomplish with ballots what he couldn't do with bullets. Once released from prison, he started the march to the presidency and won over the Venezuelan people with his informal oratory and idealistic rhetoric. Coming from an ethnic Indian background, rather than the pure blood 'Spanish' elite, he found much popularity amongst the working class and went on to win the 1998 presidential election with 56% of the votes.

Chavez started off his presidency by making sweeping changes in line with his political ideology. Amongst them was a campaign of road building, housing construction and mass vaccination. In addition, his left-wing beliefs inspired him to halt planned privatizations of the Social Security system, national industry holdings and the Venezuelan oil business.

Now, not wanting to get into conspiracy theories, it's interesting to note that his nix on privatising the Venezuelan oil industry, plus some rough interference on the way it was run, led to a 2002 coup attempt that was openly approved and supported by the US Government.

The coup failed however, as did the following political campaign to get Chavez booted out of office. Amid accusations of electoral fraud, Chavez defeated a recall referendum and settled back into his presidency with some security. From then on, he started rattling international cages by fighting for a place on the U.N. Security Council and harbouring friendships with traditional U.S. enemies such as Cuba.

And now, having been safely returned to the presidency once again (with 63% of the national vote), Chavez is becoming even more active in South American politics. His socialist reforms are winning him further support amongst his people and his ambitious plans - like re-taking control of the Orinoco Belt oil reserves - offer the possibility of Venezuela becoming a real international player in the near future.

He's a powerful, dynamic and charismatic leader and his ambitions often conflict directly with the foreign policies of the United States - or, more specifically, President bush. George Bush's open support of Chavez's enemies probably had something to do with the Venezuelan president developing an undisguised hatred of him. Bush, Chavez declared to his people, is a 'pendejo' and 'the devil.'

Yet despite Chavez' hatred of George Bush and the current administration, the president of Venezuela has offered many olive branches to the US. Venezuela was the first country to offer aid to hurricane-devastated New Orleans. That offer was snubbed - but a later agreement saw Venezuela supplying discounted heading oil to low income families across the Northeastern U.S.

All in all, ignoring the right wing propaganda, the facts stack up and don't make Chavez look too bad at all. He's not really anti-American so much as anti-Bush.

But, of course, his very existence is a thorn in the right wing's side, so they keep pushing the anti-American angle. And why not? He stands for everything the US is against!

I mean, Chavez is a socialist. Ick! He's also vehemently anti-Israel and politically bullish, stamping out free expression on Venezuela's most popular television station, fighting for an end to political term limits and demanding that all Venezuelan schools teach his party's political ideology in class.

But those accusations of corruption don't really hold up. They're entirely true - but despite the very clear good Chavez is doing, he's still a South American 'el presidenti' and they do things differently south of the equator. Horses for courses. Complaining that a South American president is corrupt is like accusing a computer technician of being nerdy!

Really, the major reason the right wing hate Chavez is because he's a loud and vocal enemy of the current administration. Chavez is certainly an enemy of George Bush. But is he an enemy of the United States?

I entered into writing this with little prior opinion - or so I thought. Actually, I had always considered Chavez a crooked South American politician and a nasty socialist scumbag to boot. Now, having done some research, my opinion of the man has mellowed.

Venezuela is politically corrupt and crime is rampant. But despite the corruption, there's no state-sponsored torture and even the U.S. observers struggled to debunk the election results. Chavez is truly president by popular demand and the worst of his crimes are nothing compared to what goes on in countries that are traditionally 'friendly' to the United States (such as Saudi Arabia.)

He is often guilty by association. His friendship and support of Iran - one of the scariest countries on the planet right now - is enough to earn him the hatred of many. Likewise, anybody who earns the glowing tributes of corrupt little rat George Galloway finds themselves tainted as a result.

I still don't like him, but at least the reasons I have for not liking him are my reasons instead of anybody else's.

• He tried to overthrow the government.
• Yet he got moody when somebody tried to overthrow his government.
• He's friends with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran.
• He's shut down free speech and expression.
• He's added political indoctrination to the school curriculem.
• He wears a sombraro.
  

However, having looked into Hugo Chavez and his life, I can't really find anything treasonous about Kevin Spacey visiting him in Venezuela. He's not betraying his country by the trip, as the right wing would have you believe.

I only hope that Spacey's political opinions - along with those of Sean Penn and Danny Glover - honestly reflect what he thinks and feels. The liberal left has just as much capacity for blind allegiance and band-wagon jumping as the reactionary right wing.

Maybe Spacey should sit down with an open mind and come to his own conclusions about Hugo Chavez. I just did and it was a very liberating experience. I'm still no great fan of the man - but I won't be jumping onto any soap-boxes and repeating right wing rhetoric against the man now that I know not all of it is accurate.