Even though I spent the whole day practically napping I still feel out of sorts and not 100 percent recovered from my three-week trip to the Baltics and Finland.
Anyway, I was emptying my box of regular news feeds when I stumbled upon this hilarious (but TRUE) article by Associated Press about "American singer and activist" Harry Belafonte calling George W Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" following a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas over the weekend.
While I might agree to calling Dubya a terrorist (state-sponsored, legalized terrorism is as bad if not worse than the kind perpetrated by Al-Qaida), it's a bit of a stretch calling him the "greatest". It sounds as flimsy as the kind of claims Muhammad Ali loved to make when he was still top dog of the world boxing's heavyweight division.
Practically a sequel to my 26 August 2005 entry that also touched on Chavez, there is something about this obviously charismatic and controversial figure that inspires other personalities to go off the deep end. Somehow, Chavez is made to look extreme by people who either detest or admire him.
There should be some way to analyse him and his actions without having to resort to ideological ranting. (If there was a way, I'm sure the coldly clinical Ignacio Ramonet of Le Monde Diplomatique would've found it.)
Anyway, I was emptying my box of regular news feeds when I stumbled upon this hilarious (but TRUE) article by Associated Press about "American singer and activist" Harry Belafonte calling George W Bush "the greatest terrorist in the world" following a meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas over the weekend.Belafonte led a delegation of Americans including the actor Danny Glover and the Princeton University scholar Cornel West that met the Venezuelan president for more than six hours late Saturday. Some in the group attended Chavez's television and radio broadcast Sunday.Now if that didn't make people like Fox Channel's Bill O'Reilly lick their chops in delight for being gifted fresh fodder with which to fuel their diatribes against American bleeding-heart liberals and "leftists" like Belafonte, Glover, Sean Penn, Madonna, Susan Sarandon, Dixie Chicks and others. If it weren't mawkish enough, Belafonte even finished his talk by shouting in Spanish: "Viva la revolucion!"
"No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people...support your revolution," Belafonte told Chavez during the broadcast.
The 78-year-old Belafonte, famous for his calypso-inspired music, including the "Day-O" song, was a close collaborator of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and is now a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. He also has been outspoken in criticizing the U.S. embargo of Cuba.
While I might agree to calling Dubya a terrorist (state-sponsored, legalized terrorism is as bad if not worse than the kind perpetrated by Al-Qaida), it's a bit of a stretch calling him the "greatest". It sounds as flimsy as the kind of claims Muhammad Ali loved to make when he was still top dog of the world boxing's heavyweight division.
Practically a sequel to my 26 August 2005 entry that also touched on Chavez, there is something about this obviously charismatic and controversial figure that inspires other personalities to go off the deep end. Somehow, Chavez is made to look extreme by people who either detest or admire him.
There should be some way to analyse him and his actions without having to resort to ideological ranting. (If there was a way, I'm sure the coldly clinical Ignacio Ramonet of Le Monde Diplomatique would've found it.)
