sigh - this is just propaganda of the sickest kind...

That's, uhm...really sickening. BS on the accident thing.

Accidents, like claiming ignorance, being out-of the-loop, being mis-informed, bad intelligence, a few bad apples; phrases that are all members of the same family, the family of excuses allowing the speaker to claim plausible deniability. Whether we send a cruise missile into a Chinese Embassy in the Balkins, or an Al Jazeera newsroom, shoot down an Iranian airliner, a Cuban airliner, drop a bunker buster on a hotel in Baghdad with 700 civilians huddled in the basement, the exceuses are at the ready. A friend of mine down under said it well when he relayed to me an expression they use in Kiwiland. "Britannia used to rule the waves, now America waives the rules."

peasant,

"Britannia used to rule the waves, now America waives the rules."

This is so true it hurts, and succint.

And yes, there are too many accidents to take them as accidents. These things happen for a reason, and happen too often. It's no more an accident than Blackwater murdering Iraqi civilians.

So sick of this shit. Even John Stewart is confused when it comes to Chavez. We elect out-and-out servants of Satan, ally ourselves with dictators who use rape as a political tool (oh, actually, we do that too!) and then accuse Chavez of every crime imaginable . . . and even some progressives buy this line.

I'm as progressive as they come and if I were in Chavez's shoes I would have purged every motherfucker even near someone who had helped that coup against him. I get testy when people overthrow my duly-elected administration in a racist, aristocrat-sponsored military junta, what can I say? He's been playing it mild in my book; downright nuanced.

If one compares the oil rich nation of Venezuela and it's current leadership to the oil rich nation of Saudi Arabia and it's long time leadership which would be the Aziz family, in comparison, Hugo seems very lovable if a little impertinent. Also, as many sources have pointed out, Hugo is running in an election {they don't have those in Saudi Arabia for the top positions} right now and a lot of what he is doing is not very different from what incumbents in the US do to stir up the base of their voters.
The US State department has so pathetically mismanaged Latin American policy for 100 years and more or less ignored the continent of South America for the last 7 years that now they are so far behind in the public relations sphere there {China and Japan are way ahead} that the US will most likely NEVER catch up, and thus, perhaps this is an indication of the end of the US influence in this hemisphere.
The US has the armaments, they used them in Iraq and Afganistan, they are clearly losing the control of those countries and the support of the populations.
Latin American leaders can see that the US juggernaut is mired.
They know that they can do and say whatever they wish now and so they do!
But Hugo has also upset the Colombian government with his megalomania and neo-Bolivarianism and so the recurring and centuries old rivalries and essentially stupid and devisive wars endemic to South and Central America continue in the diplomatic arena.
Hugo has some talent and some huevos but he often fails to think before he makes his entertaining pronouncements.
I think El Rey was just trying to do him a favor when he told him to shut up.
We shall soon see what the latest votes in Venezuela will mean for Hugo, but he IS on a roll there, he is a fairly young and energetic guy and he will be around there for quite a while probably, so why not try to make him a pal?
The US State Department seems to have no trouble playing that game with the Saudi Princes.

Captioning Thomas Beckett's picture with "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" appears to be just a production mistake. Don't make such a big deal of it.

Its starting to come out that the CIA is involved in trying to overthrow Chavez, as if this is a surprise to anyone.

Time for you to read Galeano Hughes, Miss Kitty.

www.wwnorton.com/catalog/spring98/galeano.htm

Kitty: Better info and correct name order:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduardo_Galeano

i used to think c.n.n. was legit,but there no different than fox just a bit more coy.