Lefty anarchist intellectual Noam Chomsky used to be Venezuelan strongman president Hugo Chavez' most uncritically adoring fan. He cited the soldier-turned-politician as a driving force for improving equality and reducing poverty in Latin America. In return, Chavez plugged Chomsky's books at the United Nations.

But as the buffoonish politician's health declines, he finds his clever old friend is finally starting to notice and speak out about what most obververs of Latin American politics picked up on years ago.

An excerpt from the Guardian: Noam Chomsky on Venezuela – the transcript

RC: With Hugo Chávez in Cuba the last several weeks a lot of people are saying this shows there is too much reliance on one man because everything appears to have almost stopped in his absence, at least in the political sphere. What's your take? Is there too much reliance on one man and his charisma?

 

NC: Anywhere in Latin America there is a potential threat of the pathology of caudillismo and it has to be guarded against. Whether it's over too far in that direction in Venezuela I'm not sure but I think perhaps it is.

RC: What makes you say that? Is it a recent thing or a trend over the past few years?

 

NC: It's a trend which has developed towards the centralisation of power in the executive which I don't think is a healthy development.

...

RC: Finally professor, the concerns about the concentration of executive power in Venezuela: to what extent might that be undermining democracy in Venezuela?

 

NC: Concentration of executive power, unless it's very temporary and for specific circumstances, let's say fighting world war two, it's an assault on democracy.

RC: And so in the case of Venezuela is that what's happening or at risk of happening?

 

NC: As I said you can debate whether circumstances require it – both internal circumstances and the external threat of attack and so on, so that's a legitimate debate – but my own judgment in that debate is that it does not.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist

No. Capitalism and imperialism killed it, according to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Also, the West is attacking Libya for its water reserves.

"I have always said, heard, that it would not be strange that there had been civilization on Mars, but maybe capitalism arrived there, imperialism arrived and finished off the planet," Chavez said in speech to mark World Water Day.

The world is very much reassured that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is taking American actor Sean Penn's advice under consideration. But shouldn't we all be at least a little worried that Chavez is also hanging out with the likes of Dr. Evil?

Seriously. 31 seconds into the Reuters clip. Check it out.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is now on his back foot. Can he be topped by a popular movement?

The Latin American socialist demagogue is now facing concerted resistance from opposition parties that formerly boycotted the political hyena. And as it turns out, Venezuelan democracy may have a little life left. Chavez' constant propaganda can't cover up the fact that the economy is in ruins (even as billions of dollars worth of Russian arms deals went through to help fight an American invasion no one thinks will never actually come). And Chavez' handouts to bribe the poor have not done anything to lift the poor out of poverty. He has only perpetuated a permanent unemployed underclass.

Now he's paying for it. Joel D. Hirst in the Huffington post reports on the startling change in Venezuelan politics: Read more

Long ago in my student days, my political science professor drew a squiggly map of the world on the blackboard. He elaborated on the topics we would be discussing that year, pointing to various spots the map around the Middle East, Africa, China, Russia and Southeast Asia. He drew lines from North America and Western Europe, adding more details as he went, muttering random thoughts about the Cold War, dictators and international terrorism.

About 15 minutes into the introductory talk, he paused, realized he'd forgotten to draw South America. He hastily drew a clumsy blob in the general vicinity of where it was supposed to be, noting with a shrug that "we wouldn't be focusing on that part of the world too much, anyway. When it comes to international relations, it doesn't really matter." And that was that. So much for the 400 million salsa-dancing non-entities below the Panama Canal.

Even today, Venezuela, like much of South America, gets short shrift when it comes to how North Americans see the world. Venezuelan Dictator (er, President) Hugo Chavez can fulminate on the relative sulphur content of the air at the United Nations and buy up all of the former Soviet Union's garage sale military junk all he likes. The failed states and rogue regimes of the Middle East, Africa and Asia will always grab the lion's share of reporters' ink.

That's a shame. Venezuela is an utterly failed state, comparable to the worst parts of Iraq, Pakistan and Burma. It's a disaster and the only reason people aren't paying more attention is... well, a habit of not paying attention.

The New York Times notes that "in Iraq, a country with about the same population as Venezuela, there were 4,644 civilian deaths from violence in 2009, according to Iraq Body Count; in Venezuela that year, the number of murders climbed above 16,000. Even Mexico’s infamous drug war has claimed fewer lives".

The cops arrest fewer than one in ten of the killers. Meanwhile, police seem to be far more efficient when it comes to locking up dissidents, political opposition leaders and the managers of media outlets.

The Venezuelan economy meanwhile appears to be immune to the public aims and machinations of the "Bolivarian revolution". Chavez' reforms have only cemented class divisions, leaving millions of Venezueland welfare dependent. It's not so much a workers' paradise as a jobless hell.

Instead of investing in its crumbling infrastructure, health clinics, schools or even the creaky state-commandeered oil industry, Chavez orders billions of dollars worth of Russian tanks and helicopter gunships. Instead of promoting trade with his neighbors, he shuts down the border and threatens them with invasion.

So, let's check the list of criteria we would use to verify whether a country is a "failed state". Absence of rule of law? Check. A wrecked economy dealing with hyperinflation? Check. A political leader who uses fear, intimidation and demagoguery to scuttle democracy? Check.

Do we really need to wait until Chavez drives his own people into a bottomless pit of misery before we call a spade a spade?

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist.

As political propaganda films go, Oliver Stone's sycophantic pean to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, South of the Border, is an unmitigated failure.

Chavez has undermined democracy and the rule of law in his country. In the tradition of modern tyrants everywhere, he has shut down media outlets that show the slightest opposition to his regime. He has packed the civil service with apparatchiks and made loyalty to his own political brand the key metric for hiring and firing. And he has utterly wrecked the Venezuelan economy, including even the oil industry from which he sucks out cash to finance his Bolivarian revolution.

For all this, Chavez is not direct military threat to the USA. Russian-bought T-72 tanks with Venezuelan markings will not be rolling into Washington anytime in the conceivable future. The threat has been indirect, as a Castro-lite regime attempts to influence the development of a wider South American socialist bloc of countries.

Oliver Stone's flick overlooks Chavez' failings and presents him and other Latin American socialist leaders as visionaries and heroes. But nobody is buying it; least of all, the people Chavez keeps under his boot.

The Christian Science Monitor reports that "Despite round-the-clock promotion on Venezuelan state television and government-subsidized screenings in the capital of Caracas, local moviegoers have largely stayed away. The film grossed only $18,601 on 20 screens in the 12 days after its June 4 debut." Compare that with the $2.1 million grossed by the Michael Jackson documentary "This Is It" in Venezuela.

Ticket sales in the rest of the continent were correspondingly small, maxing out at $40,000 in Argentina and $21,000 in Brazil.

What does it all mean? It seems you can lead an oppressed population to the cinema, but you can't make them watch your awful movie -- and you definitely can't get them to pay for the privilege.

Jonathon Narvey is the Editor of The Propagandist