I was amused by Hugo Chavez’s diatribe in the U.N. General Assembly on September 21.  (As an added attraction, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a sideshow tent right next to Chavez’s Popsicle stand, which made the circus atmosphere complete.  I could almost hear a calliope playing in the background.)  Most interesting to me was what happened at the Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem after Chavez wrapped up his speech at the United Nations.  The thing that caught my eye there was the sight of Danny Glover running around in the background like some sort of chaperon or nursemaid or cheerleader.  I had to rub my eyes at first to be sure that what I was seeing was real.  I was thoroughly convinced when I later saw a photo of Glover giving Chavez a bear hug at that very same event.

So I started poking around on the web out of curiosity and learned some pretty fascinating stuff about Mr. Glover–things that convinced me that the man has fallen off the left edge of the earth and is swimming in deep, socialist-verging-on-communist waters.  Now I’m no conservative.  Not by any means.  But this guy is travelling back in time…way back to the days of Che Guevara, Chairman Mao, Rosa Luxemburg, or Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov.  Those were days that most of us, with good reason, have left far in the past.

In the small amount of research I did into Glover’s doings, I found some intriguing statements made by the man, such as “one of the main purveyors of violence in this world has been this country [the United States], whether it’s been against Nicaragua, Vietnam or wherever.”  Another fine example is the following piece of razor-sharp logic: “When I say the death penalty is inhumane. I mean [it’s inhumane] whether that person is in a bird cage [jail] or it’s bin Laden.”

Until I learned all this stuff, I had never considered Glover to be anything other than an actor who played in some half-assed movies.  But now it’s clear that he likes to dabble in things other than the thespian arts. 

He’s involved in political matters, for example, such as serving as the president of the TransAfrica Forum, an organization that “believes the success of Afro-Americans is bound up with the emancipation of all African peoples and also other dependent peoples and laboring classes everywhere.”

Then there’s his role as Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), where he focuses on HIV/AIDS and poverty (particularly in Africa).  He concurrently serves on the board of the Black AIDS Institute.

He’s also a member of the board of directors of teleSur (La Nueva Televisora del Sur), a newly-founded satellite television network in Latin America that’s heavily-funded and partially-owned by the Chavez government (the network is headquartered in Caracas).  Andres Izarra, president of the new network, says that the teleSur “is not a network that’s going to be broadcasting anti-U.S. people messages. “  He does go on to say, however, that teleSur “is a network against imperialism of its [the United States’] expression, especially cultural imperialism.”

I don’t have any problem at all with Glover’s participation in organizations dedicated to mitigating the devastating effects of HIV/AIDS.  But before now, I thought that HIV/AIDS affects everyone, regardless of skin color.  Just imagine the uproar if, say, Tom Selleck founded an organization dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS and poverty among Caucasians (or if he served on the board of something called “the White Folks AIDS Institute”).

The thing that gets me most, however, is the openly leftist slant to the things that Glover says and does.  Dependent peoples and laboring classes everywhere?  [American] cultural imperialism?  I mean, the phrases literally reek of outmoded socialist funk!  It’s taken twenty years to clear the American air of that nasty stink, and now Glover’s opening his mouth and, in concert with neo-fascist windbags like Chavez, is trying to reintroduce the familiar stale odor of Trotskyite halitosis into our atmosphere.  Arg.  And Glover fancies himself a progressive?  I’d diagnose his particular malady as a bad case of radical socialist recidivism, instead.  In January of this year Glover visited Venezuela with a group of like-minded “progressive” personalities.  (Go here to see who was on the delegation and marvel at the pithy things some of the others had to say while they were down there.)  One of the things Glover had to say was “I’ve been excited to get back to the United States to talk about what is happening [in Venezuela]”.  I, for one, would like to know exactly what he’d talk about.

In a February 2005 editorial in the U.S. News & World Report, Mortimer Zuckerman made the following observations:

All this [the subversion of democracy in Venezuela] is a culmination of Chavez’s frontal attack on civil society, reducing state institutions to mere shadows with only ceremonial powers. Just for starters, Chavez has rewritten Venezuela’s Constitution to enhance his powers, purged critics in the military, set up legislation to pack the Supreme Court, intimidated the media by threatening the expropriation of the licenses of private television stations that supported the opposition, and given succor to thousands of Castro’s military and intelligence officers, along with many social and medical workers, while tens of thousands of young Venezuelans have been sent to Cuba for indoctrination.

Now no one would accuse Zuckerman of being a standard bearer for neo-conservatism, so the pointed language he uses to describe conditions in Venezuela should be instructive to all of us.  That means Mr. Danny Glover, too.  He should open his eyes to the side of Venezuela (and Chavez) that Zuckerman describes as “a danger to democracy [that] is brewing right here in our backyard”.

And as a self-described human rights activist, I wonder if Mr. Glover is turning a blind eye to some of the human rights conditions in his favorite little Latin American fascist state.  He might be interested to read what the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have to say about Venezuela before he gives Hugo Chavez another back rub.

Technorati Tags: General Assembly, Mount Olivet Baptist Church, United Nations, Danny Glover, Che Guevara, Chairman Mao, Rosa Luxemburg, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, TransAfrica Forum, United Nations Development Program, Black AIDS Institute, teleSur, cultural imperialism, HIV/AIDS, neo-fascist, Trotskyite, socialist, neo-conservatism, Venezuela, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Hugo Chavez

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