Venceremos

I am happy for everything he accomplished in life. What I will most miss about him are his colorful speeches. He was a brilliant speaker who could deliver a two hour speech without even glancing at notes. As an American I was fascinated to see a Latin American leader speak about the empire and the history of Latin America. He spoke in an illuminating manner about issues which American media outlets rarely discussed.

Contrary to how he may be depicted in the vast majority of the American media outlets, Hugo Chavez was not anti-American. One of the most quotable things he ever said was, "The U.S. is a great country, and it will always be a great country, but there will come a day when it will no longer be an empire, and the driving force of a hegemonic project. "

To refer to Latin American leaders such as Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa who assert their countries' soveriegnty as anti-American is like referring to black people who assert their civil rights as anti-white.

Among his accomplishments was to assert Venezuelan control over Venezuelan oil resources, an important achievement for any country, to control its own resources. He also diversified the client base for Venezuelan oil. Apart from this, unlike his American detractors who are obsessed with perpetuating their radical oil dependence, he was aware that an oil rich country cannot transform itself without diversifying its economy. He invested in education and provided free healthcare to all of Venezuela's citizens. He also made a commitment to achieving nutritional self-sufficiency within his country.

Yet, perhaps his greatest accomplishment is not any of the foregoing, but the fact that like other men who came before him such as Jesus, Buddha, Ghandi, King, X, Cesar Chavez, etc., he changed the consciousness of the world he lived in. He demonstrated that it is possible to create revolution and challenge the Anglo-Saxon hegemonists of the North American continent.