In other news, there are apparently a bunch of self-satisfied Marxists running around Venezuela; this has been documented in the new DVD release “Venezuela: Revolution From the Inside Out.” This just shows how oppressed I, as a relatively informed ‘free’ American citizen, really am! Director Clifton Ross takes his camera “Blair Witch” style around the Venezuelan countryside and apparently has found the most radical, rabid, revolutionary idealists around. Just for our own clarification, there is a crack pot team on the scene who are narrating the subtitles for us so that we get the full effect of just what is going on. This is fun to watch after some fun and interactive sports betting games via www.townvibe.com.

When I first watched this DVD, I clicked on the “Messages to the North American People” link just to see what I’d been missing. Mind you, there was a “Meeting Chavez” link in addition to the actual chapters and the video itself, so this wasn’t even the actual DVD, but it was the first link in the clockwise upper left hand quadrant of the screen. And being an orderly person, I clicked this first.

I don’t mean for my rhetoric to take such a slanted tone, but when you begin your film, talking to some Joe-blow on the street, and the first words out of this joker’s mouth are “What good is all of Billy Gate’s money, the richest man on the planet, if his peoples are unhappy?” Okay, I wish I had some of Bill Gate’s money too, but Bill Gates doesn’t owe anybody anything! And he does give to the charities of his choice! But really, when you, scraggly old man from Venezuela start in right off the bat telling the audience how Bill Gates is somehow a horrible person just because he doesn’t distribute his wealth (which he earned) evenly across the world, that’s just overstepping the line. Besides, it’s not Bill Gate’s job to make sure that everyone in the United States (which is what I’m assuming he meant when he said “his peoples”) is happy! Just because you have money doesn’t mean necessarily that you live a full life and that you’re happy; just because you’re poorer than dirt doesn’t mean that you’re unhappy and that you life is empty.

But it doesn’t stop there! After this same joker goes on to blame Hurricane Katrina and racial inequity in Alabama and Mississippi on Bill Gates (only these two states, notably; Hurricane Katrina had a tiny effect on the native Louisianans also) then this other dude comes on talking about George Bush! His griping starts out with familiar intonations; “I don’t understand how a person like Bush could have been re-elected president of the (US) republic.” Okay. So far we’re in agreement. Many will even go back to the year 2000 and say that Bush was never really elected in the first place! In 2004 there was a movement underway for Howard Dean but that eventually was squelched in favor of the less scary looking candidate. I reflect back all the time to that red-faced scream; if that had never happened and been played over and over and over again, how the 2004 election may have turned out differently.

Heck! I wonder how things might have been different if the response had been as harsh towards Bush when he said, on September 26, 2002, about the threat from Saddam Hussein, “After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad (*I remember it as “Daddy” but CNN has it’s own agenda to uphold). That was the central thesis of the war against Iraq which continues today; George Bush wanted to make Daddy proud and finish what papa started. Perhaps we saw things with rose tinted glasses, smeared by the blood of all the dead from 9/11 and maybe we were all still too angry but legitimate military intelligence in the United States generally agreed that Saddam was not the threat. One presidential candidate also saw through the rush to war; not naming names.

So to the man in Venezuela in the car who the camera man is talking to, I agree! I don’t understand how he could have been elected or re-elected. Be that as it may, what comes out of this guys mouth in the next breath makes me cringe: “And so I ask myself if it’s that the people of the U.S. are too submissive, dominated, or stupudized by the media, as happened to us, that is, it seems a tiny group in the world has all the power.”

Okay dude, your politics in Venezuela are just as corrupt as America. You have two parties; Socialist (PSUV) and Communist (PCV). You had a 2005 parliamentary election which was boycotted so everyone’s got problems. But the American electorate, I’d like to believe is at least aware of what is going on. By and large, if you are a voting member of the world you either read a newspaper, have an online connection, and/or talk with your friends, family, or co-workers about what is going on. Talking about politics is one of the great things about the United States; it is something that we are able to do freely and openly; so when you say that the American electorate is “submissive, dominated, or stupidized” that makes me believe that you yourself are uninformed. If anything “talk” in American politics has run rampant for years! In my world it was probably Alex P. Keaton who took me there in the virtual world and on and on from there. Moreover, the 24 hour news coverage beats it to a pulp so in a manner of speaking, we, Americans can have our news any way we want it; we are informed, we are over informed, if anything.

The first guy who blames Bill Gates for all the problems of the United States also says something else which really got me going. He asked if Bill Gates can “sleep well knowing his money, well used, could resolve the problems of his country.” Okay, this is another thing which really got me going. Money is not the answer to all the worlds’ problems. Yes, money is helpful, but putting money into people’s hands doesn’t necessarily mean that they will do anything good with it. It is this oversimplification of the problems of the world which are my primary contentions with this DVD.

And this is all in the first three minutes! If you agree with the rancor I’ve described from these men, you might want to watch this DVD; if you don’t then you might just shut it off, but be weary of the anger which simmers over!

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