One could not make this up, Hugo Chavez, leftist President of Venezuela has begun a new insidious plot to further his Marxist ideology; reading. Mr. Chavez has distributed millions of government approved “must read books” to the people of his nation in order to foster a cultural revolution, and to further the communist dream of creating a “new man” and to ease the transition of Venezuela into “21st century socialism.”
Mr. Chavez, who I wrote an open letter to in March of 2008, has the right idea of how to change the thoughts and perceptions of his countrymen, but his implementation of this is questionable. Mr. Chavez was elected, unlike all other communist despots who came to power initially through violent and bloody revolutions or internal powerstruggles, and as such does not enjoy the same amount of power which was weilded by other communist leaders. As such, efforts to hand out “must read” books, although very admirable in concept, will falter due to the lack of a number of preconditions, such as a cult of personality, state controled media, political purges/terrorism, which were present in other communist nations, such as China.
Although the concept of wanting to better the education the population of ones nation is very admirable, and I do support it, the implmentation is utterly contemptable because it fits within the narrow world veiw of Hugo Chavez and his leftist supporters, and thus will not be of any good to the people who he claims to be working on the behalf of.
