Chavez

A couple nights ago i went to a socialist meeting :) Not cause im a socialist but because there was a speaker from Venesuela's Chavez government giving a speech. There are lots of really interesting political movements happening right now in south america, one of them being the "Bolivarian Revolution" (named after Simon Bolivar who helped many south american countries gain independence from Spain) in Venesuela. The meeting hall was packed with people, hot and very humid...i think they wanted their south american visitor to feel at home. The speech was fairly interesting, i tried my best to understand the spanish (although everything was translated to english). There was a couple of young irish anti-chavez communists that were initially not allowed into the meeting, but after putting up a big fuss were allowed in. The highlight of the event was the Q&A session at the end. A very attractive vensuelan girl got the microphone and with almost tears in her eyes rejected most of the claims made by the speakers...she was boo'ed by some, others were very keen to hear what she had to say...that there isn't a clear division be between poor and rich, between Chavez supporters and the others, and it's wrong to paint the picture that chavez is this hero supported by all the normal people. This was followed by an old venesuelan lady who spoke passionately about how chavez is a humanist and has brought literacy and medicine to poor people throughout venesuela. I need visit this country soon :)