Opinion
The US Supreme Court handed Chávez another weapon in his war against America last month when it ruled that corporations can buy as much media time and space as they like to promote their political agendas. In his State of the Union Address, President Obama criticized that Supreme Court ruling as a direct attack on America's democracy, which already advantages big money. In Washington, the Golden Rule is not "do unto others as they would do unto you" but "He who has the gold, rules."

A corporation with a big stake in that ruling was CITGO, the oil company owned by Venezuela's PDVSA, which spends tens of millions of dollars every year advertising the Bolivarian Revolution as the solution for humanity, and hundreds of millions of dollars every year subsidizing heating oil in 17 states, ostensibly as philanthropy -but actually trying to influence Congress. Politicians can smell that money a mile away, which is why the Revolution has so many defenders in Congress, even though the US Government has designated an alarming number of Venezuela's ministers, diplomats and officials as aiding terrorists, money-launderers, illegal weapons and drug traffickers, and the like.

It's amazing how tolerant the US is of enemies who have sworn to destroy it. There's really very little difference between the ends of al Qaeda and the Bolivarian Revolution in relation to the United States, if perhaps the means are different: One destroyed the World Trade buildings, while the other wants to destroy world trade itself. More alarming, with the heavy presence in Venezuela of Iran and its clandestine collaborators in Hezbollah and Hamas, the ends and means might meet in an act of terrorism on American soil, which the US Department of Defense testified this week, is highly likely. All this is covered up by millions of dollars for revolutionary propaganda in America.

In Venezuela, polls show that only a handful of people believe the Revolution is succeeding for the people and no free political speech against it is tolerated in the media. If the US propagandized in Venezuela as Venezuela does in the US, it would be considered an act of treason or warfare. But to the US Supreme Court, CITGO, Venezuela and Chávez have that right.
michaelrowan22@gmail.com