{"id":420586,"date":"2010-03-12T11:14:04","date_gmt":"2010-03-12T16:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/hollywood-chavez-s-last-bastion-support-40759\/"},"modified":"2010-03-12T11:14:04","modified_gmt":"2010-03-12T16:14:04","slug":"hollywood-chavezs-last-bastion-of-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/420586","title":{"rendered":"Hollywood: Chavez?s Last Bastion of Support"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 03.12.10 07:00 AM posted by Michael Powell<\/p>\n

\n<ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Chavez-Penn-100311.jpg">\"\"<\/p>In the wake of a devastating report on his presidency by the Organization of American States\u0092 (OAS) Inter-American Commission, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez\u0092s loudest defense <ahref="http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/entertainment\/2010\/03\/08\/sean-penn-wants-reporters-jailed-calling-chavez-dictator\/">has come from actor Sean Penn, known most recently for his roles in <ahref="http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1013753\/">Milk<\/i> and <ahref="http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0327056\/">Mystic River<\/i>.<\/p>\n

<ahref="http:\/\/cidh.org\/pdf%20files\/VENEZUELA%202009%20ENG.pdf">In the OAS report, Chavez is accused of not only centralizing his own power but eliminating his country\u0092s private sector, repression of opposition media outlets and criminalization of human rights groups. Appearing on the HBO show \u0093Real Time with Bill Maher,\u0094 Penn denied Chavez\u0092s tyranny, saying, \u0093Every day, this elected leader is called a dictator here, and we just accept it, and accept it,\u0094 before adding that he believed those who call Chavez a dictator should be imprisoned, \u0093truly, there should be a bar by which one goes to prison for these kinds of lies.\u0094<\/p>\n

<spanid="more-28647"><\/span>Penn\u0092s role as Chavez propagandist is lockstep with Hugo Chavez\u0092s dismissal of the OAS report. In his response, Chavez showed himself to be little more than a strongman, whose power is based on bullying and intimidation, ridiculing the OAS report in a manner that would be hilarious if it weren\u0092t so sickening. In a fit of rage unbecoming anyone who would deem themselves a \u0093leader,\u0094 Chavez said that Santiago Canton, the head of OAS, was \u0093<ahref="http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2010\/feb\/25\/oas-report-chavez-human-rights">executive excrement, pure excrement\u0094 and that the OAS was a \u0093mafia.\u0094<\/p>\n

However passionate he may be for the Venezuelan dictator, Penn is a lone voice in an increasing loud chorus of condemnation aimed at Chavez. <ahref="http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/02\/28\/AR2010022803492.html">In a harsh editorial in the Washington Post last month, the newspaper deemed the OAS report as \u0093a powerful and sometimes chilling account\u0094 and a late response \u0093to the steady deterioration of Latin American democracy during the past few years.\u0094 With so many voices, it\u0092s time to ask who we should trust: the sobering report of the OAS or a celebrity who is clearly out of his league when it comes to politics?<\/p>\n

Michael Orion Powell <\/i>is currently a member of the Young Leaders Program at the Heritage Foundation. For more information on interning at Heritage, please visit: <ahref="http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/about\/departments\/ylp.cfm">http:\/\/www.heritage.org\/about\/departments\/ylp.cfm<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/03\/12\/…on-of-support\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 03.12.10 07:00 AM posted by Michael Powell <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Chavez-Penn-100311.jpg"><\/p>In the wake of a devastating report on his presidency by the Organization of American States\u0092 (OAS) Inter-American Commission, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez\u0092s loudest defense <ahref="http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/entertainment\/2010\/03\/08\/sean-penn-wants-reporters-jailed-calling-chavez-dictator\/">has come from actor Sean Penn, known most recently for his roles in <ahref="http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1013753\/">Milk and <ahref="http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0327056\/">Mystic River. <ahref="http:\/\/cidh.org\/pdf%20files\/VENEZUELA%202009%20ENG.pdf">In the OAS report, Chavez […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=420586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420586\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=420586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=420586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=420586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}