Chavez's legacy.

• Author: Fair-Schulz, Axel
• Position: WE HEAR YOU

Bill Lueders's "Money Isn't Everything" (February issue) is, in many ways, a well-reasoned piece. But, I'm dismayed by the quasi-ritualistic smears of Venezuela's late president Hugo Chavez as an "authoritarian." Not only is such a description imprecise--it is openly misleading and merely rehashes official U.S. government talking points uncritically.

Whatever the shortcomings of the "Bolivarian Revolution" under Chavez, mischaracterizing it as merely "authoritarian" flies in the face of some basic facts that are routinely ignored by the corporate media and the vested interests behind them. Even the Carter Center confirmed that Venezuela built one of the world's most transparent and secure electoral systems in recent years.

Within this context, it is worth remembering that Chavez and his party have won eighteen out of twenty largely fair and democratic elections during the last seventeen years. It is also worth remembering that various U.S...