From the LA Times:
According to reports, the Chavez-Obama exchange, the book offered by the Venezuelan leader was in Spanish, a language the U.S. president does not read. Why Chavez didn't give him an English version is anyone's guess.Maybe because the little tinpot dictator is too stupid to realize we speak English up here...
Forget that crap sandwich between two covers that dictator Hugo Chavez pressed into the accepting hands of President Obama. It's nothing but a leftist, anti-US screed that blames us for every ill ever visited upon Latin America, from cholera to national insolvency. You could fill a library with such books. Hating America isn't just a cottage industry in Latin America, it is a major going concern on the continent, second only to oil and mineral exploitation.
My favorite book of this genre was one about how Uncle Sam crushed Panama under his cruel, hob-nail boots for 100 years. The author paints Panama as a slave colony under our rule. It was a best seller in South American capitals like Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Caracas. It did terrible in Panama, because the subjects of the book saw it for the farce that it was. Even Panamanian leftists wouldn't defend the book; doing so would have made them even more of a laughing stock than they already were in that relatively conservative country.
Anyone who had ever lived in Panama, one of the few countries in the region where you can drink the tap water, knew the book was BS. Those Latinos who had never lived there eagerly lapped it up, such is their simmering resentment of our country. Anything to avoid blaming themselves.
Here are a few recommendations from Silverfiddle to counter such socialist propaganda:
Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot. Aptly named antidote to the leftist claptrap written about our neighbors to the south. From Amazon's review: "Three Latin American writers, all ex-leftists, attack misconceptions about Latin America and ingrained sentiments of victimization and anti-Americanism among its people."
My favorite, The Penguin History of Latin America. No, it wasn't written by penguins, nor is it about those cute flightless neighbors to the south of South America. Written by University of Edinburgh Professor Edwin Williamson, it is an incisive overview of 500 years of Latin America history. It weighs in at a little over 600 highly readable pages, with each chapter devoted to a different subject or historical era, and is laid out mostly in chronological order.
A final word of advice: Don't read anything written in the US by any Latin American Studies professors, Chicano Studies doctoral candidates, or any other so-called Latin American experts from the world of academe. The closest most of these people have gotten to their area of "expertise" is eating a chalupa at Taco Bell.
LA Times: Chavez Gift to Obama
Amazon: Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot
Amazon: The Penguin History of Latin America
