"Don't mess with me girl"

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Chavez is nothing if not entertaining.

Soul':

You keep asserting that Chavez' comments are largely "rhetoric" and that while there may be substance behind them, much of what he is saying is just hyperbole and showmanship.

On one level, I agree with you. However, I think that many politicians -- Chavez among them -- as well as yourself have not caught on to a fundamental shift in political interaction: the fruition of MacLuhan's "global village" and its spin-off problems for politicos everywhere.

We now live in a world where, for at least the last 5-10 years, virtually everybody between 18 and 40 (along with a sizeable percentage of those outside that demographic) is connected to the web during all of their waking hours unless they strive not to be. Cell-phones, blogging, net-surfing, the 24-hour news cycle of story bombardment etc. mean that ANY politician's words in ANY venue and on ANY occaision are now public domain. There will no longer be a chance for "Red Meat" speeches to be given to one's followers or party supporters simply to pump up their energy. ALL such communication will be blogged, translated, disected and fed into the unquenchable hunger of the 24-hour web/news world. We are no longer connected by Mass Media -- a la MacLuhan -- we ARE mass media, and the messages never stop.

A lot of the politicos, most of whom are 45+ in most cultures, aren't quite as in tune with this. 25 years ago, you gave your speech to the party faithful, they got pumped up, and everybody went home. Now, 6 bloggers have your words on the net in 20 minutes, 16 other bloggers from the other "team" are disecting your words, quoting anything outrageous, and feeding this into the mainstream media. Instead of going home, you get back to your room to find 3 reporters waiting for you to comment on the outrageous comments you made 34 mintues ago that "EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT." The semi-privacy of internal versus external, at least in politics, is gone. All statements are fully public at all times....and, Hilary, don't mumble too loudly while you take a nap on the plane.

[Tribesman]

Hilarious , take a local folk song , put it in a speech and watch the media have a fit .

[Soulforged]

A lot of the politicos, most of whom are 45+ in most cultures, aren't quite as in tune with this. 25 years ago, you gave your speech to the party faithful, they got pumped up, and everybody went home. Now, 6 bloggers have your words on the net in 20 minutes, 16 other bloggers from the other "team" are disecting your words, quoting anything outrageous, and feeding this into the mainstream media. Instead of going home, you get back to your room to find 3 reporters waiting for you to comment on the outrageous comments you made 34 mintues ago that "EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT." The semi-privacy of internal versus external, at least in politics, is gone. All statements are fully public at all times....and, Hilary, don't mumble too loudly while you take a nap on the plane.

I agree with you Seamus. It's kind of massive (however I cannot look at it for third party perspective because since I came to this world I live in the world you're describing), specially extravagant, exotic and exagerated comments such the ones that Chavez keeps saying (and why not, even humorous), are much more actractive than other subjects that could be discussed, but this could generate, nevertheless, a massive critical (mostly uneducated) actitud against the government or their visible heads, I would not call it democracy but at least you're right with it's public caracter.