What happens when you mix Harry Belafonte, Danny Glover, Cornell West, Tavis Smiley and some lesser known nuts with Hugo Chavez? You get one very nutty fruit bowl.

On January 7, 2006 Harry Belafonte led a “delegation” of 13 other ACTORvists on a visit to Venezuela. They claim they were going to review how Hugo’s (socialist heading towards communist) efforts were going. And they are planning to bring what they learned from Hugo back to the USA. They want to try and inspire Americans to embrace the programs used by Hugo and also play him up as a hero. You can read all about that in this article. That article is from a Venezuelan news source. Reading it you would think that Chavez was a hero and that all the talk against him is just American media spin. I’ll speak about that a little later in this post.

This article mentions some of the more inflammatory statements made by Harry Belafonte, that are already getting plenty of coverage. Calling Bush a terrorist and stuff. Given that is getting much coverage elsewhere I won’t bother with that here. Because while everyone is attacking Belafonte, they are missing the other members of the “delegation”. Those 13 other folks are the ones that will really be pushing to bring Chavez’s programs to the USA. You should be aware of who they are, so you can see their moves coming. Here are the names of the folks that went that I could gather:

• Harry Belafonte
• Cornell West
• Danny Glover
• Tavis Smiley
• Dolores Huerta - United Farm Workers organizer
• Malia Lazu - part of Showtimes’ “American Candidate” series (An Independent running for President). She is also into Hip Hop and is one of the authors of the book “How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: The Anti-Politics, Un-Boring Guide to Power”
• Nane Alejandrez - Founder of Barrios Unidos (A Latino youth gang diversion organization)
• Ralph Paige - Director of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives (A Black farmers’ organization)
• James Earley - Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Cultural Heritage Policy
• Jack Willis - Vice-President and co-founder of Link TV. A Far-Left satellite TV channel

While delegation members praised Chavez, there were some matters that they totally ignored. While they spoke with some of Chavez’s opposition, there is no record of the “delegation” giving their complaints much attention. For example, there have been plenty of complaints about the elections in Venezuela. While many of these delegation members complain about things like that here, they seem to say nothing about the situation in Venezuela. See the WSJ.com article: Chavez’s Rivals Are Withdrawing From Elections (WSJ.com paid subscription required). In addition to detailing some election issues, the article also mentions Chavez has tightened controls on the media, cut some of the power of Venezuela’s Congress, is watering down the definition of private property and trying to remove term limits. Can you say the makings of a communist dictatorship? That’s what he’s trying to make, just like his friend Fidel Castro. Hugo has also been critical of church ministers in Venezuela. And there are claims that he may have authorized attacks against them.

And now that the price of oil has gone up, Hugo took all the privately owned oil fields. I never by gas from Venezuela’s American affiliate Citgo! Yea there is plenty of dirty oil, but at least with other gas companies more of the money goes to a business based in the USA.

Also it seems that Hugo is playing some funny games with his country’s high poverty rate statistics.

Trying to make it seem his programs are working, when they really are not! And the “delegation” wants to come back to the USA and claim that they saw Venezuela and things were going great .

The Venezuelan officials that changed their numbers claim that things improved because of an improved GDP. But as this WSJ.com article points out, Hugo’s efforts are causing investors to lighten up on their investments and GDP is being impacted.

All that and I still have not mentioned many of the other issues with Hugo Chavez:

So any delegation that claims Hugo is a good man has to be full of nuts!

Related post: Even Lefties say Harry Belafonte is nuts!

update (1/9/2006 3:18PM ET): Hugo Chavez is now telling coffee producers in his country that they better sell coffee at government mandated prices, or he will take over their business!

Price controls and more government control of businesses. History proven signs of a nation that is going to go down hard!

update (1/9/2006 5:44PM ET): Fausta’s Blog has a some pictures of people Hugo Chavez “dances” with.