Watch: Sean Penn On His Visit With Chavez

Sean Penn appeared on "The Late Show with David Letterman" Monday night to promote "Into the Wild," which he directed and opens Friday. He also talked about his recent visit with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. He had good things to say about the controversial leader, adding "He's done incredible things for the 80% of the people who are very poor there." See the full clip below.

From CBS, 10/1

Comments

[exxonmobil4prez]

02:46 PM on 10/04/2007

Not only Pinochet. What about Allende, the Contra- Death Squads, Torrijos of Panama, etc, etc. let's Also,, lets not forget Cuba; remember, the reason they got on our bad side was that they got fed up with with us businessmen turning their country in to a brothel for rich Americans
_________________________________
yes and don't forget about the sugar cane incident that our country pulled!

[AnnaMaria]

02:35 PM on 10/04/2007

Check out other presidential meetings on Why Democracy?

Dinner with Ahmadinejad: http://www.whydemocracy.net/house/news/node/95

Evo Morale on The Daily Show: http://www.whydemocracy.net/house/news/node/89

[watchingthings]

01:55 PM on 10/04/2007

So he helped the poor people who were being robbed blind....big deal. Did he help the multi-nationals steal Venezuala's oil? No way! How can this possibly be anything good that he is doing?

[ResidentChimp]

10:40 AM on 10/04/2007

Chavez is in the same mold as Che Guevara, a murdering thug that liberals like to idolize.

[Bluesman48]

01:18 PM on 10/04/2007

As opposed to the murdering thugs you idolize.

[ResidentChimp]

01:52 PM on 10/04/2007

Liberals want you to think there is an equivalency between President Bush and thugs like Chavez, Saddam and Che Guevara. Tell me when did President Bush personally torture people and kill them? I'm sure you will have a convenient response.

[woodro]

09:20 AM on 10/04/2007

typically i don't make fun of the vertically challenged, but Penn makes it so easy, and fun too. the only thing that is shorter on this guy, is his intelligence. just curious is the Penn tennis ball a exact copy of Sean's brain?

[totalliberal]

08:57 PM on 10/03/2007

[ZenCrusader: .... I live much of the year in Costa Rica that gets gas from Venezuela - the cost of gasoline in Costa Rica is MUCH higher than in the USA.]



I live in CR for half of the year as well Zenster. Yes the fuel cost more, but it's because of taxes. Oh and you probably forgot to mention that those taxes go toward free health-care for all it's citizens as well as free education through university. Slight over-site there eh Zen baby?

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

06:21 AM on 10/04/2007

"over-site" for "oversight"..... Why can't people who write in blogs punctuate or spell these days--esp. native speakers of English?

[brooklyncitizen]

10:29 AM on 10/04/2007

how do u know whs a natv spkr of engleesh?

[ZenCrusader]

12:58 PM on 10/04/2007

oh yes ... that great free health care at Hospital Mexico ? But you are quite correct, thanx. That does change the perspective. I'm trying to get back down before I see any snow up here this year. Sunday is the election on NAFTA in CR and the majority of Tico's are going to vote No. Anyway, glad you can enjoy CR too !

[kfdan]

05:28 PM on 10/03/2007

Sean Penn has guts and does not put up with the garbage of the neo-conmen oriented mainstream media. I like the fact that he says what he means and does not pull punches!
That's a real American ~ the kind that the rest of the world has come to admire!

[Fuji]

03:07 PM on 10/03/2007

Why not put Sean in charge?

[wars4profit]

01:38 PM on 10/03/2007

Kudos to Sean Penn!


If you are interested in Venezuela, a good resource is the site linked below:

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/

Its creator is Gregory Wilpert, a sociologist (Ph.D. Brandeis University), freelance journalist, and former US Fulbright Scholar in Venezuela.
.

[MI6troll]

04:21 PM on 10/03/2007

wars is a fan of EtJ. wars became a fan of EtJ after it was pointed out that EtJ posts links to anti-Semitic white supremacist websites run by Alex Linder.

wars supports the regime in Teheran as they subjugate women and execute people for being gay.

wars has called for the US to apologize for the SNL skit about Ahmadinejad.

wars can GFH

[wars4profit]

05:53 PM on 10/03/2007

MI6troll supports bombing Iran. He's been harassing me most recently because of my staunch opposition to such an attack. His talking point is that the Pentagon ought to destroy Iran because of alleged mistreatment of women and gay men. My answer is that raining bombs on Iran would not just mistreat Iranian women and gay men but it would mistreat all the people in Iran.

Would a shock-and-revulsion blitzkrieg help Iranian women and gay men? Just take a look at Iraq. The Pentagon had its way in Iraq, and ALL Iraqi people suffered, including women and gay men.

So if you REALLY care about Iranian women and gay men, speak out loud and often against bombing Iran.

[otispfudpucker]

08:04 PM on 10/03/2007

viva sean pean he speaks the truth

[Bluesage]

01:16 PM on 10/03/2007

I enjoy reading the articles offered at Huff and I admire Sean Penn for his courage to explore the truth and speak about it but the comments section is a whole different ballgame. Every one of them seems to be a magnet for right-wing nuts. It is just a barrage of insults and idiocy which makes it really impossible to have legitimate, intelligent discussion on any topic. Too bad.

[Marlyn]

05:51 PM on 10/03/2007

Ignore them.

[gekkobear]

12:11 PM on 10/03/2007

Chavez? Oh, this is like the love for Mugabe... a mistake, an obvious mistake, and one that will be regretted later.

But for now, he's "wonderful". Until people actually hear all the petty details, when he will be claimed to have "changed".

Before Mugabe, it was... Stalin if I recall. Oh the joys of the Stalin Love... before he "changed". Before that was Mao? Now I'm forgetting.

Which tyrannical dictator was the left worshipping as its idol before Mao? I just get so confused trying to keep straight which tyrannical dictator is still the love of the left, and which ones are "on the outs" as it were.

How many of you supported Mugabe and thought he was the true cure for Zimbabwe back in the '90s? How'd that work out for you? You happy with the economic collapse, starvation, and tyranny that has been supported there? Or did he "change"?

And by change; I mean continue exactly what he was doing, but get different press as people started dying by the thousands from his Government band of thugs?

But I'm sure Chavez is going to be completely different... like... hmm, I can't think of a dictator that had the love of the left and worked out well. Well, Castro only imprisons Reporters who report anything he doesn't like... so I think he's ok. Because he isn't killing them wholesale, but on the down-low... which is always appreciated.

Surely Chavez will be different from all the others. He's special, and he really loves you. Not like all the others who were just fooling you to get what they wanted... Chavez is "the one".

Good luck with that, pardon me if I don't hold my breath.

[ADVOCATE4ZPG]

06:29 AM on 10/04/2007

Excellent albeit rambling denomination of the charismatic 'champion.' Self-importance goes to his head; civil institutions become the fiefdoms of his fellow-travelling thugs. Civil order is degraded, and all but the chronically prolific give up. The latter remain like pigeons cooing in the square for corn....

[brooklyncitizen]

10:46 AM on 10/04/2007

THe bottomline is that he is taking care of the Venezuelan people who have ELECTED him repeatedly and they are a SOVEREIGN nation; I know this is a difficult concept for Americans and the American govt to accept and respect. Nonetheless what happens in Venezuela is their business.

Chavez had amicable relations when B Clinton was president. Americans such as yourself fall into the lazy category of not understanding the sequence of events that led to the animosity between Chavez and Bush.

Bush was gunning for Chavez (oil) when he got into office but it wasn't until Chavez vocalized his opposition to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 that things got ugly. Bush financed and supported a coup attempt on Chavez that even the Venezuelan military refused to support. It failed and here we are.

You can go on about Mugabe all you like. The bottomline is that Ian SMith was a tyrant and colonizer of what was then know as Rhodesia.So apartheid is better is that your point? Mugabe is undoubtedly crazy but I visited Zimbabwe in the 1990's and it was like going into the antebellum South. Whites still owned most of the land and black Africans were housed in shabby huts to work the land for Massah.It was disgusting.

However their was hope and it breaks my heart to know what is happenning to Zimbabwens today. Yet becasue it is a black African leader it is objectionable; when it was white Ian Smith with apartheid (Jim Crow), Americans had no objections. Just like AMericans had no objections to apartheid South Africa and labelled Mandela a terrorist for being part of the ANC. Priceless.

Republicans cannot have it both ways: supporting and financing and engineering coups when it is politically expedient regardless of the human rights record of the US hand-picked leader.Saddam? Noriega? Pinochet? Trujillo?

Viva Chavez.

[moneyrunt]

08:35 AM on 10/03/2007

A drunken, cocaine-using socialist who went to Iraq, was led around palaces surrounded by rivers of chocolate and lollipop landscaping. And now Venezuela. Of course Chavez is more honorable than Bush. Of course Chavez is open to his people. Of course Penn is qualified to speak on these things. I mean, look at all the schooling he has had (none) and because he knows how to drink himself blind, when not snorting coke, he must be enlightened.

[Ant]

03:26 PM on 10/03/2007

"A drunken, cocaine-using socialist who went to Iraq, was led around palaces surrounded by rivers of chocolate and lollipop landscaping."

George Bush is not a socialist.

[splastershoes]

05:06 PM on 10/03/2007

ROFL. That was the first thing that crossed my mind as well. kudos.

[brooklyncitizen]

10:51 AM on 10/04/2007

Seriously I thought you were referring to Bush.

Don't you know? Snorting coke, drinking and nor being bright can get you elected POTUS twice??? This is what parents should encourage in their kids: drink and snort and forget your education. Indeed.

[wordvarc]

08:14 PM on 10/02/2007

"Into the Wild"

Beautiful Movie.

It will be among the best of the decade.

.

[Neaguy]

07:57 PM on 10/02/2007

Sad that only Sean Penn is allowed a corporate mainstream media platform to tell the truth about President Chavez. You have to be a Hollywood celebrity in order to be given a forum to actually tell the facts.

[pigsatthetrough]

07:34 PM on 10/02/2007

If the next Penn movie is in Russia, we will then be able to compare Puting with Bush. Penn will be able to provide us with his knowledge of the state of affairs in that country as well. Right about Bush, right about Katrina, wrong about Chavez. Two out of three aint bad.