“A specter is haunting Europe” – it’s Hugo Chavez at the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference!

FAMOUS QUOTE: “A specter is haunting Europe — the specter of Communism.”        Karl Marx (1818-1883)        Opening words of The Communist Manifesto (1848)         Sometimes translated as "A ghost is haunting Europe…” and "specter" is often spelled the British way, as "spectre"

HUGO CHAVEZ QUOTE: “To paraphrase Karl Marx, the great Karl Marx, a specter is haunting the streets of Copenhagen...Capitalism is the specter, almost nobody wants to mention it...Socialism, the other specter Karl Marx spoke about, which walks here too, rather it is like a counter-specter. Socialism, this is the direction, this is the path to save the planet, I don’t have the least doubt. Capitalism is the road to hell, to the destruction of the world.”        Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez         At the U.N. Climate Change Conference, Dec. 16, 2009

CHAVEZ COUNTERQUOTE #1: “Hugo Chavez , who paraphrased Marx in assigning blame for climate change...That's from the leader of a country whose economy is based largely on the export of particularly dirty oil. Awkward.”        Newspaper columnist Stephen Stromberg        Washington Post, Dec. 17, 2009

CHAVEZ COUNTERQUOTE #2: “When he [Chavez] said there was a ‘silent and terrible ghost in the room’ and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening...It's especially ironic that Chavez would berate free-market nations for causing catastrophic climate change when he helps fund his own Bolivarian Revolution by selling his country’s oil and natural gas to the United States.”        Newspaper columnist Paul Thornton        Los Angeles Times, Dec. 17, 2009

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