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COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
A year ago, progressive activists and policy wonks descended upon Caracas, Venezuela, for the World Social Forum, a kind of Davos conference for the global left. People packed into the Caracas Hilton to listen to panel discussions on the evils of neoliberalism and the threat posed by U.S. hegemony, and Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, gave a speech to a crowd of some ten thousand in which he called for "socialism or death." It was a striking demonstration of Chavez's importance as an anti-capitalist symbol. And yet, only six months earlier, in the very same hotel, Chavez's government had hosted a rather different meeting of international luminaries. The attendees were American businessmen, and the meeting was a trade fair intended to convince American companies that Venezuela was friendly to foreign investment and eager to expand trade with the U.S....
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