When Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez presented President Obama with a copy Eduardo Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America during a summit meeting in 2009 the intellectually gouty noise machine of the bourgeoisie began to flap its collective jowls, calling the gift an insult to America, and Obama's acceptance of it a sign of his acquiescence to communist influences. The truths contained in the gift were essentially ignored by the right-wind punditry, because truth and history have no place in the circus of sound bite chicanery, not when the mainstream media is little more than a clown car of corporate maleficence, whose acquiescence in the plunder and economic repression of Latin America continues unabated; the media's boosting of NAFTA, for instance, is an excellent example of imperialistic mechanisms at work.

Originally published in the early 70s, Open Veins of Latin America is an eloquently written, vivid examination of five centuries of genocide, theft, and political interference by European and American economic interests. And while Galeano writes with passion and artistry, his history is not the hysterical harangue the noise machine would have us believe. The book is well researched and documented, but Galeano's intensity and skill as a writer adds gravitas to the irrefutable evidence he presents, a thing the noise machine cannot abide. They fear his eloquence, but their attempt to invalidate the book through misdirection, using the threadbare histrionics of anti-communism, failed. Open Veins of Latin America is a powerful rejoinder to the stupidity and greed inherent in international corporatism, both past and present.