U.S. author, dissident intellectual, and Professor of Linguistics at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology Noam Chomsky met for the first time with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in Caracas and analyzed hemispheric politics during a nationally televised forum on Monday.

Chomsky is well known in Venezuela for his critiques of U.S. imperialism and support for the progressive political changes underway in Venezuela and other Latin American countries in recent years. President Chavez regularly references Chomsky in speeches and makes widely publicized recommendations of Chomsky's 2003 book, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance. 

On Monday, Venezuelans celebrated the tenth anniversary of the inauguration of President Hugo Chávez to his first presidential term. Many Venezuelans consider this day to mark the commencement of the "Bolivarian Revolution," which has brought a new progressive constitution, sustained economic growth, and unprecedented expansion of health care and other social services to this OPEC nation.

'A country in the vanguard of the world'

Over the past ten years, "Venezuela went from being a disabled nation that was in the dirt, muzzled, and dominated, to being a country in the vanguard of the world," Chávez declared during an event in which each government ministry displayed its decade of achievements on Sunday.