Chavez people's Hero - election Sabotage

[Karlin]

Intro - Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela :
Hugo Chavez is the leader of Venezuela, and he is "a man for the average poor people" there. Elites get no quarter with this guy, which makes him the hero of many around the world.
Chavez stands up to Bush and American imperialsim and to the criminal acts of their Committe for Foreign Relations. He is nationalising their oil - for all the people's benefit - and made land reforms to spread ownership to many rather than a few Elites.

He has been the target of CIA assassination attempts, and he has the expertise of highly -trained Chinese Nationals that have been in Venezuela to protect Chavez from the American assassination attempts.
There is a USA policy of sorts that says " when elections cannot be thrown to get the results America wants, then kill some people." So far it has failed in Venezuela.
------------------------------

The news today is that an election was held Dec 3rd/05, in which he won 100% due to opposition tactics to discredit the election.


The opposition knew the results were going to be heavily in favour of Chavez and his supporters, so they pulled tactic from the pages of NeoCon election fudgery:
- First, they pull out of the race they will lose, and then they say "it is not legitimate because it is a body in which the whole Venezuelan population is not represented".

Well, its not Chavez' fault... just a dumb ploy.

Other NeoCon USA backed attempts to disrupt the inevitable - an obvious election victory - included blowing up oil pilelines and raising fears about the voting machines that can identify voters.

US-Backed Opposition Blew Oil Pipeline -
http://www.rense.com/general69/pipe.htm

Chavez allies sweep Venezuela polls -
http://tinyurl.com/au4ho

Chavez Lawmakers Claim Victory after Congress Vote -
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120505G.shtml


And here is a "USA sided quote", to be fair - for NascarJ - This is what the opposition to Chavez is saying.

“When you have this degree of concentration of power and you have a lot of money, it’s not surprising to find enormous levels of corruption,” said Michael Shif-ter, senior analyst at Inter-American Dialogue, a think-tank in Washington.

“This is a model built on personal and autocratic rule. The political dynamic will be centred within Chávez’s co-alition, but it’s going to be far from monolithic.”

K - Funny, its what most of the world is saying about Bush, so that complicates it a bit, which is just another NeoCon tactic.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Chavez people's Hero

It hilarious that these guys pulled out of the race and are now complaining that they didn't win. I guess I should be pissed off that I'm not Prime Minister...after all I didn't run so there must have been a plot to keep me from winning.

Hopefully this will provide an opportunity for a real opposition...another party that wants to help the people but with policy differences from Chavez...to form.

 

[jimmoyer]

It might have been a mental health policy for Chavez' opponents to wisely withdraw from the race.

Who knows ?

All we know is this MAN OF THE PEOPLE would prefer to change the rules about a 2 term limit Presidency.

Just like Putin is seeking to do by merging Russian with the Moldavia in order to cause a new union that requires a new constitution.

These guys don't like the story of Cincinatus, do they?

 

[no1important]

RE: Chavez people's Hero

And "W" wouldn't run a third time if he could? I heard some talk about that in the summer.

The only reason America hates Chavez is he tells it like it is and "W" is worried he may actually cut the oil tap off or switch to the Euro.

 

[jimmoyer]

Americans don't hate Chavez.

I just find the lovefest the world has for the guy is somewhat ignorant and unrealistic.

A lot of fascism also accompanies a populist leader, A MAN OF THE PEOPLE.

Term limits fall, unrealistic comparisons of the man's puny entitlement programs pale to any western capitalistic society's entitlement programs for the people.

Puny --- but he gets a lot of mileage out of it, and the people of Boston damn well appreciate it.

Love it.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Chavez people's Hero

Western/Northern style entitlement programs in Venezuela and the rest of the developing world first threw the people into deeper poverty, then kept them there through odious debt that never should have been required to be repaid in the first place, then privatised and the industries that provided the very basics of life.

Canada, the USA, and the rest of the so-called first world developed while providing social programs and protecting their industries. It made us rich. We took that opportunity away from the developing nations. Chavez is taking it back.

Meanwhile the neo-conservative/neo-liberal policies that our leaders are so fond of are creating wealth gaps that used to only be seen in the developing world, and erosion of the middle and working classes.

 

[jimmoyer]

Well we both have our mantras.

The wealth gap is always noticeable in a capitalistic society, but the overall pie of wealth and entitlement programs is a billions of dollars greater than any ONE MAN OF THE PEOPLE can hope to match.

No doubt the history of raping these poor nations is uncontestable.

Pinning your hopes on one man who wants to be YOUR MAN for life will only give you PUNY results as well when compared to the wild and wooly multi-dimensional capitalism you see in China.

Not one man could hope to have the explosion of wealth that you see in China, and yes you will see the gaps, but so will you see this 20 years from now when Chavez is old and grey and his total GNP economy will be a midget still.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Chavez people's Hero

I think you are missing much of what Chavez has been doing though, Jimmy. His Bolivarian movement has gotten several left-leaning leaders elected in other countries, and looks like it will have an impact on future elections in still other countries, including Mexico.

I heard an interview on the radio this week with some Americans who will be benefitting from the CITGO program...they are now asking what is wrong with the American system that little Venezuela can help them when their own corporations and government refuses to.

In Argentina recently, it was Chavez who lead the charge of the smaller developing nations against the USA, Canada, the IMF and the WTO. It was a major factor at Cancun and Miami in the last couple of years as well.

Not all of the leaders and or countries that are taking part in standing up and saying no to rich northern nations and the institutions we have imposed are soul mates of Chavez, but his ideas are spreading and he's very much becoming the symbol for small nations and even middle powers to stand up to the rich, powerful nations and say, "Chuck you Farley, we tried this and it made us poor."

That scares the hell out of the leaders of northern countries, including Paul Martin, but especially George Bush because they've been promoting institutions and policies that export poverty and import wealth.

 

[jimmoyer]

There is no doubt that Chavez is a savy leader, and who will get a lot of mileage out of the ultimately puny achievements.

You see you got a leader who absolutely understands as you do all the negatives of capitalism and who will extoll each beneficial program with great fanfare and great applause.

Good for him, that he does this.

Good !

But the sheer massiveness of capitalistic societies pay out more entitlement benefits IN TOTAL aggregate numbers to its citizens than any ONE MAN OF THE PEOPLE can hope to do by authoritarian fiat.

Unless this man institutionalizes a legitimate chain of succession to executive authority and opens his country to investment, he can never hope to achieve the sheer magnitude of an economy that even when it hiccups bestows more benefits to more people than by controlled fiat.

And finally whether you have the combination of socialistic and capitalistic mongrel economies of the western democratic world or whether you have a ONE MAN show you will always always always see a disparity, some gap between the rich and poor, some middle class and you will always in any system be heartlessly bedeviled by the intractible complicated nature of poverty.

I hold that European style or American style socialism and capitalism will by bumbling accident always ALWAYS provide more for its people than a controlled command economy can ever dream of doing even with the best of 5 year plans.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Chavez people's Hero

You are making the mistake of assuming that Chavez does not support capitalism. His words and his actions show that he very much supports it, just not to the detriment of the people.

You are falling into the trap of believing the rhetoric of the Bush regime and the bias of your press, Jimmy. You should know better by now.

 

[Karlin]

Re: Chavez wants to stay for 3 terms...

Great discussion on entitlements [I could learn something from you two]... We will see how the poor of Venezuela do in the next few years, its allready helped many poor Venezuelans gain some financial security and prosperity.

I think the 'term extension' for his Presidency is dangerous too, but in this case, at this time, I think it has something to do with the yr. 2012. Chavez needs to be in power leading up to that date, and he needs to be there through that period. No, sorry, I don't have details, but 2012 is the year of so many predictions, and Kyoto target date, and who knows...

Maybe its just that he need three terms to get done what he has planned. Has he indicated any plans to be leader PAST his third term?

I hope he doesn't intend to be their sole leader for the next 50 years, until he dies of old age - history is not got many examples of that working out for the people to well.

If he is truly a benevolent leader, great, but we know in Canada that we have to change leaders after awhile because of entrenched corruption that tends to seep into government.

But don't let me throw the discussion off track, you two go at it some more, this is good fun!

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Chavez people's Hero

Something interesting happened in Manitoba here a bit ago. The provincial Liberal leader complained that our hydro profits were being used to subsidize our natural gas heating bills.

It's true, that's exactly what's happening. What I don't understand is why Gerard (the Liberal leader) was complaining about it. Obviously Manitobans need to heat their houses. For historical reasons, most of that heating is done with natural gas and we don't (yet) have the hydro capacity to all switch to electricity. So we sell our excess electricity and it goes to keeping heating costs down. Meanwhile, we are also offered low-interest loans to buy more efficient water heaters and furnaces.

So what would Gerard do? Have us pay more for our natural gas and tuck Manitoba Hydro's profits away? That would leave the poor needing government aid to pay their heating bills.