The threat of Hugo Chavez

I did not defend Chavez's human rights abuse's, the issue is his dealing with the oil companies. Does pointing out the truth I wrote about past U.S. foreign policy get you so discombobulated? Settle down but don't settle too far because I do like some things about Chavez. Any criticizm of the extent of human rights under Chavez will probably be done by us most hypocritically.

 

Because of own, CMG, because of our own. The extent of Chavez's abuses in Venezuela are not worthy of much railing about relative to other leaders and our own.

Whatever Chavez is involved with he will use his money for. He has primarily been involved with improving the standard of living of his people and trying to balance the injustices of the past involving so few rich land owners and so many poor. He has the oil resources so he and the Venezuelan people can solve it as they choose since the vast majority of those people have relected him twice. It is social democracy and though you may not like it, it is their choice. You can try to associate him fully with Castro and China but his government is no godless communism. It is a God believing, God invoking government and constitution with freedom of religion.

 

Hugo Chavez - Sly or Stupid? LINK

 

Venezuela: The Triumph of Failure LINK

 

CMG,

I'm with you on this one, and, in fact, would raise you one: it makes me hope for Reagan-style covert operations to bring Chavez down. There is already opposition to Chavez, which we should encourage.

 

Hi CMG! Doing well here, I hope all is well for you. Weather here is hot and muggy. I just got back Thursday from my two weeks Navy Reserve duty off the coast of Panama. I got to spend a couple of days in Panama City before I left and the weather was much more pleasant than here. I took the opportunity to ask a cab driver about Panamanian perceptions of Cuba/Fidel and he said the greater threat/concern is Venezuela.

I'm afraid I haven't read much about the elections there except, IIRC, something about Chavez jailing some opposition folks. He concerns me about as much as Castro; perhaps more so because he combines his Leftist bent with oil money. Colombia has enough problems without FARC being aided by a neighbor. And you make an excellent point: Castro's actual threat was brought down a notch or two when his Soviet patrons cut him off; now, with Chavez helping him, he is given somewhat of a new lease on his power. It might also heighten the possibility of Raul Castro (though I don't know his age/health) or another despot filling Fidel's shoes.

You also raise a good question about Bush's toughness. Hopefully, the neo-cons who are pulling his strings according to some here have his ear on using such means.

The ties between him and China, actually between China and more and more Latin American countries, are regularly increasing. Despite all their noise about Japan and the US seeking to "encircle" them, we should be paying attention to such a trend here in the Western Hemisphere.

Gene/FTR

 

KenH your vcrisis link is run by a full fledged
nut case ..did you read his bio even!

http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=aleksander_boyd

He talks a lot of money a lack there of..this
guy is a dictator waiting to happen he is filled
with jealousy and envy. imho

 

He looks like the Hitler mold to me, very low
self esteem bemoaning his lack of money and how
he has been ripped off all his life...I think
he would like to get his hands on a lot of oil
money and live the high life. imho

He spends half his bio making excuses how he did
not have a mom ..did not have any money...now
it looks as if he has found a cause that will get
him some money. imho

Like I said the typical corporal syndrome being
fronted by anti-chavez people...it seems that
people who want to overthrow chavez from the outside could find a better candidate. imho




My childhood was quite normal, that is to say my parents divorced when I was very young. I have no memories of family life but rather my father picking us up to go spend a weekend here or there and my mother always absent owing to work.(dysfunction junction)

My mother’s parents were pretty much in charge of my upbringing. In January 1.978 my grandfather decided that he had lived enough in Venezuela and that time was ripe to return to his homeland in the Basque country. He had arrived in Venezuela in 1.951 after escaping from one of Franco’s prisons. He was a Gudari (warrior). My time in the Basque country (Zarauz and Orio) was great. I was as free as a bird. My grandmother’s religious beliefs were imposed over my education and so they put me in a school of the order of Antonians. During my six years there Padre Zabala and other‘representatives of god’ beat so much and so often that when my mother died in 1.983 and I decided to go live with my father back in Venezuela, the first words I uttered when I saw him were “I don’t want to study ever again!”
(sounds resentful and for good reason)


Nonetheless I was quitetraumatized and had none of it so I started working when I was 14 years of age.(duh! ya think)

In 1.986 my father committed suicide in our house.
(Not good)

My mother had left us a bit of money, thus when I finished high school I did not want to continue onto university. The prospect of doing business and being my own boss were just to good and at the time I consideredI had the most important ingredient for success, i.e. money.

Before the year had ended my ‘partner’ had robbed me and I was back to square one without money. Truth said, I could have done more to make the venture profitable but did not, wasting my time instead in motocross and other things.
(At least he told the truth but still not a harbinger of being a future leader of an oil rich
country)

Thus my adult work life commenced. The first job I managed to get was in “Maxis, Bello Monte” selling satellite receiving equipment and mobile phones of the “ladrillo” type. It longed less than three months. Then I was “motorizado” for a little while until some damned “ratero” decided to steal my bike. Then I got another job in “Guarenas” in a company commercializing electric hardware called “Rodriguez Blanco.” Whilst there I got really sick, loading and unloading trucks was just not my thing I guess. I went back to Merida to get cured. (could not
hold down a job which I can understand from reading his bio thus far)


I came back again and started working in a workshop. Life was smiling upon me; I had money to cover all my expenses plus the token trip to the movies every three weeks or so, the year 1.990. My rent was 7.500 Bolivares/month in “Avenida Los Mangos de la Florida.” I learned the trade quite quickly and started to earn more money. In a Sunday’s dinner in my uncle’s house I met a Cuban friend of his that had a 500 hectares diamond mining concession near the border with Brazil. He was visiting my uncle to offer him a job down in the mine. I took the chance instead and left everything and moved to “La Farisca” to try my luck. The deal was that I had to work there as a miner for three months as a test of endurance and provided I succeeded I would be given the responsibility of looking after the Cuban’s interests. He screw me up, even though I 'did the time' he never paid the agreed salary and left me there to dry. After a fight with other miner I decided to go back to Caracas to my old job. (Here we go again ..it always the other
guys fault )

I got it, the salary was double what I was making in the workshop but being a rebel without a cause I could not stand being surrounded by police officers all day;(Oh now we got Paranoia as well)

(and it goes on and on about failed jobs and money
this and money that and it was always somebody
elses fault.........)

I did not manage to get anything decent; my last job in Venezuela was serving tropical juices in the kiosk located in the foothill of “la subida de Sabasnieves.”


(but all of a sudden a trip to Miami changed his
life ..I wonder why)

Things went really bad for us as a couple, living in my in laws’ house with a new born child was very tough indeed, the year 2.000. So I borrowed one thousand bucks and took the plane to Miami, “balseros del aire” that’s how they call it. Not having a green card did not help so I went to Indianapolis to stay with some friends whilst my gamble to move to London materialized; it came to fruition in April 2.000. Fortunately when I got here I already had a job as a bellman in one of the Schrager properties. I arrived in this country with 20 quid but absolutely determined to work my ass off to bring my family over. Things went well and after six months apart they came, I was the happiest man alive! In September of 2.000 I enrolled in Birkbeck College to read Geology, the idea behind it was to get a degree from the University of London and move back to Venezuela to work for PDVSA.

What really xxxxxx me off about that lot is that in their preconceived and sterile mind I am an oligarch; an agent of the neocons; a putschist(probably the most truthful thing he has said
throughout his dysfunctional bio)

The guy is a Hitler waiting to happen. imho

 

By all means defend him Cmg if he is your choice but he seems like his whole life is based on
excuses and lack of money and someone has found
a willing shill. imho

Hitler was dysfunctional..imho this guy is too
his bio tells of a much less than normal upbringing...now point out to me..how he will
bring about integrity to Venezuela..like I said
the front groups could have found a better candidate...this guy is a mistake and if he gets
any kind of power ..he will abuse it.imho

 

More like religious truth or something, something like being less concerned about the interests of this country and more the truth in the eyes of God. I should ask, was Jesus a capitalist? If you take the beatitudes and Jesus's teachings about sharing, turning from the influence of money and the disciples experience on Solomon's Porch where even the two, Ananias and Sapphira fell dead in lying to the Holy Spirit because they did not turn in their property to be shared I would say there is more evidence that Jesus and Christianity are more inclined to a communal social envirnoment than a dog eat dog, every man for himself, profit motive dependent capitalism. Complete control by a state under natural man is foolish but the same applies to the extreme of unregulated and undisciplined commerce. Wisdom about human nature of course finds the right balance in these things. But,all things considered, for Chavez to say that Jesus is a socialist would seem to be less absurd than saying he is a capitalist and as for claiming some clergy are demonic, he is probably referring to their unswerving influence to the forces of money.

CMG, those were actually 3 internationally sanctioned elections in which Chavez won by large margins. It is so very hypocritical to accept that standard with regard to other countries but then complain about Venezuela because they are playing hardball on OIL. With our racial history and over 50 million people in the U.S. living without health insurance I doubt we have much room to complain about squatters and racial lines in regard to how Chavez is trying to re-structure his society to what the Venezuelan people believe a more just society. It is incredible for us to complain about detainees dying in jail, missing and others being held in Venezuela with Guantanmo and Abu Graib lying out in our own backyard but then of course this is, again, about oil isn't it. If it's not exaggerations and lies about Hussien's imminent threat, it's magnified wailings about Chavez but we all should know that when the oil companies bark the complient operatives in the U.S. start crying like Pat Robertson who sits up the demonization of Chavez by claiming he should be assassinated(well he must of done something terrible)and our own media who recently referred to Chavez as President Hugo Chavez but now refer to him as the leftist leader Chavez,the same media that cheerleaded us into the Iraq war. You are being manipulated by the interests of the U.S. under the power of monied interests but the truth in the eyes of God is what matters. Remember, the Venezuelans are a Christian God believing people seeking justice for their society according to what they have experienced themselves through history. They know the experience of Colonialism and extreme capitalism and they believe they can do better. It is their choice.

 

It's oil, CMG, and of course a bit o'fear of discipline for unbridled destructive capitalism or there would have been much going over all the abuses found in so many other countries on a regular basis, not dismissing the dead so lightly. As for moving, nah, think I'll just stay put and try to make this a better place to live like God would have me do.