Chavez...the shitheel
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i'm the meat, yer not...signed Capt Asshat
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I'm reading a very interesting book right now...
http://www.amazon.com/Changing-Venezuela-History-Policies-Government/dp/1844675521/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195875336&sr=1-2
'Since coming to power in 1998, the Chávez government has inspired both fierce internal debate, and horror amongst Western governments accustomed to counting on an obeisant regime in the oil-rich state. In this rich and resourceful study, Greg Wilpert exposes the self-serving logic behind much middle-class opposition to Venezuela's elected leader, and explains the real reason for their alarm. He argues that the Chávez government has instituted one of the world's most progressive constitutions, but warns that it has yet to overcome the dangerous specters of the country's past: its culture of patronage and clientelism, its corruption, and its support for personality cults, all fuelled by the attention and interference of a succession of US administrations.'
You seem to have a lot of time on your hands...maybe you should check it out?
The only reason this man has been demonized is because Big Oil can no longer reap huge profits from Venezuelan oil. Strange, I know-a natural resource that actually benefits the local population instead of giant corporations.
Most of Chavez's opponents who denounce him are weak on specifics, and apperently don't care much for the poor. "80% of the population were condemned to [poverty] as a result of neoliberal policies such as privatisation before Chavez came to power in 1998." But Chavez's reforms have "fuelled an average of 12% economic growth over three years and resulted in millions of people no longer officially living in poverty." MMhh. Yet this guys is ruining Venezuela apparently. What criteria do powerful nations use to determine success? Apparently the poor do not factor in on their decisions.
What else has this guy done? Let's see...
-Education is now free (right through to university level), causing a dramatic increase in grade school enrollment
-Special banks now assist small enterprises, worker cooperatives, and farmers
-limits have been placed on foreign capital penetration
-The government hires unemployed men, on a temporary basis, to repair streets and neglected drainage and water systems in poor neighborhoods (putting the homeless to work on the streets, not a bad idea)
Then there is health care. Venezuela had plenty of dentists before Chavez was elected by the people, but no one could pay for the service. When free clinics opend after he was elected, no one was turned awy, including opponents of Chavez.
These are a few examples of Chavez's plans in the country, and we are seeing results. An impoverished nation with a very precious national resource is now enjoying the profits of that resource, as opposed to a foreign company. Yet we hate Chavez? MMh.
You said it!
Povery rate in 1998 was aprox. 40% (UN official data) poverty rate in 2005 (latest figure available UN official data again): 35%. So, a 5 percentile points decrease with the gazillions of oil money Venezuela's received in past years. I'd say it is a pretty mediocre effort. Especially if you compare to Chile's performance in the same period and without oil money.
Education right through university level has been public in Venezuela for a very long time. When Antonio Guzmán Blanco became president in the XIX century, issued the Public and Free Instruction Act, under which elementary school became mandatory. High School education became mandatory later (can't remember which President issued the Act) and no university is not mandatory (it is isnt anywhere) but public and free universities in Venezuela have a long tradition.
Public health care also was available a long time before Chavez came into power.
People should get their facts straight before writing. This is pretty basic stuff. I admit that learned this in elementary school in Venezuela, but all you have to do is Google it...
Quality of both public education and public health care are still pretty mediocre. I did a tour of public hospitals in Caracas last year and it still was the same mess. You had to bring your own medical supplies to get attention, no change in that department.
Oh yeah, unemployment is also higher. Unemployment rate in 1998 (UN official data): 11.3%, unemployment in 2005: 12.4%.
And macroeconomic indicators are not very impressive. GDP has grown, of course. You'd have to be the most inept Government in history to prevent GDP from growing with current oil prices.
Nevertheless, I give credit to Chavez government for mildly improving women's situation. Laws protecting women have been improved. But generally speaking, what Chavez has given to the poor is an illusion that they are doing better. They feel a little more included in a symbolic way, 'cause the gap between the rich and the poor has not diminshed. Quite the contrary, a whole new elite of millionaires benefitting from Chavez' government has arised (the (in)famous Boliburguesía. They sure look lovely in their Hummers and in their new houses, bought from -of course- traditional oligarchs).
The poor are living on the expectations of a better tomorrow and if he doesn't hurry in delivering all of his promises, social unrest is going to be huge.
Deep down what poor Venezuelans want is just their Petrostate of the 70's back, when most of Venezuelans could live a decent life and social mobility was significant. They really aren't into this XXI socialism affair. If you look at the latest Latinobarometro data (this is Latin America's largest and most prestigious public opinion poll) Venezuelans' consider themselves slighlty closer to the right than to left of the political spectrum.
These days almost all polls show that the Referendum for the Constitution's Reform has great chances of loosing. Only hardcore supporters agree with Chavez proposal; moderate Chavistas are becoming increasingly disinchanted with the government's latest doings: rampant corruption (keep in mind that Chavez promised to get rid of it); giving away money to other countries (Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Zimbawe among others), while the country's infrastructure is falling apart; creating diplomatic conflicts with traditional allies (mainly Chile, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru and Argentina);closing RCTV; shootings of peacefully protesting students (from the Universidad Central de Venezuela, the largest public unversity); massive shortage of basic goods as milk and sugar (at the poor neighborhoods people have had to wait 4 hours in line to buy a litre of milk) and mainly the Constitutional Reform, which besides indefinite reelection include other "democratic reforms": Governors will no longer be elected by the people, they will be appointed by the President; and the one I find the scariest: power to the President to decree state of exception (I wish I knew the exact term for this in Engslish) at his discretion, which means no Constitutional rights and no Habeas Corpus during such state of exception.
And, yes, there are some very disgusting guys in Venezuela's opposition, but there's also plenty of honest, hard working people that do not want to see democracy flushed down the toilet. Because one shouldn't have to choose between democracy and poverty-reduction, it is not a trade-off. Costa Rica, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile prove that you can have effective social policies and sound democratic institutions.
And you also have to remember that every piece of news on Venezuela is going to show Chavez in a negative light-and plenty of news within Venezuela as well. And there is a reason for that.
Chavez has allowed alternative media to go unchecked within Venezuela, basically allowing the freedom of information within the country. This is important, because you can't have an accurate model of democracy without an educated public-take a look at the United States electoral system.
If you look at Venezuela's voting system you might be surprised at how accurate it is. They check a box on a touch screen and then recieve a printed reciept for their vote-which they then place in a ballot box.
The electronic votes are counted, as are a large sample of the paper ballots (over 50%). If the 2 don't match they then count all of the paper ballots. Not an easy system to mess with.
SO. In regards to his proposed constitutional reforms, including the abolition of term limits for the presidency, his actions are not those of a dictator siezing power, as western media would lead us to believe.
With under 90% of the votes counted electronically, Chavez congratulated his oppenents on their voctory. This was while the numbers showed the vote to be close- just 50.7 percent to 49.3 percent.
Hermmmm.
In the US we are led to believe that Venezuela is some sort of dictatorship led by a commy.
The facts are much more interesting I think.
sounds pretty similar to that one guy who said "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists!" now what was his name again?
That's exactly what's so contradictory about Huguito. He keeps telling how Bush is the devil and such, yet he behaves in the exact same way. During his final rally, prior to the Referendum where he wasn't being challenged, it was a Constitutional Reform, he said "if you vote NO you're voting for Bush". That's really stretching it, isn't it? And I feel discussing Chavez's government would be more productive if we stay out of the pro-anti Bush clique.
And his "I'm the beacon of democracy" only lasted, what 12 hours? On Monday he was the Constitutional Reform is what Venezuela need, therefore he'll pursue it anyway. Yesterday he appeared on VTV (government's TV network) ranting about the opposition being shit and that the victory was shit and that complaining about the people from some states of the country and some poorer neoighborhoods failing him for voting NO. I quote (translated to Engish from a blog, I'm lazy today ) " Shout all you want, the truth is the truth, the Sí lost in Miranda, lost in Caracas, and write this down, the Sí lost in Petare, in the barrios, people didn't vote, a good chunk of the people didn't vote, millions didn't vote, you can say whatever you want but you have no excuse, you have no consciousness, you have no resolve for the fatherland, you have no excuse, revolutionaries don't look for excuses (...) Here, the Sí lost, you let the Sí lose, Miranda owes me one, people of Miranda and Caracas you owe me a debt, I have it written down in my planner, let's see if you pay your debt to me or if you don't"
So, in short, if the state of Miranda doesn't vote for him, shame on them, they're wrong. He's right and, entitled to by angry.
Give me a break!
For those who speak Spanish here's the link
http://www.dailymotion.com/frankib/video/x3odul_chavez-y-la-victoria-de-mierda-de-l_news
One funny aspect of the video is that his rant starts by quoting Oriana Fallaci (a very famous Italian journalist that became a radical anti-muslim during her final years)
By the way, the Constitution of 1999 states that you can't propose more than one Constitutional Reform in one term. Yet he's saying he'll start collecting firms to make it happen.
EDIT: grammar
Uhm..Brazil has one of the biggest class divides in the world. The amount of people living in squalor is very high, truely a case of the top 1% of the people owning 95% of the country's capital.
Chili? Wasn't Chile, until just about a decade ago, under the rule of a totalitarian dictator called Pinochet? Yeah, democracy in Chile...right...
You got to spend it all
You know, I may be the only one of this forum who actually remembers what was Venezuela like before Chavez because I was there, so I knew how poor people lived. And yes, there were plenty of problems, but it's not like Venezuela was Malawi prior to Chavez and now is Paradise on earth. As I said before, have you looked at poverty rates? Don't you think that the decrease is mediocre in terms of the huge amount of oil-income? Compare it to Chile's poverty decrease in the same time period, with less money (actually a lot less) What about inequality? Gini Coefficient has not moved, still the same figure around 0.500. What about Chavez' promises to industrialize Venezuela? Right now Venezuela's importing almost everything but gasoline.
I understand why Chavez won the elections in 1998, people were fed up with traditional parties and he promised heaven and beyond. If you ask poor Venezuelans, you know people living in the barrios as we call them, they don't care about XXI Century Socialism, they just want the Petrostate of the 70's back, you know the one was implemented in 1958 when Venezuela regained democracy. I'm willing to bet this: if Carlos Andres Pérez was 15 years younger he'd win the Presidential elections for the third time. The golden age of Venezuela's petrostate was during his first term. Only hard-core Chavistas support the sociologist agenda, the average people just want food on their tables. Which is exactly what's been missing these weeks, there are severe shortages of the most basic products, such as milk, oil, sugar, butter. And this is precisely what's been pissing manyt of Chavez supporters these days, and might have helped the NO victory. Furthermore, plenty of Chavez supporters didn't feel comfortable in giving him a blank-check to do whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted.
If you want to analyze Venezuela, the old right vs left won't do the trick, 'cause those categories have never existed in Venezuela. For instance, the largest traditional parties where both center to the left. AD was a party that fell in the socialdemocratic label, while COPEI was a member of the international Christian-Democracy (same as the Chilean Chistian Democracy that's part of the governing coalition). And the third party (with around 8% of the vote, I feel I'm being generous with this percentage) was MAS (Movement Towards Socialism) that was a left-wing party (they are in the opposition these days). All of them, failed miserably to the people, yes, but it's not that Venezuela prior to Chavez was in the hands of right-wing wackos, trying to starve people out. No, they were corrupted and irresponsible. Did you know that basic goods such as milk, sugar, oil, and gasoline have always been subsidized. The 1989 Caracazo happened because theg government tried to remove gasoline subsidies.
About freedom of information, I know it is a lost battle to try to prove otherwise, so I won't bother.
One more thing, I'm not from the US, I'm not living in the US and, first and foremost, I'm not trying to promote an pro-US agenda at all. I just want to tell the other side of the story and my region (Latin America) to remain democratic, with functioning and accountable institutions capble of improving everyone's living standards in a framework of respect and cohesion.
Odd how this same term was used by some other leader back in WWII what was HIS name again?
Peace
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Chile regained its democracy in 1989, that's more like 20 years ago. And yes today it has the soundest democracy of this region along with Uruguay and Costa Rica and Brazil. You should do your homework and read what's been going on in Chile during the past 17 years because it is whole different country than it during Pinochet's regime. Chile now has the lowest poverty rate of all South America (near 13.7%), the economy has been steadily growing, except for a couple of years 1997-1999 if my memory is correct, unemployment for the most part has been relatively low (around 8%/9%), literacy is almost 100% and Chile has the highest life expectancy of the region along with the lowest child-mortality rates. Do you know who Ricardo Lagos is? He was Chile's President before Michelle Bachelet and he's a politician highly regarded wherever he goes, EU, Asìa, you name it. He's one of the leading member of the UN's Experts Pannel on Global Warming. In general, Chile's politicians are well considered everywhere. Of course, Chile has a long way to go yet, but if there's a country from Latin America capable of becoming a developed country it is Chile.
Have you checked the latest statistics from Brazil? Both poverty and inequality have decreased sistematically during the past decade. No, you're wrong about Brazil's statistics, it is statistically impossible. Yet, you're about Brazil being a very inequitative country, but as I stated before, the trends are changing, and yes, institutions work better in Brazil than in Venezuela.
It is important to note that Brazil and Chile were subjected to years of violence and repression from the United States-most of Latin America was and is. But South America has taken huge steps to overcome this legacy, and there is even talk of forming a South American Union-like the Eropean Union, only in S.A.
It is also important to note that given its resources Brazil should be a world power. The decades of violence they were subjected to has produced a model-not accidentally-where the resources of the region benefit foreign companies. The same is true still over much of Latin America, although it is much more pronounced in Brazil.
Given all of this it is actually pretty amazing to see steps towards independance, and althought these countries have a long way to go yet, it is great to see.
Just to find out about the actual voting process in the country took more digging than I should have done...but I am glad I did...to see how a coutnry allows the freedom of information combined with fair voting practises show a country commited to the pursuit of democracy.
And why can't a socialist be democratic?
Well, I'd better be accurate with my data, since this is what I do for a living
About Brazil, I'd say it is a global player. It is if I'm not mistaken the 8th largest economy and is leading a very interesting integration with South Africa and India, especially at the WTO round negotiations, and it also lobbying heavily to get a seat at the UN's Security Council.
About regional integration, well there's been ups and downs. There's MERCOSUR -a trade union- which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay as full members, as well as Chile and Bolivia as associate members. Venezuela is in the process of entering MERCOSUR, but it is very behind in fullfilling the organization's recquirements in terms of tariffs and other indicators. MERCOSUR is in a low point these days mainly because a of major conflict between Argentina and Uruguay.
There's also the Andes Community of Nations which includes all Andean countries, i.e, Colombia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador and Chile.
The most relevant initiative is to create a South American Union. However, there some difficulties with this. For example, Chile's commerce policies are much more open than the rest of the region, Chile has bilateral agreements with the UE, several Asian Countries (Malaysia, South Corea, China and other I can't remember right now), Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and with Latin American countries such as Mexico and Peru. So, for Chile it is complicated to raise its tariffs and trade policies, because in a way the country decided to become a global player in world commerce before the rest of the region. Then there's the "fight" between Mexico and Brazil regarding which one is the real leader of the region, then you have Argentina that also want to be a key player. On the other hand, this region has ancient geographical conflicts unresolved. Especially Colombia and Venezuela, and between Chile, Bolivia and Peru, and now you have two traditionally brotherly countries such as Uruguay and Argentina fighting over a cellulose-processing factory installed in Uruguay.
So, the integration will be difficult -not because of the US interference- but due to our own incapacity to see the larger picture. Our countries are unable to put their differences aside and work togheter. And I don't want to repite myself, but Chavez hasn't help in the right direction, his conflicts with Presidents from Peru (he campaigned too agressively in favor of Ollanta Humala and when he lost he simply insulted Alan García), Chile (he has insulted on several occasions the Chilean Congress members as well as government officials), there was a huge corruption affair in Argentina involving a Venezuelan entrepreneur with close ties to the Chavez goverment, and lately he's been insulting Brazil's Congress Members.
You know, the US hasn't had much influence on Brazil over the years. If look it up you'll find that the Brazilian dictators were not your average right-wing, they what we call "desarrollistas", meaning focused on industrializing the country. Don't get me wrong they were dictators, but with a different economic model in mind. Brazil's history is in many ways different than the rest of South American countries, migrants (mostly from Portugal) and a huge black community are the main differences (and 5 soccer World Cups
I think a socialist can be a democratic. Actually, take a look at José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero from Spain, Romano Prodi from Italia and well, Scandinavian countries. In Latin America, you can say that Michelle Bachelet from Chile and Tabaré Vázquez from Uruguay are socialdemocrats in the fullest sense of the world. Néstor Kirchner and his wife are more than anything Peronists, which is a very complex concoction of every piece of ideology avaible. You have right wing and left wing peronistas, the unifying factor in General Peron. However, these days you could say the center to the left Peronists are governing Argentina.
You find a negative bias towards Chavez in the western press. Yet, according to almost all left-leaning websites and new outlets he can do no wrong. I think objective information about Chavez regime is scarce. I want to see if media pieces traditionaly favorable to Chavez pick up the story of him calling shit (mierda in Spanish, which in Venezuela is highly offensive. In the US I believe is a soft curse word, but in Venezuela it is a hard one) the opposition and the NO victory. That speech was very agressive and did not portray him as a democratic person.
I won't hide my bias, I don't like him or what's his doing with Venezuela. I don't think you have to hinder people's freedoms to reduce poverty or to foster a successful development process for your country. You also have to consider that I was in Caracas during his attempt to over throw Carlos Andrés Pérez on February 4th of 1992. I saw it live from my balcony. I'll never forget the sound of the F16 flying over the aparment I used to live in, the shootings that took place and those who died those days. I also remember him, supporting in a video from jail the second attempt to overthrow Pdt. Pérez on november 1992. And I believe it is very undemocratic to declare February 4th of 1992 a National Holiday. Where's the democracy in conmemorating a failed Coup d'Etat?
I also know people that are blacklisted. They are included in the Lista Tascón. Some have been laid off their jobs (they were working for the State), others are being denied of their retiremnt funds (some of my parents' closest friends) and others had to flee the country. The Tascón List, is a list names that were made public on Congress Member Luis Tascón's website. It contains the names of those who signed to ask for the 2004 Referendum.