Dictator Chavez steals second Hilton hotel in Venezuela

Probably taken the same time oil was $150 a barrell. Like Oski said, oil was the wave that Chavez rode to popularity. For god sakes, the goverment was paying for everyones electricity when oil was at its peak. Oil prices will stay high for a while, but things will not be as fun for Venzuelans when all the forigen investors leave or are forced out.

 

If memory serves, Around the World (Sir Jackie Chiles) originally was Det the Threat. Of course, I can't say much. I'm currently working on my third screen name as well.

 

Yes, certainly The govt. benefits from oil revenue. So do the Saudis, and a host of other nations. Any nation that so the value of their most valuable resource go down would suffer some ill effects.

I'm not sure how that's relevant to what Chavez has or hasn't done.

 

Well I like democracy, too. I can't remember, but I assume you are down with Hamas since they won democratically?

I think that Hugo is more democratic in many ways than his predecessors in Venezuela. There is more to democracy than just having elections, but of course Hugo has won those regularly. If you more or less deliberately keep the majority in poverty and have a social structure in which as a practically matter they won't vote or participate politically it really isn't that "democratic".

 

I appreciate that you are well travelled. You are either a conservative or not that interested in politics beside scanning mainstream news channels which are biased as hell against Chavez.

I am well aware of the paths of say the Bolsheviks in Russia and also of American communists for instance who remained true believers well after the horrors of Russian communism should have been evident. I certainly don't want to be in that situation.

I though twice before comparing Chavez to Sweden and I may have been wrong. I don't think Chavez is aiming for Russia or even Cuba, so I picked out the closest model I could think of-- perhaps wrongly. What Chavez could do if he was not facing an undemocratic, unpatriotic elite encouraged and financed in their actions by the world's leading super power and facing a clearly propagandistic mainstream press who most follow unquestionably I don't know. I am stil giving him the benefit of the doubt and I do weigh very heavily say the prevention of infant deaths and the minute to minute suffering of severe povety.

The fact that there were a million people protesting should be seen as a sign that dissent is tolerated fairly well there. WRT to the Venezuelan media we are not dealing with a domestic version of the NYT.


Somehow I suspect that if 20 years from now Chavez keeps winning elections by a grateful majority, that there will be no irony as the mainstream media keeps claiming that he is Pol Pot and Hitler all in one even though there are million member opposition demonstrations that are not fired upon and numerous Venezuelan opposition media groups complaining.

The small group of oligarchs controlling teh Venezulan media were in cahoots with a foreign government and championed an unsuccessful armed coup; had the elected president imprisoned in his residence and then proceeded to encourage complete sabotage of the economy by shutting down the oil industry. Americans would not stand for this type of traitorous activity by our media moguls. Some attempt would be made to strip these media moguls of that type of power. I would hope that if American media moguls acted like this they would be in federal jails after being successfully indicted and tried.

 

So, is this Obama's next step in attacking Fox News in order to keep the media sheep in line, i.e. to keep them from asking similar embarrassing questions or even questions relevant to public knowledge of what the administration is doing or not doing?

 

To be fair, it seems that the administration is not trying to get Faux to stop asking questions, they are trying to get them to stop making s*** up.

 

What are they making up? They generally show clips of administration officials making a comment and then ask questions based on the video quote. I keep hearing this "making it up" criticism, but no one comes up with an actual "making it up." Whereas I'm not an advocate of ANY news organization taking a political "side," at least Fox asks legimate questions.

Regarding opinion shows, I hate to admit it, but I admire Glenn Beck's sand in putting in a "hotline" to the administration daring them to give a counterpoint to his assertions or to refute an inaccuracy.

However, I apologize for getting off topic. Chavez is democratically elected like good old boy "Ill" Kim is democratically elected.

 

I guess I should change mine.

 

Give me a break, Thumbs. This post should show you the problem of associating with Dumbs at teaparties.

 

As with the Ides of March warning, beware those "dumbs." You may get surprised come election time.

 

are you saying obama is going to be assassinated? or an attempt at least? with the recent reports of an unprecedented number of threats on his life, i'd clarify this post as it's very reckless given the current political environment.

 

No, that was not in my thought process at all. However, I agree that in light of the crazies in the world it was a poor choice of words. No, I was just thinking that the undercurrents of change are gaining strength.

 

Not to mention all the crazies you hang out with and share a cause with.

 

I killed shishir chang and took his power.

 

I think Chavez is a mixed bag at best. He is undoubtedly popular among his people and has done good things but at the same time he has clearly done things that seem like the actions of third world dictators, jailing political opponents, shutting down the press and like in this case seizing property for questionable or trivial reasons.

At the same time his success is very unsustainable given that is based on redistributing oil wealth. Venezuala could go the way of Zimbabwe if that wealth runs out where ill concieved nationalization strangles the economy.

I don't think Chavez is a banana republic strongman as some of his critics like to make him out to be but he certainly isn't a selfless hero of the people as his admirers make him out to be. Frankly I think that as much as some don't like him due to old stereotypes of him as another Castro many like him out of some romantic notion of seeing him as Che Guevera standing up to the Gringos. I don't think either is the reality.

 

If Hamas won a free and fair election, then yes, as much as I would prefer a different outcome, I would accept the result. And if Hamas began to create a dictatorship and a cult of personality based on their "leader," I would be reacting the same way I'm reacting to Chavez. If Chavez is deliberately stripping those who oppose him of the means to express their displeasure and taking over businesses and corporations simply because he doesn't like them, that isn't democracy and I'll make no excuses for him. And he is doing just that.

 

If you can't see or won't admit that virtually everything on Faux "News" is manufactured marketing material meant to prop up the republican brand, then you are being willfully blind or you are lying on behalf of them yourself.

Faux asks the questions that republican strategists tell them to. It is not journalism, it is marketing.

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Thumbs, I really thought you were being honest when you told me privately that you are interested in nonpartisan discussion of the topics that are most important to the American people. If you are honestly able to say that you "admire" Glenn Beck for anything, then as far as I am concerned, you have lost any shred of the nonpartisanship you expressed to me. Sad, really, because you struck me as a thoughtful, intelligent person.

You do realize that several international agencies have certified that the elections in Venezuela were absolutely legitimate and not doctored at all, don't you? He wins because he caters to the vast majority of his people, the ones living in abject poverty, the ones who felt disenfranchised until he came on the scene. I am not a fan of his squelching media outlets, but honestly, if the outlets were anything like Faux "News," I think they SHOULD be shut down. If any of them were encouraging the coup attempt (which was materially supported by the Bush administration), they SHOULD be shut down.

Journalists are supposed to report news, not market a brand. It doesn't matter whether it is Faux "News" in the US or some podunk station in Caracas, the minute the media start marketing, they stop being journalists.

 

glynch:

Does the brain drain in Venezuela concern you? Compared to the overall population, I guess they're 'elites' but many of the people who are fleeing have incomes and lifestyles comparable to, or lower then most of the posters to this bbs. Is that so bad, and aren't they needed if the country is to have any sort of a viable private sector? I'm not sure why you dismiss the Castro comparisons so quickly.

Also, can you think of any country that has succeeded long term by chasing away foreign investment? I ask this genuinely, by the way. I can't -- but possibly you do.

I know that I would not consider moving to Caracas today. Would you? Previously I might have -- and not to 'exploit the poor' -- though that certainly did happen. Many countries have had a very shameful past ignoring or exploiting their poor populations in catering to foreign companies. The challenge is to address that without stifling the industry that's needed (IMO).

BTW, I'm not comforted by the thought that he (or anybody anywhere for that matter) might win elections for 20 years! And I'm not sure I agree that it's necessarily good for people long term to raise their standard of living from deplorable to bearable if in doing so you eliminate the economic layer that's needed to bring it to comfortable.