Dictator Chavez steals second Hilton hotel in Venezuela

A dictator has unified rule over a the government of a country. Whether elected or not, if all government decisions are made by the leader, he is a dictator.

 

Neither Il nor Saddam won elections that were fairly monitored by respected international monitoring agencies and declared valid. Please don't compare the two.

I understand the cult of personality thing. It doesn't change the fact about his popularity, or elections.

 

Didn't Saddam allegedly win elections with 100% of the vote?!

 

Not in elections monitored and declared valid by respectable international agencies.

 

How long has he ruled a country with a 99% rate of poverty?

I was talking with a man at a fundraiser on Saturday. Our youth minister and his wife are adopting two babies from Rwanda to join the 3- and 5-YO kids as a family.

One of the participants in the run/walk fundraiser is a 71-YO retired engineer who annually treks to Africa to help resolve water problems in remote, remote villages.

He cites constant interference from the government who really don't want their citizens to have access to clean water because it will help to stabilize their health and make them, in time, a force to be reckoned with. They would rather keep them unhealthy but procreating another larger generation of unhealthy and poor workers. Despicable.

 

No, I agree with you. I was just citing the trumped up evidence that he's provided in years past.

 

This reminds me of one our long time client states, Guatemala, which had a policy of not teaching Indians Spanish or how to read as they might start trouble. During the long civil war that the US helped them with the governmnent had a policy of assassinating Indians who had glasses as that probably showed that they were reading and it might be subversive literature.

 

So you are happy to ignore the fact that Chavez is intimidating the opposition and crushing the media bold enough to criticize him? Would you be as complacent if George W. Bush had used similar tactics to close the New York Times and the Washington Post, to name a couple of the more prominent critics of the former President? I have no doubt that if Mr. Bush had managed that feat, there would have been a host of supporters making excuses for him, including members I can think of right here on this board. One of the first things out of their mouths would be that the end result justified the means. That his policies, which they support, are so good for the country that it doesn't matter if our freedom of the press, and other freedoms, are trampled in the process.

Would you be cool with that, FB, or are those tactics only groovy in a developing South American country?

 

Further to Deck's comments:

The outside agencies monitor the election itself. That the ballots are counted and controlled, that there isn't intimidation at the booths, that boxes aren't stuffed. They don't comment on muzzling of opposition, or intimidation that may exist around and before the election. They don't comment on the openness of government -- intimidation of the press or opposition and so forth.

I've yet to see a government, or organization, that uses these tactics be good for the population long term.

 

In most of the elections they found there was tampering in the election from both sides, but enough to affect the outcome.

 

To be fair, most of my political and social beliefs would be seen by you, Jackie, to be decidedly left of center. I think this is more an individual disagreement over this than a disagreement rooted in how "left" someone is. I'm not the only liberal Democrat I know who dislikes Chavez and sees what he is doing as gradually setting himself up as a dictator in everything but the name. Most liberal Democrats I know have very strong feelings about freedom of the press, regardless of the country where one resides. In your own country, your government gets hammered by the press if there is a reason to do so, or if "the rag" has a political bent that makes it lean in that direction. Does the head of your government come out with trumped up excuses to muzzle those media outlets? Of course not, and were that to happen, Germans would take to the streets. Am I wrong?

 

Well, thanks for that (I think!).

 

As I said in the beginning, those tactics are not cool. Shutting down opposition press is a horrible censorship, and restrictive of freedoms.

My very first post on the subject listed that as something I don't like about Chavez. It's not cool anywhere. However, his opposition wouldn't allow opposition press either, and unlike his predecessors he has done things to help the poor of his nation. Like most people and most leaders he isn't all bad or all good.

He isn't my favorite, but he is an improvement over what was before, and any of the other options they've put against him.

 

Well Deckard, you need to look at the whole picture.. For someone who is generally liberal, but quite, I would argue overly concerned with national security, I find your stance somewhat naive wrt to Venezuela. Or is national security and protecting an elected president something that only matters in the United States? Surely, at least in the United States you would advocate some restrictions if a major owner of the press refused to accept an election and was in cahoots with foreign enemies of the government who were trying to overthrown the government--an owner who had a history of supporting the violent overthrown of the elected president?

 

By now, it's quite obvious that chavez does not have the best interest of the people in mind. His Ego is as big as Dick Cheney's and his paranoia is getting the best of him. Infact, he resembles his enemy, the republican imperialist, more than he resembles a revolutionary. Hugo also continues to invest in weapons to intimidate colombia and wants to put in place his own version of the patriot act. That is no bueno.


However,if not for Chavez, our countries would have never had the courage to shift left.. to get out and VOTE without fear, to finally change the governments that were responsible for massacres comprable to what our jewish brothers endured in the 40s.

 

Chavez does have a big ego, and it can be annoying, though some of his speeches are actually funny. Whether he should be so funny as a leader is another question.

Ah with Plan Columbia and the US military buildup there I think he has reason to fear Columbia and the US. It is tough to know what is going on, but with the US overtrhow of LA governments including the recent support (essentially) for the coup in Honduras you can't claim it is all paranoia.

In addition, I'm not sure why you would say Chavez does not have the best interests of the people at heart. Chavez has objectively speaking helped a lot of the poor, though I suppose you could argue that he could be more effective.