glynch faints: Hugo Chavez's ambassador daughter is Venezuela's richest woman

No.
I was against the invasion of Iraq. My wife is Assyrian. I have been to Iraq and was/am well aware of the tribal culture and situation there. Hussein was a warlord but he brought a degree of stability to the region. Did he commit terrible crimes? Yes but to a certain degree it was expected and he was not much different than many other rulers in that region of the world.

Hugo Chavez rose to power because there were existing class issues in Venezuela. There were many power and uneducated oppressed people. Chavez systematically increased his grip on power and further destroyed the economy in his own country. He put uneducated thugs in positions of power after there was an intellectual and economic vacuum in Venezuela. Towards the end with Chavez the murder rate soared to levels not seen in that country. Corruption was as bad or worse than before Chavez. The poor in Venezuela were even more poor than before. Venezuela was only further alienated from the developed world.

If you really support the narrative that Chavez was a positive, I have lost respect for you.

 

Yes excerpts of a book written a decade ago.... Hugo Chavez had an unbelievably high amount of money coming in from oil, bullied all other industries and failed to build any real other money making industries. Then the inevitable happened, a down turn in oil prices and he has his people in a worse situation than they were before he took power. Venezuela has over the last 7 or so years the highest inflation in their history (and I believe the highest in the world). The murder rate has exploded to one of the highest in the world (an amazing 3 times what it was before Chavez). Kidnappings and other dangerous violent crimes have gone up even faster than the murder rates. Their economic development index score continues to fall. Non partisan measures of corruption show it has gone from bad to possibly the worst in the world over the last 15 years.

That is the legacy of Hugo Chavez.... Well than and tripling the size of their army while his people starve, get sick and murdered.

 

Interesting on Iraq as you had a basis outside of what the mainstream media was feeding you. Apparently not such a source on Venezuela or you might not think it is that simple.

Venezuela, especially with the tremendous fall in oil, the overwhelming basis of their economy, has had the previous high growth rate fall. The US and the Venezuelan elite hope to capitalize on this to return to the past.

The majority are eating more, have cleaner water, better housing, basic health care and many have learned to read. Hey this doesn't mean much to the international elite, their media outlets or exiles in Miami or Houston.

Realistically the Chavistas might lose an election in the near future if the opposition can ever get it together before the price of oil rises.

 

Sorry I don't accept Bloomberg as an objective source wrt to Venezuela.

However, you failed to address whether the average person, has more food, better housing, cleaner water and better access to health care and improved literacy. Overwhelmingly important to them, if not Bloomberg.

Such basics are not included in overall GDP type figures, even if we accept Bloomber stats you cite.

As we have seen including in the US the brute overall GDP type statistics can be deceiving while the lower 50% can have their daily living standards going in opposite direction.

 

I'm really not sure how certain aspects of the political left can be trusted on the economy when they continue to defend the performance of Venezuela.

 

You are aware that Hugo only got into power because of a down turn in the oil market. The difference? The down turn under Chavez and his cronies has been far worse.

Also, this universal healthcare you talk of is a joke. Over 80% of the hospitals/clinics have shut their doors. The quality of medical care is terrible. The quality of life in Venezuela is terrible. There is less food than before. Chavez was and his prodigy have been an enormous failure. Virtually every metric and measure backs it up.

You don't trust Bloomberg but you trust what one man said about his experiences prior to the collapse. Virtually all of the individual measures and non partisan groups reach the same conclusion, things are worse in Venezuela than they have been in a long time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bd9fcPeE3RU

Glynch is farther to the left than most. Most mainstream left politicians do not have a high opinion of Chavez.

 

You stating that is not enough.

BTW hopefully you do realize that your Bloomberg article, eve if totally honest does not support these naked claims wrt to cleaner water, health care or literacy.

 

Haven't heard that claim before. Try googling Caracazo and see how the government killing hundreds and hundreds of poor people protesting over lack of water, sanitation and general poverty deligitmized the previous government that the US and the Venezuelan elite supported.

Actually not true for the inhabitants of the shanty towns and the vast poor of Venezuela. That is why the opposition will probably lose again.

Cite? Also even relatively poor quality is better than none at all. which existed for most before Chavez.

Not true for the majority, We can both cite sources pro and con.

However, we can both agree the steep decline in oil may get your oligarchic elite back in power..

.

Actually I do trust one honest priest working with the poor over the Venezuelan elite and the mainstream US sources that have backed the old right wing oligarchs of Venezuela and supported coups and many attempts to overthrow the present democratically elected government of Venezuela. Likewise I trust Jimmy Carter who I think is honest over a hundred mainstream source about the validity of the VZLA elections.

Lol at the non=partisan groups funded by rich exiles or the US funded NGO's that specialize in overthrowing governments we don't like.

Again it is like the disinfo wrt to the Iraq War. You can have a hundred sources from Fox News to the NYT and sometimes when the fix is in they will all say the same thing.

Hey you are correct there but you make the all too common logical error to assume that makes you correct.

 

Might be my last post on VZLA for a while.

Good try I suppose justifying austerity and maintaining your hope of the trickle down to the average person in VZLA and the US Milton Friedman promised you.
Venezuela has made economic errors no doubt. Does that mean they are a brutal dictatorship with all the other just wrong and hysterical lies? No.

The hysterical foes of the present elected government in Venezuela like to pretend that VZLA was this crime free great country that did such a great job of economic development before Chavez. Previous governents had the advantage of not having the US and a large wealthy expat community as well as monied elite constantly sabotaging if not down right plotting coups against their governmenst.

There are a lot of Venezuelans in Houston and Miami who hate the Chavistas.
However, a doctor I know from VZLA who hated Chavez so much he flew back one time just to vote against Chavez told me that he blamed Chavez on the way past governments treated the poor. Though pretty well off when he lived there, unlike many of other local VZLA elite he had seen and treated some of the many desperately poor while doing rotations in his medical schooling..

 

Why is this a surprise? Chavez enriched people around him.

Just like George Bush and Barrack Obama and the Clintons and David Cameron and all the oil people and so on.

The difference is, he did it less than they did, did not intend to go work for those people afterwards and HERE'S THE KEY POINT: the rest of the time he dedicated a tremendous amount of the country's wealth to the absolute poorest. Those other guys wouldn't dream of coming near his focus on poverty.

So as an overall, he still stands above the people at the top these days, he's just by far the least ****ty one or put differently the best one out of them all. He still exercised an excessive amount of power over people and the way that opportunities are distributed in the country and that is wrong.

It's amazing how people today are clinging to the final ropes of the system. If the alternative is not perfect, then it doesn't matter and there's no degree of difference lol. Unless there is nothing wrong with Chavez, you can't hold him up as an example for your leaders to follow? Yeah right. No one on this board knows better than me how easy it is for the leader of a country with an enormous amount of LUCKY wealth to just not give a F about poor people. It's what happens 99% of the time. One of the times it didn't happen was Hugo Chavez and we can admire that part of him while at the same time being critical of the qualities he shares with other disappointing leaders.

 

Shared with other disappointing leaders?

I will take Obama, Cameron or Bill Clinton over Chavez any day of the week.

Focus on the poor?

So tell me which part has helped the poor? The 70% inflation (highest in the world), the murder rate that has tripled and in now one of the worst in the world (worse than Iraq during the Iraqi war), the misery index score which is the worst in the world for 4 straight years... the lack of supplies and food in the country? The rate of infectious diseases in the nation that is sky rocketing? The 40,000 person waiting list for surgeries? The fact that they have almost doubled their military size since Chavez and his cronies came into power? The fact that Venezuela was buying weapons from China and Russia while their own people starved? The fact that they have silenced protests and taken control of the media?

Look there are no absolutes. Venezuela had serious issues prior to Chavez. The problem is that now things are WORSE than they have ever been. It is wonderful to discuss improvements made for the poor. The problem is that in reality, in many ways, things are not better for the poor, they are worse. Inflation is so high that Venezuela will not even release the numbers. Murder rates are so high they do not release the numbers. Things like that effect the poor people in Venezuela.

It is wonderful to have the goals of equality and to feed and support the poor, but that hasn't happened. You have a select group of Venezuelans that control everything and have virtually unlimited power.

 

For those who may want some more info on Venezuela besides the same few talking points recycled in the same mainstream media.

venezuelanalysis.com
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/

Telesur is a good source in general for international news that is outside the typical .1 percent perspective of the typical media.

 

Why should these sources be considered more trustworthy than the ones you slammed? Is it because they espouse view points closer to your heart?

 

When people say they're not about the money, they're typically the biggest thieves.

When people say they're all about the money, at least they're not being hypocritical.

 

There are not really any singularly trustworthy sources, he's showing everyone the opposite side because most people think the opposite side of bloomberg is msnbc or fox.

If the truth lies somewhere between the two, that's a vast improvement over how Bloomberg portrays someone like Chavez.