Thousands Protest Chavez

Protest Against Chavez

Hugo Chavez is getting some backlash from thousands in Venezuela over his recent news media crackdowns. Looks like Chavez is turning into the dictator that many had already assumed he was.

 

ha ha ha - so the people want more revolution - GREAT !!!!!!! I bet thats what Chavez wants too - secretly - power is boring - they got what they wanted and got bored now they will destroy and rebuild again !!!

 

Whatever you say, boss. But I'd check a little closer to the action.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=2048

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=2053

 

Motion -- why are you so concerned about Chavez when we have somebody ten times worse running this country?

 

Anyway,I think Chavez's fall will come with his economic policies. His price controls have already lead to food shortages and his over dependence on oil is causing him not to diversify the economy beyond oil. It'll be interesting to see what happens with him when oil prices do drop.

 

But who cares? Seriously.

Worry about what's going on in your own country.

 

1. What happens in other countries affects this country, especially in a country that produces as much oil and gas as venezueala
2. Some people have a tendency to view Chavez as some herioc campaigner for the poor, when he's really just another south american dictator using the downtrodden as a cludgel.
3. chavez is a member of the vampire aristocracy.

 

Yeah, and as far as those who support Chavez in Venezuela. I read an article where the author pointed out that Chavez has been able to gain support by not putting in place policies that would diversify the economy beyond oil because he wants oil to be the main thing in Venezuela so that people will stay dependent on him. So this is where much of his support comes from,Venezuelans dependent on his oil funded social programs.

 

Who cares. Chavez just happens to be the direct opposite of George Bush in almost every way imaginable. It's an experiment into uncharted waters which seems to be working. We should all care, as it is very educational to watch. Lable him what you will, but he has between 75 and 80% of Venezuelans on his side, so he must be doing SOMETHING right! George is at an alltime low at about 24%. Yes, we definately SHOULD care.
Venezuela has food shortages not because of Chavez and oil. It is due to rich and powerful people who took posession of most of the agricultural land. So they became beholden to the US for food, which is like being beholden to the Devil. Chavez is putting some radical changes in place to remedy that. Changes that I happen to agree with, but he's pissing off the rich/powerful/elite. And to THAT I say "who cares"? It's about time someone came along who has BALLS.

 

Venezuelan businesses say Chávez's price controls create shortages


People who run businesses here say some of the shortages are the result of the price controls that President Hugo Chávez has imposed to combat inflation. "All price controls, after a few years, become perverse for production," said Gustavo Moreno, president of Fedeagro, a federation of farmer associations. "If there isn't a periodic price increase to take inflation into account, controls create more problems than they solve."

LINK

 

Imagine if you were suddenly put into power here in the USA. After many years of screwups, and a couple years of just geting acclimated to the position, you are now faced with pretty much starting at square one and changing EVERYTHING. You might not get it perfect at first. It could take some time to get the bugs worked out of your plans. Some things you do might be experimental and it would take a bit of time to figure out what works and what doesn't.

Chavez is an EXTREMELY smart man, and a courageous one. I would have to say that I have enough faith in his ability that he will get things straightened out. He recently STOPPED Monsanto from planting 500,000 acres of GM crops in Venezuela and is working on banning GM crops in that country all together. He is taking fallow agricultural land back from wealthy and greedy land owners and giving it to the farmers who will actually GROW food etc. on it with the intent that Venezuela can ultimately be food independant. So obviously he is thinking along the right lines. There are always two sides to these stories anyhow, and the chances of the biggest complainers being some of those wealthy land barons he wants to curb is very good.

And in answer to those who cry foul because he is using the oil wealth to his advantage, What would YOU do if your biggest asset was oil? Or timber, or whatever? You would use it, of course. The difference would come when you choose between using the wealth to squander away to do dumb things, or if you use it to make things better so it would be more like a long term investment. If you didn't utilize your most prevalent asset to fund the changes you want to see happen you would be stupid. AND it makes a GREAT thing to rub George's nose in, which I think is in the back of Chavez's mind all the time. Good for him...

 

Chavez's nationalization blamed for slower growth

Toronto Star

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Well much of what Chavez is doing is not new. His economic approach has already been tried in various communist/socialist countries and the results have been similar.

I have yet to find a credible economist who agrees with much of anything that Chavez is doing. Chavez just seems power hungry which is why he wants to control much of the Venezuaelan economy through nationalization. Business or industry nationalization doesn't seem to benefit the "people" like it's said to. Instead it benefits those in gov't who now control those industries.

 

I suppose you can look at it from a number of directions. It seems like every issue that comes up as far as he is concerned has more than one side. For every subject that comes up and is spoken about negatively, there are always some news articles that turn up and look at what is going on in Venezuela and see the positives... I suppose that is that could be part of what he is referring to when Hugo talks about the US press simply trying to make him look bad... You can look at it from the optomist side or the pessimist side and see it however you will. But there is some truth somewhere in all that and in just a couple years he has managed to put himself in the news over and over again for the many positive things he is trying to accomplish, which is impossible to say about ANY US president we have had in a LONG TIME, if ever.

 

Well Chavez is a pretty new leader and I figure he deserves a little rope. I mean he had shit to deal with and the US has not helped much either if the stories are true.

 

"Communism" has not really worked per se because Communism can only exist external to Capitalism. This is definitional. But you have to give credit to nations like Cuba. Despite the US embargo the Cuban population is much better relative to the inhabitants of Haiti, Dominican Repub., and Jamaica, for instance. And the health care system there is very successful. Also take the USSR and China, whose adoption of "Communism" led to the conception of their modern economies. But both have betrayed the system, and it was to Russia's detriment. Yeltsin's policies of privatization drove millions of Russians into poverty.

As for Chavez, he merely did not renew the station's license. And I don't what you would expect for a station that support the brief coup against him. Can you imagine what would happened here? And at any rate, the move is pro-free speech, because it allows the citizens to have a voice, as opposed to just the corporations, who will inevitably support every measure to prevent true revolution.

Hugo Chavez has my support.

 

They have MUCH more to worry about than a stupid radio station.. check out the SOA/WHINSEC sometime..

 

Estonia has shown that privatization needs to be done through oversites. This his how they avoided the corruption that came with the privatization of other Soviet related countries.

 

Of course the real truth is that the revolution was merely anticapitalist. Whether the people are for or against Chavez, one thing is absolutely certain, they are even more against the USA.

It isnt the case that for the people to be against Chavez is to be for the USA and its influence. there is widespread dislike and mistrust within that country of all U.S citizens and Chavez is about 10,000 times the politician George bush ever was

 

For those who associate privatization with corruption,here's some extra info on Estonia and how they privatized businesses. The country seems like it could be a good model or example of how to transition from a state-controlled economy to a market one.

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" In the space of 10 years, Estonia -- a country of 1.3 million people and roughly the size of the Netherlands -- has gone from being part of a closed and extremely inefficient economic system to being widely acclaimed as the leading transition economy of the former socialist bloc and, according to some economic rankings, as being one of the most promising economies in the world.

The first legislation regulating privatization, a law on small-scale privatization, was adopted at the end of 1990 while Estonia was still part of the Soviet Union. Comprehensive legislation regulating the whole privatization process was passed in July 1993. These laws set general guidelines for carrying out privatization irrespective of the size of a company. The Privatization Act stipulated that employees of an enterprise do not receive any special privileges or rights in the privatization process, and that all potential purchasers compete on equal terms. This was possibly the most ambitious privatization program of those adopted in the countries of Eastern and Central Europe.

Now more than 75 percent of the nation's GDP is produced by the private sector, while more than 85 percent of formerly state-owned enterprises have been privatized.

Estonia was quick to realize that given the small size of the country and its limited resources, it was absolutely crucial that it adopt liberal economic policies and be open to the world... "

Link

 

Of course the real truth is that the revolution was merely anticapitalist. Whether the people are for or against Chavez, one thing is absolutely certain, they are even more against the USA.

It isnt the case that for the people to be against Chavez is to be for the USA and its influence. there is widespread dislike and mistrust within that country of all U.S citizens and Chavez is about 10,000 times the politician George bush ever was