President Hugo Chavez dead at 58

[TheLastOne36]

Where is your proof that the "average Venezuelan" hated Chavez as the two of you clearly do?

I am not sure what happened to my post. Did I cut+paste but screwed up the pasting bit? Cause my post was cut off. Weird. I don't remember what I was going to say but I'll answer your question either way.

Hated is a loaded term, (I don't even think I 'hate' him) so I'll assume you mean 'were opposed' to him. The proof are the last elections where the opposition finally unified against him. Despite Venezuela being an illiberal democracy, the opposition were strong and showed very well in the polls, all things considering.

I have yet to see you "lean left of center" in any of the opinions which you have expressed recently, while constantly trying to rationalize and defend the statements of those who clearly aren't. You even just called those Venezuelans who supported Chavez "stupid" for merely disagreeing with your own personal opinions. That is hardly a "left of center" position.

No, I merely don't care for the partisan politics you love so much.

I defend Luiz often on here because he get's attacked on various statements relating to Latin America because the people attacking him, yourself being an obvious example, just simply do not understand the social-economic realities of Latin America. Relating back to Venezuela, you seem to have this idea that Chavez is some leftist Jesus of sorts. Luiz and myself don't need to share a similar position on the political spectrum to know what he really is. He is a kleptocrat, a kleptocrat who repeatedly betrays many leftist ideals at will. The real left in Venezuela is quite clearly the opposition headed by Henrique Capriles, the opposition candidate to Chavez.

I have no idea why you are so fond of Chavez. You of all people should be supportive of Capriles. Which just goes to show how ignorant you and others are of the region.

Again, where is your proof that there was widespread celebration when it was announced he was dead instead of a few right-wing extremists who even had the bad taste to fire off fireworks when their own president died of cancer.

I never claimed such, only reporting what a cousin told me. Personally it doesn't surprise me as Venezuelans are some of the most extreme pyromaniacs I've ever come to encounter.

I don't think there was wide-spread celebration, most people anti-Chavez probably have mixed feelings about him dieing like myself, and as people showed earlier, are sympathetic to him losing his battle to a terrible disease. But let me repeat myself, the people opposed to Chavez are not right-wing extremists (those guys have already been expatriated and are living in Florida or Alberta). The people opposed to him are people who largely comprised the middle classes of Venezuela, the people with jobs and steady incomes, the small-business owners, the Jews and the entrepreneurs; alongside the students at universities and the educated in general, from both sides of the political spectrum. I bolded that to ensure you understand it, the educated leftists in the country are opposed to Chavez, because they, like Luiz and myself, see Chavez as the kleptocrat he is and supported an actual leftist politician in Capriles.

Again, where is your proof. While Venezuela has recently been having economic difficulties, that certainly wasn't the case when Chavez used the oil money to help build the necessary infrastructure to bring Venezuela eventually out of the far more "tyrannical" times of his predecessors who were far more corrupt and elitist. When he used the money to help benefit the poor of Venezuela instead of the rich, as his predecessors did.

Wtf?

Seriously, are you just attempting to troll anyone you deem to be opposed to a leftist figure you have chosen to idolize or do you really believe that drivel you just posted?

All that I said in that post comes from common knowledge of someone not ignorant of the country as well as personal knowledge of having actually lived in the country.

You claim to lean to the left, but how many other "leftists" in this forum hate Chavez as you clearly do? How many from the far-right are echoing your own sentiments instead?

I don't expect other leftists on this forum to be as opposed to him as I am, they do not have the same experience with Chavez and Venezuela as I do. Likewise, the only rightist I am echoing is Luiz because although he and I may share different views, we can both call out Chavez on his repeated betrayals to many leftist and socialist ideals he spouts out, his vacuous populism, his tyrannical abuses of power on the media, banks and businesses and his outright thievery of the state's wealth.

 

[Murky]

Only Chavez isn't "ridiculed the world over". He is greatly admired by many Latin American countries which have taken the same route to greatly reduce impoverishment while massively improving the educational and health level for all its citizens.

(bolding is mine)
How do you know this to be true? Have you been there?

 

[TheLastOne36]

(bolding is mine)
How do you know this to be true? Have you been there?

Agreed. That is certainly not the reality in Venezuela.

Unless Forma wants to make an argument that the rise of the middle class in Latin America is somehow Chavez' doing.

Only Chavez isn't "ridiculed the world over". He is greatly admired by many Latin American countries which have taken the same route to greatly reduce impoverishment while massively improving the educational and health level for all its citizens.

Read above.

But you make an excellent point about how moderate he actually is compared to many other leaders in the region. Leaders who seem to manage to escape from the same sort of vilification because they don't advocate socialism.

You are right. Chavez definitely wasn't as radical as other leaders or dictators. And that was largely because unlike those other leaders who sought to revolutionize the country to one political ideology, Chavez and his cronies stopped at acquiring Venezuela's wealth for their own, securing high-paying positions in various nationalized industries for their families and populist drivel.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Hated is a loaded term, (I don't even think I 'hate' him) so I'll assume you mean 'were opposed' to him. The proof are the last elections where the opposition finally unified against him. Despite Venezuela being an illiberal democracy, the opposition were strong and showed very well in the polls, all things considering.

Do you really want me to quote past threads regarding Chavez where your hatred of him is even more clear than bragging that some were even so callous to celebrate his death by fireworks, as well as how you continue to overreact to me merely disagreeing with your own personal opinions?

No, I merely don't care for the partisan politics you love so much.

So you admit to not even knowing anything at all about my own views? I am neither a Republican or a Democrat. I fault Obama regarding many of his current positions.

I defend Luiz often on here because he get's attacked on various statements relating to Latin America because the people attacking him, yourself being an obvious example, just simply do not understand the social-economic realities of Latin America.

The mere fact that you are trying to portray his far-right opinions as being "realities" again shows you own quite clear biases in this regard.

Relating back to Venezuela, you seem to have this idea that Chavez is some leftist Jesus of sorts.

I have no idea why you are so fond of Chavez.

Contrary to my continual statements that I dislike and disagree with many of his views and acts.

I just don't think he was the evil tyrant that so many think he was due to the quite deliberate propaganda campaign to portray him that way merely because he was socialist.

Seriously, are you just attempting to troll anyone you deem to be opposed to a leftist figure you have chosen to idolize or do you really believe that drivel you just posted?

Why don't you start by reading the article I posted above and even try to refute any of the facts presented in it.

And you might want to look up the meaning of the word "troll" as well, unless you were deliberately trying to provide an excellent example with this utter nonsense you just posted.

(bolding is mine)
How do you know this to be true? Have you been there?

Does anybody read the articles I post, and even take the time to bold, in these threads?

...poverty in Venezuela plummeted (the Guardian reports that its “extreme poverty” rate fell from 23.4 percent in 1999 to 8.5 percent just a decade later). In all, that left the country with the third lowest poverty rate in Latin America. Additionally, as Weisbrot points out, “college enrollment has more than doubled, millions of people have access to health care for the first time and the number of people eligible for public pensions has quadrupled.”

 

[Arakhor]

Quite frankly, I start to scroll through any long quote-filled post, whether it's by you, GW, Mobboss etc.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Do you really want me to quote past threads regarding Chavez where your hatred of him is even more clear than bragging that some were callously celebrating his death by fireworks?

Is that relevant?

So you admit to not even knowing anything at all about my own views? I am neither a Republican or a Democrat. I fault Obama regarding many of his current positions.

Didn't say I don't know or care for your views. I'll consider and reply to them like a reasonable person. What I don't care for is the bi-partisan notion of supporting one ideology above and beyond all others.

The mere fact that you are trying to portray his far-right opinions as being "realities" again shows you own quite clear biases in this regard.

Opinions of what? Common knowledge of a region both Luiz and myself have lived in? I didn't know that common knowledge was the property of the far-right.

Contrary to my continual statements that I dislike and disagree with many of his views and acts.

Then again, why do you idolize him so much? Why aren't you supporting the opposition in Venezuela? The true left of the country?

Why don't you start by reading the article I posted above and even try to refute any of the facts presented in it.

Does anybody read the articles I post in these threads?

I've read what you bolded. A lot of it is simply untrue or contrary to my first hand experience of the country, and other parts of it were biased conclusions itself.

Why don't you try to find an objective article instead?

----------

Regarding college enrollment and health care, both are a lie. The health care system there is effectively useless for the vast majority of the populace in poverty and the education system is going to produce a generation of under-qualified workers.

What Chavez did to education is unrealistic and unsustainable. When you increase the number of teachers like he did, the quality of the teaching inevitably drops. Also something insane he did to get these over-inflated numbers of those enrolled was to reduce the number of years needed to graduate with a degree from university from 4 years to 2, for the purpose of allowing more people in university.

These policies aren't solutions, that's why severe health care and education reform were part of the oppositions platform in the last election.

 

[Murky]

Trying to Eulogize Chavez as some heroic figure is going to be a tough sell outside of his fan base (which I think is rather small).

 

[Disgustipated]

I don't know Chavez, but I'm assuming he's a smoker and died of lung cancer (they mentioned breathing problems so I'm assuming it was lung cancer).

I'll put it bluntly. All smokers deserve to die of lung cancer. Smokers clearly do not love themselves, or even like themselves, and they hate other people by making them sick from their smoke. Smokers deserve to die the most excruciating death from lung cancer possible.


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As for Chavez, I'm glad he stood up to the evil nation that is the U.S. and to the evil president Bush. But other than that, he hasn't done a whole lot worth mentioning. The country is a craphole.

 

[TheLastOne36]

I don't know Chavez, but I'm assuming he's a smoker and died of lung cancer (they mentioned breathing problems so I'm assuming it was lung cancer).

I'll put it bluntly. All smokers deserve to die of lung cancer. Smokers clearly do not love themselves, or even like themselves, and they hate other people by making them sick from their smoke. Smokers deserve to die the most excruciating death from lung cancer possible.

As for Chavez, I'm glad he stood up to the evil nation that is the U.S. and to the evil president Bush. But other than that, he hasn't done a whole lot worth mentioning. The country is a craphole.

He had a stomach cancer.

 

[Disgustipated]

The Time article I just read says the cancer is still undisclosed.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I don't know Chavez, but I'm assuming he's a smoker and died of lung cancer (they mentioned breathing problems so I'm assuming it was lung cancer).

I'll put it bluntly. All smokers deserve to die of lung cancer. Smokers clearly do not love themselves, or even like themselves, and they hate other people by making them sick from their smoke. Smokers deserve to die the most excruciating death from lung cancer possible

.

This is just disgusting. And offensive. I think smoking is a crappy, stupid idea, but come on.

 

[Arakhor]

This is just disgusting. And offensive. I think smoking is a crappy, stupid idea, but come on.

Pretty much, yes.

 

[Leoreth]

It's also pretty illogical. "Smokers deserve to die because they're doing something that could kill them!"

 

[Borachio]

Tobacco is highly addictive. And its production and marketing is in the hands of fairly very unscrupulous multi-national corporations.

So people have the free choice to try it initially (while they're generally teenagers and still very impressionable, though) - under the influence of multi-billion dollar marketing campaigns. But after a week or so they can be fairly heavily addicted and many of them may well find it almost impossible to give up.

Isn't the free market a wonderful thing?

 

[GhostWriter16]

It's also pretty illogical. "Smokers deserve to die because they're doing something that could kill them!"

Yeah, really.

I also think suicide should be punishable by death

Spoiler :

Yes, that was sarcastic.

 

[Old Hippy]

I like this headline from a paper. Guardian readers pay tribute to man who would have banned the Guardian
You can read the link if you want, but the title is all I cared about.

you should read the article...

GUARDIAN readers were today in mourning for a man who would have banned the Guardian if it was in Venezuela.

the rest of the article makes a good piont for banning the Guardian if it was Australian but then it not journalism but a joke commentry....

I particularly liked

Yes, we have those things in Britain and we have a free press, but – for our sins – we are much more complex than the noble Latin American peasants.”

 

[Borachio]

You should definitely read the article.

Tom Booker, from Hackney, added: “Journalists would have had a much easier time in Venezuela if they had just agreed with President Chavez. If you read his autobiography you’d realise that he was actually very nice.

“The oil tax paid for precious, beautiful things like schools, hospitals, secret police and the wildly popular TV show Stop What You Are Doing and Listen to the President.”

Meanwhile, tributes were also paid to Chavez by the usual arseholes.

Ken Livingstone, George Galloway and Gerry Adams all said he was a great man, which is pretty much all you need to know about Hugo Chavez.

 

[Cutlass]

You need to get out more, seriously. Have you ever met anyone in person you disagree with? Do you impute wicked motives on everyone you disagree with, or only in politics?

Strangely enough this is exactly the same problem that the American Right has, they refuse to understand their opponents viewpoints because it makes them more easy to intellectually pigeonhole and categorically explain away.

I meet lots of people. And few of them have anything similar to my political outlook. The point being that there are a lot of reasons to oppose Obama on issues. And plenty of reasons to dislike him. But to actually hate him?

What has he done?

Most of what he is accused of doing by those who hate him are deliberate and flat out lies.

 

[GhostWriter16]

I meet lots of people. And few of them have anything similar to my political outlook. The point being that there are a lot of reasons to oppose Obama on issues. And plenty of reasons to dislike him. But to actually hate him?

What has he done?

Most of what he is accused of doing by those who hate him are deliberate and flat out lies.

How about the fact that he acts an awful lot like Bush.

 

[kulade]

I meet lots of people. And few of them have anything similar to my political outlook. The point being that there are a lot of reasons to oppose Obama on issues. And plenty of reasons to dislike him. But to actually hate him?

What has he done?

Most of what he is accused of doing by those who hate him are deliberate and flat out lies.

Hating the president is irrelevant; that's not why I spoke up and that's not what you said. You specifically and proudly accused the majority of people who hate the president as racists, as if they couldn't possibly object to anything but his race. It goes to show you're either ignorant of their litany or willing to misrepresent them so you can feel free to ignore them without preoccupation.

"Hating" the president is pretty natural; I'm sure you remember the visceral bile people expelled on cue against the Bush administration, and neither case comes close to the divisive hatred people had for FDR, who was five times the "omg librul tyrant" that Obama is.