After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that Venezuela’s strongman, Hugo Chavez, is a complete and utter fraud, a con man, and in a phrase I’ve grown of, “is full of crap.”
Let’s think about this for a minute.
If even HALF of what Chavez said about President Bush at the UN this past week was true, he’d be dead by now.
If Chavez himself believed even half of his BS about Bush, he would never have dared go on a speaking tour around the United States this past week.
This guy’s a two-bit punk who’s figured out how to score points with the more ignorant of his own people, along with a lot of the idiotic left around the world and even in this country. Reacting to him in any way simply “validates” his stance in their eyes.
I say we simply ignore the putz for now. Either he’ll eventually leave office, find a new boogeyman to scare his people with, or simply push matters too far when we’ll have to actually take notice of him.
Until them, let him sputter and fume to his heart’s content. At least he’s giving us something to laugh about, and he even got Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to notice reality a little. (I don’t expect it to last, but it’s a nice thing to see anyway.)
Jay:
You and I can ignore him, but the media won’t, which is all the validation that he and hackonmydinnerjack need.
If Chavez’s (like the “Truthers”‘s) beliefs about 9/11, a conspiracy set up & completed by Bush/CIA, were true….
…then surely the Evil Bush could have arranged a hijacking of Chavez’s & Ahmadinejad’s planes & had them crash into each other when they left the USA!
I’ve seen first hand the results of his leadership in his own country. He models himself very closely to the lead set by Castro. There was talk in Venezuela that he would be assuming control of Cuba with Castro’s health. He is thick as thieves with Castro and the Venezuelan media reflects it. A few years ago many of the PDVSA (Venezuelan Oil Company) employees went on strike in a coordinated effort with the primary political opposition in a major attempt to oust him. They pratically shut down oil production. It didn’t work. He was able to keep control. He fired thousands of PDVSA personnel and blacklisted them from any government jobs. Which also meant that it was very difficult for them to find even a decent job. The prevailing attitude in Venezuela is very despondent. And unfortunately Chavez will probably maintain control there for many years. Especially since he has made changes to the laws governing elections which allow longer terms and reelection as President.
JM
I don’t think Chavez is making it up. Bush and his gang are out to get him. And no matter what you think of Chavez THAT’S wrong. He was democratically elected and its none of our business to be interfering with his countries internal affairs.
“Intelligence operations in Venezuela are intensifying just as new indications of massive U.S. spending to get rid of President Hugo Chavez are in the limelight. According to an Associated Press report on Aug. 26, the U.S. Agency for International Development since 2002 has distributed $26 million via 220 grants to Venezuelan recipients under a “Venezuela Confidence Building Initiative.” The data emerged from a survey of 132 contracts detailed on 1,600 pages made accessible under the Freedom of Information Act.”
http://www.ahora.cu/english/SECTIONS/international/2006/septiembre/21-09-06.htm
I love that the same lefties who are convinced Bush stole an election are equally positive that Hugo won an election “cleanly”.
-=Mike
Mungo, better watch out, those black ops are drawing up plans to snatch you. They are planning to pick you off before they swoop in and take ackonmydinnerjacket and sidekick, Handee Hugo.
God you are a TOTAL freaking imbecile.
My latest from friends in Venezuela is that things, in fact, are worse than 1998–the birthdate for Huge’s Bolivarian Revolution–and after $80 oil.
How did that happen, in the workers’ paradise???
Notice a theme in all the failed socialist countries? Why do you think it is always the same, huh??
What’s the definition of insanity, again, Mungo?
I love all the Lefty Bolsheviks in this country who think every strong-man socialist dictator is the Second Coming. That’s a form of insanity for sure.
But here is the catch…
Chavez has the balls to be a dumbass on American soil… unlike say…. jimmy carter, clinton, dixie chicks, etc. that only have the courage to badmouth us overseas.
Don’t you mean “a phrase I’ve grown fond of”?
yogimus, you mean he has the balls to insult a countries leader while in that country. who here has visited another country and in a public forum loudly insulted the leader of that country?
And where ELSE in the world can you get away with that?
As much as you want the people who gunned hundreds of Venezuelans down in the streets to return to power, this will not happen. That may be your ideal of leadership, but Venezuelans are not masochists. They will re-elect Hugo Chavez.
As for things being worse now, as far as I know, there are no food riots. There are no announcements of IMF orders from on high that will demand that people with little take a further hit, one that may endanger their very lives.
There is no servile obedience from leadership of these orders and willingness to kill hundreds of people in the streets who dare complain about such orders given from the august IMF.
There’s a reason why the people supported Chavez’s 1992 coup attempt. They did so because his coup attempt was against those who gunned hundreds of people to death in the streets in 1989, and who presided over more austerity measures through the next years as the official growth rate topped 9% in 1991.
I can’t say enough good things about Hugo Chavez.
And where ELSE in the world can you get away with that?
In 1998, Al Gore and Jean Chretien went to Malaysia for that Asia-Pacific conference and both called for their host to step down, and branded him as a criminal. The reason; defiance of the IMF.
Richard Holbrooke went to Belgrade in 1998 and threatened Milosevic, telling him that if he doesn’t obey “what’s left of your country will implode”.
General Short, in October 1998, told a Yugoslavian general that “Belgrade will be destroyed” if obedience is not secured, threatened that it would be far worse than the aggression against Iraq in 1991.
Bob Dole visited Yugoslavia and called its leader an “evil man” in 1998.
Richard Holbrooke in Yugoslavia in 1998 threatened to destroy Yugoslavia because of some protests by Serbs over a massacre by KLA terrorists in a cafe in the town of Pec.
Finnish President Ahtissaari went to Belgrade in 1999 and swept the papers and all cups and plates, etc, off of a table and told Milosevic that his country would experience this if he doesn’t obey.
At least he’s giving us something to laugh about, and he even got Charles Schumer and Nancy Pelosi to notice reality a little.
I missed something. What did Schumer have to say about Chavez? I know that Pelosi and Rangel voiced displaesure, but I didn’t know Schumer weighed in. Holy crap, that’d be amazing.
“I can’t say enough good things about Hugo Chavez.”
R
Have you even been in Venezuela? I have and a person has to be dilusional and seriously halucinating to make that statement. I think EVERY socialist Liberal should move down to Venezuela and stay if Chavez is such a great leader. You’re trolling, right! I’ll bet you have posters of Hitler on the wall and just say he was misunderstood.
JM
“If even HALF of what Chavez said about President Bush at the UN this past week was true, he’d be dead by now.”
Reminds me of a wonderful exchange from _A Civil Campaign_ by Lois Bujold between two members of the aristocracy. Mr. drunk and beligerant is blocking the hallway, our hero, Miles Vorkosigan says, “Excuse me.” The other guy, “Why not? Everyone else has. It seems that if you’re Vorkosigan enough you can get away with murder.” Instead of denying it Miles says, “If you believe that, why are you standing in my way?”
Same principle.
R, unless you know someone in Venezuela, or one who has been there recently, don’t make these unsupported statements. Chavez is one of the worst dictators on earth.
There are scores who have been killed when the Chavista police gunned them down during protests, jews arrested and killed, Mayors or non-Chavista towns threatened, and the poverty rate is worse, not better per the credible sources.
Plus, you can’t get basic staples in Venezuela now as of last week when my Nicaraguan attorney visited there.
So, unless you have more than this liberal wet dream in that thick head of yours, don’t post on this. It makes you look stupid.
It’s really tantamount to saying something stupid like, “aw, those Soviets were really the bomb, weren’t they, and did so much for the people of Russia.” See, it’s really stupid, dumb ass.
Mitchell, your tale makes no sense.
The media would be more than pleased to report the very worst of a country that is in the crosshairs. They are going on about what a horrible place Belarus is, citing such ridiculous things as Minsk airport not being as modern-looking as that in Warsaw. Meanwhile, people who are more open-minded say that Belarus is far more pleasant a place than such favoured places like Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. For one thing, it is not overrun by gangsters.
For years we hear that Kaliningrad is a hellhole, and this continues to this day, and that it’s infested with AIDS, etc, but guess what. Lithuanians and Poles commute there to work! It’s a far better place than the surrounding NATO areas.
This is why I will never believe your tales. There are powerful interests out there that want to oust Chavez and put in a puppet leader, just like they want to get rid of Lukashenko, and just like they want to remove Kaliningrad from Russian control and make it part of NATO. The march of the West must continue and no truth must stand in its way.
Even the WaPo has figured it out, if not the other Lefties:
Hurricane Chávez
What’s worse for energy security: a natural disaster or a petro-bully?
Sunday, September 24, 2006; Page B06
HUGO CHAVEZ got the attention that he craves by comparing President Bush to Satan last week. But the Venezuelan leader’s absurd talk may be less threatening than his equally absurd incompetence. Since Mr. Chávez took power seven years ago, Venezuela has mismanaged its oil so disastrously that production may have fallen by almost half, according to the estimates of outsiders, reducing global oil supply by a bit more than 1 percent. Along with natural disasters and Nigerian rebels, Mr. Chávez’s ineptitude has contributed to high energy prices.
R, is WaPo a part of your imagined, fact-free reference to “powerful interests out there that want to oust Chavez and put in a puppet leader?”
This is why you have no credibility. None.
Look at the language in your selection here.
“HUGO CHAVEZ got the attention that he craves…Venezuelan leader’s absurd talk may be less threatening than his equally absurd incompetence. Since Mr. Chávez took power seven years ago, Venezuela has mismanaged its oil so disastrously that production may have fallen by almost half, according to the estimates of outsiders, reducing global oil supply by a bit more than 1 percent.”
This is a hit piece. This is written by people who want to eliminate Chavez and replace him with a puppet. I see those “outsiders” are unnamed. This just shows that much reporting is propaganda.
It’s just like the hit pieces against Putin as the media has an obvious agenda to replace him with Berezosvky and Khordokovsky and other figures of the Yeltsin disaster. They of course claim Putin to have “rolled back” the democratic advances of Yeltsin, he who shelled parliament, killing hundreds, and banned critical media. It would seem that the so-called “democratic” leaders like Yeltsin and Carlos Andres Perez always find themselves massacring people, in the name of “democracy” obviously, while Putin and Chavez somehow avoid that.
So now Rob thinks the WaPo editorial board is an anti-democratic cabal.
Rob has gone bye-bye . . .Bye Rob. You’re a fool.
R,
Read this very CAREFULLY! I have worked in Venezuela over the years and worked there through most of this summer. I can tell you first hand that Venezuela is far worse now under Chavez as Dictator than it was before his arrival on scene. He has changed the election laws to allow longer terms in office and reelection. He has molded his behavoir on Castro, who happens to be one of his best buddies. About 75% of the people are dirt poor. And no you can’t get that number from your Liberal media. The country is in tragic condition. It is not safe to go out at night in most areas. In fact there are roving bands of armed gangs that prey on people traveling between Caracus and the airport. Do a search, we recieved a Consulate warning not to travel at night from Caracus to the airport. Locals I talked to would avoid traveling through the Caracus airport. The streets are littered with trash and near the area where I worked raw sewage was and had been leaking onto the streets for months. In local restaurants they would lock the gate behind us after entering at night to keep us safe. Are you starting to get the picture? The country has turned into a third world country under Chavez. But of course the wealth level for most Venezuelans has been socailly standardized – dirt poor. It truly is a shame the regression that has been forced upon the people of Venezuela. I suggest you visit a country before you profess to be an expert on it. But of course why would a good liberal allow facts to get in their way!
JM
JM:
Were you in Venezuela BEFORE Chavez?
So, it “turned into a third world country under Chavez”. The 1989 food riots were the sort of thing that goes on in first world countries? The estimated 3,000 people gunned down by the security forces, that also is normal in first world countries.
Russia’s Yeltsin of course shelled hundreds of people and the national parliament and this was proof that he is a model democrat according to the media and leadership in western countries, so perhaps such killings are considered to be the “birth pangs” of democracy and development, to use Condoleeza Rice’s tactless words.
The Washington Post did back the illegal activities in Ukraine in late 2004 because of electoral fraud claims. In Mexico, with far more proof of electoral fraud, they completely back the pathetic PAN regime’s attempts to stay in power. (The cheap labour model is in tatters as factories imported to Mexico flee to China. Despite high oil prices growth is anemic and their only strategy is to send people to El Norte).
These media did so because it served the continued march of the West. That is the bottom line. That’s the consistent characteristic of the two opposite reactions to similar situations.
R,
I’ve been working in Venezuela and other South and Central American countries since the 80s. I presently carry annual work visas in six countries. Venezuela was probably what I would consider a second world country before Chavez. Much of the news you get in the states is either distorted or highly modified in many cases regarding what is really happening outside the US. I have been in Countries during government changeovers such as what is happening in Thailand right now. In many cases the news in the US is highly distorted or even ignored by the press. So a lot of what goes on in Venezuela has pretty much been in my face, literally. The previous governments in Venezuela were corrupt as are pretty much every government in the wold to some extent. But the country is being socialized under Chavez. Property owned for many generations has been seized by the Chavez regime from many non-Chavez friendly people that did not have the proper documentation. I could go on and on but I’d like to try and not dwell on it since I have friends there that are desperate to leave. Unfortunately they would be leaving all their assets behind and leave the country with little or nothing. So yes, its that Bad under Chavez!
JM
Property owned for many generations has been seized by the Chavez regime…
You must hate Israel
Was it nancy pelosi or a poodle with its ass shaved?
R,
Your statement proves you are the typical braindead brainwashed Liberal. You truly have no clue about the world outside your Liberal closet! How about families that originally colonized the country from Spain. I know that is a big concept for you and will probably give you a migrane headache. I’ve obviously wasted my time even responding with someone as truly ignorant as yourself. Here is your Liberal motto – “Don’t confuse me with the facts”.
Have fun wallowing in blissful ignorance, your lack of inteligence is mind numbing.
JM
JM,
That’s exactly your problem. To you, Venezuela is only the “families that originally colonized the country from Spain”. Descendents of the indigenous inhabitants and of black slaves are not real people to you, so naturally, the Chavez era is an evil and dark era where the real people are being challenged by the untermenchen.
One reason why America is what it is is because its elite first did not declare total war on most of its population, and its elite mostly wanted an America with power and importance. The problem with the Venezuelan elite is that it does not think it these terms. They see their country as a plantation. They are not as bad, I suppose, as the Nicaraguan elites pre-Sandinista, or the Haitian elites, perhaps the worst elites on the planet, but they are much closer to these than to the American elites.
Of course the question about whether or not the American elites are going bad is an interesting one. That much of its works for a foreign country first is a big part of the problem. That it is willing to outsource abroad like mad is another.
I mean you have this foreign country with a mission to make the US go to war with a nation of 100 million people and a religion of hundreds of millions more. They carry out in 1954 “Operation Susanah” where they bomb US targets in Egypt and are caught red-handed. They hoped to have the bombings pinned on Egyptians.
A vigilent elite would not touch this country with a ten-foot pole, so what does it do? It plays along with this. It participates more and more in this country’s wars. Finally, people who were open spies for that country take power in the 1980s and send American troops to fight in Lebanon for this country on behalf of a New Order there that the foreign country tried to establish using an invasion green-lighted by the American president. The American troops are predictably blown up by that country’s enemies and the spies cry from the rooftops that the enemies of the foreign country are America’s enemies because they blew up American troops.
This leads to an escalation and when an opportunity arrived to kill Arabs en masse for the foreign country in 1991, that opportunity was not wasted. More outrages continued in the years following, with Albright’s “it was worth it”, when describing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Arab children, for Israel of course, the 1993 and 1996 attacks on Lebanon, the Qana massacre, the Oslo farce, all drawing the Americans in this scheming foreign country’s game.
Then came the payoff. September 11 2001. “It’s very good”, said the former prime minister of that foreign country. America fell into the trap and was at war with 100 million Arabs and hundreds of millions of Muslims. They celebrate Benjamin “It’s very good” Netanyahu as a tin god in Congress. People like you cheer this on. This was the result of over 50 years of scheming by a foreign country and a clueless elite that was suckered big time.
God help America.
R,
Since you have probably never set foot outside the US, you must rely entirely on your Liberal College brainwashing for your information. You don’t know jack shit about Venezuela! That is very obvious. You now proclaim to be an expert on the demographics of a country you probably couldn’t find on a map. There is no possible way for you to comprehend anything about a country that you are clueless about. Are you related to Lee? You must be the same person. And by the way, WTF does the middle east have to do with a discussion about Hugo and Venezuela? You can’t even stay on topic. Every time a Lib like you comments on anything there is an agenda that has to be put forward based on what other Liberals have said, not fact. Do us both a favor, Comment on things you are familiar with. NOTHING. Once again the Lib motto holds true, “Don’t confuse me with the facts”.
JM
I am not a white supremacist as you are. I know you are outraged that an untermensch is president of Venezuela but he has the votes.
I know you’d like to take away the right to vote from these ‘savages’ but that’s not going to happen.
If I didn’t know where Venezuela was on a map, how is it that I know about the happenings of 1989?
In Haiti, they have an elite that is at war with its people, an elite with no shame, an elite who doesn’t care that its capital is an open sewer. I wonder if the Venezuelan elite is much better than that. If they are anything like you, may Chavez defeat you decisively and drive a stake through the heart of your movement so it is gone forever.
The subject of elite stupidity is what I was going on about with my little Middle Eastern commentary to show that Americans should worry about the sanity of their own elite as people in Latin America have had a screwed up elite from the very beginning.
R,
Once again you prove to me you are a total dimshit Liberal. You assume I am white. Bzzz. Wrong, total dumbass. Sure Chavez was elected by the people. And he did a good job for about a year. Then his greed got the best of him and everything went to shit, literally. I can’t believe I’m actually responding to your typical uneducated BS responses, but the white comment was justttttttttt typical for individuals that have the mental capacity of a scratched record that just keeps going on and on and on.
JM