My thoughts and prayers go out to the Chavez family and a nation in mourning. Oh, and Oliver Stone.

Is that how I show compassion guys? I'm really trying.

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@ryanadamdavis

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Member formally known as AC59

Prior to Chavez, Venezuela had one of the strongest growth economies in South America. Oil profits were showing promise in the construction of civil infrastructure (roads, schools, etc) for one of the first times in Latin America. Healthcare was well above average and the ratio of children attending school and subsequently moving on to higher education was increasing rapidly.

This had a net increase of causing Venezuela to be on of the few places where a middle class was expanding very quickly - the oil industry created high wage jobs, the support for the industry the same, and when you add in improving infrastructure and expanded access to education it was creating a snowball effect of expanding economy.

That is not to say it was all fluffy bunnies and sunshine - there was still quite a bit of corruption by some individuals in power on the distribution of oil profits (hey, kinda like here...). Most of the oil was extracted under contract with large multinational oil companies, and Citgo was a major player on the Venezula side.

Chavez attempted to take power in 1992 by force, and was jailed for it. After two years in jail, he formed a political party and ran for president. (all in all, a rather forgiving example of the democratic process IMHO...)

Once in power, he rather ruthlessly eliminated the middle class - first by nationalizing the oil industry, which allowed him to control who got the 'good jobs' and at what rate of pay, and was very 'energetic' in pushing those with businesses (the growing middle class) either directly under his control or out of the country. Many who could afford it left the country, and unfortunately those were exactly the educated people Venezuela needed in order to logically oppose Chavez and his 'reforms' which were send the country economically and socially backwards.

He increased his popularity by using the higher margin of oil profit from the now nationalized oil resources to fund measures that were very popular with the poor - such as housing. He was seen many times given housing to some poor family on tv Oprah style.

Some saw his redistribution of wealth as a robin-hood style socialist (I do not use socialist as a bad word, by the way), while my perception of his moves indicate he was using the poor masses to gain popularity, eliminating the middle class to quash dissent, and concentrating power and wealth into fewer individuals over which he had more direct control.

In order to pull this off, like most other dictators in history, he needed to demonize something to create an external threat so the people would not pay too much attention to what was happening in their own country (Castro did this, the Junta in Argentina in 1982 did this, etc). His choice was the United States, as he could easily attach the growing middle class to the US ("Evil Capitalism") and consolidate his control better. Unfortunately, rhetoric is believed when spouted often enough, and the Bush administration was happy to oblige his saber rattling, which just gave him more power within his own country and on the world stage.

I am sure it pissed him off that he pretty much had to sell 'his' oil to the place he decided to ascribe as the great satan, primarily due to the high sulfur content of Venezuelan oil, which only the refineries of the southern US could handle.

Areas of Lake Maracaibo is now almost a ecological wasteland - when he kicked out the 'foreign' oil companies the maintenance and upkeep of the oil fields feel to an almost non-existent level and have not yet recovered. Venezuela also has the second highest murder rate in the world. The opportunities for any individual in Venezuela are now less than when he took power.

I suppose that sums up why I disliked Chavez - he took what I saw as a beacon of economic progress in South American and took it back to the days of the United Fruit Company - only in this case it was him running the company and instead of fruit it was oil.

Sad, really.

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“Cynicism is not realistic and tough. It’s unrealistic and cowardly because it means you don’t have to try.” - Peggy Noonan
The Real Hero Fights Without Knowing Whether Or Not He’ll Succeed. Courage is contagious.

I've done a little Googling and Wikiing and it's really hard to wade through the bullshit. Either he's a hero or a tyrant. Or both.



http://www.leftfootforward.org/2013/03/ ... z-is-dead/

Either way I'm not dancing in the streets.

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Tanzania¹²

Also, what's a few thousand Jews as casualties of your antisemitism?

Chavez was a great guy. Just ask the Venezuelan free press.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

Well maybe because there wasn't room for more than 50,000 in facilities meant for 14,000.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezula#Prisons

"In Venezuela, are approximately 33 prisons which hold about 50,000 inmates.[108] They include; El Rodeo outside of Caracas, Yare Prison in the northern state of Miranda, and several others. Venezuela's prison system is heavily overcrowded; its facilities have capacity for only 14,000 prisoners"

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That's weak sauce!

"Casualties"? They left the country. You make it sound like a holocaust.

[racism]Anyway, of course they left. We all know Jews and Socialism don't mix.[/racism]

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Tanzania¹²

The ol' "he didn't kill too many folks" defense. They left the country because of his antisemitism. And only a few of them wound up dead, that we know of anyway. Are we to think of him as a good guy because he induced most of them to leave his country instead of killing them?

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

That's absolutely not my "defense". I just read the article you posted. It says very little about why they left and absolutely nothing about him killing anybody. Not saying it didn't happen, I honestly know nothing. But your link doesn't support the claim.

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Tanzania¹²

There are other links which do. I pulled that one because it showed numbers, and because I really can't justify getting sucked down too many Internet rabbit holes while under the pretense of editing science fiction.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.

And it has been a rabbit hole type day thus far! Haha.

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Tanzania¹²

Are people really serious with this shit? Chavez was a complete scumbag

How was he more of a scum bag then say....Dick Cheney?

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Legal Notice: Any references made by the online entity know as SacHawk 2.0 or "Sac" in regards to "Currystopstheruns" being a pre-op tranny with an anal tampon fetish are entirely accurate.

They're of the same ilk, scum-bag-wise.

Except that Chavez was, you know, liked by his own people. Cheney is hatred everywhere.

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Legal Notice: Any references made by the online entity know as SacHawk 2.0 or "Sac" in regards to "Currystopstheruns" being a pre-op tranny with an anal tampon fetish are entirely accurate.

What does Cheney have to do with anything?

Well, he was our vice president for 8 years. So there's that.

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Tanzania¹²

Does admitting Cheney is a scumbag somehow diminish the scumbaggyness of Chavez?

And anyway... one was a vice president of a country with many checks and balances in place, and one was the dictator of a nation, so again, not seeing the connection at all.

Scumbag? No, I don't know if it'd do all that. Again, I'm not even really familiar with the scumbaggyness of Chavez.

Tyrant? Yeah, if somebody told me that Chavez was a Tyrant on the level of Dick Cheney, then yeah, I'd probably be all "ahhh, I see."

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Tanzania¹²

Chavez was not a tyrant on the level of Dick Cheney. He passed that level still accelerating, outlawed talking about it, and liquidated people who tried.

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I blog, I tweet. When I'm not writing or goofing around on Seahawks.NET.