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On March 06 2013 08:46 Shiragaku wrote:Its depressing to see leftists loving Chavez for the wrong reason and rightists hating Chavez for the wrong reasons 
What about people like me, leftists who hated his guts?
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On March 06 2013 08:49 overt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2013 08:41 white_horse wrote:On March 06 2013 08:16 CoR wrote: r.i.p. one of the last big who hold against usa in worldbankeconomystuff and if you could say 1 thing about him, he was 100% NO puppet ! Anti-americans might seem a little more legitimate if they actually offered something that was better than or at least equal to american democracy/capitalism instead of just pounding at the lectern. There wasn't anything stellar about his economic policies and he was responsible for high inflation, high crime rate, and failure to meaningfully close the wealth gap. Brazil is a pretty good example of this but I dunno if you can reasonably call them anti-Americans anymore. I think they still have serious issues and grievances with the US but they openly trade and do business with us so... They're pretty much the best example of what can happen when a socialist Latin American country decides they don't want to isolate themselves from the biggest economic power in the world.
You scared me for a moment. I had to open my window to see if there was any socialism here. Phew, not today. Didn't see any american flags burning either.
Brazil has a larger social safety net than US (% of GDP), but it's not close to a socialist country by any definition, nor has it ever been. It's clearly a capitalist economy with increasing privatization of public services and corporations, with strong democratic institutions and separation of power. It's political/economical status is significantly closer to US than to Venezuela.
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On March 06 2013 09:19 McBengt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2013 08:46 Shiragaku wrote:Its depressing to see leftists loving Chavez for the wrong reason and rightists hating Chavez for the wrong reasons  What about people like me, leftists who hated his guts? Hello comrade
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On March 06 2013 09:19 McBengt wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2013 08:46 Shiragaku wrote:Its depressing to see leftists loving Chavez for the wrong reason and rightists hating Chavez for the wrong reasons  What about people like me, leftists who hated his guts? Silly, you don't exist! Clearly you're a figment of your imagination.
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TLADT24920 Posts
RIP. Nice that he supported social programs that include state-run food markets, new public housing, free health clinics and education programs, can't say much about what he didn't do due to my lack of knowledge in that area. Hopefully the next president stands up for what's right and fair
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On March 06 2013 09:22 Kimaker wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2013 09:19 McBengt wrote:On March 06 2013 08:46 Shiragaku wrote:Its depressing to see leftists loving Chavez for the wrong reason and rightists hating Chavez for the wrong reasons  What about people like me, leftists who hated his guts? Silly, you don't exist! Clearly you're a figment of your imagination.
hello Fichte!
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I'm not sure of what to think. He was a controversial man.
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On March 06 2013 09:24 Kukaracha wrote: I'm not sure of what to think. He was a controversial man.
Regardless, a man has died. Life has been lost, respects must be paid; if not to the man, if not to his life, then to the idea of life itself, and how it can end so suddenly.
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Honestly, he sounds like he got shit done and wasn't so bad.
From wiki:
Chávez has been strictly enforcing the price control policy, denouncing anyone who sells food products for higher prices as "speculators".[265] In January 2008, Chávez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.[272] In February 2009, Chávez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which he claimed they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.[273] In May 2010, Chávez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar after inconsistencies in reports from the Empresas Polar conglomerate were said to have been detected by authorities.[274]
How can people criticize this sort of thing?
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On March 06 2013 09:22 Kimaker wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2013 09:19 McBengt wrote:On March 06 2013 08:46 Shiragaku wrote:Its depressing to see leftists loving Chavez for the wrong reason and rightists hating Chavez for the wrong reasons  What about people like me, leftists who hated his guts? Silly, you don't exist! Clearly you're a figment of your imagination.
Well that's disconcerting.
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On March 06 2013 09:34 Mohdoo wrote:Honestly, he sounds like he got shit done and wasn't so bad. From wiki: Show nested quote +Chávez has been strictly enforcing the price control policy, denouncing anyone who sells food products for higher prices as "speculators".[265] In January 2008, Chávez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.[272] In February 2009, Chávez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which he claimed they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.[273] In May 2010, Chávez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar after inconsistencies in reports from the Empresas Polar conglomerate were said to have been detected by authorities.[274] How can people criticize this sort of thing? Because it raises the obvious question, "Why would people want to buy food at a higher price in the first place?"
Which then leads to the obvious answer, "Because there is a demand."
So, he was halting a voluntary exchange between individuals to protect his groups monopoly on food sales. Do you LIKE monopolies? O_o?
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On March 06 2013 09:34 Mohdoo wrote:Honestly, he sounds like he got shit done and wasn't so bad. From wiki: Show nested quote +Chávez has been strictly enforcing the price control policy, denouncing anyone who sells food products for higher prices as "speculators".[265] In January 2008, Chávez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.[272] In February 2009, Chávez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which he claimed they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.[273] In May 2010, Chávez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar after inconsistencies in reports from the Empresas Polar conglomerate were said to have been detected by authorities.[274] How can people criticize this sort of thing?
They siezed, but they never distributed to anybody that food. That food got lost, and was left to perish and go to waste. Many ship containers were filled with food too, milk, and whatnot, They were also lost and were not used to the benefit of the people.
On paper he was the greatest, by his actions he just..wasn't. At all.
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On March 06 2013 09:38 Kimaker wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2013 09:34 Mohdoo wrote:Honestly, he sounds like he got shit done and wasn't so bad. From wiki: Chávez has been strictly enforcing the price control policy, denouncing anyone who sells food products for higher prices as "speculators".[265] In January 2008, Chávez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.[272] In February 2009, Chávez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which he claimed they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.[273] In May 2010, Chávez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar after inconsistencies in reports from the Empresas Polar conglomerate were said to have been detected by authorities.[274] How can people criticize this sort of thing? Because it raises the obvious question, "Why would people want to buy food at a higher price in the first place?" Which then leads to the obvious answer, "Because there is a demand." So, he was halting a voluntary exchange between individuals to protect his groups monopoly on food sales. Do you LIKE monopolies? O_o?
I was primarily referring to the fact that he used the military to force companies to maintain high production. They were trying to limit the amount of rice so that they could make more money later. That is wrong and Chavez stopped it.
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No more 21st Century socialism proclamations... Hopefully they can finally slow down the amount of defo in Ven
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On March 06 2013 09:40 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2013 09:38 Kimaker wrote:On March 06 2013 09:34 Mohdoo wrote:Honestly, he sounds like he got shit done and wasn't so bad. From wiki: Chávez has been strictly enforcing the price control policy, denouncing anyone who sells food products for higher prices as "speculators".[265] In January 2008, Chávez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.[272] In February 2009, Chávez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which he claimed they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.[273] In May 2010, Chávez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar after inconsistencies in reports from the Empresas Polar conglomerate were said to have been detected by authorities.[274] How can people criticize this sort of thing? Because it raises the obvious question, "Why would people want to buy food at a higher price in the first place?" Which then leads to the obvious answer, "Because there is a demand." So, he was halting a voluntary exchange between individuals to protect his groups monopoly on food sales. Do you LIKE monopolies? O_o? I was primarily referring to the fact that he used the military to force companies to maintain high production. They were trying to limit the amount of rice so that they could make more money later. That is wrong and Chavez stopped it. Oh. See, I was under the impression that the little wiki blurb you posted simply said Chavez CLAIMED they had been artificially raising prices.
...wait a second....
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United States41934 Posts
On March 06 2013 09:34 Mohdoo wrote:Honestly, he sounds like he got shit done and wasn't so bad. From wiki: Show nested quote +Chávez has been strictly enforcing the price control policy, denouncing anyone who sells food products for higher prices as "speculators".[265] In January 2008, Chávez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.[272] In February 2009, Chávez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which he claimed they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.[273] In May 2010, Chávez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar after inconsistencies in reports from the Empresas Polar conglomerate were said to have been detected by authorities.[274] How can people criticize this sort of thing? Surely you're joking. So there were people who were willing to pay a lot of money for food, think about that for a second, they were hungry. That's why people pay a lot above the normal price for food, because they can't get any food at the normal price and they're starving. The beauty of supply and demand is that when that demand appears then people are incentivised to meet it and they get fed. Clearly the state supply of food here was inadequate for whatever reason. So, he failed to feed his people and then, when they attempted to feed themselves, he condemned their hunger based upon his ideology and used the army against them. This is the problem people have with the authoritarian left. They're assholes.
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On March 06 2013 09:44 Kimaker wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2013 09:40 Mohdoo wrote:On March 06 2013 09:38 Kimaker wrote:On March 06 2013 09:34 Mohdoo wrote:Honestly, he sounds like he got shit done and wasn't so bad. From wiki: Chávez has been strictly enforcing the price control policy, denouncing anyone who sells food products for higher prices as "speculators".[265] In January 2008, Chávez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.[272] In February 2009, Chávez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which he claimed they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.[273] In May 2010, Chávez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar after inconsistencies in reports from the Empresas Polar conglomerate were said to have been detected by authorities.[274] How can people criticize this sort of thing? Because it raises the obvious question, "Why would people want to buy food at a higher price in the first place?" Which then leads to the obvious answer, "Because there is a demand." So, he was halting a voluntary exchange between individuals to protect his groups monopoly on food sales. Do you LIKE monopolies? O_o? I was primarily referring to the fact that he used the military to force companies to maintain high production. They were trying to limit the amount of rice so that they could make more money later. That is wrong and Chavez stopped it. Oh. See, I was under the impression that the little wiki blurb you posted simply said Chavez CLAIMED they had been artificially raising prices. ...wait a second....
I suppose that's fair enough. I admit almost complete ignorance in regards to what Chavez did, it just seems like some criticisms are more so on him taking charge. I don't think there is something inherently bad about him using the military to strong arm big business. If only we could do the same here in the US...
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Being a Venezuelan, I'd like to explain shortly why we will always remenber him and what he meant to the country:
-His government was bad, crime is rampant, inflation, waste of resources, populism, all of it it's 100% true but the governments before were actually worse. He came to prominence as one of the heads of a coup d'etat in 1992 against a two-party system that served the same masters, the venezuelan economic powers, particularly the emerging nouveau rich bankers. Back then the country was comming out of a period similar to what the great depression was to the US because oil prices dropped to 7$, government debt was in a historic high, social spending was being dramatically cut and wages were dropped to the bottom, some 3 years before that, in february 27th 1989, FMI austerity measures were declared, that among other things increased the price of gasoline by 800%, the price of public buses went up accordingly and people that couldn't go to work rioted, the then pro-american government sent the army to the streets and around 3.000 were killed, of course the UN or any international body back then cared and nobody responsible went to jail. It was since then that the two party system was morally bankrupt, so Chávez's coup d'etat even though it was a failure got him on tv apologizing to the venezuelan people for doing it, people loved him since then because he admitted it was a mistake, after popular demand charges were dropped after 2 years in jail.
Then in 1993 a leftish presidential candidate that represented the people that supported Chavez won an election but electoral fraud was rampant and instead a well known extreme right winger took power, his government wasn't so bad until 1995 where banks were going bankrupt and he decided to bail them out, stimulus packet style but the banks still went bankrupt and another economic crisis started. Then in december 1998 Chavez wins the presidency with an actually pro-capitalist speech, he was a totally different kind of president back then and his popularity was huge, with time though, he started to change turning more and more leftish on the way, and being friendly with demonized people like Fidel Castro, but it wasn't until 2002 where he passed anti-latifundist, anti-bank monopoly (glass stegeal act-type) laws and an increase in taxes to foreign oil companies that the unrest that marked the rest of his government started, in 2002 a new right wing party with help from the CIA did a coup d'etat the next day after some people were killed in both pro and anti government protests, Chavez was kidnapped and forced to resign, all powers were dissolved and the president of Fedecamaras took oath as president, Fedecamaras being the biggest association of enterprises of the country. Too many bad things happened in those days, the army got videotapped practicing statements about doing the coup because people died on the streets before the first bullet was fired, the tv showed false videos blaming it on pro-Chavez crowds, the FMI approuved new loans to "rebuild the government from the Chavez regime" the same day the coup happened... it was all a joke. 2 days after the coup people were doing huge protests around the presidential palace demanding Chavez to be brought back, and he was, since then he radicalized his government. Then that same year, in chrismast, the same people that did the coup d'etat sabotaged the oil industry resulting in losses to the nation in the order of at least 20$ billions, scarcity in all products especially food pissed people off quite a lot, but this second attempt was even worse than the first because after 15 days the government re-started the oil production but politically the right wing took the blame of all the country's problems, to this day, basically.
After 2006 he became really power hungry since he won a second term destroying the opposition in the votings, nobody likes them to this day like I said before. In 2010 in the middle of a new economic crisis, this time created by the Chavez government and not due to the same old right wing people his popularity started to drop quite a lot, for the first time he got defeated in an election quite badly (Congress election) and things weren't looking good for his 'socialism', since then capitalism went back with a lot of strenght with a socialist speech of course, a lot of oil fields were privatized and oil companies from all over the world went back to the country to increase oil production, notably from the satanized US and Europe and the new allies Russia and China that were promoted as different types of capitalists because of their obvious backgrounds. That wasn't enough, so gold, iron, all sorts of minerals, etc, were given in a golden plate to other transnationals, even with this the economic recovery wasn't good enough, so in 2012 to win a third term Chavez started a huge policy of social spending, the thing is the government doesn't really have money to keep with this, so the only way to sustain this for a while was drowning in debt, the external debt increased quite a lot, and less than a month ago the currency had to be devaluated 46.5% to cheap the price of labour and debt in the local currency, so the government could keep the social spending with oil-dollars.
As you can see american friends, american intervention in coup d'etats usually goes wrong, if it wasn't for your CIA Chavez probably would have lost in the 2006 election because in 2002 his government wasn't doing good, but somehow warmongers in Venezuela and USA though that killing our people and putting a dictator in place was a great idea and that failed miserably, as if that wasn't enough they tried a second time that year sabotaging the oil industry, paralizing the country because there wasn't any gasoline to go around or gas to cook food, they though it was brilliant because people would blame that somehow on Chavez... obviously it was a huge mistake.
In case you wonder I did vote for Chavez all these years, i'm his supporter but his government was far from good, in comparison to the ones before, though, it was the best we had since 1956, back then we had a right wing dictator that wanted to do elections some day but as you guessed it, he was coup d'etaed with support of the CIA, so they could put a puppet in place. The venezuelan people always remenber that government as being the best of our history, and Chavez without a doubt the second best.
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It's always a victory for the world when a dictator dies.
Question: Would he have survived if he had access to American medicine?
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On March 06 2013 09:49 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On March 06 2013 09:44 Kimaker wrote:On March 06 2013 09:40 Mohdoo wrote:On March 06 2013 09:38 Kimaker wrote:On March 06 2013 09:34 Mohdoo wrote:Honestly, he sounds like he got shit done and wasn't so bad. From wiki: Chávez has been strictly enforcing the price control policy, denouncing anyone who sells food products for higher prices as "speculators".[265] In January 2008, Chávez ordered the military to seize 750 tons of food that sellers were illegally trying to smuggle across the border to sell for higher prices than what was legal in Venezuela.[272] In February 2009, Chávez ordered the military to temporarily seize control of all the rice processing plants in the country and force them to produce at full capacity, which he claimed they had been avoiding in response to the price caps.[273] In May 2010, Chávez ordered the military to seize 120 tons of food from Empresas Polar after inconsistencies in reports from the Empresas Polar conglomerate were said to have been detected by authorities.[274] How can people criticize this sort of thing? Because it raises the obvious question, "Why would people want to buy food at a higher price in the first place?" Which then leads to the obvious answer, "Because there is a demand." So, he was halting a voluntary exchange between individuals to protect his groups monopoly on food sales. Do you LIKE monopolies? O_o? I was primarily referring to the fact that he used the military to force companies to maintain high production. They were trying to limit the amount of rice so that they could make more money later. That is wrong and Chavez stopped it. Oh. See, I was under the impression that the little wiki blurb you posted simply said Chavez CLAIMED they had been artificially raising prices. ...wait a second.... I suppose that's fair enough. I admit almost complete ignorance in regards to what Chavez did, it just seems like some criticisms are more so on him taking charge. I don't think there is something inherently bad about him using the military to strong arm big business. If only we could do the same here in the US... I don't think there is something inherently bad about using the military to strong arm Negros. If only we could do the same here....
Don't be so naive as to believe there is a moral high ground to be taken here. It's simply in-groups vs. in-groups. You'd just replace Big Business with some other group, and pray you were part of it. Then it'd be the numerically superior out-group trying to drag you down.
So...on that note, I agree with the "strong arm business part." Just not the, "People other than me and my group (whoever they are)" part.
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