Chavez Dead
Last edited Wed Mar 6, 2013, 12:07 AM - Edit history (1)
Source: Bloomberg
Headline flashed across my Bloomberg terminal.
Super-Duper Late Update:
Hugo Chavez, the self-declared socialist who transformed Venezuelan politics by channeling record oil revenue to the poor, nationalizing corporations and vilifying foes as U.S. imperialist puppets, has died. He was 58.
He died today at 4:25 p.m. at a military hospital in Caracas, Vice President Nicolas Maduro said on state television. On Dec. 10, 2012, Chavez arrived in Cuba to undergo his fourth cancer operation in 18 months the following day, two months after winning re-election in a campaign in which he told voters he was “totally free” of the disease. It was the last time he would be seen in public.
“We received the most difficult and tragic information that we can transmit to our people,” a sobbing Maduro said while flanked by Cabinet officials and Jorge Arreaza, Chavez’s son-in-law. “Comandante Chavez, we will assume your legacy, your project, your challenges. Wherever you are, comandante, on behalf of this people that you protected and loved we thank you.”
A former paratrooper who spent two years in jail after leading a failed 1992 coup, Chavez revolutionized and polarized Venezuelan politics. Taking inspiration from ex-Cuban President Fidel Castro, he built homes and medical clinics for the poor, nationalized more than 1,000 companies or their assets and built an anti-American alliance stretching from Iran to Nicaragua. He won re-election three times in 12 years.
--SNIP--
Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-05/hugo-chavez-venezuela-s-anti-u-s-socialist-leader-dies-at-58.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
May he rest in peace. Viva Venezuela.
Let's look back. And forward.
He is a heroic, world-historical figure. For many reasons, but most memorably because in 2002, the Venezuelan people and his government broke the pattern of nearly 180 years of bloody US interventions and nearly 60 years of CIA coup-making in Latin America, making a giant step -- along with the Argentinean debt default in the same period -- in liberating a continent from the grip of foreign imperialism, and from its homegrown oligarchs.
That's big history for you: Do the right thing.
A moment of silence.
Now watch this:
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (2002) - Chavez: Inside the Coup
One of the most important documentaries of the last 15 years. And probably the most thrilling.
Weekend Edition December 14-16, 2012
An Update on the Social Determinants of Health in Venezuela
The Achievements of Hugo Chavez
by CARLES MUNTANER, JOAN BENACH, MARIA PAEZ VICTOR
While Venezuela’s president Hugo Chávez is fighting for his life in Cuba, the liberal press of both sides of the Atlantic (e.g., El Pais”) has not stopped trashing his government. The significance of his victory (12 points ahead of his contender) has yet to be analysed properly, with evidence. It is remarkable that Chávez would win, sick with cancer, outgunned by the local and international media (think of Syriza’s Greece election) and, rarely acknowledged, an electoral map extremely biased towards the middle and upper classes, with geographical barriers and difficult access to Ids for members of the working classes.
One of the main factors for the popularity of the Chávez Government and its landslide victory in this re-election results of October 2012, is the reduction of poverty, made possible because the government took back control of the national petroleum company PDVSA, and has used the abundant oil revenues, not for benefit of a small class of renters as previous governments had done, but to build needed infrastructure and invest in the social services that Venezuelans so sorely needed. During the last ten years, the government has increased social spending by 60.6%, a total of $772 billion (1).
SNIP
With regard to these social determinants of health indicators, Venezuela is now the country in the region with the lowest inequality level (measured by the Gini Coefficient) having reduced inequality by 54%, poverty by 44%. Poverty has been reduced from 70.8% (1996) to 21% (2010). And extreme poverty reduced from 40% (1996) to a very low level of 7.3% (2010). About 20 million people have benefited from anti-poverty programs, called “Misiones” (Up to now, 2.1 million elderly people have received old-age pensions – that is 66% of the population while only 387,000 received pensions before the current government.
SNIP
The changes in Venezuela are not abstract. The government of President Chávez has significantly improved the living conditions of Venezuelans and engaged them in dynamic political participation to achieve it [xiv]. This new model of socialist development has had a phenomenal impact all over Latin America, including Colombia of late, and the progressive left of centre governments that are now the majority in the region see in Venezuela the catalyst that that has brought more democracy, national sovereignty and economic and social progress to the region.[xv] . No amount of neoliberal rhetoric can dispute these facts. Dozens of opinionated experts can go on forever on whether the Bolivarian Revolution is or is not socialist, whether it is revolutionary or reformist (it is likely to be both ), yet at the end of the day these substantial achievements remain. This is what infuriates its opponents the most both inside Venezuela and most notable, from neocolonialist countries. The “objective” and “empiricist” The Economist will not publicize this data, preferring to predict once again the imminent collapse of the Venezuelan economy and El Pais, in Spain, would rather have one of the architects of the Caracazo (the slaughter of 3000 people in Caracas protesting the austerity measures of 1989), the minister of finance of the former government Moises Naim, go on with his anti-Chávez obsession. But none of them can dispute that the UN Human Development Index situates Venezuela in place #61 out of 176 countries having increased 7 places in 10 years.
And that is one more reason why Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution will survive Venezuela’s Socialist leader.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/14/the-achievements-of-hugo-chavez/print
I'm not idolizing him, trust me. This is truly one case where we might say without hesitation: "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
America Love it or Leave it - no room for improvement there, huh? 
I was at work and saw the flash across my Bloomberg terminal and posted since it was a major story - I only access DU from my iPhone, so I could not post a link...Got home at 8pm...and just put my baby boy to sleep (finally)...so my update is now in 
Feel free to lock if there is a next time.
You never know where Mr. Danger might be trolling 
chickens got nothing
And look at how little traction that got:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2464523
This reply deserves the honor of allowing Hugo to tell the poster what his problem is, instead of above: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=416014
Hugo was no less adamant, but a bit more polite.
You two only have slight difference, Spanish vs. English fluency
He fought so hard. My heart goes out to his family and all the people of Venezuela who loved him, and whose lives he changed so much.
RIP Mr. Chavez. 
Just an aside that made me smile and feel my own mortality simultaneously.
Nacimos el mismo día en el mismo año, 28 de julio de 1954. El presidente Chávez tuvo un tremendo coraje y corazón y se preocupaba por los pobres y oprimidos del mundo. Su valor reside en la voluntad del pueblo venezolano. Dios lo tenga en su alma, señor Presidente, y gracias por el bien que has hecho.
Hugo Chavez was a good man, a humanitarian, a man who loved the poor and wanted better for all people. I pray he was content at his end, and that the people of Venezuela continue his good works. Rest with angels, Mr. President.
Encantado de conocerte, GhostDog.
