Venezuela's Chavez everywhere a year after death

[Zorro]

It's been a year since former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's death, yet it often seems the charismatic leader never left.

Chavez's portrait in a red beret is still seen on buildings, pins, action-figure dolls and daily on television. National guard troops have used a recording of Chavez reciting poetry played at high volume to disperse protesters in Caracas. Even when the Chavez highlight reel isn't playing, President Nicolas Maduro has been known to say he's spotted the man who hand-picked him to lead the country in a little bird or a subway tunnel's rock wall.

Wednesday's anniversary of Chavez's death follows weeks of sometimes violent protests that the government says have left 18 dead. Maduro appears ready to use Chavez's almost mythical status to steady his rule as protesters refuse to leave the streets.

Last week, Maduro announced 10 days of commemoration beginning Wednesday morning with a military parade in Caracas followed by a remembrance ceremony at Chavez's mausoleum and capped with the debut of director Oliver Stone's documentary "My Friend Hugo."

http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelas-chavez-everywhere-death-191043724.html

I wonder when Lil' Nicky will send the petition for canonization to Pope Francis.

[RobertEarl]

1. I take it you are not a Bolivarian supporter?

That you may instead be a supporter of the US capitalist system as the past governments of Venezuela were?

[MADem]

4. I think you don't quite "get" the reality on the ground.

This is about 'basics,' crime rates, scarcity, food insecurity, rationing (just eat less--said chubbo Maduro), rampant inflation, repression, censorship, and brutality--not ideology.

Here, watch this--all four parts, please:

&list=PLw613M86o5o7JMOImqZ6tGwK7kkzufe0S

[RobertEarl]

7. Eh?

I take it you are not a Bolivarian supporter?

That you may instead be a supporter of the US capitalist system as the past governments of Venezuela were?

[MADem]

8. Ideology is not the issue, here. Basic human needs are.

I am a supporter of a minimum standard of living for all.

Don't let your enthusiasm for one person blind you to reality.

These protests are NOT about "Bolivarian" this or "Opposition" that--it's only the political leaders that find that framing useful.

Watch the VICE report. Open your eyes.

Inflation is rampant, rationing is getting worse, shortages are endemic, crime, particularly robberies and murders, are off the charts; there are not enough jobs, not enough clothes, not enough food, not enough hope. And it's all down to mismanagement. That's the bottom line.

How DARE those students expect a minimum quality of life, how dare they want to not get shot and killed in the street, on the way to the grocery store...how DARE they not want to stand in line for three hours with a number written on their arm, like cattle, to be allowed in to a store to buy one of this and two of that--if those things are even available....the nerve of them! Why should they be treated like humans? They're just tools of the state! The answer, Maduro says, is to "eat less" and "go to the beach" -- do you seriously think that's an acceptable response to the crisis facing VZ?

[RobertEarl]

9. Heh

You're as ideological as can be, and you say it isn't about ideology?

It's funny... reading your words here and I pictured an inner city right here in the US where your words walk the streets day in and day out.

And you are worried about Venezuela? Good for you. Your compassion is just so huge and magnifico. So, when are you gonna go down there and set them straight? They are waiting for you, hurry up.

[Zorro]

10. Heh. Get a clue.

Those with no real-world experience always seem to naively equate inner city crime in the US with the rampant crime that exists in certain South American countries. There really is little comparison, and you're exposing yourself as a fool to believe otherwise.

[RobertEarl]

12. Yeah, sure

There is no deprivation in the US. It's all sweet fairies and ice cream, everywhere.

And your little dig about exposing me as a fool? Stick that shit where the sun don't shine. Of course your head may have to make some room?

[Bacchus4.0]

14. ice cream is pretty ubiquitous though, and toilet paper, milk, meat, eggs, diapers

all those things we take for granted are in short supply there.

[RobertEarl]

16. That means people are buying the goods

Only when the people have money can they be able to purchase goods.

So they have money and they bought up all that can be produced.

Or are you saying the producers are not smart enough to reorder and stock the shelves? The producers are capitalists, right? So they are failing? Or are they creating a shortness in supply to make prices increase? That is what has been done in the US time and again. It's called The Market.

I'll bet the Kochs are working the market in Venezuela. The scene you describe would be just their style. I bet Chavez pissed off the Kochs.

[Zorro]

25. You have exposed yourself as a fool with all your simpleminded babble in this thread

That's no way to impress intelligent ladies.

[RobertEarl]

35. Not true at all

If there be fools about, it is those who are hating on the VZ people with their support of the capitalist pigs who are stealing from them.

I guess you have just exposed yourself as a fool? Really got under you skin, eh? Imagine that... I support the poor, you support the capitalists, and you start throwing out trash words. You have lost. Go away.

[Zorro]

36. Whatever you say, junior!

[MADem]

11. Don't be silly. There is no US "inner city" as hellish as VZ is today.

In VZ, you can't get on a city bus and arrive at a supermarket in another part of town with stocked shelves. Instead, you're lucky to find this after waiting in line for hours:




In fact, in VZ you can't get on a city bus because Maduro has shut down the public transportation system. Need to get across town? Better hope you have a friend with wheels.

They're setting themselves straight, they don't need any help. If you paid attention, you'd see.



Or maybe you are paying attention, and you're lashing out at me because you can't change the course of events...?

[Bacchus4.0]

13. looks like we'll have to live on orange juice this week n/t

[RobertEarl]

15. Damn, nice store, big and beautiful

Looks like they forgot to order anything to restock the shelves. I saw that type of empty shelf at a wal mart the other day.

Then there is this:

In Venezuela the poor celebrate and the rich protest. Why?
By Arturo Rosales writes from Caracas. Axis of Logic
Tuesday, Mar 4, 2014

The Colombian novelist William Ospina observed that throughout the world the rich celebrate and the poor protest. On the other hand, in the “strange country” called Venezuela, the poor celebrate and the rich protest. Why?
The traditionally privileged sectors of Venezuelan society have tried to rise up against those who have won democratic elections – in fourteen years the Bolivarians have triumphed in 18 out of 19 electoral processes and the opposition has either refused to accept the results or accept them begrudgingly except for one national referendum they won in December 2007 and isolated victories in local and regional elections.

In the December 8th municipal elections the Bolivarians won 76% of mayoralties (256 out of 337 – 240 by candidates on the ticket of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela PSUV) and for this reason it has not been a surprise that recent disturbances by paid agent provocateurs have been concentrated in 18 municipalities controlled by opposition mayors and dominated by the middle classes. The disturbances have been declining from 18 foci to 8 and now 6 municipalities after the “uprising” started on February 12th.

The disturbances have been localized and the idea that this has been a “popular uprising” by the Venezuelan people against the Maduro government is just media fantasy, manipulation or outright lies by the international media. This media represents the interests of the bourgeoisie desperate to regain power in Venezuela and control the biggest oil reserves on the planet so as to sell them off to the highest bidder – probably the US multinationals - at a knock-down price.

More:
http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_66441.shtml

[MADem]

17. Keep whistling past that graveyard, now.

[RobertEarl]

18. What graveyard?

You mean like the inner city of say, Detroit?

You getting personal with me always ends up with you getting smeared. But you keep bouncing back up, as if what you say is supposed to be important.

Venezuela is rising up from the oppression foisted on it by the Koch type capitalists who ran the place for years and years before the Bolivarian revolution took hold with Chavez. I'll bet the Koch brothers are steaming mad and are doing everything they can to regain the control they once had.

We've seen the same stuff time and again all over the world: Poor rise up and the rich try to crush them. It's history, not that you seem to be aware that it is.

[MADem]

20. There are supermarkets with food in them in Detroit. There's unblocked wifi in Detroit.

There are pharmacies with medicine in them in Detroit. There's reliable electrical service in Detroit. The water is potable. The media is not censored.

Gangs of thugs, paid by the government, don't wander the streets shooting students. The National Guard isn't shooting pellets at them and paralyzing/killing them. They aren't being rounded up by the dozens at a time, and brutalized and imprisoned.

The rate of inflation in Detroit isn't sixty percent. The money isn't worth shit.

You keep pretending it's "the same." You keep desperately reaching for it in a lame and clueless manner. It isn't at all the same. Not even close.

And cut the Koch silliness, really--good grief, you really don't have a handle on your storyline, there. Chavez had a decade and a half of free rein to implement his vision, and Maduro succeeded him. The oil has LONG been nationalised but the money is continually siphoned off, stolen, been squandered. The "national treasure" is not being spent on the nation. The Boligarchs are robbing the place blind.

You just don't have a grasp of the situation, it's obvious from your uninformed posts.

Venezuela IS rising, but it's the people protesting who want justice, security, an end to scarcity, an end to the endless crime wave, jobs, a sustainable economy, freedom from fear and opportunity. They are demanding it. They're gonna get it, too. Even if you don't like it and want to pretend that VZ is just like USA.

[RobertEarl]

23. There have been times when they were the same

Have you no sense of history at all? Where are you from?

Did you know the US is 17 trillion in debt? How do we keep going?

Detroit is in great debt, propped up by borrowing. But when VZ goes to borrow the bank doors close!!

Detroit is rising, on borrowed money. There is rampant crime in the streets, people fear going out at night and some, if they do, and cross the city lines are arrested for DWB, its people are protesting but mainly leaving, there are no jobs, thousands of empty houses, not sustainable.

Koch capitalism is the cause of shortages of TP while taking in billions of tax credits as they gouge the citizens with inflated gas prices, right here in he US. And you are all over VZ with just mean attacks as the poor there struggle to throw off the capitalists pigs that have raped them for decades. Chavez was reelected overwhelmingly by the people time and again. They LOVED what he did for them and what he did against the Koch-roach capital pigs. It is history. Quit denying it.

[MADem]

24. Nonsense.

I don't think anyone in Detroit, ever, spent three hours in line with a ration book, waiting to be allowed into a supermart to buy limited quantities of rationed items on specified days.

I don't think the currency of Detroit ever suffered under sixty percent inflation.

Detroit's "rampant crime in the streets" is NOTHING compared to "multiple murders every hour."

You just do. not. get. it.

[RobertEarl]

28. I get it. It is bad in VZ.

The question is: Who is to blame?

Your ideology blames the Bolivarian movement.

But the truth is the capitalists are to blame.

Do you understand how much borrowed debt keeps the US stable? Do you understand why we spend billions for food stamps? Why the farm program props up milk prices? I don't think you do.

It is bad in VZ and if the capitalists were made to treat the poor fairly it would get much better very quickly. But the Koch-roaches are fighting back and they fight dirty and they don't care who suffers.

[MADem]

30. I am afraid you don't get it.

Chavez was IN CONTROL of the oil. It was his, or "his people's." It was nationalized. He had the power. Instead of using that money to do good, he got sloppy. He gave away too much to Cuba, he allowed his cronies to steal from the treasury, he didn't run a tight ship, either with regard to his assets, or activity across his borders. Now, Maduro--who is a clueless, blundering slob-- makes Chavez look like a cautious martinet, when he was not that at all.

The country is hemorrhaging assets. Maduro has made BAD deals with China to try to keep up with his bills (he has failed in this regard), so now China owns a big chunk of that "nationalized" oil, at least until he pays back those loans which his cronies siphoned off. The oil fields are sluggish and no where near capacity because of equipment failures and the fact that no one will sell them parts because they don't pay their damned bills. They're deadbeats.

The problem is not ideology. It's not "koch-roaches" either.

It's managerial incompetence. Horribly so, too.

[RobertEarl]

31. And the bankers won't loan them money

Do you know what will happen when the bankers quit loaning our government money?

Why it happened, briefly, in 2008, and our economy crashed. But you will probably deny that too.

Well that's what the Koch-roach bankers do to VZ day in and day out. VZ has lots of oil, but the bankers won't do a fair deal with them on it.

17 trillion in debt in the US. Congress critters go in office worth maybe a hundred grand; leave office millionaires. The crime and corruption in your own back yard is rampant and your government is living on loans from bankers and you spend all your time on VZ? What a joke.

[MADem]

32. Because they STEAL the money instead of paying on their loans.

The Chinese made a bunch of loans, and they'll be paying those back forever, or the Chinese will come visit and pump that black gold themselves--they won't be screwed out of their investments like so many others who are still waiting for the bills to be paid.

It's not hard, you know--you just stop letting the cronies and crooks loot the treasury. Put the bastards in jail.

Apparently, you don't have a clue what sixty percent inflation FEELS like. You also don't understand that no one is going to come after you so long as you service your debt. When you don't do that, your economy collapses and people who have loaned you money or advanced you goods and services get very pissed off.

You keep comparing the US apple to the rotting VZ orange. It's just not supportable, that tortured equivalency. The more you do it, the more it's evident that you do not understand the issues.

Ya gotta pay your bills, and VZ hasn't been doing that for a LONG time now.

[RobertEarl]

34. You know how we pay our bills?

Last edited Wed Mar 5, 2014, 08:33 PM - Edit history (1)

We borrow more money. We are very lucky here in the US. VZ not so much.

How you remain ignorant of that basic understanding is amazing.

VZ is being squeezed by the Koch-roaches, as we are in the US. Are you in denial of that also? Really, simple question, answer is easy. Do tell.

In the meantime let this sink in. This is a snip from a post about what is behind the economic crisis in the Ukraine. Same stuff as is taking place in VZ:

""...and not the least of which would allow world economic dominance by the US, the European Union, the IMF, World Bank and international financiers all of whom had already brought staggering suffering to millions around the globe.""

[MADem]

37. Listen, I tell you what. You "miss a few payments" on your credit cards and see how

long people show you some love.

Now, since your understanding of financial matters extends to "All Credit Is Bad" (as you proudly assert in your lastest rambling diatribe) and you keep repeating that nonsensical Koch-roach meme, we're going to have to wrap this little dorkfest up and be done. I just can't waste my time with you any more because you don't understand the realities of Checkbook 101, never mind those on the ground in VZ. I'm starting to wonder if you can even speak any Spanish, which is helpful in understanding the issues in VZ.

Your little snip means nothing without context. Here's a snip right back at you -- "People who talk about koch-roaches incessantly and without anything approaching context have a poor grasp on financial realities."

See how that works?

Have a nice day, now. Go on and have the last, garbled word if you must!

Get out a can of RAID and start spraying if you think it's gonna help.

[RobertEarl]

38. I noticed that LBN thread you were on

The one where you supported the violence to overthrow the elected government of VZ.

Here is a link to my comment on your exposure:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=746660

And my words: "You are correct, zeemike

Madem supports the overthrow of a democratically elected government.

And Madem supports using violence to do so.

I guess it's ok as long as it is somewhere else and Madem can just sit back and laugh at the deaths and injuries Madem supports.

Were this situation in the US, Madem would be banned from DU. But since it is in a country that his grandfather worked and made lots of money 'building Caracas', Madem is fine with the violence and destruction and overthrow of duly elected government.

You are morally correct. Madem is not. "

Shameful exposition of your ideology, eh?

Now, here is a good thread about how the opposition which you so thoroughly support has been screwing the people of VZ:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1016&pid=86820

Venezuela Anti-Government Protests Lack Support from the Barrios
Video/Audio

Lisa Sullivan & Ryan Mallett-Outtrim report from Venezuela that the country's anti government protests are continuing with no end in sight but continue to lack appeal in low income neighborhoods -

[MADem]

39. Buh-bye....!

I'm saying it again, since you didn't "get" it the first time....

[RobertEarl]

40. No refuting of my serious accusation?

Gonna just let that one stand?

Oh, hey, tell us some more about how your folks 'built Caracas' as you claimed in that LBN thread. Your family has been involved in VZ economics for a while?

[MADem]

41. You disrupt poorly.

My grandfather designed and built many of the buildings in Caracas that still stand.

Have a nice day, there pal. Your under-the-bridgework is becoming all too obvious.

[RobertEarl]

42. At least I don't condone violence

Glad to know I am disrupting any support of violence. That was quite a compliment you gave me! Good to be noticed., especially for something so morally correct.

[MADem]

43. Give it up, Robert Earl. You aren't making your case, you're just goading, baiting, and trolling

now. You are telling untruths and you should stop doing that because your behavior is making DU suck. It's hurtful, disruptive, rude and against community standards.

Now, run along, and have one of those really nice days.

[RobertEarl]

44. Now you are just projecting

Last edited Thu Mar 6, 2014, 07:45 AM - Edit history (1)

You have refuted nothing. I like to be proven wrong but I see no evidence that I am. Just see your childish words meant only to deceive and obfuscate.

[dlwickham]

52. quit feeding the trolls

maybe they'll gov back under their Bolivarian revolutionary bridges

[RobertEarl]

53. Hey, tough guy, dlwhickham

Tell us what your solution is to this problem.

Or do you not have solution?

[dlwickham]

54. I take it you are not a Bolivarian supporter?

That you may instead be a supporter of the US capitalist system as the past governments of Venezuela were?

[RobertEarl]

55. Fact is

The Bolivarian idea has won the last 18 of 19 elections in Venezuela.

That there says about a million times more than your tough guy words. No, a billion times more.

Is that all you got?

[dlwickham]

57. there is something fundamentally wrong with a country that is a major oil producer

yet can't provide basics like toilet paper to its citizens

thank goodness some of the people there are realizing that the St Hugo supporters sold them out

the faster the Chavez fanatics are shown the door, the sooner the country can start to get back on track

[Judi Lynn]

60. When right-wingers can't control things, they cheat. If that doesn't work, they pay poor people

to go harm their enemies for them.

Not the most heroic way to go about satisfying their greedy obsessions, is it?

They are so lucky they have allies, the very same kind of sociopaths within our own government handing out US taxpayers' hard earned dollars to them to bankroll their future violence against the poor.

When enough people in the US awaken, look past the propaganda, start listening to what they are being told, whether it really makes sense, start looking for answers, this ALL is going to change.

All that's missing is consciousness. That will come, in time.

[Judi Lynn]

56. Time will clearly show the world who the real US patriots are in this country.

You may be surprised to learn it won't be people like the terminally alcoholic Republican Senator Joe McCarthy, nor the fire-bombing mad dog Gen. Curtis Lemay, nor ultra-criminal Richard M. Nixon.

It has always been those who do NOT worship the thought of raping countries, stealing their resources, and conscripting their poverty-stricken citizens to slavery, if they can pull it off, or near slavery if they can't, are the only real patriots, not the loud, pompous, venomous, malignant maggots who get in everyone's road trying to point out those with consciences as the enemies of the state! What state is that? State of pure malignancy.
These rancorous, vaguely human-shaped bags of skin who occupy precious space have no purpose but to try to work as drones for the super maggots, smelling the places up where good people would like to communicate among themselves, sharing the information they want to hear.

If we wanted to see clowns make fools of themselves attacking leftists we'd all have joined Free Republic, or wherever they go for their cluster enjoyment.

[dlwickham]

58. speaking of raping countries and conscripting citizens to slavery, is Castro still alive?

haven't heard much of him lately

wondering if the bastard finally died

[Zorro]

59. You really should see a psychiatrist

to talk through your obvious emotional problems.

[Flatulo]

71. I bet your family is worried about you. nt

[Common Sense Party]

2. Look in my eyes what do you see? The Cult of Personality

I sell the things you need to be
I'm the smiling face of your T.V. ohh…
I'm the Cult of Personality
I exploit you; still you love me
I tell you one and one makes three ohh…
I'm the Cult of Personality
Like Joseph Stalin and Gandhi

[MADem]

3. It is going to get UGLY tomorrow.

Parents are being warned to keep their kids home.

People who rely on the government for a paycheck are being forced to attend a rally, OR ELSE:



There will be guarimbas EVERYWHERE tomorrow, I suspect.

[Bacchus4.0]

5. celebrate or else!! I can't say I miss him but Venezuela is where it is today (smirk)

because of Chavez. Not sure what there is to celebrate about that.

[MADem]

6. What is telling is that the people from the poor neighborhoods are joining the students.

There are people on this board who want to couch this whole demo thing in black and white -- they insist that the students want a "coup" when that's not what they want at all. They want freedom from crime and murders, freedom from rationing and shortages, freedom from oppression and censorship, freedom from rampant inflation, and actual DEMOCRACY. If Maduro could deliver on that, they wouldn't have a problem. Instead, he's Maburro/Manuro, sucking up to Raul (who's visiting, probably to keep his boy in line) and giving away the nation's treasure. People are sick of it, they see what is happening, things are getting worse, and Maduro is arming the colectivos on their bikes to run around shooting kids. It's wrong. The students aren't going to be stopped, cowed, or intimidated.

The government has been trying to infiltrate the students, too--isn't this charming:



Maduro was stupid to think that he could declare a "five day holiday" and tell everyone to "go to the beach." As far as the students are concerned, the beach is the streets.

[RobertEarl]

19. Here in the US: Koch cola for the poor

"I wonder what's going on with the water," the Rude Pundit thought. So he clicked on over to the Charleston Gazette to see if schoolchildren could use water fountains without getting sick, which should probably be a bare minimum goal in the greatest country with the greatest school system with the greatest children on Earth. What he ended up seeing on the website's front page was a parade of legislative grotesqueries that would make the population of a rational nation burn shit down and chase the fuckers responsible into the decimated mountains around the capitol.

For instance, there was a bill that said, more or less, "Hey, meth is big fuckin' problem here. The number of meth labs has doubled in the past year because in West Virginia, steady income is hard to come by but meth is really easy. So why not require a prescription for pseudoephedrine, one of the main ingredients in meth?" A House panel heard from law enforcement officials who said, "Yeah, you make it prescription only and you get rid of meth labs." So what came out of that panel? A bill to lower the amount of Sudafed you can buy in a year but without a prescription. Why? Because the fuckers in the drug industry had a problem with the bill because profit.

Over in the Senate, the Health and Human Resources Committee was busy. No, the senators weren't doing anything to help the actual people of their state. But they totally have the backs of the fetuses. Yeah, the committee said it was time for West Virginia to outlaw abortions after 20 weeks, not the 24 weeks that some senators wanted. This was the kinder, gentler version of the House bill. The House made it a felony for doctors who perform abortions after 20 weeks. The Senate said it should just be a misdemeanor. The House banned all late-term abortions except for cases where carrying a pregnancy to term would cause permanent damage or death to the woman. The Senate added that it would be cool to abort if the fetus wasn't viable. See? Compassion. A woman isn't forced to carry around a fetus that's sure to die quickly and horribly.

As for the water, we head back to the House, to the Finance Committee, which is sending its version of a bill to help save West Virginia's water to the floor for a vote. The committee removed a provision requiring a study of the long-term effects of the January spill in the Elk River. It removed a provision requiring an early warning system for chemical spills on the Elk River. It "deleted a requirement for tougher permitting of water pollution sources near drinking water supplies." It allows the state to decide what information to keep secret from the public about the chemicals that are spilled under the guise of "homeland security." But at least it left out exemptions for some industries that were included in the Senate bill.

That's one day's worth of news out of West Virginia's legislature. That's three bills that will do harm to the people of the state. And let's be clear: this is the doing of Democrats and Republicans. This is what we've come to in our legislative process: cowering before big money and the moral police. How much degradation can the poverty-fucked people of West Virginia take? Well, shit, guess we'll see when that Marcellus Shale gas money starts to flow and the top-removed mountains are fracked into oblivion.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

[Bacchus4.0]

21. wow, you are all over the place. Why would you want to limit Sudafed?

gasoline is used to make Krokodil which literally rots a person from inside out. Should we require a prescription for gasoline or limit to 5 gallons per purchase?

Mountain top mining is for coal extraction while fracking is for natural gas. You don't seem very well informed about alot of things.

[RobertEarl]

22. Having problems are you?

The example of the WV is to show you that the US has many similar problems with corporations and businesses that will do anything to make a buck. And we've had a sound established government for years, yet the Kochs still fuck with us.

The Koch-roaches in VZ were hurt by Chavez and the emergent government founded on the Bolvarian movement. That's now why there are so many problems there. Just thought you needed to understand who the real enemy of poor people are.

[MADem]

26. Please--you aren't making your case.

You're comparing a nation of a mere thirty million to a nation of 315 million and trying to pretend there's some equivalency.

Unless you're trying to compare Venezuela to West Virginia? That doesn't work either.

There is no comparison.

[RobertEarl]

27. Yes there is

WV is controlled by the capitalists. They used to control VZ but now they don't and they are crying. Now they've moved into torture mode because they can't buy off the government of VZ like they have WV. Blackmail and torture is their only recourse now because of Chavez.

Is so easy to see. Why are you having such a hard time?

[MADem]

29. VZ has been on their own for YEARS. They control themselves, and they are in trouble

because, despite sitting on the largest oil deposit in the world, the leadership and their crony pals can't stop STEALING from the people. There's also that little problem of giving away so much of VZ's treasure to Cuba.

The only blackmailing and torture happening in VZ is INTERNAL, and it's the government doing it to the people who dare to question them.

You're the one having the hard time, here. In a big way, too. You just do not have a grasp of the realities in VZ. You have a dream image that is clouded by your obvious bias and your need to assign left-right roles to players on the scene. That type of construct is just not operative. This is not about ideology. It is about scarcity, food insecurity, rampant crime and murders every hour that go unpunished, brutality by police, national guard and bands of roving criminals paid by the government, rationing, inflation, and no damned hope.

The problem with the leadership is competence.

[RobertEarl]

33. There is a great divide Rich vs poor in VZ

Far surpasses the divide in the US.

The Koch-roaches don't want to share. If they did there would be no poor. They have great reserves of oil. There is plenty to go around. It was really bad before Chavez. He was the people's hero. Now that he has sadly passed, the Koch-roaches have come out from the dark and are trying to return them to the past. It takes a brave warrior to defeat the Koch-roaches and now they do lack that kind of strong leadership.

If the capitalist would treat the country fairly, it would put the Koch-roaches back in the dark where they belong. We barely can keep them out of our own US government, imagine the problems VZ is having. Oh wait, you can't. You are hung up on the anti-Bolivarian movement. Why you hate what the people of VZ love is quite telling of where your ideology resides.

Please, the people of VZ sure as fuck don't need your kind of help. But they do need the Bolivarian movement. It has done well for them.

[MADem]

46. Inflation and scarcity make that divide less meaningful.

But you run along, and you have a nice day, now, RobertEarl. I'm not in the mood for your rude, hurtful, disruptive, goading, baiting and shit-stirring comments on THIS thread, either.

Go take an Economics class. You don't have a grasp of the issues.

And take a Spanish class, too, so you understand what people are saying.

[COLGATE4]

45. Pointless trying to talk sense to them.

As you point out, these folks have a pseudointellectual love affair with the so-called Bolivarian revolution which does not permit them to even attempt to understand the facts that are being presented. Couple that with the fact that few (if any) have ANY experience with Latin America and the task of trying to have an intelligent discussion becomes impossible. Venezuela has a terrible crime problem? Well, so does Detroit. People can't find basic foodstuffs on the shelves of the markets? It's because the nasty Koch people didn't order the goods. The economy is almost in free-fall? It's obviously the fault of all those nasty capitalists (who haven't been in power for how long now????). Maduro is a clown? It's Alvaro Uribe's fault. Etc. etc. ad nauseam. They are highly invested in the myth of the Robin Hood Bolivarian revolutionaries who are righting all the wrongs in Venezuela and whose failures are ALWAYS because of somebody else. Viva la revolucion! Viva Comandante Chavez!

[MADem]

47. Ha--tell me about it!

I have a little friend (see him right up there) who follows me from thread to thread, whining about the "koch roaches" and bloviating in the Viva Chavez manner. It's tiresome. He's aggressive and rude, too--doesn't observe the community standards and enjoys doing the goad-n-bait routine.

[RobertEarl]

48. Gosh, you are right Colgate

I don't know exactly what is happening in Venezuela.

I don't think you do either. Yet you put on like anyone who has a different view than yours is WRONG! Instead of trying to inform and educate why you think you might be RIGHT, you merely attack those who have different ideas and offer different solutions.

And posting such as you do is pointless.

[RobertEarl]

51. There you go again, Colgate

Telling us what you think everybody else thinks. Pointless, indeed.

Why don't you tell us what you think IS the solution? Have you ever posted anything like that? Links would work. Thanks.

[RobertEarl]

62. Here, read this, colgate: Maduro speaks

MADURO: That’s an excellent question, because indeed the opposition… there’s been a debate, and different positions. At first majority of the opposition is part of the mood, the democratic group, and through electoral means they have tried to change the government. They have participated in elections, they have deputies, the opposition have 40% of the deputies of the assembly. They have governors, they have majors, they have participated in all presidential campaigns of the last years with the single presidential candidate, with all the forces of the opposition behind and they have tried through democratic means to present their programme to the country. However, the opposition participated in the coup attempt against Hugo Chavez in 2002 in April. They attempted another coup d’état in December 2002, 2003, they attempted a similar action like today to provoke violence for another coup d’état in 2004. They tried to get rid of that past, of that record, but I say today you should know in the US and your audience of this prestigious show that those who have started this violence plan is a minority, is a tiny group belonging to the opposition, and they are put the rest of the opposition in a dire situation, and this is a criticism I made publically, and do not say they are in agreement with these attacks. In the US for instance, just give me an example, the case of the US, a political group, they call to offer President Obama, and then they have a road map and say “this day we’re going to do this and this to get rid of Obama, we’re going to the White House this day for President Obama to go”. What would the US do if a tiny group would say they’re going to generate a revolution or a revolt to change the constitutional government of the US? I guess the state will react, will then resort to the tools to restore order and peace and to intact (?) those who are against the constitution, and that’s exactly what happened in this country over the last weeks.
snip--
MADURO: I think that we need is cooperation. Cooperation. Venezuelans have a long history. So we are able to listen to each other, to talk to each other. From here were born the liberators of the region, and they said before and after that process we have a culture of political action. We are not in despair. That’s the image broadcast to abroad. To try to hit morally a revolution that we are conducting in favour of the poor, of the workers, of the disenfranchised, a revolution that has given public education, free education, good at all levels. You can go to the streets and you find children in the free schools, universities, young people they don’t have to ask for loans to go to the universities to study engineering, law, etc. a revolution that gave back the right to health to the people, to the poor, to the humble, a revolution that has special plans, and guarantees food to all the people so Venezuela is not in despair situation as some people try to portray and sell to abroad. We have problems, as any other country. We have economic problems of course we have. Do you have problems in the US? Do you have problems in the US? You have a huge debt, a colossal debt, as never, ever before. How come you have a huge fiscal deficit, you have increased in poverty in the US, an awful figure of poverty in the U.S. You had a very good level of life and now you have people in the streets without their houses. You have problems in the U.S. All countries have problems, social problems, economic problems, challenges. Venezuela has its own problems, but the problems that we don’t have are the problems of poverty… and culture that we had in the past and have been solved thanks to the effort that we have made over the last year
snip---

MADURO: That is correct. And we have denounced this. Capitalism works in this manner. In Venezuela we are overcoming a capitalism that is dependent solely on rent, and that was very harmful for the exchange rate. I can give you a list. Very soon we are going to publish the list of the owner of companies, capitalists, that stole the money, the dollars, to, that we gave them to meet the needs, and they took the dollars and took it to the US. They have big mansions in the US. And we denounce that. They consider themselves political people, prisoners, etc. But I can tell you this, as a framework of question, because you are overwhelmed by information and you are in anguish with so much information. I can tell you this. over the last years, Venezuela has had... over the last 15 years, a process of expansion. We went from a GDP of 90 billion dollars to a GDP of 400 billion dollars, including last year. We were the target of economic war, because the right-wing sectors in Venezuela they thought that since President Chavez had died is was the end of the revolution. They started an operation to destroy our economy. And we have maintained even last year a programme of growth, of protection, Venezuela has…
snip---
MADURO: I can tell you something very simple. Go to the streets, talk to the workers… Our children have public and free education guaranteed. In the United States, did you have a public education for the children or the youth in the US? No. Our people have public health guaranteed free of charge. Did you have that in the US? Our people have the higher minimum wage in the whole of Latino America. Our people have housing through a special process. Guaranteed housing we have given, and as soon as I finish this conversation we’re going to a special show of a Venezuelan housing programme. We’re going to deliver 600,000 housing to people. There are going to be 3 million housing units to solve the deficit. Of the 180 million dollars that we have received over the last decades, we have invested 65% of the oil rent in education, housing, food, culture. It’s another (inaudible). That’s what I told you when we started. Try to understand in the US. Try to understand a little bit that here we are building a different social economic model, different from yours. Try to open your mind to the dialogue of culture, of civilization. Try to understand what we are doing here is different.

Read more: http://amanpour.blogs.cnn.com/2014/03/07/full-transcript-nicolas-maduro/

[Judi Lynn]

63. Just finished reading your link. Thank you for posting this.

I think it may be the first official interview I've been lucky enough to read.

He's a terrific guy. Hope they can't assassinate him, although you know they will, if they can.

They always mock and ridicule every leftist they can. It's not the leftists who are to be mocked, as we know, it's the self-obsessed, greedy racist/classist professional criminals.

[RobertEarl]

64. Yeah

Chavez beat them badly. Now that Chavez is gone they figured they could win by attacking Maduro. As for assassination, sure, heck, they tried to kill Chavez.

The Bolivarian revolution will not be denied, tho. It is the correct thing to do and its support will only grow.

As for the mocking... I have been reading a few threads here and there are quite a few mockers. They are on my list to be confronted. Please, anyone, pm when they start mocking again. The best way to beat the bullies is to confront them.

And thanks, Judi, for keeping us posted on what's happening.

[smokey775]

65. Here.

Mock, mock, mock, I'm mocking him because he's a fucking buffoon, a rock could do a better job than Maduro.
Now, go ahead and confront me.

[RobertEarl]

67. Why?

What you said was just bs. I stay far from bs.

To be clear, it is the mocking of Liberals in the US who want the best for VZ, that will get confrontation.

[Zorro]

68. Welcome back, fool!

[COLGATE4]

66. I want to know if the guy next to him

was drinking a glass of water?

[Judi Lynn]

61. Hail to the Rude Pundit! Thanks. n/t

[delrem]

69. Imagine that! It's been a year, and still the people revere the man.

Or rather, try *not* to imagine that. Try to live in the darkness that several posters to this group want to exist, for now and for all time.

I can't imagine Venezuelans choosing to go back in time to live in that darkness -- except for a small and cruel elite. A small and cruel elite that will never let go of the belief that all Venezuelan riches belong to them and to their private owners.

For that small and cruel elite a year must be a long, long time, to sit on their hate for Chavez and the Bolivarian revolution. I can imagine how their asses are burning.

[Judi Lynn]

70. It's a class-wide temper tantrum. They're not used to being told "no",

and they are enraged to realize in a democracy the majority actually does have presence. They want to bully the population into giving up their democracy for which they have waited so long, and suffered so much without, in the past.

#### them.