Reply #108: The previous agreements... [View All]

[JohnnyCougar]

...were signed during the sham democracy before Chavez. I don't think any one of them should really be considered legit. People get so mad at Saddam Hussein for hoarding all the oil money from the oil for food program, but that's exactly what the Venezuelan government before Chavez was doing. Taxes on oil companies were a) artificially low, and b) not even enforced. Many oil companies, when it came down to tax time, simply decided not to pay the chump change that they owed. And the Venezuelan "leadership" didn't care because they were getting their kickbacks. This all happened while well over 50% of the nation was suffering from poverty, most of it being extreme poverty.

I think people underestimate how horrible it was over there before Chavez was elected. It has gotten MUCH better already, and that's despite a US-backed coup attempt that overthrew the first real democracy Venezuela has seen possibly ever, national oil worker strike organized by the US and the right wing that lasted many months that severely crippled the economy, and the right-wing Venezuelan media's incessant misinformation and propaganda campaign down there. That's despite right-wingers car-bombing members of the Chavez administration. That's despite all the shenanigans, the aristocrat-owned TV stations using airwaves to organize overthrows of the democracy, boycotts of the elections that were fair in the first place, the US sending money to Chavez opponents, that's despite right-wing protests where bleached blonds with Gucci purses and high heels jump out of their boyfriends' Jaguar convertibles and march down the streets and shout "Chavez, dictador!" as if their ability to go shopping for shoes is in danger of being taken away...meanwhile the Venezuelan economy has hit an all-time low in unemployment, consumer spending is at unheard of levels, and millions of poor and middle class people are for the first time seeing SOME of the oil wealth used to educate, feed, and provide healthcare for them.

And in the middle of all this, it's a HUGE deal in America if Chavez wants to nationalize the cement and steel industries to do something about the Venezuelan housing crisis. Big deal. Let him build some public housing so that those people living on the hillside barrios that are prone to mudslides can live somewhere decent.