Not sure if I brake the rules with this topic, if I do please do not hesitate in locking this up.
What are your thoughts about him as a leadr and a president
I guess that venezuelan (spell???) folks should tell us about him, since we only know what the media says
In any case, from Venezuela came to Argentina a person called Antonini Wilson with a suitcase full of money, accpording to the media to "collaborate" with Cristina Kirchner (Arg. President) campaign, so I guess that Chavez was as corrupted as any other dictator

Chavez was a dictator, don't believe what the media says, I really believe he was dead from days ago, He used to appear on Tv everyday, and all of the sudden he goes to Cuba and never comes back, not even in video, only some pictures, why can't you tell your people that your are fine? Because you are not, vice president said that he talked with him everyday, why could he share some words with us? He was dead.

(Sorry, if my english were better I could share a more interesting thoughs)

yea, I think he was dead since some tiem ago... what about that conspirancy theory about getting him sick hahah, cant believe he was serious!!!
PM for some interesting thoughts in español

Yeaah maan I mean, "The oposition gave our comandante cancer, they impregnated it in his food! It was their fault!" Wut ._.

He was a piece of shit who oversaw a worsening of inflation, the homicide rate spiked under his regime, was incredibly bad on human rights issues and civil liberties, deceived his people with the oil wealth into believing his country wasn't a sinking ship due to all of his awful attempts at central planning. Too bad that the US has done more so than its fair share of evil in that area of setting up puppet governments and using genocidal men to oppress the people, but Chavez was hardly a saint in his own right for the time he held office.

Uh... Chavez was opposed to the privatization of his country's natural resources and hugely helped those in poverty. Since he was elected in 1999, unemployment has halved, GDP per capita more than doubled, infant mortality reduced from 20/1,000 to 13/1,000 and the poverty rate has fallen by two thirds. Not many governments, if any, have achieved so much in so little time.

I mean, it's not like I'd expect anything less than preachy extreme-right bullshit from Veracs, but I'm disappointed by the other posters in this thread. No, Chavez wasn't a saint (his human rights violations, for example, cannot and should not be overlooked), but he had his head on straighter than the vast majority of western government heads. He will be missed. RIP.

My impression (from outside the country and by the media from Spain) is that he made some achievements to improve the quality of life of the venezuelans (that's a fact, as darkeningday stated) BUT he was also a typical South American populist politician (who, obviously, manipulates the voters) with his Bolivarian Revolution speech.
Anyway, if you think he was bad for the country, let's just wait to see who comes next and what happens with Chavez's work (in fact, US started to make movements within the army, as we have seens many times in South America, while he was ill)!

Couldn't resist, sorry

Chavez is seen as an evil dictator while Obama is the kind leader of the free world. Everything* that's wrong with western civilization right there.
*rhetorically speaking

I get what you are trying to say but if you really think that Obama is like Chávez, I am going to have to laugh at you.

I give props to Chávez for flipping off the USA and the bigger powers and using Venezuelan resources for the benefit of the Venezuelan people, but in the end he was also clueless about what to do with much of it, his dependence on oil helped take people off poverty, but cannot be trusted as a long term plan to "fix" the country, he shamelessly repressed the opposition and the civil liberties of the population and was in many ways the typical South American populist dictator that plagued this continent on the XX century.
Our beloved Presidenta Dilma Roussef said he was a friend of the brazilian people...I wouldn't go so far. If every egomaniac latin american dictator was to be our friend, we would be fucked.

I hope Venezuela get its shit straight, and that they won't have to taste the American Freedom and puppet leaders.

Chuckled there a bit

Your eulogy for a guy you describe as a human rights violators is very touching!

wat

Oh, so short term plans until you figure out something better aren't acceptable? Please tell me your secret long term plan for fixing Venezuela.


Of course I'm not South American and can only judge from a distance based on what limited information is available to me. Care to tell me what qualifies him as a dictator? Populism is hardly a bad thing in itself, and he was democratically elected after all. It seems to me like the word is used rather inflationary.

The U.S. didnt like him because he dared to nationalize the country's industries, including (especially) oil. So, naturally, with the huge influence the oil companies have in the US, all of a sudden he becomes "a ruthless dictator" and the propagandists make him seem worse than Kim Jong Il and Saddam Hussein. And he did try to constantly yank George W. Bush's chain, cozied up to the U.S.'s enemies, and so on. He was a populist who did try to improve the people's lives, but tended to run his country with an iron fist much like many a South American dictator. In truth, he was neither the villian that U.S. politicians make him out to be nor the utopian great leader that apolgists proclaim him. Either way, my attitude is who cares, rest in peace.

By making smartasses comments on a internet forum.

His problem was not using oil a short term solution, his problem was having no clue what the fuck to do besides "oil oil oil oil". He made no effort to modernize the country's industries besides the petrochemical one, and a country can't prosper supported by one thing alone.


Suppression of opposition, control of the media. He was elected democratically, but kept being "elected" by various means of manipulation. A Venezuelan can talk about this better than I do

Yes.


I aprove this statement.

If I'm not misled oil is the number one factor that influences how much you get fucked in the ass by the US and its corporations, so that's arguably a very important issue. Besides that he did a lot for the poor majority as has been said numeral times, which is a pretty good way of making sure the future doesn't suck. It just sounds like you have incredibly high expectations, so when was the last time someone actually lived up to them? No man in the world can do everything right at once, but at least he got something done.


Well, then please do.

I'm not Venezuelan, but I think it's pretty self-evident given the basic tenets of how socialism are theorized to operate and the end result of how things went in Venezuela. Without wanting to spend a lot of time on the subject, people are people, and those who lost out because of the economic reforms and redistribution strategies weren't necessarily replaced with individuals that were even capable of performing the same functions. And that was at times done intentionally because, well, people are people and expecting them to operate in some other way is foolhardy.

It's not self evident and it doesn't touch the subject in question (except if you're talking about the media, which isn't clear). Other than that, wild speculation.

Ok man, before we had elections he said that if he losed, he would take the military forces to the street and start a civil war, on 2007 he closed the most important national tv channel, wich it was RTCV (Radio Caracas Television) only because they were sharing facts and numbers that chavez didn't aprove, he made thousands of families unemployed, In Venezuelan constitution it says that no man can be president for more than 6 years, and Chavez had 14...



Sorry if I didn't expresed myself well with my english.

Hey, IntoNevermore.
Could you tell us more about this? What do you think?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3 ... mora:_1992

Thanks.

If you plan to go to the people with money and private industries and basically kick them out of their positions and turn those industries into state run institutions, you better have equally good and capable people replacing them and not easily corrupted guys or people who are flat out inept. Venezuela inargurably had a lot of corrupt and inept people take jobs they shouldn't have had, which led to some of the issues the country has had with a lack of growth in a wide variety of industries.

Ok man n.n I really don't know much about that event, it was before I was born, so I only know what you learn in school and what older people tell you, so, I know that the Caracazo (wich is how we call that movement) a LOT of people died following Chavez, he wanted to end Carlos Andres Perez dictatorship, at least that one had some security, he was pretty heavy with with law enforcement and punished every one who break it, well, years later that violent movement that led us to many deaths, was celebrated as a national day, on february 4th. He never called it a "coup d'état" Chavez said it was "All because of love, love for the revolution" and stuff like that.

There are some things called BOOKS, where you can find a lot of info BEFORE making a rant defending a guy without knowing anything about who he was. Your age, except you are 12, is no excuse... sorry about that, but you should be a bit more careful before you pick your fights

Well, he asked what do I think. And that's it.

Ok then.. haha
On topic, Chavez wasbad in every ´possible way, he build his power by destrying the "work culture", same thing thing happened here in Argentina back in 1945 when Peron was president, since then his figure has been idealized as a "procer", but he destroyed every single value of a developed society, so there you go, 60 years had passed and we learned nothing

According to his profile it says he's 18. Maybe you should have checked that out beforehand instead of making dumb little guesses. And he seems to know enough about the topic to hold a conversation. Being a dick much, huh?

Speaking of books... they are usually read. Which you have clearly failed to do regarding his posts, since he wasn't defending Chavez, he was critical of him. So don't lecture someone on reading books when you can't even read a forum post.


Dear me. Deliberate irony?

Venezuelan people and others that have been there can tell you that, regarding Chavez you have 2 options: love him or hate him.

Who loves Chavez? the ones who got everything mostly free and could live off the Government. Who hates him? everyone else. South America has seen the socialist system on works many times and every single government under that system has failed. Argentina with Perón sucked, period (and you can see the current Mrs K Goverment which is terrible too). Chile with Allende went to the toilet (inflation 1000%, no employment, no food, highest violence on streets, no medical supplies, etc) and Chavez was more of the same.

These kind of psuedodictators do the same: use a ridiculous amount of money to give it to the poor, while doing absolutely nothing for the progress. I mean, if you really want to make poor people to progress you need to give them well paid jobs to earn their own money and contribute to society in some way, not giving away money or food for nothing. That's not real help at all, cause once the State stops to give them money they'll be back to the same shit, there's no sustained benefit in that. See Spain, since the government paid the unemployeed anyway many people didn't give a shit about getting a job, thus leasing to a huge public expenses.

Regarding how legit of a president Chavez was, just remember we said he was about to lead a civil war if we were to lose the elections. He, being the president AND the Chief Commander of the army (something that you only see in de-facto governments) had enough power to get this throne, being for the easy or the hard way. Also, remember he gave away money to the people 1 day before the elections and put the army on the streets (to preserve peace, he said).

See the current de facto ruler Maduro. He is the president only for the unstable situation of the country and his fast movings after Chavez passing. Their Constitutional tribunal invented a new way of being president (of course, they fear to be killed), where he, being the guy who should be arranging the new elections is allowed to be the president AND he'll be named Chief Commander of the army too!! Also, he named a relative of Chavez as vice-president! it's ridiculous!

Also, as Morales in Bolivia and Mrs K in Argentina, Chavez has modified their Carta Magna at will to continue his ruling.

The freedom of speech in Venezuela is so good that the opposition had to make a press conference outside Venezuela to talk about the legitimacy of the new government. Maduro moved the army onto the streets right after telling about Chavez' passing.

Oh, and don't forget Caracas is among the top 5 in the most violent cities on the World.

I know very little about Chavez but Kveldulfr's post seems to explain why more people are celebrating in the U.S. than lamenting his death. It's beyond me how anyone can favor and even desire this kind of socialist government.

To American or European style neo-liberalism? Any day.

Unfortunately there is a tradition that whenever there is a socialist government they are blamed for all their country's problems that the capitalists left for them.

Do not be so harsh on neo-liberalism. Do you not see the massive increase in wealth and economic growth in Greece, Spain and Portugal? It is a pity that the world as a whole does not embrace this well measured austerity and politics.

Castro is still alive ... miraculously.

A shame that ol' Chavez is also guilty of leaving a fuckload of problems of his own for whoever comes next, making impossible to conveniently blame "the capitalists" for all of Venezuela's struggles.


It really is. I think he is immortal. The way things are going I think even former brazilian president Lula is going to die before him.

huh? my english is not very good, so I´ll reprhase, "unless you are 12 or less, there are no excuses", and he posted he didn´t know about Chavez past as a "golpista". not trying to be a dick here, just giving my view of what he stated before.

you got me there, sorry for being a dick here
And Im far from 12 hahaha

Maybe we are just two latinos that need to improve a bit our english n.n

you have a point there

I gave him cancer.

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/06/fi ... -chavez-2/

Lest we forget.