Mainly to 13th, Felix as well if he's still reading my posts:

I don't think anyone who has been substantially involved in this thread has been blindly supporting Chavez.

I'm not supporting Chavez. Pointing out facts about Chavez and what he's done is not supporting Chavez. Valenzuela has been careful to point out both positives and negatives. Chant is doing the same.

What I am doing, personally, is defending Chavez's record against people who aren't even willing to look at it. That's not supporting Chavez. That's pointing out facts, which are neutral.

It's one thing to say "Chavez is a great leader"; it's another entirely to say "Look, Chavez did these things which had this positive effect" in the face of propagandists shouting Down With Chavez. No posters have declared the former, and many of us have been declaring the latter.

You mean after the Perez administration--who weren't any better HR wise than Chavez--accepted economic colonization by the IMF? Yes, things would have turned out much better that way. And oh yes, the Venezuelan people really agreed with that policy. So much so that Perez sent the National Guard on a killing spree to prevent massive protests from having any effect. How many died at the hands of that government? Why do you conveniently leave that out when discussing the 1992 coup attempts?

Coups aren't a bad thing in and of themselves. A coup for no reason is just power-grabbing and violence and is not legitimate, yes. But I can't think of a coup in the history of the world that overthrew a legitimate/fair government.

Perhaps you could point one out for me.

Again, this is not supporting Chavez. It is simply pointing out the political climate surrounding the coup attempt. That's not support. It's pointing out facts.

I missed this part the first time around. My bad.

Are you counting the government & its employees--e.g. Military--as 'opposition protesters'? Are you counting people who were armed & fighting for the gov't as 'opposition protesters'? Who were these 'opposition protesters', what were they opposing, and how were they opposing it? Your statement could mean many things.

BTW I can't find confirmation of any civilian deaths caused by Chavez & co. during the attempt. Could you point me to somewhere that will allow me to confirm what you're saying?

I can find hard figures on Perez's forces massacring hundreds of civilians protesting spending cuts before the coup even started, though. If you're interested.

Coups are violent. That is the price nations sometimes pay for political legitimacy/autonomy. If it is true, as you say, that Chavez's revolutionary force caused civilian deaths, that is unfortunate, true. This is the nature of nations as they find stability.

I think he's actually referring to something that may or may not have happened just before or during the US sponsored coup that temporarily took Chavez prisoner. I have yet to see any reliable evidence that these killings took place, however.

My biggest question in regards to painting Chavez as a killer is, why are all the Venezuelans who temporarily overthrew him still breathing? Not even sure any of them have even gone to jail, although the assassination of prosecutors working on building a case against the coup leaders might have slowed the process a bit.

If anything, Chavez has always shown a suspicious lack of ill will toward the coup leaders (but perhaps he does so because he was allowed to live after his coup attempt and in fact did not serve much time in prison).

The thing is, though, if Bush had been ousted for so much as 30 seconds, any Americans involved would probably have ended up disappeared into a secret prison with no access to a lawyer, no charges brought, and no hope of ever walking out alive, torture on alternate Thursdays, Bingo on Saturdays. And if not, they certainly would never have seen the outside of a prison cell again. But I suppose those ruthless leftist dictators do things differently down there.

Yes, this could be a reading fail on my part.

I could be wrong, too. It just seems like I have a hazy memory of some such justification for the US coup that never actually had evidence behind it.

Just to clear up, I think calling the coup d'etat around April 11-13 a "U.S sponsored coup" is way too much. At most the U.S knew about it and supported the opposition leaders once they took over. I don't think the U.S had any involvement in actually bringing it about. Big difference.

I'll respond to other posts later. I gtg work right now.

Let's compromise. There are FOIA documents proving it was funded, at least in part, by the US.

So we'll call it the US funded coup.

States that sustain constant coup d'etat attempts are not successful. Law and Order in Venezuela is deteriorating.

We aren't talking about Perez either, we're talking about Chavez. The crimes of the former do not excuse the crimes of the latter.

There were numerous casualties on both sides during the coup d'eta in 2002. Many Chavistas were filmed shooting at opposition protesters and not one of them was convicted.

Chavez's social policies may be helping some of the poor in the short term but is hurting Venezuela in the short term. Price controls have been proven to be economically inefficient again and again and yet somehow this is seen as helping the poor. Venezuela under Chavez has squandered so much of it's wealth thanks to oil that it is depressing to know what Venezuela could have been had this money been poured into infrastructure, law and order, and many of the other projects Chavez has promised and not delivered on.

United By Hate
The uses of anti-Semitism in Chávez’s Venezuela
http://bostonreview.net/BR34.4/lomnitz_sanchez.php

You know who is causing Venezuela's problems?


Snowball.

Oh?
I would love to see these FOIA documents proving this coup was funded "in part" by the USA.
However, I can't seem to find these documents on the internet.
Could you post links showing us these FOIA documents?
Thank you in advance.

He's not a dictator?

Yo dude, there are like mudslides, and he's the only one who can do something











and the opposition just gained seats in government.

That isnt a dictatorship but it could be seen as a loophole but it still consitutional AFAIK, a constitution that was voted democraticly.
What evil law has Chavez passed with the decrees??

Also:
ROFL. First of all in Chile we dont have a single TV station that is against neoliberalism its a de facto TV channel censorship. But even then its still a lie. Two private channels that pushed the coup are still functioning today in free television.

CNN cover of the new is horribly biased.

You don't have to be evil to be a dictator, although it usually goes hand in hand.

Is your last name Chavez?

I call bs on this

dude, what he is doing is constitutional, he was elected as a president by the people, the consitution was aproved by the people ( a benefit we chileans dont have because it was forced upon us with blood and torture) and the parlament was elected by the people.
You can call it a loophole if you want.

No. A non biased new should go like this:

Parlament passes decree beenfits for Chavez due to the rains.
He will be able to legislate stuff in stuff related to solving rains.
Not everybody is happy because some feel the rains are an excuse to pass other legistlation not related to rains.

But the new goes like this.

The parlament gives Chavez the power to pass whatever law he likes ( lie, he cant pass any law) .
Sky is falling down say opposition in the one and only tv channel left that hates Chavez.
Chavez gave rains as an excuse.

Well, we have 18 months to see which side got it right.

In B4 Chavez altruistically uses his emergency powers ONLY to save the victims of the landslide and then reliqueshes then when time is up or before when the victims are saved.

This thread turned out to be far more farcical fun than i ever would have predicted before opening it.

+1

wins thread, imo.

But please keep the fun going.

The funny thing is that homicide rates in Venezuela are similar to Detroit and New Orleans, but I dont want to ruin your fun guys.

"comparing one pile of dog **** to another doesnt make one better or the same... its just a stinking pile of ****." - Neblis

Oh...that is what I believe. I just want a neuvo-Pinochet to kill random people. Right?
It is so nice that there are so many nice people at 2+2 to tell others what I think.

With communists, there are many flavors but I divide them in two camps:
(1) Those that advocate peaceful means to obtain their goals and
(2) Those that advocate revolution (aka murder) to achieve their ends.

Fabian Socialist believe in achieving communism via peaceful means.
Fabians are one of the few peaceful communists.

Maoists, Stalinists, Marxists, and Leninists believe in using violence to achieve their goals. If you live in a country that is in danger of going red, the odds are there will be mass murders if the communists succeed in taking over. Don't believe me, just look at the USSR, Red-China, Cambodia, Vietnam, Cuba, etc... etc... etc... When I see dumbasses wearing Che Guevara t-shirts, I wonder if they realize that this guy was a mass murderer who killed teenage boys and other innocents.

I believe almost all communists are would be murderers should they ever gain power.
Ergo, I believe killing communists to prevent them from taking power is self defense...
And I believe using violence to protect your private property and your life are 100% justifiable...
Sorry, I'm just weird that way...

In real world, the choices are rarely between choosing utopia and hell.
In the real world, the choice is usually between the lesser of two evils.
If I lived in Chile, I would prefer a constitutional Republic which had a strong libertarian streak to it (aka absolute property rights) but that wasn't on the menu...was it?
Many years ago, the choice for Chile were between the communists or Pinochet. Utopia was not on the menu...

If I lived in Chile, I would have supported Pinochet over the communists.
Dictators kill people but communists kill MORE people... In my mind, Pinochet was easily the lesser of two evils.
And I wouldn't have shed any tears over the communists that got killed.
Afterall when you sow the wind, you should expect to reap the whirlwind.
Pinochet was a bastard but was certainly no mad dog killer. There was a strict code in deciding who he killed. He only killed those that advocated murder and theft of private property (aka communists). Now when it comes to true mad dog killers, communists easily win that contest. If the Reds took over Chile, the killing fields in Chile would have been red with innocent blood.
Pinochet was the lesser of two evils and supporting him was a no brainer for the USA.

As for Chavez, he is a thief...
And since I believe people have the right to use violence to defend their property, any violence that Chavez and his supporters receive is 100%, pure, self-defense.

And if a Venezuelan-Pinochet was to come along and kill Chavez and his supporters, then Venezuela would be a better place.
And killing thieves and murderers is what I like to call...a good thing.

Got it?
And in the future if you are going to sum up my views, then please have the intellectual honesty to quote my views accurately... Is that too much to ask?

so both the major of Detroit and New Orleans are one of the worst leaders in the world??

Really? Have you ever even read Marx or Engels? Or are you just doing what you do best--spouting category errors left, right, and center? No strict 'marxist' advocates violence, since marxism is an inherently action-neutral philosophy. Marxism more a critique of an existing system than a solution to its flaws. Not that you care about reality, though.

And BTW--what was the American revolution, if not bloody, violent, and unlawful? You owe your existence to the violent revolutions you here denounce.

And if you live in a country w/ oil reserves, you're in danger of Capitalist countries invading and killing en masse, as well. But this is bringing 'freedom' to the ignorant, and not just killing--yes?

This is a ****ed up belief that most sane people wouldn't hold. This is like believing almost all white people are terrorists because of McVeigh; better hope those white folk don't get access to electronics and nitro, or else we're all screwed. Right, Felix? Same logic, yes?

lol