In this comment thread, Dr. Dawg takes exception to my shot at Hugo Chavez.
“Mass graves?” Come on.
Gentlemen, start your bulldozers!
Faced with an accelerating inflation rate and shortages of basic foods like beef, chicken and milk, President Hugo Chávez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.
Food producers and economists say the measures announced late Thursday night, which include removing three zeroes from the denomination of Venezuela’s currency, are likely to backfire and generate even more acute shortages and higher prices for consumers. Inflation climbed to an annual rate of 18.4 percent a year in January, the highest in Latin America and far above the official target of 10 to 12 percent.
Mr. Chávez, whose leftist populism remains highly popular among Venezuela’s poor and working classes, seemed unfazed by criticism of his policies. Appearing live on national television, he called for the creation of “committees of social control,” essentially groups of his political supporters whose purpose would be to report on farmers, ranchers, supermarket owners and street vendors who circumvent the state’s effort to control food prices.
Now Dawg, you were saying?
The same type of program killed nine million Ukrainians,
and god knows how many Chinese.
estimates run as high as 100 million Chinese and of course Cambodia with a smaller population only managed with its system of reeducation to kill 2 million or 30% of its population.
I still don’t hear the sound of bulldozers, Kate. I don’t see mass graves being dug. I see something akin to Mike Harris’ snitch line, although directed at businesses, not welfare recipients. Maybe it’ll get inflation down without the need for war crimes. What say you?
It’s funny-sad you can’t see the parallels between one socialist state’s attempts to control prices, production, and consumption, and another’s (and another’s and another’s) that all ended with a lot of people dead.
Even the best case scenario in Cuba killed about 10 times as many people as the arch-criminal Pinochet.
Sounds like Mao’s China.
Pero el perro no puedo verlo.
Why be concerned Kate…Dawg lost credibility the 3rd day he was blogging…relegated to the foamy-mouthed moonbat side of the net…he didn’t pick up a proze as Canada’s worst blog for nothing. 😉
I have his blog listed under “dark comedy” in my browser…seeing his new-found love for Chavez maybe I should relist him as “born again commie fanatics” seeing how his boy Chavez is taken to smelling the sulpherpous aroma of the horned one in his UN semonizing on the devil. 😉
Hmmm … devaluing the currency … this reminds me of a business visit to Argentina in 1981 when the Argentine peso was devalued by 1/10,000 overnight on instructions form the IMF.
I still have some 1,000,000 peso notes that the next day were worth 100 pesos , and I recall a few US businessmen being royally screwed after having negotiated payment in pesos.
The new peso notes looked very much the same as the old ones and I asked the guys if Simon Bolivar (picture on the peso) was smiling in the old peso and crying in the new ones!
… hey he could always ask the IMF to help him finish the job as they did in Argentina.
Biff: “The same type of program killed nine million Ukrainians, and god knows how many Chinese.”
Communism in its varying forms has killed 100 million of its own citizens and 70 million in its occupations and opressions in the 20th century.
Chavez is a communist why are we surprized at him systemically liquidating dissenters? Why does the decadent left in free nations always ignore the atrocities of their communist bretheren?
So far, no counter-argument, just the usual…well…
And so far, the rap against Chavez seems to be that he a) spends a lot of money on the poor, and b) is no admirer of Bush.
Is he anti-democratic? Well, I’ve read widely and for some time on this. When the Keystone Koup took place, and a court full of Chavez opponents declined to find the plotters guilty of anything, Chavez publicly said he’d have to live with it.
Recently he declined to renew the licence of a TV station that supported the coup. If Dion were in power, and Rick Hiller tried to oust him, and CTV went on the air to welcome the General into power, how long would it be, after order was restored, for CTV to lose its licence–at the very least?
It’s the same with this “rule by decree” stuff. No, I don’t like it, and I don’t defend it. But it appears that this self-same mechanism was used by previous governments in Venezuela, and I didn’t hear anyone carping about it back then.
Elections and a recall vote were all monitored by international observers. They were pronounced fair. No Diebold machines were in evidence.
He got rid of term limits, and the Globe and Mail rushed into print to adduce that as further evidence of his dictatorial bent. The last time I looked, Canada doesn’t have term limits.
Etc.
So whale away, folks. But, judging at least from the comments here, you’re somewhat short on the facts. Their lack is always in inverse proportion to insult and ad hominem.
In the update, the Washington Post did a story about Chavez’s tour of the Carribean, saying that he’s calling for “Anti-Imperial Unity”:
3w.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/17/AR2007021701102.html
The irony is that the things that he is doing – giving money to poorer nations, building production facilities in those nations and even helping with housing projects – are also a form of economic imperialism.
…and another country gives up its freedom. Fools.
it takes time whether you whale or wail.
dr.dwag why you do not move over there and help them?
Dawg…. always apologizing for communist failings. When a poorly managed economy ( as Chavez’s wrecklessness is creating) results in food shortages and depression from currency devaluation, who do you suppose will suffer the most in Chavez’s Marxist utopa?
A) The Poor and working class
B) the insulated political class
Do you suppose that politically created famines and depressions will have a body count? They did in the Ukraine. Should we wait until there’s a body count before we criticize blind utopian maxist wrecklessness…or do we do what the apologetic left does and ignore or deny the body count?
BTW: Chavez disliking the Bush political dynasty is the only good sense he’s shown…however allowing his personal distaste for the man to evolve into a diplomatic meltdown which destroyed his nation’s economic relations with the US is just plain stupid…and his people will pay the price for his mistakes.
Actually, dr.dawg, Canada does have term limits; the elected gov’t has a five year limit.
Socialism doesn’t work; Chavez can’t afford to bleed the wealthy to maintain his power by largesse to the poor. Eventually the wealth disappears.
As for welfare ‘snitch lines’ – you are in favour of people abusing the system and the taxpayer? I don’t see why I should work, to pay for my own needs as well as those of someone else who is quite capable of work but who prefers not to – and instead wants the taxpayer to support them. And you know, there is a LOT of welfare fraud. You support it? Hmmm
And as soon as you set up a system (committees of social control) which splinters the population, moves them into adversarial groups – your country is in trouble.
Sounds like Robert Mugabe II.
From the linked story at that site:
The centerpiece of this system is the elaborate Maisanta database, an electronic registry of the political allegiances of 12.4 million Venezuelans. In what Venezuelan economist Ana Julia Jatar has termed a “21st century apartheid,” the list is routinely used by government offices to screen job applicants and those seeking social assistance. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is currently processing 780 cases of political discrimination against signers of the petition to hold the 2004 recall referendum. Only time will tell whether Chávez’s elaborate system for the suppression of dissent will be sufficient to counteract the effect of an economic downturn. In the meantime, another oil boom will have been squandered and another chance for Venezuela’s development will have been thrown into the dustbin.
Sounds like that backward province, Saskatchewan.
“Elections and a recall vote were all monitored by international observers. They were pronounced fair. No Diebold machines were in evidence.”
Sorry Dawg but Hugo outfitted the whole electoral process in Venezuala With Diebold equipment. There are bloggers and others in Chavez utopia who get the message out but I doubt it would change your mind. Facts never got in the way of a commies argument.
ET: That’s not the “term limits” that I was referring to, and you know it. They have not abolished the length of terms in Venezuela, so far as I know; the number of terms that can be served is no longer fixed.
The snitch lines in Ontario–and the whole system of welfare fraud detection that went with it–yielded a pretty poor ROI, with a miniscule number of individuals caught, at enormous expense. It was political scapegoating of a vulnerable section of the community, and it backfired (after causing a death or two).
In answer to another commenter, economic relations between the US and Venezuela, for all the chest-thumping on both sides, has not been affected. The US needs Venezuelan oil, and continues to import it.
Sorry Dawg but Hugo outfitted the whole electoral process in Venezuala With Diebold equipment.
It was Smartmatic, wasn’t it? Do you have a reference?
Well said “WL Mackenzie Redux” , whenever currency controls are put in place the poor suffer the most.
In 1981 I had to go to Argentina on a business trip with a stopover was in Brazil. An older man (70+) with his wife sat next to me and we started talking, as he was from Buenos Aires returning from a vacation in Brazil.
The inflation rate in Argentian at the time was 300% per year and I asked him how one protected oneself in a situation like that (currency controls were in place to prevent moving out of country). He described how he and his son had set up a wine exporting business in NewYork and how unfortunately in had gone bankrupt.
Basically what he did was export all of his money legally in wine to NY where his son did a greate job of extracting all the money from the company as wages until it went broke.
Sorry for all you communist excusers but this is what happens under a socialist regime.
Cuba has the excuse of the US embargo, what excuse does Chavez have?
Leftards, like little children, always blame someone else.
The real issue here is that socialism and communism don’t work and inevitably end up hurting productivity and ultimately its citizens. Countless examples of state-based control and its economic failures are available in any history book. Modern day examples would included Cuba, Eastern Europe, Russia and China (before its embrace of free-market capitalism).
Typically these regimes claim popular support when in reality the fix is already in. In Hugo’s case it is particularly laughable. Through the use of thug squads and the military, Hugo has cemented his power and will continue to act like so many tin-pot dictators before him.
Those who fail to see the danger of those like Chavez are the very same who refused to acknowledge there were problems before WWII. This is typical of lefties, they refuse to acknowledge historical precedent and believe anything that will upset their utopian view of the world, but when it goes bad (i.e. war) they are the first to hide under the furniture and beg for someone to protect them.
“And so far, the rap against Chavez seems to be that he a) spends a lot of money on the poor, and b) is no admirer of Bush.”
Or how about c) which is typical of any and all communist regimes, whether they’re cleverly disguised as ‘Socialism for the 21st century’, or not:
According to UNESCO, Venezuela is ranked first in the world in terms of deaths by firearms. Murders are the third cause of death overall in Venezuela, and the first cause of death among adult males. By 2005, the increase in the murder rate was 301.76 per cent relative to 1998’s rate. Last year, the homicide rate in Caracas was 154 per 100,000 inhabitants. To put that figure in perspective, Detroit and Washington D.C., the two cities that have alternated as the U.S.’s worst over the last few years, have never reached a rate over 46 homicides per 100,000 people. The Canadian rate, for 2004, was 2 per 100,000.
But this is also a political issue because Venezuela is a country where the State bears more than a little responsibility for establishing the conditions that have cheapened the value of its citizens’ lives. The crime statistics are the inevitable result of a climate of violence instigated and promoted by the Chavez regime. Seven years of government actions, from the creation of an armed militia of supporters and the announced distribution of police firearms to “community base organisations” by the Mayor of Caracas, to the replacement of 80 per cent of the country’s judges with Chavez loyalists and the expulsion of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s officials from Venezuela, have contributed to creating the current situation.
The corruption that permeates every single governmental institution contributes to the impunity on the streets, particularly that of the armed pro-Chavez militias.
Deputised to defend the revolution, these militias harass and intimidate opposition members, and have free reign to control neighbourhoods with the acquiescence of the law enforcement authorities. They are easily identifiable as they ride on unmarked motorcycles, mostly in twos, openly displaying their guns. A photographer of one of Caracas’ daily newspapers, on his way to cover one of last week’s demonstrations, was shot point blank by one of these individuals. Before dying, he captured a photograph of his assassin driving away from the scene.
I stayed at the Hilton in Caracas about 10 years ago. I was warned to take a cab directly from the hotel when I wanted to go anywhere, due to the fact that there were 25 murders a weekend, just in that one city block.
It’s hard to believe it could get worse. But it has gotten far, far worse, with the help of Chavez’s personal murder corps.
Have you ever visited Venezuela, Dawg? What do you think now? Do you defend state sanctioned mass-murder, in order to bring forth ‘Socialism for the 21st century?
Hugo is taking his people down the road to failure just like Stalin and Mao. But because he’s propped up by oil, his failed state might last a bit longer than would otherwise be the case; but it will fail.
In January Chavez gained the power to rule by decree for 18 months so that he can impose sweeping economic, social and political change. The vote in the National Assembly was unanimous — as befits a budding communist country … which is the right word for it because state control of the economy and dictatorship go hand in hand.
Chavez keeps telling his people that the US is going to invade Venezuela.
Ironically it is the yet to be determined shakeout in Cuba that could invade Venezuela. Chavez might get the surprise of his life and the end if it.
This could get interesting. American motorists rely on Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDVSA), one of the top exporters of oil to the US through its subsidiary Citgo in the US. Citgo gas stations in the US might end up being owned by Cuba. This would be fascinating to watch.
No, dawg, I don’t know what you mean by term limits; kindly don’t presume to know what I mean. Do you mean limits on how long an individual can be leader of a political party? Since there are review processes, that’s up to the party, isn’t it?
The fact remains, that welfare fraud exists and not in miniscule amounts; what would YOU do about it?
By the way, there are ‘citizen’s information sites’ (which you refer to as ‘snitch lines’) in other areas. Income tax evasion, police informants, public broadcasting accuracy (heh), public work requirements, etc, etc. The role of peers in pressuring others to maintain ‘citizenship’ has always been vital in a society.
But, once you set up your population into adversarial class groups – as Chavez is doing, a typical communist strategy (see the Communist Manifesto..and Animal Farm)..well, then you are in trouble.
The US needs Venezualan oil? Ahh, how one-sided. Chavez needs to sell his oil, to someone with the economic clout to purchase it. Otherwise, how can he fund the working class followers?
Thanks for the data, irwin daisy. You provide the facts; dawg provides the utopian clouds.
a couple of good links from “The Devil’s Excrement” http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/
from yesterday, Mr.Chavez approved… “All of the assets neccessary to develop the activities of production, fabrication, import, storage, transport, distribution and commercialization of foodstuffs…” In a country that imports 80% of their food, this is an important ah… “development” anyone here NOT know what happens when a government is solely responsible for your food supply?
and from today, “The New York Times looks at the Chavez Royal Family”… and the +7000 acres farmland they have gained since Hugo came to roost. kinda reminds me of Mr.Magabe’s new estate in Zimbabwe
the past few days, Quico at http://caracaschronicles.blogspot.com has had a couple of “so simple it hurts” economic charts of the problem at hand here… as he states, “By the end of this post you will know more about economics than the Venezuelan government”
and sadly, it’s likely true.
Dr. Dawg says: “Maybe it’ll get inflation down without the need for war crimes. What say you?”
Government control of the economy including prices and wages? First time in history my friend. Didn’t work in Chile under Allende (I was there), indeed it didn’t work too well in Canada under Trudeau. They may as well put Hugo on the beach in a chair and tell him to command the tides to stop.
Do these socialists ever learn anything?
This is what the liberals had for us down the line. Nationalization of industry & co-opts (read collective farms) forced on people by judiciary or government mandate. They still have this agenda from China Moe & friends.
This South American Nation will turn into another North Korea or Zimbabwe. Both so called by liberal lovers, bastions of progressiveness.
This will end up in another killing fields before its over. The more it starts too fall apart the more harsh will be the response of the dogmatists to failure. Socialists just can’t believe their wonderful theories are full of crap . They do not work in the real world .
As history as proved by time plus the blood of the innocent, they never will. Its an anti-human system of control, with a false premise. Based on lack of understanding human nature or economics.
Watch for the typical purge ,than the disappearing of individuals connected with business, art, culture or any group not associated with the communists. Art will be the last to be attacked, but its inevitable when working with fanatics.
As we have seen like in Canada, basically they take over all communications or media. Nationalize them as well. In our case its done by the press themselves freely in order for future rewards invested in co-operation with the left.
Will the left here apologize for the mass murders sure to follow by their support as in North Vietnam, Cambodia. China over Tibet, Cuba, , Angola, Hamas, Hezbulla, Iran, the Congo, Zimbabwe? No! Being a communist means never saying your sorry.
The last is extremely obscene considering Mugabe was the lefts darling for so long & they worked so hard to undermine that Country for race’s sake. Now they have a survival rate of 37 as compared to 63 for a life span. Great progressive work lefties. You must be proud.
Since this devils plan of a dictatorship never works socially or cost-effectively, these ideological totalitarians than think it must be the people. How else could socialism fail?
Its the perfect Utopia in these monsters minds. So who becomes the target? Yup you guessed it. Anyone who disagrees with the left is a saboteur. After all it could never be socialism’s problem can it? Its “perfect“!!
Orwell was right. This is like seeing a real live version of animal farm being played out in front of our eye‘s.
Expect French citizen Dion to fawn all over this, to be Chavez’s bitch. As Trudeau was Fidel’s.
irwin daisy :
It’s hard to believe it could get worse. But it has gotten far, far worse, with the help of Chavez’s personal murder corps.
How right you are. When has any of these Leftist paradises ever gotten better, except to crumble much quicker when the egimes run out of people to kill. Excellent post. With some biting facts.
” Appearing live on national television, he called for the creation of “committees of social control,” essentially groups of his political supporters whose purpose would be to report on farmers, ranchers, supermarket owners and street vendors ”
Oh great! Quislings snitching on Mom and Pop and the neighbors…Government sanctioned Marxist vigilante gangs…how long til they’re armed?…how long til they start “rounding up” dissenters…er I mean… “liquidating” traitors to the socilaist state.
The pattern is long established:
1) Marxist utopian seizs power
2) Marxist utopian creates loyalty base among poor with promises of enriching them with the wealth of the Bougeoise
3) “Bougeoise” hide or take their wealth and productivity out of the Marxist utopian’s jurisdiction.
4) Marxist utopian “nationalizes” all formerly private “wealth” for the “collective” ( minerals, industry/land)
5) Marxist utopian sets rigid economic regulatory regimes for industrial, agrarian, natural resource productivity, nationalized finance( banking/currency systems)….world banking community does not back Utopian Marxist’s fait currency.
Marxist utopian discovers command economics cannot create national productivity required to float currency and he becomes despotic trying to make command economy work. Meanwhile he and officials skim the national treasury as megre as it is.
People have enough oppression and overthrow Marxist Utopian, but not before he extracts many lives in persuing his “command utopia”
This is the legacy of Latin American Marxism…there has never been a successful Communist nation in Latin America…and No, I don’t consider Cuba successful because they failed in their 4 attempts to assassinate Castro and Marxian command economics still stagnates the country….the Cuban revolution will occur after his death as western capitalism is allowed back into the country so their well educated but repressed poplation can profit from their skills.
Castro could never understand that a well educated population is of no use unless they are allowed to profit from their knowledge and expand the economy. A Cuban surgeon makes less than an Alabama Janator…that is not what I call success.
Just clicked through the backend of a Suzuki interview on the Weather Network. He was praising Sweden and Cuba.
“Everyone says whoa,but Castros a dictator, but he sent groups of highschool kids block by block and handed out flourescent lights” and then he lights up with a grin like he just saved the world. fade to black and then snowstorms across the country.
My turn.
Chavez, (just like Putin in Russia diddling around with Europe) is trying to throw his weight around because he has oil and he thinks this is his magic bullet to fight so-called American Imperialism. He’s also trying to push his weight around in South America.
He must be a good talker because he has somehow hoodwinked the people of Venezuaela. The people will eventually realize what’s going on and get rid of him.
There has been alot of change in SA in the last 10 years especially in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Peru. They all have got rid of former desperados and are becoming fiscally responsible and at the same time they’re reaching out to the poor.
I was in Brazil and Rio last Oct/Nov and was there when Lula got re-elected. There is poverty (nothing compared to stuff I’ve seen in India), crime and favelas and guys sleeping on the streets but everyone (including the richer classes) could see that Brazil was improving big time.
Brazil is next door to Venezuela, has a higher GDP per capita, with a much much bigger population. It won’t take long for Venezaelans to see that they made a big mistake (too bad they will have to wait 8 years for a change).
Dr. Dawg: “And so far, the rap against Chavez seems to be that he a) spends a lot of money on the poor, and b) is no admirer of Bush”.
Doc, I’m only going to deal with a). Lefties like you spend inordinate amounts of time admonishing for us to spend more, i.e. a lot of money on the poor. This is the solution to poverty you claim. Since Chavez has implemented your solution, how come the poor in Venezuela are still, well umm, er, poor?
Sorry, posted in wrong thread before.
“Don’t be shy, Dawg. Defend the good Hugo Chavez.
Posted by: Kate at February 17, 2007 11:32 PM”
I’m trying to think of at least one leftest dictatorship where large numbers of people did not simply just *disappear*. Can anybody name one?
Nationalization of businesses, eighteen months of rule- by-dictate, news-police, thought-police, price-police, neighborhood *watches*, followed by whatever-police. Yes, there will have to be a place provided for those who may disagree with this *progress*. Cheaper in the ground than above the ground, and safer for the ruling party.
I will make a prediction: Within the next three months Chavez will announce the move to *develope a nuke*, to protect Venezuela from the evil empire. Note this somewhere for future reference.
Since Chavez has implemented your solution, how come the poor in Venezuela are still, well umm, er, poor?
Takes time for the spending to trickle down through the fingers of those handing it out. A lot of time.
I have to agree with Dr.Dawg, Hogo Chavez is much more sophisticated than to murder people by the thousands and bury them with bulldozers in mass graves.
Maybe you should have mentioned massive crematoriums.Fuel is cheap in the People’s Paradise.
ol hoss
“Takes time for the spending to trickle down through the fingers of those handing it out. A lot of time.”
What incredibly faulty economic logic.
The poor will remain poor. The money trickles down, but prices continue to go up, so more money needs to trickle down, so prices increase even more, and so on and so on until there is no money left to tricle down and prices are unsustainable. Then what?
First, a sentence I didn’t finish reading. The family ranch near Sabaneta, called La Chavera, has been a frequent source of scrutiny for the political opposition, which contends. This is the basis for the “fact,” quoted above, about the “Chavez Royal Family” increasing its land holdings. An opposition contention. Whew.
ET, I don’t understand your “term limits” problem. I was referring to the same thing that the Globe and Mail was referring to–the number of times a President can hold office. There’s no need to make such heavy weather of it.
The murder rate in Caracas has increased, on the basis of which we are supposed to believe, through adroit conflation, that this is all state-sanctioned mass murder instead of gangsterism. Might we have some facts to bear this out, please?
As for the poor, the spending that I referred to has not eliminated poverty, but it has reduced it
More than 60% of Venezuelans now have free medical assistance. Food for poor families and prescription drugs are subsidized. Chavez has built housing, schools and clinics, increased literacy through more education spending, and abolished fees for public school attendance. Venezuela has one of the lowest infant mortality rates in Latin America.
Keep those cards and letters coming, folks.
Basic economics:
There are a finite number of resources (Land, Labour and Capital) and there is a (virtually) infinite demand for the products of those resources; being that Land and Labour can not be increased per person in your country (ethically) the only way to increase the standard of living in your country is to increase the amount of capital. (Most) Wealth redistribution takes capital away from people who know how to increase it and gives it to people who don’t know how to increase it.
The Libs are outraged at the suggestion that layoffs from kyoto will lead to depression ect.
Layoffs as a result of “corporate greed”, lead to a wide variety of social ills.
Layoffs as a result of Liberal boondoggles,
leads to happy people with more spare time on their hands.
Vote Liberal. Vote for happy unemployed people.
Venezuela will have its Red Guards and its cultural revolution like China and all dictator communist countries.They will also have mass starvation and mass graves unless the democratic countries step in.They will close their borders also so that the world cant see.As far as Venezuelans seeing how good Brazil is doing and want to emulate them,it sure has taken a long time for Saskatchewan to emulate Alberta.
Isn’t it ironic that Chavez is a constant critic of GWB, and Venezuela has been named as target by Al Queda. Was it Winston Churchill who said, “with capitalism, riches are shared unequally, with socialism, misery is equally shared?” Socialist around the world distort the free choices of people, with the resultant drop in productivity and wealth, and then declare they need even more of their “solution.” What socialist state has improved the economic and political liberty? Which aren’t elitist?
I don’t know what Venezuela’s future holds, but the socialist track record is not good.
look at the useful idiot twist his words around…u have been handed your lunch, bitch….go troll elsewhere…you are dealing with adults with real world experience….as the soup nazi would say….NEXT!
ol hoss
“Takes time for the spending to trickle down through the fingers of those handing it out. A lot of time.”
What incredibly faulty economic logic.
A little slow recognizing sarcasm, are we?
Kate: A very successful troll, kept me away from my deadlines for a while. Thanks for the workout–but you could use somewhat better-informed contrachavistas.
Kate: here’s a suggestion. Number the limit of comments from posters on a single thread. Unless you enjoy watching pissing matches?
“The murder rate in Caracas has increased, on the basis of which we are supposed to believe, through adroit conflation, that this is all state-sanctioned mass murder instead of gangsterism. Might we have some facts to bear this out, please?”
Dawg, are you being purposefully obtuse?
“By 2005, the increase in the murder rate was 301.76 per cent relative to 1998’s rate.”
And,
“The crime statistics are the inevitable result of a climate of violence instigated and promoted by the Chavez regime. Seven years of government actions, from the creation of an armed militia of supporters and the announced distribution of police firearms to “community base organisations” by the Mayor of Caracas, to the replacement of 80 per cent of the country’s judges with Chavez loyalists and the expulsion of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency’s officials from Venezuela, have contributed to creating the current situation.”
And,
“According to UNESCO, Venezuela is ranked first in the world in terms of deaths by firearms. Murders are the third cause of death overall in Venezuela, and the first cause of death among adult males”
But then, I posted this already. Facts as opposed to utopian feelings.
But looky here, more:
After the 2002 attempt to overthrow his government, Chavez changed tactics, taking on a larger role as protector of his people from the US. As such, he must continue to claim that the US will someday invade Venezuela and that they only thing that will keep the Yankees at bay is two million trained civilians.
The formation of a civilian militia gives physical presence and weight to Chavez’s rhetoric that the US will one day invade. Considering the many rumors of a palace coup and the shuffling of military commanders in Chavez’s top brass, however, the formation of a civilian militia looks more like another bulwark intended to protect himself against a military-led coup d’etat.
The only conventional army likely to threaten Chavez is Venezuela’s own military forces, the FAN. In the event of a successful FAN-orchestrated coup, two million hardcore supporters with military training could be ordered to drag the country into a civil war. Given the world’s dependence on Venezuelan oil, such a possibility would have serious international repercussions.
Chavez-controlled Militia The first week of March saw the beginning of a two million-strong reservists’ program, which Chavez has been talking about for years and officially announced on 14 April last year.
Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Benavides is in charge of training the instructors, who will in turn train the reservists. He has emphasized the art of guerrilla warfare. In an interview with the BBC, Benavides lined up a group of civilians to demonstrate the art of surprise in guerrilla warfare. “On the surface they look like ordinary people on the street. But if you look underneath their jackets, you will see they are hiding knives, catapults, and pistols,” the BBC quoted him as saying to an audience at the training grounds.
Taking lessons from the Viet Cong and the Cuban Revolution, Benavides will train officers to teach a volunteer militia how to conduct urban guerrilla warfare. The civilian militia adheres to the doctrine of asymmetrical warfare.
Harnessing a large force of militarily trained civilians to a doctrine of guerrilla warfare has many of Venezuela’s older generals confused because it is a doctrine not espoused by the FAN, nor is it a doctrine Chavez himself was trained when rising through the ranks of the Venezuelan military.
In training and military doctrine, the civilian militia will be completely separate from Venezuela’s traditional military rank and file. Additionally, the militia is not part of the traditional chain of command. Its leaders report directly to Chavez and no one else.
Oh, and this from the National Review:
On April 11, more than one million people spilled into the Venezuelan capital to protest the government of Hugo Chavez. It was an unprecedented occurrence in Venezuela’s history, both because of the size of this spontaneous event, and the ruthless, brutal, and intentionally malignant attack that followed. At least 50 innocent civilians were gunned down by the Círculos Bolivarianos a militia controlled by President Chavez (the Chavez government has yet to release the final tally and the names of the victims).
As they neared the presidential palace, singing the national anthem and dancing in the streets, the peaceful marchers were greeted with tear gas. Stunned and disoriented, those at the front of the crowd were sitting ducks for snipers placed atop government buildings (including the vice president’s office). The Circulos Bolivarianos were waiting on a bridge, armed with government-issued semiautomatic weapons. Censored television footage of the massacre shows elected government officials shooting repeatedly and randomly into the crowd. A pregnant woman was killed; hundreds began to panic as bullets found their way into the bodies of men, women, and even children. They were viciously murdered for the simple reason that they opposed Chavez.
Already Venezuela’s secret service, the DISIP, has accumulated thousands of files on every military officer, classifying them into those who support the “revolution” and those who remain loyal to the constitution. Those who disobeyed the order to shoot civilians will be removed.
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Now, I will ask you again – do you support state sanctioned mass-murder in order to bring forth Chavez’s “Socialism for the 21st century?”
Yes, or no?
Dawg- you are the one who introduced the subject of term limits. I, finally, understood you meant as leader – and said that was up to the political parties – so, what’s your point about it?
As for 60% of Venezualans now having ‘free’ medical treatment – no, they don’t. Someone pays for it. That’s part of the naive utopianism of socialists; they think that things can be free. No, they can’t. Who is paying those doctors and nurses and etc? The wealthy? How long can that last before they leave the country and the wealth is gone? The middle class? What middle class, if 60% of the population require ‘free’ medical service? And if you destroy your middle class, as Marx wanted you to – then, your country is in big trouble. Venezuala is on its way to becoming another Zimbabwe.
If there is increased gangsterism (and who is suggesting it’s state-murder??) – but if there’s increased gangsterism, that means that the economy has collapsed and it is getting too difficult to make a decent wage.
Now, as for your claims about ‘one of the lowest infant mortality rates’ – it’s 22% per 1,000 live births. Columbia is 20%, Ecuador is 23%. I’d say these are statistically equal. Argentina is 15%, Peru is 31%!!
Literacy? Columbia, Venezuala, Ecuador are all the same – 93%. So, what’s this about schooling?
Argentina is 97%. Peru – is 88%.
I won’t even mention Brazil- which has higher infant mortality and lower literacy, but is the dominant economic power in the region.
So, what’s going on? I think that Chavez is attacking the middle class – and that’s a serious problem. The middle class, of course, has no role in a socialist regime, but it’s vital in an industrial regime, which must be capitalist. I’d say that Chavez is folloiwng Marx’s Ten Steps to Communism. The problem with this, is that it is, as the Soviet Union and China and E. Europe realized – it’s disastrous. And N. Korea – heh.
…you could use somewhat better-informed contrachavistas.
Just like a leftard, demands to know the facts, and when nobody cares enough to take him by the hand and show them to him, declares he’s not the ignorant one.