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.

------------

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.

Ahh socialism, we can all be poor and hungry together.

Remember Mugabe a few years ago when he chucked the white farmers out, the Left were applauding, everyone else was saying, the country will be begging in a few years, well look what happened.

If Bush got rid of term limits , can you imagine the uproar????

Jeezus Dr. Dawg, you actually live amongst us? Where did we go wrong?

daisy:

I have yet to see any connection made, other than by assertion, between the murder rate in Caracas and the regime of Hugo Chavez. When you read about who's getting killed, it's not the rich, other than well-heeled tourists. So again I ask (and this is for your benefit too, ET, since you asked who had raised this): where is the evidence (not assertion, not interpretation) that the murders in Caracas are politically inspired?

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).

Aw, not that nonsense again. Turns out, and hate to break it to you, that much of this shooting was carried out by the contrachavistas-- half of those killed were demonstrating for Chavez. And during the subsequent short-lived coup, even more pro-Chavez people were shot.

ET:

I don't understand your quibble about the literacy and infant mortality stats. I didn't claim the highest and the lowest, respectively: I claimed "one of," and we're talking Latin America. Venezuela isn't as good as Cuba in either respect, of course (97% and 6.22/1000), but it's up there. "One of" is entirely justified. And, of course, the salient point is that the first increased and the second decreased under Chavez.

The wealth of Venezuela is primarily petrodollars. Much of that wealth is being spent upon social programs. Compare with Bolivia, which sits on the second-largest gas reserves in Latin America, the profits from which, until recently, simply flowed out of the country, leaving the inhabitants with the lowest per capita income in Latin America ($2,600 per annum).

Chavez the killer "In December 1999, the new constitution was approved. On December 15, after weeks of heavy rain, statewide mudslides claimed the lives of an estimated 30,000 people. Critics claim Chávez was distracted by the referendum and that the government ignored a civil defense report, calling for emergency measures, issued the day the floods struck.[31] The government rejected these claims.[31] Chávez personally led the relief effort afterwards.[32]"

...gee if I say something really airheaded and left winged, do I get my own blogstream on Kate's site?

Oh, already have one...called "reader's tips".

*sigh*

There are, basically, two types of people - those who shudder at the phrase "committees of social control" and those who try to justify this type of fascism. It's best to know how these malign loons think, and good to know their lunatic ideas have little currency in a modern society.

Dawg: If you believe Cuban statistics, you'll believe anything.

ET: "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."

"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...."

ET, with respect, you don't understand even the basics of marxism. (This isn't an insult. You're obviously intelligent and we all have areas of ignorance.) There's an annotated "Communist Manifesto" put out by Haymarket Press. I recommend it highly.

p.s. I have vowed to stay away from here; I was wasting too much time. But I wrote this in a weak moment on a rare afternoon off.

So Dawg, when's Prince Hugo signing onto Kyoto? Lets see him reduce his CO2 to -6% 1990 levels... then we'll see how free Health Care is.

Dawg and other leftards don't realize that they are living in or beside capitalist countries with excellent standards of living which don't require stupidity like supreme leaders, economic planning, and we're all free to march in the streets.

Capitalism time and time again = high standards of living without requiring public muzzling or supreme leader Princes. Live it.

rebarbarian:

Those statistics (*cough*) were from the CIA Factbook.

Look Dawg,

I had some respect for your ability to reason, but no longer.

From the time Chavez took power, the murder rate increased 300%. Now, you can say that's all gang related. And I suppose I might agree that some of it probably is. However, the fact is that Chavez has 2 million armed and trained gorillas in his own personal militia - with the leaders reporting directly to him.

This militia is responsible for a significant number of deaths, and that is a reported fact. Now, since this is a totalitarian regime, not all the reports are forthcoming. Nor is that to be expected, when Chavez controls the media, either through the state, or through intimidation.

The only examples of this type of secret and personal militia being mounted in history are all from communist or fascist regimes. And every single one is responsible for large numbers of innocent civilians and political opponents being murdered.

Chavez would not have this personal militia if he didn't intend to use it to intimidate, not just the opposition, but the population in general.

To assume that a proportion of Venezuelas murders are not political is disingenuous, to say the least.

Now, I will ask you again, do you support mass-murder in order to bring forth Chavez's "Socialism for the 21st century?"

And stop dodging the question.

Thanks for the workout--but you could use somewhat better-informed contrachavistas.

Shriek!!! You and your commie-pinko-socialist 50 dollar words. My redneck brain can't aborb them.

Dawg,

Your continued avoidance has answered the question for all to see.

I'm retiring from this thread.

daisy:

This militia is responsible for a significant number of deaths, and that is a reported fact. Now, since this is a totalitarian regime, not all the reports are forthcoming. Nor is that to be expected, when Chavez controls the media, either through the state, or through intimidation.

I know you keep saying this, although now we're talking "a proportion of Venezuela's murders," but where is the damned evidence? I keep asking for it, and then you have the nerve to accuse me of dodging the question?

Do I support mass-murder? Well, gee, no, I don't. Now it's your turn: who are the victims in Caracas? Rich people?

And, for good measure: would gun control be a solution here?

Exile, as the former leader of the Polish Communist Party, Leszek Kolakowski, said:
"All of Marx's important prophecies turned out to be false.
1) Under capitalism, the rate of profit has failed to decline, even while more and more capital has been accumulated over the centuries.
2) The working class has not fallen into greater and greater misery. Wages have risen substantially above the subsistence level. The industrial nations have seen a dramatic rise in the standard of living of the average worker. The middle class has not disappeared, but has expanded. As Paul Samuelson concludes, 'The immiserization of the working class... simply never took place. As a prophet, Marx was colossally unlucky and his sytem colassaly useless.'
3) There is little evidence of increased concentration of industries in advanced capitalistic societies.
4) Socialist utopian societies have not flourished, nor has the proletarian revolution inevitably occurred.
5) Despite the business cycle and even the occasional Great Depression, capitalism seems to be flourishing as never before."
-- The Making of Modern Economics, by Mark Skousen

In any event, in today's world a checker at the grocery store very well might have an index mutual fund like the S&P 500 in his or her retirement portfolio -- almost everyone is a capitalist, and the distinctions between capital and labor no longer apply.

If in fact the world was following a Marxist model, then capitalism would have to run its course and finally turn into a socialist utopia after this course was completed. Inasmuch as this would mean that socialism would evolve in some kind of future Star Trek universe when we have satellites around the moons of Jupiter, perhaps we could just idly wait to see if it actually happened.

However, Marx went on to say that Communism could be forced through by virtue of revolution, and this is of course absurd and will never be permitted.

Anyway, this is all passe and as far as Chavez goes, if I were him, I would have trouble sleeping nights because I would realize that the CIA was closely scrutinizing all my activities.

Yoop said: "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"

No doubt Chavez is the type of contrary ideologue to do it and Bush and people like Bush (who basically run US security without the help of congress)dearly hope that some fucktard commie starts a nuke program on the north American continent so they can make a definitive modern statement about which "power" is dominent in North America....Casto had a sainted escape due only to forst time "jitters" of the US in dealing with Nuke threats close to home...those that come after him will be dealing with certain preemptive agression towards nukes.

This would be a very moronic thing to for a latin commie leader to even joke about out loud with the way the US has gone "armed camp" on global a-holes.

None the less I'd love to see Chavez shoot his mouth off about entertaining a WMD program ;-)

dawg - so what if the stats are from the CIA factbook? It's a valid source of stats

exile - show me that I don't understand marxism; don't just state it. Prove it.

Marx specifically outlined the middle class as an attribute of capitalism. Since capitalism was to disappear as we moved beyond it to the glories of socialism and communism, so would the middle class - but its continued existence and even increase in size led to quite the debates and arguments (Berstein, Renner, Wright and Marcuse, Braverman).

How about this, to describe Chavez
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class".
Hmmm.

The problem is, "of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production"..etc, etc.

Seems to me that Chavez is Working By The Book (Communist Manifesto).

As for the robustness of an economy being defined by infant mortality - that's a legitimate value, as is the literacy percentage. But there are other stats to explore. The per capita GDP of Venezuala is 6,900; that of Peru - with that lower literacy and higher infant mortality, is close, at 6,400. Inflation is pretty bad there, akin to countries in war zones (Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan). Why is that? And a major problem they have to deal with is their reliance on one product - oil.
The CIA Factbook has it all.

ET:

C'mon, try to keep up. Rebarbarian was accusing me of using Cuban stats re literacy and infant mortality rates. I quoted those stats from the CIA Factbook.

Dawg; so from now on CIA facts are indisputable?

What's the point of a 97% literacy rate (which I seriously doubt anyway) if you can only read what the government tells you? Cuba is a colourful dump, but a dump just the same.

Good question, though: if it is such a great place, why not go live there, Dawg? Help out the folks in a gesture of solidarity. What good are you doing them trolling around here, you decadent dillitante boogie? :-)

Rebarbarian: I haven't had that much difficulty with raw data from the CIA Factbook, but stop shifting the goalposts, dang it!

Kathy: Hey, I'm the one who was trolled here. Stop blaming the victim! :)

This is a terrific site outlining the on-going human rights abuses and various levels of political persecution current under the regime of Uncle Hugo - http://infovenezuela.org/cap5_en_7.htm

All the things happening in Venezuala are highly predictable to those who have seen it before. Back in the days when I used to have time to while away spending evenings in political arguments, I used to know some very ernest leftist types who would periodically go to S. America and try to better the lot of poor peasants. Back then the primary things holding back the peasantry, in their opinion, were the residue of colonialism and Amerikan imperialism. At the time I couldn't pick apart their arguments as I would have to agree that the small scale efforts they were making were making people's lives better. I had a gut feeling that there was something missing and it only occurred to me a few years ago. The missing link: socialism doesn't scale very well.

Socialism may be fine in small self-selected groups of people, but once one gets beyond a few hundred people, socialism simply breaks. It's like trying to use a bubble sort algorithm to quickly sort sets of a few million elements. When dealing with large numbers of people, free markets are the only type of system that is able to scale efficiently in dealing with populations of a few thousand to billions.

I really wish I had thought of this argument 30 years ago.

OK, OK, dawg...I'm trying to keep up (pant, pant) ..I'm only a tiny daschund; I know you're a glorious Great Dane..I'm trying..trying..But that's it for tonight. Cheers.

Same here, ET. It's off to my mat I go. :)

Next year "Venezuela Burning"?

In your recent poll about Suzuki's hypothetecal destruction of the Canadian economy, I agonized over whether to choose Zimbabwe or Venezuela. Now I see that they are the same choice.

I like Maggie Thatchers definition of poor....

"Ten years ago, the rich people did not have VCR's. Now the poor people have them. So what is a poor person? Someone who is getting rich slower."

What every Marxist dictator forgets is that he has to have a few capitalists around to keep to coffers topped up. Even Lorne Calvert has figured this one out.

Well, let's make it a party. Since we've got Schnauzers, Dachshunds, and Great Dane's, I see your dog, and raise you one Keeshond - my dog Spook: tinyurl.com/2cm3an - Spook & I have a lot in common, and I have a lot of respect for critters that have better fur than I do, hirsute though I may be.

read all.
dr dwag or something like that.
why you puting dr on front?
you are (after reading all the comments) plain and simple f...d nut.

Kate:

Your combox signal-to-noise ratio hasn't improved, I see.

S/N has been doing fine, except when some people come here and use non-words like combox.

Language evolves.

Yes, it does, and when combox enters the dictionaries, we will be able to conclude that natural selection favours said mutation of letters being elevated to the status of a word. In the interim, its meaning is not well defined, and is not commonly understood by non-practitioners of the so-called "hip" jargon, ergo it lowers the S/N ratio of the general conversation. Since we're off topic, I'll spare you a more general explanation of polite social behaviour, and leave it at that.

Hands up any blog-frequenter who has never heard the word "combox" before, referring to a blog's comments section.

No? Didn't think so.

Out of deference to Kate, I'll cease being OT, and will avoid referring to the pompous prattery of my OT interlocutor.

Dawg:
I am from a former socialist country. We had exactly the list of problems that Venezuela is facing. Shortage of food and everything, black market, crime spiraling out of control, you name it. It is so familiar. The solution was the reforms. Everybody is getting richer in the country today, there is surplus of goods and business is booming. If you still have doubts, you really should move to Venezuela - we don't want socialists in Canada. At least I don't - never again.

Aaron:

Venezuela has the fastest growing economy in South America. Go figure, eh? Must be in spite of socialism.

Incidentally, Vitty, I meant "prescriptivism." "Prattery" isn't even a word, fer cryin' out loud.

Vitty? Do you ever see me renaming you, sir? Of course prattery isn't a word, but since we were already off topic, I chose to be polite about it and not mention it. Really, you are the height of rudeness.

Must be in spite of socialism.

Heh, this is the second time I've noticed a leftard be accidentally right.

Typical of a tyrant maybe someone should indeed consiter putting a bullet between that swaggering jerks eyes

hyperinflation is like acceleration due to gravity.

it will have its way. there are things one can do if you understand its true nature, simply pulling rank, issuing an edict that it will 'stop' DOESNT CUT IT.

rescinding economic fundamentals like supply and demand curves you may as well attempt to rescind the laws of gravity.

The facts just keep, er, bulldozing on, leaving the regulars sputtering in their wake. Now inflation is mentioned--another product of socialism, 17% or so a year, right?

But no squawking when, under the old system, it was many times that. How does 70% a year grab you?

h/t to Robert for that one, by the way: more at his place.

Hmm. My arguments, based on facts, which I cite here with sources, versus the Right’s arguments:

foamy-mouthed moonbat
born again commie fanatic
decadent left
leftard
useful idiot
bitch
airheaded and left winged
malign loon
commie-pinko-socialist
f...d nut [sic]

I win.

I win.

Competition only works in the leftard world if they are their own judge.

Venezuela has the fastest growing economy in South America. Go figure, eh? Must be in spite of socialism.

Indeed. Funny what throwing around a lot of windfall resource-sector profits on various ad-hoc initiatives can apparently do, eh? But looking closer, this is "growth" built on quicksand.

The quicksand would appear to be some way off.

But I take your point, Dudley. The endless flow of petrodollars allows much to be done for both poor Venezuelans and for surrounding countries without worrying about the invisible hand of the marketplace.

Man, you've used both FAIR and ZMag as sources, founts of credibility that they are? Come on, you can do better than that.

But anyway: clearly the influx of petrodollars isn't doing such a good job of keeping The Invisible Hand of economic reality at bay - as the story Kate originally posted shows.

FAIR isn't a bad reference--no apologies for using it. The ZMag one was just to back up the statement about the sheer size of Venezuela's oil reserves. Is that claim in error?

In any case, we shall soon see how long these food "shortages" go on (this isn't about shortages, but about hoarding).

The Mercal supermarkets are still a going concern, and Chavez is making some effort to be a little less ham-handed at present on the issue of pricing.

In terms of your 9:14 AM comment, you are right, Dawg, you won. I have never seen you call people, or groups of people, names, or use cheap perjoratives. Those self-indulgent tactics, seen frequently on blogs left and right, not only convince no one who is not convinced, but make the convinced question their convictions. You avoid that approach comprehensively, which is a real and worthy achievement I respect you for.

But there's also the niggling matter of what it is, exactly, that you defend.

When Chavez strutted around at the UN like an armed comic, and sniffed the air, and called a world leader "Satan", to the amusement of selected member states, I'm just wondering, if we are to assume that peace and international cooperation are the goal, did that sort of language bother you, or seem unproductive?

When Chavez makes lewd, macho, half-wit, sexually insinuating sing-song remarks calling out a high-ranking female official of another government -- Condoleeza Rice in this case -- in a language that suggests a rape threat, don't you think you should look at the man, take him at face value, and concede the unbridgeable gap between you two?
We already know you don't like perjoratives and name-calling, since you point out your lack of same as evidence of a victory that's political in some manner of self-description.

It seems to me that Chavez's tone -- the way he panders to grievance, real or perceived, and uses language predicated on hatred and threats and villification and, ultimately, self-pleasure -- has generally not been a sign of good things to come. Historically speaking.

It's hard to tell if you are defending reasonableness itself from those who don't have any good arguments, defending Chavez against unreasonable arguments, or defending Chavez, the man the plan.

Would you describe yourself as a Chavez supporter, more or less? I know you aren't active on his behalf, and that you can't vote for him, etc etc, I'm just wondering, do you agree, more or less, with his objectives and tactics?

Thank you EBD. In response to your questions, which I reflected upon while walking the dog this morning. I would indeed see myself as a Chavez supporter, more or less. No point beating around the bush on that, no pun intended. But let me enlarge a bit.

Chavez is a left-wing version of Don Cherry--colourful, full of himself, pretty blunt and direct, and often provocative for the sake of being provocative. I can see why he reduces the Right to spluttering rage. But, of far more importance, he is standing up to traditional US hegemony in South America--and on what the latter has meant, read some of Eduardo Galeano's meticulously researched material in The Open Veins of Latin America, and his lyrical trilogy, Memory of Fire.

What galls the Right is that Chavez has limitless supplies of money to do that, and that he is wildly popular and keeps winning elections. He has been spreading his not inconsiderable largesse to surrounding poorer countries, setting up an independent television network, and giving his people far better access to education and medical care and drugs.

Now, Chavez can certainly act ham-handedly. But I don't see him trying to rule cheap food into being for much longer. Command-and-control doesn't work in an economy except in the short term. On the political front, I have already said that I cannot support rule by decree, but this has been used in the past by other Venezuelan presidents without a chorus of media outrage, so there's something a little selective in the current disapproval. Finally, if the recall petition names are really being used to screen Venezuelans out of jobs and so on, that is obviously way wrong: but it appears that complaints in this respect are being investigated by an outside agency, so we shall see.

To sum up, what I see in Chavez is a person genuinely wanting alternative economic and social arrangements, including a vast redistribution of wealth, and having the means to carry this forward. He stands against the natural order of things: the US in control, comprador governments keeping the peons in line for a few crumbs, and impoverished people sitting on mountains of natural resources.

All this, frankly, pisses a lot of people off. And I like that, I must admit. His style is not mine, but I will confess to having gotten a chuckle out of his brash take-no-sh*t-from-anyone-especially-Bush public outings. And, far more importantly, I like what he is trying to do in Venezuela, bumps in the road notwithstanding.