[Baron Morte]

Originally Posted by Dante Hicks

Are you claiming he staged the 2002 coup? If so, can you provide evidence?

Or are you talking about the one which took place 15 years ago and was a failure?

No, i mean the institutional coup last week, where he received the infamous ermächtigunsgesetz, which roughly translates to 'habilitating law', meaning he no longer has to respect any of the other fundamental powers - legislative and judiciary - and will rule by decrees. Essentially the last straw to oficcialy settle a state of dictatorship

Given the context of Latin American political history generally, these hardly sound like particularly "nasty" things. Especially if you compare Venezuala to the bloody military dictatorships which have occurred in the past in Argentina, Chile and Brazil.

The world was completely different back then. Every bit of the world counted. Hundreds or Thousands or hundreds of thousands of americans and russians would die every time a forgotten corner of world would choose either to go left or right. Millions of locals would be killed in the process. It was battlefield Earth.

Chaves still lives in that world. He thinks the US and the world gives a crap about his political views and he also thinks that there is another pole to go to (mother russia?)
You seem to comprehend under developed countries as somewhat of a anoxic and static state of affairs where the riches **** up the poor, and they havent got a chance of turning the tides.

I wish it was like that

The problem is that every 30-40 years or so, someone thinks the current government is full of shit, and then he makes a military coup, or he wins the elections, or buy his way up the top, whatever, and when he reaches the top, he goes like 'everything done up to this day is shit and worthless, we will start from scratch' And off this person goes, destroyng the previous matrix of development before it sputters any significant growth.

On and on. Like here in brazil. we got the indepedence, then the king ran away with all our money to Portugal. His son proceeds to destroy the jesuits, which cared a lot about building schools and taming the wilds, and then he gets kicked out in 1889, and in the 1930s the previous democratic government is overthrown, only to be obliteraded in 1946 due to its links with the nazi-fascist regime, proceeding to 1962, when we got a parlamentarist government with leftist intents, and then we got the infamous 1964 military right coup, only to be overthrown with the 1988 constitution.



Every single of these changes involved fundamental changes in the way the state ran, the political axis was set, the scholar doutrination was prepared, the way our roads where paved and which position people made love.

Thus, no measure that takes more than 4 years or so to be completed is done. Our capital city, Brasilia, had to be made in only 4 years. This translated to rampant corruption, absolute abuses in relation to budget laws, elemetal problems with infraestructure, and, of course, an insidious defict which, amongst other things, lead to our colapse and subsequential dictatorship. Note that brasilia was built by a democratic government.

Hence, you gotta realise that politics, in developing countries, is 80% a tool to materialize one´s ambitions, and 20% measures to ensure the continuation of the government (good things).

Britain had its share of revolutions. 1 in the last millenium, am I right? 1069 put aside we got the change of rulers, not the change of goverments. What if britain had something like five 1069´s each century? Welcome to developing nations!

In conclusion, It does not matter if it is left, right, up, left down whatever. If our governments last more than one generation, we could stand a chance.

As for the Venezualan flag, where does it have his name on it? The changes which took place recently put the eighth star on and the coat of arms which does not have Chavez's name in it. Yes, the horse now points left instead of right....so what?

Put things in perspetive. What if Tatcher changed the flag to ' i hate punks' and then blair changed the flag to ' workers party rules' or something like that?
Its a political abomination, its an embarassement to the flag and to the country it represents, and a disgrace to the sense that government should attend to the concerns of the people, instead of a place for self promotion.

Defence spending is a waste and I would prefer it if governments did not spend their resources on such things, but I would point out that Venezuala spends less of their GDP on it's military than Brazil and far less than the United States.

brazil has active peacekeeping forces, it is an active member of UN, as the US. Hugo´s interests are self congratulation/masturbation.

To be honest your three "nasty things" are pretty feeble tbh, especially when viewed against the considerable gains in Venezuala which have been made in the provision of healthcare, literary programs, etc.

so here is a quote for you

Originally posted by Benjamin Franklin
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both

Its not for security, but the quote still applies. The little good that he may make does not make up for all the other losses.

May i add that these literary/educational programs are based on banning capitalist books and teaching the biased comunist doctrine?

These "puppet regimes" are both the results of democratic elections which saw an upsurge in populism. Yes, I'm sure the results in Venezuala influenced other elections, as people are seeing the potential in such movements.

'people' dont "see anything". Things are shown and explained to the people, including what they must do when they get to the voting ballots. Hitler did that and god knows that Hugo can do the same. Specially if you got a wallet full of petrodollars.

And besides what influence Venezuala does exert is a healthy counter-balance to the influence of the United States and Europe who traditionally have (at least tacitly) supported the old elites who have governed a region which despite considerable natural resources has grinding poverty for a good proportion of it's citizens. It's hilarious to hear people like Condoleezza Rice speak of Venezuala's interference with other countries affairs when the United States has thousands of occupying troops in other countries and has a long and shameful history in Latin America in particular of supporting which ever unsavoury regime is perceived to support their interests.

the difference is that hugo told Evo morales sever its ties to the rest of the world, leading bolivia in the absolute oblivion where forgotten and shitty countries like Myammar live. US put south korea and other asiatic tigers on the map, Japan and western germany on the top, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates on the civilized world (despite being surround by a sea of plain wrogness).
I would take my chances with the US in the blink of an eye.

As for the comparison with Castro, I agree upto a point (although one cannot over-simplify) but I would need see this as much of a criticism of Chavez.

You speak of nazi's but to be honest your reaction sounds like it fits Leon Trotsky's definition of fascism as "the petty-bourgeois run amok".

I have not heard such comment, though i wouldnt be surprised if this sentence were written by a sovjet official in some gullag