Venezuela Rejects US Sanctions, Evaluates Oil Supply to US

Have some perspective, if fox news supported an illegal minority coup by say... I don't know... Vanuatu which ultimately failed, and Fox news was shut down... legally.
If the opposition performed protests which wrecked the economy for a decade
If the opposition is operating with cooperation of foreign powers to overthrow the government or assassinate the leader
What if liberals were being given money by socialist powers to sway American politics?
If previous governments failed to educate, provide utilities, housing, or economic means for millions of people

People march around in the streets with shirts beckoning Chavez's death, they speak openly about hoping the CIA assassinates him, I have spoken with many and have a few in the family, accept it or not he is democratically elected, in any country that makes you a 'threat to the state' but given American backing they gain the monicker of 'opposition'. If you talked about killing the president in protests, on the phone, in email, on the internet, someones going to get hammered no matter where you are. In the US we can afford the political luxury of clucking our tongues at the rest of the planet and saying they just need more freedom or a more free market, unfortunately most countries have more pressing 'dilemmas' and planet earth isn't that simple.

Also Venezuela has been a ****ter for decades, as a child when I lived there we had power outages every few days, crap water, giant ghettos, etc. The economy tanked under Chavez because some folks though they would try and stop the entire country's economy for a while. :roll:

You can also walk in the ghettos without automatically getting shot, my dad is a blonde white man with ZERO Spanish and spent a day photo shooting in the barrios and had no issue. Crime had been consistently on the rise for a very long time and the police were recently reformed. Just zoom around venezuelanalysis.com | Venezuela News, Views, and Analysis on any topics you want, I can't be a messenger to a mob.

Jeezy said:

It operates under the likely assumption that Chavez won't retaliate, aside from some rhetoric at home. He makes far too much money selling oil at discount prices to the Northeast to jeopardize that now -- with American blessings, I might add. This is merely a symbolic gesture meant to say, "Don't get any ideas with Iran." That's why the sanctions are so ginger. If we were really operating under the assumption that he won't retaliate, we'd just give him the Cuba treatment.

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Nobody likes getting pushed around and Chavez definitely has the sort of ego that doesn't like such behavior. The likely result is that Iran and Venezuela move closer together. It also makes selling to China more appealing. Venezuela and Iran are both countries that were made into enemies through heavy-handed stupidity. We can't fix past mistakes by repeating them.

@SE102
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...but what does that have to do with my argument? I've already acknowledged that the Fedemarcas are who they are. You ought to acknowledge that Chavez is who he is; a president who legalized the army's role as "preserver of the peace", made the horse on the Venezuelan coat of arms face left rather than right, and intimidates judges who rule against him. This is not a debate about whether the Chavistas or Coordinadora Democrática should rule Venezuela. This is about Chavez, and his effectiveness.

I am fully aware of the context. I know the deal behind the 2002 coup attempt. I know that the TV stations virtually blacked him out. But I refuse to give the man any credit while simultaneously writing off his all faults as being products of the environment. That would be hypocritical.

Honestly, the only TRULY good thing he did that I can credit him for is forcing PDVSA to pay government royalties at pre-depression levels, which is how it should have been under a CAPITALIST system.

Aside from that, everything else is petrodollars, just like it was in the 70s. Only now it is accompanied with disturbing socialist rhetoric. Disturbing socialist rhetoric that is present on that website.

@rathi

Hoo-boy...the story of how Iran was made into an enemy is a long one, dating back to 1908, and probably earlier. It's not quite as simple as your post implies. I'd love to get into it but I'm lazy and should be studying.

SE102 said:

Also Venezuela has been a ****ter for decades, as a child when I lived there we had power outages every few days, crap water, giant ghettos, etc. The economy tanked under Chavez because some folks though they would try and stop the entire country's economy for a while. :roll:

You can also walk in the ghettos without automatically getting shot, my dad is a blonde white man with ZERO Spanish and spent a day photo shooting in the barrios and had no issue. Crime had been consistently on the rise for a very long time and the police were recently reformed. Just zoom around venezuelanalysis.com | Venezuela News, Views, and Analysis on any topics you want, I can't be a messenger to a mob.

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It depens how far you go back. Venezuela in 1950 before democracy was way better. For instance watch this video. What I like about this video is that I have driven on the same roads and the difference is huge.


However, Venezuela was probably even worse in 1990, but it was left wing politicans who were controlling the country, not right wing politicans. How many times did COPEI have the power? What about AD and other left wing parties? Even though Chavez has improved a few things in power, Venezuela could do so much better and the future prospects are grim because there is a huge capital flight due to Chavez and his reliance on oil. Take a look at Chile. Chile don't have oil, Venezeuela do. Still Chile is way richer than Venezuela and was able to handle the financial crisis much better.

And maybe your dad did that, but it's not safe at all. When I was there you could see people standing on the main street trying to lure people off the main street so they could rob them. Also, crime statistics show that Caracas is dangerious outside the safe zones. And lastly, what functioning country has most of it's population living in slums?

Officially there were 895 kidnappings in Venezuela last year. However, a government survey, suppressed by president Hugo Chavez, suggests that the real figure may be closer to 17,000 - 48 abductions every day - with policemen among the principal kidnappers.

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Venezuela: Police corruption blamed for kidnapping epidemic - Scotsman.com News

EL TIGRE, Venezuela — Soaring food prices are forcing many Venezuelans to change their eating habits, trim their shopping lists and set aside more of their earnings to feed their families.

The oil-exporting country is coping with one of the highest inflation rates in the world: 22.9 percent as of last month, and food prices are rising even faster.

“It’s gotten 100 percent worse,” said Evelyn Villamizar, a 29-year-old student who is raising a 5-year-old son in a poor barrio of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. She said she feels “strangled by the prices."

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Venezuelans struggle to cope with soaring food prices, inflation tops Latin America - The Washington Post

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, May 19 (UPI) -- The need for democratic reform in Latin America is felt nowhere as acutely as in Cuba and Venezuela, European and South American lawmakers meeting in Uruguay's capital concluded after two days of talks.

In Venezuela, suppression of liberties was compounded by the government of President Hugo Chavez failing to make a distinction between government and state institutions. A frequent complaint against Chavez is that his aides regularly negate public expectations of the government keeping its hands off state institutions.

Venezuelan ruling party policies were seen by lawmakers to be abusing state institutions for partisan gain

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Lawmakers urge democratic reforms in Cuba, Venezuela - UPI.com

Yeah, things are going along just swimmingly in the Bolivarian Republic...