Hugo Chavez passes away

[El Kabong]

How I Spent My Time in Hugo Chávez's Venezuela

An interesting read from a former radical

[Mars_ax]

@Kirkland Laing,

If I could, i'd piss on Chavez' grave, as well as any other South American anti-American dictator. What makes Chavez any different from Cuba's Castro, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or any other sworn enemy of the U.S?

...ummm he "wanted to help the poor" ...DUH! it's completely erroneous that the man simply pocketed the cash from nationalizing oil fields, he wanted to help the poor.....he had good intentions man...and by God that counts for something eh comrade?

What you've got to remember is, it's all Bush's and/or America's fault that Chavez stole 100's of millions that never funneled down to the poor.

[El Kabong]

What you've got to remember is, it's all Bush's and/or America's fault that Chavez stole 100's of millions that never funneled down to the poor.

.....BILLIONS....2 of them

[Mars_ax]

Hopefully Venezuela will get a new less corrupt leader, with an IQ above room temperature.

[VictorCharlie]

It will be interesting to see if the VP is able to have the same cult of personality

[El Kabong]

It will be interesting to see if the VP is able to have the same cult of personality

Hand picked successors sometimes lose out to ambitious people waiting for their shot. Trotsky and Stalin come to mind.

[TitoFan]

Ooops.... em-barr-assing........


Citgo lowers US flag to half staff in Chavez tribute

[El Kabong]

APA - Venezuela Bans Alcohol for Period of Chavez Mourning


I guess they want people openly weeping in the streets....this is inhumane!!!

[Kirkland Laing]

@Kirkland Laing ,

If I could, i'd piss on Chavez' grave, as well as any other South American anti-American dictator. What makes Chavez any different from Cuba's Castro, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or any other sworn enemy of the U.S?

For one thing he won a popular election with a gigantic majority and then got re-elected every four years. As a general rule dictators don't hold democratic elections.

And like I said, Chavez is only known to Americans because he tried to get something close to a fair price -- more than 1%! -- of the oil they were pumping out of the country. If he'd left the oil situation alone you'd never have heard of him.

[Kirkland Laing]

@Kirkland Laing ,

If I could, i'd piss on Chavez' grave, as well as any other South American anti-American dictator. What makes Chavez any different from Cuba's Castro, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or any other sworn enemy of the U.S?

...ummm he "wanted to help the poor" ...DUH! it's completely erroneous that the man simply pocketed the cash from nationalizing oil fields, he wanted to help the poor.....he had good intentions man...and by God that counts for something eh comrade?

What you've got to remember is, it's all Bush's and/or America's fault that Chavez stole 100's of millions that never funneled down to the poor.

I'm not sure Chavez stole hundreds of millions. He certainly set his family up with various lucrative business opportunities in the part of Venezuela he comes from. And there was defnitely massive corruption in the Chavez government. But this is Venezuela we're talking about, a banana republic that used to be run by a few dozen families who used to keep all the dough, it's not going to become Switzerland in five minutes is it? Two-thirds of Venezuelans didn't even have electricity when Chavez came to power. Now the country has electricity, education, healthcare and so on. That would never have happened under the previous regimes.

So you're unaccountably hating a guy who did absolutely immense good in his own country because of stuff you read in the liberal media. It's amazing how powerful those guys are.

[Mars_ax]

@Kirkland Laing ,

If I could, i'd piss on Chavez' grave, as well as any other South American anti-American dictator. What makes Chavez any different from Cuba's Castro, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or any other sworn enemy of the U.S?

...ummm he "wanted to help the poor" ...DUH! it's completely erroneous that the man simply pocketed the cash from nationalizing oil fields, he wanted to help the poor.....he had good intentions man...and by God that counts for something eh comrade?

What you've got to remember is, it's all Bush's and/or America's fault that Chavez stole 100's of millions that never funneled down to the poor.

I'm not sure Chavez stole hundreds of millions. He certainly set his family up with various lucrative business opportunities in the part of Venezuela he comes from. And there was defnitely massive corruption in the Chavez government. But this is Venezuela we're talking about, a banana republic that used to be run by a few dozen families who used to keep all the dough, it's not going to become Switzerland in five minutes is it? Two-thirds of Venezuelans didn't even have electricity when Chavez came to power. Now the country has electricity, education, healthcare and so on. That would never have happened under the previous regimes.

So you're unaccountably hating a guy who did absolutely immense good in his own country because of stuff you read in the liberal media. It's amazing how powerful those guys are.

Why do you think, me Lyle and Charlie, et al, are just parroting what the liberal media barfs up, and not expressing our own opinions? That's seems especially lame, since none of us are liberals?

As for hating Chavez, not really, I just have no respect for cock-waving dictators who are sworn enemies of the U.S.

[El Kabong]

OK, allow me to get this straight. Venezuela is a "Banana Republic", There was "Massive corruption in the Chavez government", but there he was "democratically elected"? So this guy in a corrupt country with a corrupt regime got elected and it was 100% on the up & up


As for the economy....5 Ways Chavez Has Destroyed the Venezuelan Economy - ABC News

[El Kabong]

Like most of the guys in Latin, Central, & South America Chavez loved to talk a big game, but in reality with his nation dependent on exporting vast amounts of oil he didn't want to step out of line with the United States. He was never going to attack us or anything like that, he might try to subvert us he attempted to do so with the Occupy Wall Street movement but he was 0 threat to the United States and he knew it, he just wanted to look like a big guy to his people so they wouldn't go Il Duce on his ass and string his fat ass up on a light pole....they DO have light poles in Venezuela verdad?

[TitoFan]

At the risk of being told I'm "sitting on the fence", here's an article that talks of both the good and the bad of Hugo Chavez. For the record, and as I've stated before, I personally met several professional, middle-class Venezuelans who emigrated to Puerto Rico... who had more bad stories to tell than good.


Hugo Chavez dies of cancer: a mixed legacy for Venezuela | Left Foot Forward

[El Kabong]

At the risk of being told I'm "sitting on the fence", here's an article that talks of both the good and the bad of Hugo Chavez. For the record, and as I've stated before, I personally met several professional, middle-class Venezuelans who emigrated to Puerto Rico... who had more bad stories to tell than good.


Hugo Chavez dies of cancer: a mixed legacy for Venezuela | Left Foot Forward

Please tell us some of these stories....Kirkland might learn something