Sans the American Propaganda. He seems extremely progressive to me. He has done SO much for his people. He won't join the World Bank, so he's constantly the subject of repeat assassination attempts and overthrows both, CIA backed. He sets up free medical schooling, free medical care, free education among other things. i realize how more and more we truly are victims of the media.

dictatorship=progressive?

Sans the American Propaganda. He seems extremely progressive to me. He has done SO much for his people. He won't join the World Bank, so he's constantly the subject of repeat assassination attempts and overthrows both, CIA backed. He sets up free medical schooling, free medical care, free education among other things. i realize how more and more we truly are victims of the media.

Agree with the top part. Bottom part: nothing is free, just say put under government control or the public-sector. His biggest negative on my list is limiting media control in his own country.

The US hates him because he won't bow down to American imperialism. Hes also royally pissed off some big American capital (the oil companies) because he finally put a stop to the economic exploitation they've been perpetrating upon Venezuela regarding their natural resources for decades.

So naturally the American bourgeois press is churning out propaganda demonizing Chavez as a wannebe Stalinist who seeks to create a totalitarian dictatorship.

dictatorship=progressive?

Unfortunately for you Chavez isn't dictator. Maybe you should check out his electoral percentages - 62% in the last election I believe, some would call that a landslide victory. True he attempted to pass legislation which would give him an additional term as President (presuming he was voted in of course) but it was denied in a national referendum - after which he promptly (imposed martial law? took control anyway?) did nothing. Very dictator-like eh?

It's the same strategy in Iraq. Make the leader out to be off the handle or a threat and then 'deal with them'. The US already backed one coup against him in 2002. It's all because he's nationalizing the Venezuelan oil reserves and taking profits away from companies like Exxon Mobile to give back to the people with programs such as Barrio Adentro which provided 300 000 people in the barrios of Caracas with healthcare who never had it before. He also engages in oil for doctors deals with Cuba and other friendly countries - which the U.S. is none to happy about. His refusal to bow to the neoliberal reforms trying to be imposed by the IMF and Woldbank are another reason - and that he is trying to get other South American countries to do the same and take control of their own countries economies. If the U.S. doesn't do something soon - which they very well might - he may even get a South American Union of some sort on the go.

actually, i think chavez is actually a good statesman that, like all good statesman, wishes the best for his countrymen.

he aint that bad, a bit stubborn when trying to make talks with the west, but hes still ok

Latin American leaders who's policy is contrary to American corporate interests don't tend to last long. Roldos, Torrijos, Austin, Davila, Herrera, Guzman, Goulart, Allende and Noriega all suffered in some way, usually being overthrown in a coup where the opposition mysteriously gained shiny new toys. Chavez survived one coup, and as the US is so tied up in the middle east there's no chance of explicit force, the only thing left is a character assassination. Label him a dictator and go through all those old lines to undercut his popularity and credibility.

Basically, the "terrible" thing about Chavez is that he controls a significant amount of oil sold to the US, and as a Bolivarian socialist he wants to use it for the better of the Venezuelan poor. If that means cutting supplies to the US or increasing prices, then he has said he's prepared to do it. His other "terrible" trait is that he's built up a strong trade relationship with Iran, who the US have threatened to impose sanctions on if they don't stop the enrichment of Uranium.

When you nationalize industries, employing the masses becomes very very VERY hard. When the state is running an industry, everything suddenly has to become very efficient and small because the budget you are working with becomes very limited. That means just enough man power for the work force and very minimal overhead. So what happens to everyone else that isn't working? In all honesty, the government doesn't care. They only care enough to be elected back in. So if you don't fit the education level, age, or (sometimes) physical build to work in the city; your ass has to find some work out in the country side.

So what kind of work occurs in the country side of Venezuela that has the most promise of bring home money to feed the family and keep banging the wife? Gold. Venezuela has lots and lots of gold to be mined. How do they mine it? Dig massive holes into the ground with high pressure water hoses. The sediment then flows down slides and into rivers. On the slides there are globs of mercury for the gold to attach to and the rest of the sediment to flow over. The side effect of this? Mercury filled rivers which the poor wash their clothes in and bathe in. Mercury filled fish, which is eaten by the poor and sold on the market.

You would think in a socialist society, everything would be regulated right? Well, everything is regulated. But Chavez has a problem. The people digging huge craters into his country and filling its water full of mercury are the people that vote him into office. Once he starts actually regulating their actions for the sake of the country and its people's health, he will lose his office. Why not give those people other work to do? Well... as said before... there isn't because their industries are nationalized and there isn't enough money to pay more people than there already is. Chavez has to ignore this REALLY REALLY HUGE FUCKING problem he has. Either he lets his people destroy his country from the inside or he has to face a mob of peasants with starving children.

But its not like he can go back to privatizing Venezuela's industries. Once he does that, his land will be exploited by foreigners rather than their own. So, I guess, if someone is going to exploit their resources and people, it might as well be his own people.

We import oil from this country. They are not giving it to us for pennies on the dollar...

That is why you are told to hate this man.

I forgot to say why he is so terrible. To summarize my previous post, he is a man with no plan, but leads his people to believe he has one. Its just the reality of the matter that a plan is just not possible.

His biggest negative on my list is limiting media control in his own country.

If you have the opportunity, I suggest you watch a Venezuelan news program. After doing so, tell me he in any way censors the media.

If you have the opportunity, I suggest you watch a Venezuelan news program. After doing so, tell me he in any way censors the media.

QFT... From the upper middle class on up in Venezuela, people are Anti Chavez. Before him, they were doing really well. After he got elected in, their income growth became stagnant. The media in Venezuela is constantly railing against him. Some television news programs even just make shit up about him.

Nothing is bad about him, you are just told he's evil and associated with so-called terrorists by your government.

End of story.

Basically it's his inflammatory anti-US rhetoric and the fact that he proclaims his "friendship" with numerous US political adversaries such as Cuba, Iran, Russia, and Libya. Chavez doesn't really have any actual government policies that are explicitly and exclusively anti-US and which actually negatively affect the US in any substantial way.

In short, Chavez openly talks shit about the US and so the US responds by talking shit about him.

Well his words personally put me at risk. I was Part of Operation New Horizons a southcom humanitarian mission. This year in Peru we were down there building a few schools and clinics plus drilling wells things for the impoverished people around ayocucho. Papers supported by him would write that don't go to our free medical check ups they are going to give you aids or we are building prisons. They incited people to attempt to hijack the supplies for the clinics or the schools. They encited them to attack as well but that never happend. Luckily because we were unarmed except for our mp's who carried concealed pistols and the peruvian army escorts.