Dark day for Venezuela

[Scrapheap]

Chavez is nationalizing everything in sight. He's taking the last of the oil companies and threatening to take the banks as well as steel industry too.

The jaws of his trap are closing another country falls to Dictatorship. Where's RobertN to celebrate the humane and just efforts of his socialist comrade??

[Calandale]

Hugo da man!

[DirtDawg]

Giuliani Assails Venezuela's Chavez
By LIZ SIDOTI

The Associated Press

May 01, 2007

Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, whose law firm represents an American subsidiary of a Hugo Chavez-controlled oil company, said Tuesday that the socialist Venezuelan president is dangerous to U.S. interests.

In a speech to Hispanic small business leaders, the Republican brought up Chavez while discussing ways the United States could become free from its reliance on foreign oil.

'Isn't it annoying, upsetting and even in some cases a matter of national security that we have to send money to our enemies?' Giuliani asked. 'We need a president who knows how to get things done so we don't have to be sending money to Chavez.'

Giuliani called for the United States to develop alternative energy sources and take advantage of oil already in its control. He said that antagonistic leaders of oil-rich nations, like Chavez, would have 'little power' if the United States could stop buying oil from them.

'Who would listen to Chavez if he didn't have all this oil money? Nobody would listen to him,' Giuliani said.

He said Chavez's social programs and those of Cuban leader Fidel Castro 'keep people in poverty' and 'keep people dependent.'

Giuliani argued that 'astounding' unemployment levels show that the Venezuelan president isn't using his oil revenues to help his own countrymen.

The former New York City mayor spoke to The Latino Coalition's small business economic summit the same day that Chavez's government took over the last privately run oil fields in Venezuela, one of the world's top oil exporters.

Petroleos de Venezuela, the country's national oil company that Chavez controls, bought U.S.-based Citgo Petroleum Corp. in 1990. The Houston law firm now known as Bracewell & Giuliani has represented Citgo in matters involving the Texas legislature since 2005.

Giuliani's campaign says he does no lobbying for Citgo and he joined the law firm after it was already involved with the company. He has been defending the relationship for weeks, saying the firm represents a U.S. company that employs thousands of people in the United States.

'I feel perfect freedom to point out that Hugo Chavez is a person who's acting against the interests of the United States. He's someone where we'd be in a much better position if we could cut him off. If we could say we don't want or need Venezuelan oil,' Giuliani told reporters after the speech. 'I don't think there's anyone that's more outspoken about how dangerous I think he is.'

Chavez, who says he wants to steer Venezuela toward socialism, is a strident critic of U.S.-style capitalism and a leader of the leftist movement in Latin America. Chavez has denounced President Bush as 'the devil.'

I saw stories about Chavez everywhere this morning, but they seem to have fallen off the pages rather quickly for something of this magnitude.

[duncvis]

I'd rather see the people of Venezuela owning the oilfields than some fucking corporation. On balance I quite like Chavez; however the sort of decentralisation of power and checks and balances to stop corruption and the sort of Mugabe-esque cult of personality from developing is absent so far. It would be nice to see some grassroots organisation there instead of the cult of Chavez becoming yet stronger - his stated aims are noble but nobody needs another Castro.

[Litigious]

The gas is cheap in Venezuela: about 15 cents/gallon! And the girls are nice too. I could get a 16 year old hooker for two hours and do most of the stuff I wanted for about 10% of what it'd cost to fuck a 46 year old Swedish hooker in the pussy with a condom for ½ hour or so. Unfortunately, I was there with my family, so I couldn't take advantage of that. 

[Calandale]

/Why not? Buy the whole family some fun.

[Scrapheap]

I'd rather see the people of Venezuela owning the oilfields than some fucking corporation.

Unfortunately, It's Chavez who owns the oilfields. Just look at how dirt poor the rest of the country is.

On balance I quite like Chavez; however the sort of decentralisation of power and checks and balances to stop corruption and the sort of Mugabe-esque cult of personality from developing is absent so far. It would be nice to see some grassroots organisation there instead of the cult of Chavez becoming yet stronger

Hostory has too few examples of this actually happening though. 

- his stated aims are noble but nobody needs another Castro.

The stated aims of Napoleon the pig were noble too, as well as Castros.

It's a sad fact of reality, that the relative corruption of a socio/political system tends to be inversely porportional to it's stated aims.
Just look at Christianity and Communisim. They both promised a better world for the common man, but delivered the opposite.

[Litigious]

/Why not? Buy the whole family some fun.

I'm the only that perverted in my family. 

[Peter]

It's a sad fact of reality, that the relative corruption of a socio/political system tends to be inversely porportional to it's stated aims.
Just look at Christianity and Communisim. They both promised a better world for the common man, but delivered the opposite.

Whereas capitalism promised to reduce most people to poor, helpless wage-slaves supporting a rich elite, but has proved rather more beneficial to humanity as a whole than other systems.

[Scrapheap]

It's a sad fact of reality, that the relative corruption of a socio/political system tends to be inversely porportional to it's stated aims.
Just look at Christianity and Communisim. They both promised a better world for the common man, but delivered the opposite.

Whereas capitalism promised to reduce most people to poor, helpless wage-slaves supporting a rich elite, but has proved rather more beneficial to humanity as a whole than other systems.

Capitalism wins by default, not because it's good, simply because everything else sucks even more.

[Litigious]

It's a sad fact of reality, that the relative corruption of a socio/political system tends to be inversely porportional to it's stated aims.
Just look at Christianity and Communisim. They both promised a better world for the common man, but delivered the opposite.

Whereas capitalism promised to reduce most people to poor, helpless wage-slaves supporting a rich elite, but has proved rather more beneficial to humanity as a whole than other systems.

Capitalism wins by default, not because it's good, simply because everything else sucks even more.

True. Communism would never work other than in a perfect world. 

[In The spaGhetto]

yeah communism works well for ants, not so well for humans

[Litigious]

yeah communism works well for ants, not so well for humans

But ants have a Queen! They're a monarchy! 

[RobertN]

I think Chavez is rather cool. Nationalisating the oilfields was one in the eye for US imperialist interests and it shows that Venezuella as a country is able and willing to take control of its own destiny instead of letting US corporations decide that destiny for them. Go Venezuella and boo sucks the US.

On the other hand, one does have to be careful of developing dictatorships. Chavez was elected democratically and so long as that remains, I consider what he does to be legitimate (more legitimate than GW Bushy). However, should he become a dictator, that would put the whole situation in a more ambigious and ominous light.

[RobertN]

Then there is Evo Morales of Bolivia who has a similar stance to Chavez. I like Morales better because there is no cult of personality around him as there is with Chavez.