The evidence is plastered all over the walls of Caracas. Hugo Chavez has joined Mao and Lenin and Mussolini in the Cult of Personality.
Some have taken me to task for being too eager to announce Hugo Chavez' membership in the Junior Dictators Club. After all, he's just trying to help the people of Venezuela and if he's taken away free speech, judicial independence, rendered the legislature meaningless, shut down or intimidated the press and turned the schools into indoctrination centers, it's all been done with the best intentions. He may have complete autocratic power, a growing military and designs on his neighbors, but at least he hasn't tried to raise himself up like a larger than life figure and create a cult of personality. That's one of the things which really set dictators like Mussolini, Hitler, Lennin and Mao apart from more reasonable autocrats.…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments26 - Baronius
But Dave, if that's what Lapdog means, then he should be outraged by any press restriction including those in Venezuela. Or does he see the press as an arm of ideology and expects it to serve the powerful? Or, does he want the press to be ideological and serve anti-Americanism?
27 - Franco
#18 "Lapdog
I thought you were being sarcastic. My apologies for mis-inturp.
28 - Lapdog
What's with all the chatter about sarcasm?
I'll have you champions of press freedom know that I take Mr.Nalle's opinion pieces as serious as can be.
Maybe even more seriouser than that.
29 - Steve
In some ways BOTH Chavez and Bush are dictators. Bush has too much power in national policy, and now Chavez has been given too much power. Giving one person a lot of power is idiotic, thats why we need MORE checks and balances in a government to make sure it doesn't happen. Do you really think that Chavez will step down if he is wrong? How often has Bush admited to being wrong? Hitler was elected by the German people and most supported him through the war. Hitler WAS popular, even among some non-germans. Chavez is giving out a lot of freebies, so of course he is going to be popular. But the government doesn't create wealth. Other people create the wealth. Unless Chavez has a magic money making machine (OK he does have oil for now) his policies won't be sustainable. The wealthy and productive are leaving venezuela at a pretty fast rate. Chavez has an inflated ego(as does Bush). All people make poor judgements and lie sometimes. If you give a dictator a free pass, unless they are the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, they will end up exploiting the situation selfishly.
30 - Franco
It is most commonly used at criticizing or personally attacking an argument's proponent in an attempt to discredit that argument. When the attacker is unable to address the argument itself.
This type of arument is used by those who can not come into the arena of ideas and debate and win, so they have to try to discredit the person making the claim.
What is this type of argument called?
Ad Hominem argument: Translated from Latin to English, "Ad Hominem" means "argument against the man" or "argument against the person."
An ad hominem argument, "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or claim by attacking a peron making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument and producing evidence against the claim.
Whenever you see personal attacks and abusive ad hominem arguments being used in a discussion, (1)it is unlikely that anything productive will come out of it in the end. (2) A person who can only make their case by attacking others doesn't have much of case to begin with.
Classic examples of Ad Hominem
#12 " Martin Lav
How about the poster of the guy with the huge head that adorns the end of every article he writes?
Now if that isn't an fine example of the cult of personality.....and a scary picture to boot!
#13 " REMF
But since he lives in a fortified compound, shouldn't it be the cult of paranoia?
#22 " REMF
Your blog says" no personal attacks...what are you doing but violating your own policy!"
It's called...hypocrisy
31 - REMF
Here's another one:
Franco, when are you going to stop brown-nosing Nalle?
32 - Franco
#29 " October 19, 2007 @ 19:54PM " Steve
In some ways BOTH Chavez and Bush are dictators. Bush has too much power in national policy
Giving one person a lot of power is idiotic, thats why we need MORE checks and balances in a government to make sure it doesn't happen.
IMO, Bush can not be faulted as a Dictator because he knows how to use the power he has while he finishes out his term and steps down.
As for more checks and balances, we have them and always have. Just because the House and Senate, can’t perform (whether by choose or by lack of intelligence) in using their power (or mis-using it as we have just seen) dose not make Bush a dictater either. It makes the leaders in both houses failures.
It is really a remarkable thing given the tremendous onslaught of attacks heaped on to Bush and his policies, yet he still remains rock solid and focused on what he believes in right for our nation. From within this context, whether you like his direction or not is immaterial, as he shown himself to be a rock and he rolls, while both the House and Senete pick fuzz out of their navel.
33 - Franco
#31 " REMF
Franco, when are you going to stop brown-nosing Nalle?
When you can enter into the arena of ideas and debate the topic without (ad hominem arguments) and convince me he is wrong.
34 - Lapdog
Franco, so you figure Bush is a no-fault Dictator, do you.
He calls himself the Decider...or was that Deciderer.
35 - Dave Nalle
Good illustrations of the worthless ad hominem technique favored by those who can't frame a real argument. I think it's particularly telling that in the two examples you cite they can't even get the facts straight. Martin Lav thinks my one-inch high picture is a giant poster - clear signs of a serious perceptual disorder. REMF for some reason thinks that BC is my 'blog' and that I set the rules here.
Dave
36 - Baronius
I've gotta say, Dave, I miss the old picture. It looked just like the guy who played Drew Carey's brother.
37 - Steve
"IMO, Bush can not be faulted as a Dictator because he knows how to use the power he has while he finishes out his term and steps down."
Sure, he is'nt a total dictator, but there are degrees to everything. He has allowed torture laws to slip, used more government surveillance against US citizens, guantanomo bay etc. A dictator isn't all or nothing, plus people have different opinions on the definition of a dictator (moonraven for instance). But I do think too much power tends to corrupt.
38 - moonraven
Just a couple of comments, as this bird is busy and this drivel by Nalle deserves almost no response from anyone, especially since every single point he makes is completely bogus.
My comments are these:
Nalle proves nothing. Whether or not there is a cult of personality is not provable, even.
The pic of Mussolini looks WAAAAY too much like the pic of Ugly Dave Nalle. Mussolini probably had better pics. Nalle probably doesn't.
This piece as another poster pointed out is all about NALLE--not about Chavez. Nalle is not the only shitkicker US rube who is so envious of Chavez and what he has done for Venezuela because Nalle's Decider (Bullshitter) has only put the US in the toilet, in insurmountable debt and has made the US the rogue state par excellence on the planet Earth.
Meanwhile Chavez has built a bloc against the US that is taking on the shape and structure and solidity of a chinese puzzle.
Not to mention that he controls what YOU rubes pay for oil which has not hit 90 bucks a barrel. He has indicated that beginning of 2008 will have it at 100 bucks a barrel.
Chavez controls OPEC. You want to keep driving your car: PAY CHAVEZ' price. There is no alternative.
Nalle has never been to Venezuela, believes in fact that it is a country in get this Central America, has never had any contact with Chavez and the only contact he has had with someone who HAS HAD PERSONAL CONTACT with CHavez and spends time in Venezuela is his juvenile responses to THIS POSTER. They hardly count.
In short, this is just another half-witted, half-cocked [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] hate piece from [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] Dave.
I am sure that what you write has as much interest for Chavez as a dust mote blowing across the desert in Saudi Arabia.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
39 - moonraven
As a parting comment, since Nalle has raised the question of what causes folks to become autocrats, perhaps some of you who have more interest than this bird might want to consider what caused Nalle to dedicate his life to becoming the Autocrat of Blogcritics....
Maybe he was molested as a child? That happens a lot in hillbilly familes.
This bird always breathes healthily and deeply with no assistance from Nalle. And I will continue to do so long after Nalle is dead from asbestos poisoning.
40 - Dave Nalle
Moonraven, I just take my cue from H. L. Mencken and seek to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.
In this case the 'comfortable' would be the self-righteous, fatuous, international leftists who will turn a blind eye to any abuse of human rights so long as it's carried out for the right ideological reasons. The afflicted, of course, being the people of the world who just want to be free and be given a chance to live a decent life.
So MR, the more these articles cause you to display what you really are, the more likely I am to keep writing them.
Dave
41 - alessandro
Dave, you wouldn't be a masochist by any chance?
I like #30 very much. Way to go on that Franco. Personal attacks are not only boring they lack integrity or intellectual vision. It takes quite a person to stand above that and quite another (especially those who hide behind pseudonyms) to fall prey to it.
If people would just channel their positions better and stay clear of the name-calling they would get their message across better and who knows, sway some people to see their side?
42 - moonraven
What I really am, of course, is an expert on Latin America.
Thanks for your promotional efforts of my lecture circuit, but I really don't need rubes like you on the bandwagon when people with credibility and a basic working knowloedge of geography are already there.
I will always be right.
You will, by definition, always be wrong.
Just the way life goes, [Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor].
Better luck next lifetime.
43 - Dave Nalle
And MR, I'm an expert on autocracy and its history. Chavez falls into both of our domains of interest, but only one of us is looking at him with any kind of objectivity. Your 'expertise' is as an advocate. Mine is as a historian. Huge difference.
Dave
44 - moonraven
alessandro:
There has never been any sort of civilized discussion and debate on this site since I first visited in Sept. 21, 2006.
There has only been a climate of misogyny, racism, redneckism, insults, ad hominem attacks and outright lies.
That is the form and function of this RIGHTWING propaganda site.
Period.
45 - moonraven
Nalle, you have hit a new low watermark of fatuosity!
You are not a historian.
You are not an expert on anything.
You could not possibly look at Chavez objectivity when you don't even know which continent his country is on. Quick geography lesson: SOUTH America.
Just stop trying to shit us.
Even the real dummies on this site are not stupid enough to believe your self-aggrandizing fantasies.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
46 - Clavos
"There has only been a climate of misogyny, racism, redneckism, insults, ad hominem attacks and outright lies."
Pot.
Kettle.
Black.
47 - Dave Nalle
There has never been any sort of civilized discussion and debate on this site since I first visited in Sept. 21, 2006.
Hmmm. There was civilized discussion before then. And there has been during brief gaps since then. I wonder, what do those gaps coincide with...
You are not a historian.
You are not an expert on anything.
Unlike you I've been able to provide links to evidence of my academic background. Lies so easily disproven just make you look foolish.
Dave
48 - moonraven
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor] There was no climate of civilized debate when I first visited this site.
JOM started the ball rolling right off the bat with insults, misogynist comments and racist ad hominems against me. Go back and revisit the thread and it is as clear as sunlight exactly what happens when anyone comes to this site--especially a female--and contributes information instead of lies, fantasies and propaganda.
Nalle: Sorry, pal. Teaching a course at a shitkicker community college does not make you a Historian. Do not make me laugh. That's about as much of an academic background as my cat can muster.
You have never provided even one piece of factual evidence for any of the fatuous claims you have made on this site.
Not one.
Venezuela is in SOUTH America--not Central America. Any HISTORIAN would have known that. That historian would have known that Central America was only ONE country until independence from Spain.
A historian would have known that the HISTORY of the independence wars in the northern two thirds of SOUTH America is the HISTORY of Simon Bolivar--a VENEZUELAN.
I do not even claim to be a HISTORIAN, but I knew all of that HISTORY since elementary school!
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
49 - brian
The larger than life images? Like those on mt Rushmore? Youer question is did hugo create them? one someone else?
But why this obsession with Hugo Chavez? Is it because he is leading his people to a better life thanm they ever had under us backed leaders? Can it be Dave hates democracy in venezuela, and needs to vilify its leader? Thats how i read daves scream.
Chave is democraticaly elected...so no dictator...but amerians lie dabve hate the idea of a leader and party who dont do as washington says, so they have to vilify him .
=================================
no jounos killed in Venezuela...and i dont see your 4...why not name them and say who killed them, Dave,.
Dave wrote:
'Not because of anything they wrote, and none that I know of have been killed.'
there is a journalist rottnig in Guantanamo bay gulag...and US killed journalists in iraq..for what they were writing...The palestine hotel and US attack on al-jazeera. Dave needs to read a little bit more.
===========================
'I'd like the people of Venezuela to decide, but how can they with no free press, chavista indoctrination in the schools and goons watching how they vote at the polls?'
they did in several elections....No free press? Here you are right....the press in venezuela is controlled by the oligarchs...as we learned in the doco : The Reviolution will not be Televised.....The same free press ensured it was not telkevised....
The very same press that is still free was free to lie to the people in april 2002...had it doe what it did in USA, dont you think they all be in guantanamo ? Realkity check dave....a coup d'etat is illegal even in the US.
50 - brian
dave said:
'And MR, I'm an expert on autocracy and its history'
thats laughable? Your post shows you an expert in lies and vilification....nothing of what you wrote is remotely true,but shows your race hatred of leader who is neither white nor acpitalist...nor roles over for your real autocratic government...
51 - Lee Richards
#14: "We don't have giant posters of Bush here in the U.S. ..."
In our federal district courthouse we DO have large, framed photos of both Bush and Cheney in the lobby. We can't be the only ones so graced!
52 - Clavos
Is there any place in the US where the entire side of a multistory building is covered with a portrait of Bush?
Are there photos of Bush on light poles on every corner in Washington, DC?
Mount Rushmore is a tribute to DEAD presidents.
53 - REMF
"REMF for some reason thinks that BC is my 'blog' and that I set the rules here."
- Dave Nalle
Wrong, Nalle. I've never thought that. I do, however, view you as a manipulating control-freak, a bully/wimp, and a phony.
54 - Dave Nalle
Lee, all of the courthouses have the standard 2.5x3 portraits of the president and vice president and had similar ones of clinton and gore during the last administration. That's a far cry from a 24ft tall poster on a city street or by a highway.
Dave
55 - moonraven
There are no 24 foot high posters of George Bush because NOBODY--except a few retrograde rednecks like Nalle and clavos--LIKES THE GUY.
Bush is not a larger than life Latin American leader (a direct quote from the IRISH film crew in film Brian referenced, THe Revolution Will Not Be Televised), but a puny little retarded guy who had to stuff his flight suit with sweat socks to look like he had a cock.
Why would ANYONE make a 24 foot poster of a guy with nothing in his pants and the retarded person's fixation on compensation?
There are big posters of Chavez, and Chavez dolls and Chavez cds of him singing Mexican rancheras and Venezuelan llaneras, and Chavez tee shirts and fistfuls of Chavez biographies on amazon.com because FOLKS LOVE HIM.
He is a man with enormous charisma, a heart the size of the Amazon Basin, a sense of humor to match, and is a successful leader of a country.
His IQ is at least double that of George W's--and he knows how to use it for the benfit of his people--not against them.
He is, as well, The Roadrunner to Bush's Wile E. Coyote.
The creator of Wile E., my friend the now-departed Chuck Jones said: Wile E. (read George W.) is the perfect example of a fanatic--a person who redoubles his efforts when he has forgotten his aim.
Chavez unseated Eric Clapton as G-O-D several years ago.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
56 - moonraven
By the way, REMF, as always, is bang on.
A veritable master of the Haiku Method of Counting Coup.
Keep up the great work!
57 - moonraven
Make that The Zen of Counting Coup.
There's a book in that title.
Probably even a best-seller.
Go for it!
58 - Dave Nalle
The larger than life images? Like those on mt Rushmore?
The newest of those being of a president 70 years dead? Yeah, that's going to generate a lot of fanatical support.
Youer question is did hugo create them? one someone else?
I assume Hugo is not the artist, but he certainly commissioned them.
But why this obsession with Hugo Chavez? Is it because he is leading his people to a better life thanm they ever had under us backed leaders?
No, it's because he's leading them into slavery and oppression.
Can it be Dave hates democracy in venezuela, and needs to vilify its leader? Thats how i read daves scream.
Democracy is dead in Venezuela. Chavez killed it when he rewrote the constitution and he'll bury it when he does away with elections as he is about to do.
Chave is democraticaly elected...so no dictator
Hitler was democratically elected.
...but amerians lie dabve hate the idea of a leader and party who dont do as washington says, so they have to vilify him .
No, we hate the idea of a leader who systematically takes away the rights and property of his people.
no jounos killed in Venezuela...and i dont see your 4...why not name them and say who killed them, Dave,.
I didn't say they were killed. I said they were imprisoned. However, there were also journalists killed in Venezuela. Chavista thugs killed Jesús Flores Rojas in the town of El Tigre, Jorge Aguirre of Cadena Carriles, and Pedro Bastardo in Cumaná. Those are just in the last year.
As for imprisonments, most of the imprisoned journalists who were jailed in the last few years have now been freed and have fled the country. Those who remain behind are subject to constant harassment and intimidation and have been silenced.
You might want to visit Reporters Without Borders sometime. It's a leftist organization, but they are at least honest.
there is a journalist rottnig in Guantanamo bay gulag
Hey, don't look for me to defend GITMO. I've written against it several times. There were originally 3 journalists being held there. Two were released in 2005 after hearings. The one who remains seems to have some clear ties to terrorist organizations, but he certainly deserves a hearing.
...and US killed journalists in iraq..for what they were writing...The palestine hotel and US attack on al-jazeera. Dave needs to read a little bit more.
Those deaths were accidental. No credible evidence that journalists have been targeted has ever been presented.
they did in several elections....No free press? Here you are right....the press in venezuela is controlled by the oligarchs
What oligarchs? The only authority in Venezuela is Chavez.
...as we learned in the doco : The Reviolution will not be Televised.....The same free press ensured it was not telkevised....
The very same press that is still free was free to lie to the people in april 2002...
Opposing Chavez doesn't make them actual liars, it just gets them silenced for trying to warn the people of the coming oppression. As events have since proven they were right about Chavez.
had it doe what it did in USA, dont you think they all be in guantanamo ?
Of course they wouldn't. Journalists in the US say worse things on a daily basis about our government and no one even bats an eye.
Dave
59 - Lapdog
Brian: "Chave is democraticaly elected...so no dictator."
Nalle: "Hitler was democratically elected."
Bush was democratically elected.
Brian: "no jounos killed in Venezuela...and i dont see your 4...why not name them and say who killed them,"
Nalle: "Chavista thugs killed Jesús Flores Rojas in the town of El Tigre, Jorge Aguirre of Cadena Carriles, and Pedro Bastardo in Cumaná. Those are just in the last year.
No substantial evidence has ever been presented that those journalists were targeted.
Nalle: "Journalists in the US say worse things on a daily basis about our government and no one even bats an eye."
A question for our dear readers:
What's the worst thing you've ever heard said about Bush from an ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox journalist?
60 - Lumpy
Brian, Moonraven and now their little Lapdog, unable to assail any of the facts in this article resort (as usual) to ad hominem's, misdirection and personal attaaks. They ignore the message and attack the messenger and if that doesn't work try an invidious attack on his country. Nice 'n sleazy. But are they really fooling anyone?
61 - Lapdog
Here's a kleenex Lumpy go dry your eyes.
You fooled yourself into attacking the messengers and ignoring the message.
62 - brian
'I assume Hugo is not the artist, but he certainly commissioned them.'
Dave, again you make claims that are not verified....lets see you both verify that hugo commissioned the portraits AND that this shows he has a giant ego....so far youve not done that.What you have shown is an unhealthy obsession with demonising Hugo...i suggest you turn yourself in for a checkup.
======================
'Nalle: "Hitler was democratically elected."
Bush was democratically elected.'
ergo, Bush is a dictator....your reasoning has democratic elections as a prelude to dictatorship...or is it the natuire opf political office to give the leader power to lead?
Youve still not proven Chavez is a dictator....all youve done is made libellous claims!
================
'Nalle: "Chavista thugs killed Jesús Flores Rojas in the town of El Tigre, Jorge Aguirre of Cadena Carriles, and Pedro Bastardo in Cumaná. Those are just in the last year.'
1. no evidence it was done by a chavista...AND how can you blame that on Chavez....nice sleight of hand, Dave...you keep showing your unhgealthy obsession with Chavez...
You show me where Chavez says:' Go out and kill o and so'....
=======================
Dave: It's because he's leading them into slavery and oppression.'
!!!!!!!!!!!again, thats your paranoid take on the bolivarian revolution...but then given the unhealthy state of the us media, its no surprise you believe this sort of rubbish....
=========================
Dave:
'Democracy is dead in Venezuela. Chavez killed it when he rewrote the constitution and he'll bury it when he does away with elections as he is about to do.'
Thats your wishful thinking...al elections monitored by international observers show free and fair elections...in comparison, intervational observers were prevented from monitoring US pooling booths.
Dave: 'I didn't say they were killed. I said they were imprisoned. However, there were also journalists killed in Venezuela. Chavista thugs killed Jesús Flores Rojas in the town of El Tigre, Jorge Aguirre of Cadena Carriles, and Pedro Bastardo in Cumaná. Those are just in the last year.'
Brian:' first what evidence have you they were killed by 'chavistas'? and how can you claims this is the fault of Chavez? No court of law would take that as proof.
Dave: 'As for imprisonments, most of the imprisoned journalists who were jailed in the last few years have now been freed and have fled the country. Those who remain behind are subject to constant harassment and intimidation and have been silenced.'
You muts be rerferring to journalists who took part in the 2002 coup, as reported in The Revolution will Not be Televised....
Had they done that in the US, theyd be in jail and on death row.
Dave: 'You might want to visit Reporters Without Borders sometime. It's a leftist organization, but they are at least honest.'
Youre joking dave....but once more you need a reality check! Reports without Borders...is funded by the National Endowment for Democracy(sic)..that ius by the US govt! Its as far from being left wing as you are...
'Finally the truth has come to light. Mr. Robert Ménard, secretary general of the RSF for twenty years, has confessed to receiving financing from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), an organization that depends on the U.S. Department of State, whose principal role is to promote the agenda of the White House for the entire world. Ménard was indeed very clear. “We indeed receive money from the NED. And that hasn’t posed any problem.” (1)'
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=7851
there is a journalist rottnig in Guantanamo bay gulag
Dave: 'Hey, don't look for me to defend GITMO. I've written against it several times. There were originally 3 journalists being held there. Two were released in 2005 after hearings. The one who remains seems to have some clear ties to terrorist organizations, but he certainly deserves a hearing.'
Noone in Guyantanamo has ties to terrorist organisations...they may have ties to resistance organisations in their own invaded countries...
...and US killed journalists in iraq..for what they were writing...The palestine hotel and US attack on al-jazeera. Dave needs to read a little bit more.
Dave:'Those deaths were accidental. No credible evidence that journalists have been targeted has ever been presented.'
Accidental? Thats not what the survivors say...only the US miliary says that: 'they got in the way of our tanks fire....sorry.'
Dave: 'What oligarchs? The only authority in Venezuela is Chavez.'
The ex-power elite....which most of the venezuelan media belong to...try to bone up on modern venezuelan history, Dave.
...as we learned in the doco : The Reviolution will not be Televised.....The same free press ensured it was not telkevised....
The very same press that is still free was free to lie to the people in april 2002...
DAVE': Opposing Chavez doesn't make them actual liars, it just gets them silenced for trying to warn the people of the coming oppression. As events have since proven they were right about Chavez.
It helps if like you they are liars.....otherwise they be forced to tell the truth..that Chavez is the best leader veneuela has ever had...thats why he keeps getting relected in international monitored elections.
dave
=====================
63 - moonraven
I think that there is something sexual behind the paranoid obsession Dave has regarding Chavez.
Dave knows nothing about Venezuela. Not even what continent it is located on, yet he has singled out this non-white big charismatic guy to write libelous statements about.
I think he has the hots for Chavez.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
He doesn't have the slightest care about oppression and slavery. Dave is a patriot: he defends as the best possible country and the best possible system the US of Assholes--a nation founded on the twin pilings of genocide and slavery.
He protests too much. And about a country and a leader than he knows absolutely nothing about. Yet all around him his own country is going down the drain into the abyss.
Something is very wrong with Dave. That is not a personal attack. It is a diagnosis.
Apart from that, he is doomed to unrequited passion, as I am quite sure that Chavez is even less interested in relieving the sexual frustrations of Dave Nalle than he is in relieving the sexual frustrations of Condolences Rice.
64 - moonraven
I would like to see someone on this site start crying wolf in regard to his OWN country.
The oligarchs in Venezuela have been crying wolf that Chavez is becoming a dictator since before he was even elected in 1998.
And although if anyone deserves to live under a dictatorship it is those mean-spirited sods, that dictatorship has yet to materialize.
Maybe because it materialized in the US.
Like the infamous chupacabras materialized in Mexico to distract folks from Fobaproa...
65 - brian
You may have hit upon it moonraven....was dave spurned by Chavez????is that why hes now attacking him as a dictator and cult maker???
==============================
'The oligarchs in Venezuela have been crying wolf that Chavez is becoming a dictator since before he was even elected in 1998.'
during the april 2002 coup, these same oligarchs put a real dicator...dictator-for-a-day Carmona into power, where he did what all claim chavez is doing!
66 - nejode
I can see none of you guys live in Venezuela... it's easy to be "chavista" living somewhere else and just comming down to get some money from our Führer, just as Danny Glover did... inflated the leader's ego a litlle bit more and got his 15 million socialist bucks!
For us who do live and try to survive here, us who have kids in public schools (true
"revolutionaries" wouldn't even think of sending their children to a "Escuela Bolivariana") that are brainwashed every day, those of us who have relatives who had to leave the country because they were beaten almost to death by the "circulos Bolivarianos" while the Guardia Nacional and the police laugh, we "traitors" to the ideas of "our beloved leader" who cannot find milk, eggs, or sugar in the supermarkets, us who see every day how the new "socialist" leaders grow filthy rich on our money, we the ignorant souls who do not understand why the regime has to control all the communicational media (Goebbels would have loved this country!)... well, we see things different.
I almost cry when I see this "little Fidel" give away millions of $$$ to Bolivia, Nicaragua, Argentina, Ecuador, Iran, Lebanon, while street kids are begging for food, millions of people are living in cardboard houses with no public services, schools are falling to pieces and all your friends and relatives have been victims in one way or another of a theft, killing or rape.
You people don't live in a country where the previous president of Consejo Nacional Electoral (National Electoral Council), the same guy who was responsible for coordinating all those very "democratic" elections, was given the prize of being named vice-president for his contributions to the revolution!!! ... very impartial elections indeed!!! Like the presidential revocatory elections where a few days before, Jimmy Carter and Communicational multi-millionaire Gustavo Cisneros, in a mysterious reunion in Fuerte Tiuna, sold their souls to Hugo Chávez and validated the coming electoral fraud.
Really, reading the comments I can see how the $$$-international-$$$-mediatic-$$$-brainwash-$$$ works in all levels, especially in Bush-hating anglos... wake up world! this "democratically elected dictator" is going to ruin this country and shed hate all over the continent ...
67 - troll
moonraven - the fact that the US is a murderous fascist cesspool wouldn't make a Chavista slide into dictatorship (were this in fact to occur) any more palatable
...anybody (Brian) know the pre-Chavez history of the use of these grand images in Venezuela - ?
68 - Lapdog
"street kids are begging for food, millions of people are living in cardboard houses with no public services, schools are falling to pieces and all your friends and relatives have been victims in one way or another of a theft, killing or rape."
nejode longs for the old Venezuela before Chavez was elected when there were thousands more hungry street kids, three times as many people living in cardboard shacks with no public services, twice as many schools falling to pieces and everyone had friends, relatives, neighbors and aquaintences who were directly or indirectly victims of theft, killing and rape.
Ah yes, the good old days of benevolent capitalism.
69 - moonraven
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
If I hear one more time about food shortages--when I saw more food in Caracas for less money than I have ever even dreamed of seeing in Mexico, I will personally bite the ass of the liar who posts that now very old chestnut.
And when I read another post by a Native speaker of English calling himself a venezolono, ditto.
I don't have to spend my entire life in Venezuela to see what goes on--I go there and spend time frequently enough that changes from stay to stay are obvious. And they are ALL positive.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
You don't like Chavez, you don't like Venezuela? Stay the fuck away from there. That will involve zero change in any of your behavior. Me? I will take every cheap flight to Caracas that comes up. Venezuela is a beautiful country and its president is a beautiful man. Period.
70 - moonraven
troll,
Wall art is a Latin American tradition.
All over my part of the world you will find big murals and big representations of Latin American heroes.
That part of the world includes the large communities of La Raza in the US.
Nothing new with Chavez.
White folks don't paint their houses fuschia, don't make murals on walls, don't have street life with wonderful food vendors because having a soul is against the law.
Go figure.
I just go. Even here in Santa Fe things are waaay too sterile and waaay too dull. Gotta keep it clean for the tourists.
71 - Dave Nalle
My job here is so easy. All I have to do is counter MR's pathological lying.
First off, My great aunt Lucy had a fuschia house.
More importantly, I tacked Nejode's IP address and unlike others here who have admitted to being Venezuelans in exile he is in fact posting from inside Venezuela using their cable TV service for internet access.
And if you don't believe me, ask another editor to track the IP address. Obviously I'm not going to post the address publicly because that would give MR and her stormtroopers an opportunity to rat him out to the Chavista goons.
Dave
72 - Clavos
It's good you checked his IP address; it confirms his message, which has an obvious and clear ring of truth and direct observation/experience to it.
73 - Dave Nalle
Not that it will do anything to keep MR and her goon squad from trying to silence him because any truth out of Venezuela is threatening to their desire to spread socialist revolution around the region and the world.
The truth is their most deadly enemy.
Dave
74 - REMF
"It's good you checked his IP address; it confirms his message, which has an obvious and clear ring of truth and direct observation/experience to it."
- Clavos
I stand corrected, I thought he sounded more like Vox Populi.
75 - Lapdog
I don't know why Nalle and Clavos don't head down to Venezuela to help oust Chavez.
They're chomping at the bit to see some righteous US intervention down there but they don't have the cojones to go get some peasant blood on their hands.
I'd suggest they join some privatized death squad but I doubt any of those outfits need two guys in pajamas who type a lot.