The lies of Hugo Chavez.

[AP]

This is a list of the alleged lies of Hugo Chavez. We've been having a debate about Hugo for the last few days. Apparently this is what it comes down to. So instead of battling propaganda, lets battle on these issues:

1. Bolivar's teachings
   
2. missing payments to FIEM
   
3. the corruption in Plan Bolivar
   
4. the sustainability of the exchange rate bands
   
5. Oil-to-Cuba
   
6. domestic debt
   
7. CTV election results
   
8. the size of the opposition
   
9. Montesinos
   
10. Ballestas
    
11. border policy
    
12. Decree 1011
    
13. the process to approve the 49 decree-laws
    
14. Plan Avila
    
15. the violence on April 11th
    
16. the US role on April 12th
    
17. the numbers on the street on April 13th
    
    
18. the poverty rate
    
19. the Charallave shootings
    
20. the Autopista Regional del Centro shootings
    
21. the Paro Nacional
    
22. Plan Colina
    
23. what happened in the old PDVSA
    
24. about what happens in the new PDVSA,
    
25. oil production figures
    
26. the pollution on Lake Maracaibo
    
27. Intesa
    
28. Intevep
    
29. Citgo
    
30. Ruhr Oel
    
31. the Plataforma Deltana
    
32. Yucal-Placer
    
33. Tomoporo
    
34. Free Market Petroleum
    
35. Las Cristinas mine
    
36. school-enrollment figures
    
37. the future of El Camastron, La Casona and Miraflores
    
38. about its impact on world oil prices
    
39. the firmazo
    
40. the reafirmazo
    
41. about Sumate
    
42. about the integrity of Cesar Gaviria
    
43. the private media
    
44. the reconstruction of Vargas State after the mudslides
    
45. about the links with FARC/ELN
    
46. the "millardito",
    
47. the infiltration of Cubans into the armed forces,
    
48. the killing of Jovany Sosa and Evangelina Carrizo and Jorge Tortoza and countless others
    
49. Venezuela's involvement in the coup against Sanchez de Lozada in Bolivia
    
50. Policia Metropolitana's role in violence in Caracas
    
51. racism
    
52. the impact of the various "missions"
    
53. Carrasquero's impartiality
    
54. the planillas planas
    
55. the independence of the Fiscal
    
56. the integrity of the Ombudsman
    
57. the autonomy of the courts
    
58. its commitment to human rights
    
59. Pompeyo Marquez's character
    
60. about every turn on just about every significant aspect of policy and politics for over five year
    

OK, Chavez critics. Let's get down to it. That's a list of alleged lies from a Chavez critic. Let's see your arguments. Pick any issue from the list and we'll argue it. Let's see if we can get through all of them and decide, at the end, if Hugo should be replaced with the corporatocracy neoliberal oligarchy because of these 'lies'.

[AP]

1. 51. Racism.

I'm curious about this one. What was Chavez's lie?

[countmyvote4real]

2. Hell if I know. I'm a gringo without a clue but for

vague references on DU.

My impression is that Chavez is supposed to be an enemy of the US according to Bushco. His country is in crisis and he as well, but so far they have managed to survive the Buschco sponsored rebellions and coups.

I can't address the specifics. I don't know. I'm still preoccupied with the coup and the chimp appointed here in 2000. I'd like to know more.

[eridani]

3. Rich white people griping.

On May Day, starting out from the Hilton Hotel, 200,000 blondes marched East through Caracas' shopping corridor along Casanova Avenue. At the same time, half a million brunettes converged on them from the West. It would all seem like a comic shampoo commercial if 16 people hadn't been shot dead two weeks earlier when the two groups crossed paths.

The May Day brunettes support Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. They funnelled down from the ranchos, the pustules of crude red-brick bungalows, stacked one on the other, that erupt on the steep, unstable hillsides surrounding this city of five million. The bricks in some ranchos are new, a recent improvement in these fetid, impromptu slums where many previously sheltered behind cardboard walls. 'Chávez gives them bricks and milk,' a local TV reporter told me, 'and so they vote for him.'

Chávez is dark and round as a cola nut. Like his followers, Chávez is an 'Indian'. But the blondes, the 'Spanish', are the owners of Venezuela. A group near me on the blonde march screamed 'Out! Out!' in English, demanding the removal of the President. One edible-oils executive, in high heels, designer glasses and push-up bra had turned out, she said: 'To fight for democracy.' She added: 'We'll try to do it institutionally,' a phrase that meant nothing to me until a banker in pale pink lipstick explained that to remove Chávez, 'we can't wait until the next election'.

The anti-Chavistas don't equate democracy with voting. With 80 per cent of Venezuela's population at or below the poverty level, elections are not attractive to the protesting financiers. Chávez had won the election in 1998 with a crushing 58 per cent of the popular vote and that was unlikely to change except at gunpoint.



http://www.forbes.com/home_europe/newswire/2003/10/22/rtr1118788.html

International investors are giving Venezuela a surprise vote of confidence, buying the nation's bonds with enthusiasm that could hardly have been imagined when leftist "revolutionary" Hugo Chavez won the presidency five years ago.

Since winning office in 1998, Chavez has sent shudders through Wall Street with his anti-capitalist diatribes. But when the rhetorical dust settles after each of his infamously long speeches, fund managers see a country flush with oil export revenue and a growing track record of expert debt management.

"Even though Venezuela bond prices have gone up a lot, they still have room to go," said Jose Cerritelli, a Bear Stearns debt strategist.

Should investors keep buying? "Absolutely," Cerritelli said.

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=3052&fcategory_desc=Information%20Related%20to%20Venezuela

President Hugo Chavez could not persuade city folks to move to the sparsely populated interior to help Venezuela feed itself. So he is bringing farming to the city. With help from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, the populist ex-paratrooper who sold mangoes as a child hopes to give Caracas residents a green thumb as a way to fight poverty and malnutrition. Despite the country's oil riches, more than half of its 24 million people live in poverty. According to the latest statistics from the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, at least 5 percent of Venezuelan children under age 5 were undernourished in 2000.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=169&row=2

[dpibel]

4. Look, you leftist tool

Just for starters, that whole list is way too long. It took me a long time to read all the way through it, and most of it is just some sort of gobblydegook which you probably made up in your weak effort to provide knee-jerk support for a leftist tyrant.

Besides, I don't need to look up a bunch of information on all this petty stuff, and you'd probably end up responding to anything I say using your leftist "facts" or "logic" or something like that.

Don't you know? Cuba! Commies! Our oil! Crowds in the street!

That is all we know, and all we need to know. (Keats, "Ode on a Grecian Urn.")

[SpiralHawk]

5. What Men or Gods are these?

...

THOU still unravish'd bride of quietness,  
  Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,  
Sylvan historian, who cans't thus express  
  A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:


http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html

[Judi Lynn]

6. This would be a great place for you to provide some substantiation

for your charges against Hugo Chavez.

By the way, the place to look for support for the rightwing would NOT be a Democratic message board.

Please provide coherent, legible links to information which backs up charges that Hugo Chavez is a communist, that he has our oil. The huge crowds in the street are his supporters.

This would be an example of a link to information concerning crowds:

Crowds turn out for Venezuela leader



About one million supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez have marched in the capital, Caracas - the latest in a series of rallies for and against his government.
Sunday's march follows a protest by more than a million people earlier in the week calling for Mr Chavez to resign.
Others played music from loudspeakers and waved banners condemning those who sought to oust Mr Chavez in a failed coup six months ago.

"Chavez is here to stay, the opposition is wrong if they think they'll sack him again," one supporter told the Associated Press news agency.
(snip/...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2326789.stm

[whatelseisnew]

11. Hey Judy, re-read that reply with an ear for heavy sarcasm

some folks don't understand that the written word does not convey sarcasm as it relies on vocal tones.

I feel that it must be the case here as it is otherwise too ridiculous

[dpibel]

13. 'Twas but a joke

Me 'n AP was tag-teaming the Mugabe haters the other day. I just thought I'd trot out the standard vacuous rant before the standard vacuous ranters did. I'm a bona-fide certified fringe leftist. Honest.

Sorry for the confusion.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

17. I caught on as soon as I read that last sentence. It was a thing of beauty

[ShaneGR]

7. 51 Class Warfare, 52. Civil Rights

Turning the poor on the wealthy is not my idea of good governing. Certainly giving the poor hope and working with the business community to better their lives should be at the top of the agenda of any good leader, but Chavez chooses to enflame the poor while ingoring his entire business community.

Chavez also recently threatened to "turn the tanks" on his opposition. Not exactly my idea of good leadership either.

[Judi Lynn]

8. You should imagine DU'ers would like to see some sources

for your charges concerning Chavez's inflaming the poor, and threatening violence against the right-wing opposition.

[AP]

9. 51. Class Warfare.

What do you think has been going on in Venezuela all these years. You know they'd had fascists in power for years. This isn't Class Warfare. It's class defense.

Let's see some context for "turning the tanks" on the opposition. Cite? I'm wondering if he said this at about the time he was kidnapped -- when the opposition threatened to drop bombs on Miraflores if he didn't "resign" and when snipers were shooting Chavez supporters in the head from rooftops, the news reports of which the private media edited together to look like it was Chavez supporters shooting other Chavez supporters.

[AP]

10. 52. Civil Rights

You didn't make an argument about civil rights.

[AP]

12. "ignoring entire business community"

Here's the socialist CRITICISM of Chavez:

While Chavez's populist demagogy and denunciations of the ruling elite have won him popular support, his policies are well within the guidelines set by the International Monetary Fund and Wall Street. Despite predictions of massive spending, salary increases and exchange controls, the new government has reduced public spending by 20 percent compared to last year. Public sector wages have been frozen, while a new natural gas investment law provides some of the most favorable conditions for foreign capital enacted anywhere in the hemisphere. The government has also floated proposals for the privatization of the aluminum and power sectors.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/sep1999/vene-s10_prn.shtml

Here are some other stories about the business climate:

Venezuela's Unemployment Drop of 6% in Ten Months, a Sign of Strong Recovery
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1200

A Venezuelan Miracle?
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1098


"Cooperatives are the businesses of the future". Interview with Felipe Perez-Martí
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1019

Ford, GM to Increase Investments and Production in Venezuela
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1182

Venezuela´s Agriculture Expected to Boom in 2004. Central Bank Frees Resources
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1185

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?sec=econ

[radwriter0555]

14. These issues belong to the people of Venezuela, they are NOT for US to

decide.

Their country was going along just fine until otto reich stepped in.

Should we let FRANCE in to the USA to settle the massive problems we have with this administration?

[AP]

15. Well, if there are any Venezuelan DU'ers, we just might help them make up

their minds.

[Judi Lynn]

16. True! According to some people, it's not only our business

to oversee every damned thing that moves in Venezuela, but also to use anything we don't like as a justification to "regime change" and install our own RIGHT WING DICTATOR, just like the scum, Carlos Andres Perez, the President before Chavez, who had his troops open fire on protestors, killing hundreds (El Caracazo) and was, himself impeached for corruption.

Now HE was someone the elder _Bush seemed to approve well enough. He also ran to the U.S. to escape further prosecution, and lived in Miami before moving to New York, and finally to the Domincan Republic.

Yep, it's not their business, it's OUR business, according to right-wing butt-in-skis.

[keithyboy]

18. Bottom line: the west wants Venezuela's oil!!!

And we will do anything to get it. The "blondes" need to be able to keep on shopping and golfing!

[Judi Lynn]

19. Friday kick!

There's a framework for a great outpouring of some of our pro-rightwing-coup posters' greatest thoughts here!

:kick: