Venezuela and the Chavez Legacy

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

While I don't celebrate his death, I would have to say that Chavez had been nuts, not to mention hypocritical on foreign policy accounts. Finding political allies with the likes of Muammar Qaddafi and Robert Mugabe for instance is just asking for trouble.

edited 5th Mar '13 8:00:10 PM by EarlOfSandvich

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had been fighting cancer for two years when he died this afternoon at age 58, but some Venezuelans — including new President Nicolas Maduro — are convinced foul play is to blame.

TIN FOIL HATS!

edited 5th Mar '13 9:01:20 PM by DeviantBraeburn

You guys seriously believe the theory chavez might have been killed?

Just like Chavez said that the united states have a cancer-machine and been attacking the south american presidents.

Seriously, Maduro is nutz. That's why we are doomed!!

Cuba declares 3 days of mourning for Venezuela's Hugo Chavez

Venezuela declared five days, with no shool for the rest of the week.

Dominica also declares three days of mourning over Chavez' death

truteal - Chavez also withdrew term limits and purged his party of anyone who could challenge him. Folks in the West cared about him because he did a lot of shouting to get their attention - he railed against the USA in speeches that went on for hours, and allied himself with many avowed enemies of the US. And many people loved him for it.

Including in the West — especially on the Left.

Is that all he did?

If he wasn't so outspoken, the U.S right wouldn't care about him as much (They'd probably hate Evo Morales more)

If he lived longer and was president longer, he'd probably be more dictatorish

So I read the whole "he was infected with cancer" thing. First off, isn't that kinda difficult to actually do? We have issues with tissue donations and making sure the body doesn't reject the new stuff by way of anti-rejection medications, so wouldn't cancer be even more of a difficulty to introduce..?

A more probable way to claim "that post nation gave me cancer" would be if a carcinogen was involved or something.

...he didn't happen to smoke American-made cigarettes, did he?

I seem to recall that there are substances so carcinogenic they will kill you very, very quickly.

Wasn't it a respiratory infection that killed him?

No, it was the CIA.

This assassination furore reminds me of the bit in Four Lions where Barry blames the breakdown of his alleged car on "Jewish spark plugs", invented by Jews to "control world traffic".

I will sorely miss Hugo Chávez. One of the better South American leaders in last 30 years, and has done a tremendous amount of good for the powerless and poor in Venezuela.

As for the whole cancer conspiracy thing, I wouldn't take it too seriously.

While the CIA is probably not responsible for giving cancer to Chávez, they are responsible for other things involving Venezuela. So it's not a far stretch to think that they are involved with the opposition to Chavismo.

I have to laugh when the "abolishing term limits" thing is brought up as being negative. Even though it's done by dozens of other countries too.

edited 6th Mar '13 4:49:43 AM by germi91

I think unlimited term limits is absolutely a negative, and no countries should have it (including the UK, which sadly does feature it). Not wanting to derail this thread too much, but folks who can stay on indefinitely become progressively more dictatorial, conservative and hard to shift. I think it's an important moderator on a leader's power.

Usually the reason given for abolishing limits (and I think Chavez used this) is that the leader hasn't yet fixed the country for the better. To which I say: are your policies so weak and your trust in other people so small that you can't get anyone else to make sure they continue? Strong policies should be passed on. Chavez didn't want to do that right up until he had absolutely no choice.

So is the Bolivarian dream too weak to survive without this one guy to prop it up? I guess we'll see.

edited 6th Mar '13 5:15:44 AM by betaalpha

There's nothing inherently wrong or anti-democratic with being able to put yourself as a candidate as many times as you want. I'd ask you in turn: Is your believe and confidence in the people so weak that you have to resort to term limits? Trust in democracy and the people's judgement. Again, there are many countries with a similar arrangement: Spain, France, Italy, Germany... all modern liberal democracies.

I'm not surprised though that someone from the UK would have such a "negative liberty" view on term limits. I think it's part of the Anglo-American political culture to be afraid of power.

In all likelihood, Bolivarianism will continue. While a great part of it lies on Chávez as a personality, first hand experience tells me that the many local and community level organizations that were born during these past 12 years will continue to operate without Chávez.

edited 6th Mar '13 5:26:24 AM by germi91

Chavez had lofty goals, but have no idea how to accomplish them.

I liked him better when he was redistributing resources to the poor and not trying to subvert the democratic process. He became such a mainstream asshole after that failed coup against him.[[/hipster]]

Yes, my belief and confidence in people is indeed weak as to say all countries should have term limits. And there are a great many more lands with leaders who entered power, remained there for decades and steadily devolved into intransigent, unmovable dictators. My distrust of people who try to retain power for long periods is more than justified by history.

Of course, term limits is only one power check amongst many, and a country can do okay without it. And I'm happy to agree with you that Chavez was one of the better South American presidents who did many great works for the poor. But he did a bunch of not so awesome stuff. And he chose to hang around with people who were a lot worse.

edited 6th Mar '13 5:56:12 AM by betaalpha

Didn't he aid that merry band of rapist assholes masquerading as leftist revolutionaries, the FARC?

Also, the dude has serious issues with being questioned. He filled his cabinet/government with a bunch of yes-men, and felt compelled to publicly humiliate them to make him look good. Thus, everyone was terrified to point out when he had a bad idea.

And he was planning to remain in power forever. He concentrated on his pet projects to the detriment of everything else. During his stay in power, Venezuela passed from a normal country to one where people are afraid to walk the streets in plain daylight in fear of armed robbery, murder and kidnapping. The Homicide rate tripled under Chavez stay in power, putting us on high positions when it comes to most unsafe cities in the world. Our prisons are holding approximately five times their max capacity in criminals, criminals who actually do run the places as they see fit.

The infrastructure of the country has been neglected to a terrible degree, causing blackouts to be a common occurrence throughout the country and halting the technological progress of the nation. The metro of Valencia has been a total fiasco which hasn't progressed one meter in construction for almost a decade and the railroads use outdated techniques and a design which will bring problems later on.

And Chavez can't claim a single thing hampered his vision from being accomplished, he had a majority in the parliament, the judges on his side, indeed, nearly all the high positions in the government were filled with people that answered to his every whim. During his government the price of petroleum, our biggest source of revenue, became ten times higher than it was when he assumed power. He had the freedom to do whatever he wished and all the means he might need to do it... and where are we left after 14 years with him?

As one of the most unsafe countries in the world, with a collapsing infrastructure, with a sinking economy on which our money is devaluated to an absurd degree each year, with our allies being the villains and dictators of the world.

He did work on a lot of projects to help the poor in the country, I can't take that away from him, but I can't think of it as anything else but populism to get the support of the masses while he and his cabinet became fat on the highest profits the country has ever had. Even his health care program of Barrio Adentro was more of a favor to Fidel than anything else. Cuba gets our oil in exchange for sending medics who stay in Venezuela in terrible conditions and underpaid in the hopes of getting a big dollar bonus at the end of the affair. Meanwhile, the National Hospitals are under equipped, lacking in basic materials needed to treat the people that get there and often invaded by the criminals that landed the patient there, coming for a second visit to finish the job.

Personally? I think Chavez is the worst thing that could have happened to Venezuela. The good that his pet projects did the country do not outweigh the harm the rest of his government did our country nor do they excuse his divisive and terrible rhetoric of with me or you're the enemy.

I agree with Daltar, though I believe something far worse could have come up in Venezuela. Chávez was the logical conclusion of Venezuela's political traditions of charismatic paternalism and petroleum-financed demagogue. Instead of cleaning the vices of previous Democratic government, Chavismo just enhanced it to their wildest dreams but as a grand-child of a man exiled from Franco, I'm thankful we didn't get a Pinochet or a Stroessner, just a bumbling Perón.

World leaders react to Chavez's death - quite a lot of them seem to be pretty beaten up about it. Notice the cheeky 'suspect illness' line from Iran's president.

Clearly he knows too much, better warm up the Cancer Gun...

He's already overdue some rad poisoning off his nukes.

edited 6th Mar '13 3:17:37 PM by Achaemenid

What the Max guy said.

Anyhows, 30 days for elections. Let's see what happens.

edited 6th Mar '13 3:58:49 PM by Stormtroper