OP/ED: Hugo Chavez Dismantles Democracy in Venezuela

Exactly Seekerof! I can't convey how totally shocked I am at the number of true communist apologetics there are on this site, it's like they've learned nothing from the disastrous Soviet communist experience.

Seekerof did you read the 18 Gains of the Venezuelan Revolution
That Ghostsoldier posted?

Just because socialism was corrupted in Russia doesn't make it a bad system. In fact the poor/working poor were far better off when it was communist than they are now.
Personally I don't normally support any form of enforced governance because ppl ARE too easily corrupted. But what I've seen so far with Chavez seems to be a step in the right direction.
Of course what will happen, as usually does, is the system Chavez set up will be discredited here in the U.S. and other western power controlling countries. Our media will do it's best to present it in the worst possible light.

And talking about Russia, I bet you can't tell me anything of the benefits to the workers in that system? But you could probably list some of the negatives, no? Do you see my point?

Can't you see this hate for socialism in the U.S. comes from indoctrination. The only people who should fear socialism is the rich self serving minority.
So what if it's a Utopian dream? Why are you scared of Utopia?
Worried that you might be giving up that extremely slim chance to be one of the rich and powerful?
Shouldn't we be working towards a system that is fair for all? That will never happen with capitilism.


[edit on 18/4/2005 by ANOK]

Hey ANOK, I have read the Communist Manifesto too, so?
Change is temporary, and Chavez and socialism is temporary as well.
When the people see that he is nothing but a fixture in the socialist pipe dream, they will remove him.
You know, it is all apart of "world revolution."




seekerof

Corruption exists in every system. The USSR didn't collapse due to corruption, it collapsed since communism simply doesn't work. It looks nice on paper but doesn't take into account the human equation, and leaves the population devoid of any ambition or hope to make a better future for themselves. Incidentally those items left out by the communists are the major ingredients of the American dream and what makes our country and generally capitalist systems everywhere so successful.

Yeah Seekerof but there is a BIG difference between the Communist Manifesto and something that has actually been done. The things on that list have actually BEEN DONE. Not a pipe dream, not Utopia, real fact!

Why would people remove him because he is socialist?
It's only in Amerika that ppl fear socialism with so much hate.
In the rest of the World they fear fascism, which is what you have here in the good 'ole U.S.A.

Europe faught Germany in WWII to rid the world of fascism, the U.S. faught to reap the rewards.

Workers Unite!! Feed the poor, eat the rich!! AP&F...

[edit on 18/4/2005 by ANOK]

AnOK, you been smoking too many of those Cuban hefty cigars.

Europe faught Germany in WWII to rid the world of fascism, the U.S. faught to reap the rewards.

Let me repeat what you just said: The U.S. fought to reap the rewards?
Really?
I am honestly astounded when people make assertions like this. Last I recall, in 1941, Russia was on the verge of being overrun by Germany. Britain was isolated and in desperate need of assistance, but you say that the U.S. sustained and fought a two-front war [European and Pacific theaters] in WWII so as to reap the rewards? What, Lend-Lease not to your liking? Since when has a nation simply given years worth of war materials [tanks, planes, etc.] freely? We are not talking just a one time deal here, AnOK. We are talking years here.

Stick with the topic, AnOK.
This is not about WWII and the U.S. reaping the rewards, k?
Its about: Hugo Chavez Dismantles Democracy in Venezuela.

Sometimes I wonder....:shk:





seekerof

[edit on 18-4-2005 by Seekerof]

Hey Seekerof I just made a comment, you're the one going off topic by focusing on my off comment comment. In fact really it was on topic if you read my whole post and not take parts out of context. I must have touched a nerve eh?

(And btw the battle for Britain was over by the time the US joined, the US joined the Allies to liberate France. And yes the U.S. is still reaping the benefits of their "help". Why do you think Britain is considered the 51st state by a lot of ppl?)

Anyway that piece about Chavez that started this thread came from FOX news, since when did ppl on this forum start believing what they say

And my name is ANOK not AMOK...Thankyou and goodnight.

AP&F...

[edit on 18/4/2005 by ANOK]

Yeah..I'll get your name straight once you get 'faught' straight.

The US will not remove Chavez. His own people will.
We do not fear socialism.
Why should we? The Cold War is over. the best that Communist socialism could do was muster what, 80 years, give or take?
How long will Chavez and socialism last in Venezuela?

BTW, to some of us, FOX is like an American version of the BBC, etc.




seekerof

Originally posted by Seekerof
BTW, to some of us, FOX is like an American version of the BBC, etc.

Please Seekerof, don't compare FOX to the BBC, I thought you had a lot more sense than that!

FOX is a real news outlet compared that fly-by-night biased liberal hack shop!

[edit on 4/18/2005 by djohnsto77]

Originally posted by Seekerof
Yeah..I'll get your name straight once you get 'faught' straight.

Big deal so I spelt fought wrong....

I wouldn't put too much credence in FOX or the BBC. They're all biased because just their own interests (making money) dictates they'd be biased against socialism.
Again only the wealthy need fear the redistribution of wealth and resources.

[edit on 18/4/2005 by ANOK]

Originally posted by Gools
You know if there was an ATS award for most ignorant post of the month I think we would have a winner here.

Wow, after reading this statement it's clear why Gools was elevated to a mod.

[edit on 4/18/2005 by djohnsto77]

Capitalism at it's best right here folks!!!

IMHO Capitalism encourages heartless, primitive behaviour. Chavez is doing similar things as the Guatemalan president Arbenz was doing at the time. Guatemala was instantly labeled "communist" anda "Soviet Satellite". The U.S. governement had the CIA sponsor a coup and install a "U.S. & corporation friendly" totalitarian government. The result: over 100000 dead over a span of a few decades.

Now do you want that to hapen to Venezuela???

Originally posted by djohnsto77

Originally posted by Gools
You know if there was an ATS award for most ignorant post of the month I think we would have a winner here.

Wow, after reading this statement it's clear why Gools was elevated to a mod.

No it's not... Drop it.

Bandit, do we want to really get into comparing numbers on deaths and killings attributed to socialism/Communism and Capitalism?
Lets start with Stalin at over 20 million.
Hell, lets just go to this:
HOW MANY DID
COMMUNIST REGIMES MURDER?

I'll take democratic styled capitalism any day of the week.
But yes, by all means, lets continue with the Chavez=Good and the US=Bad shall we?





seekerof

I'm not into comparing Seekerof. Just acknowledge that capitalism have done atrocities as well and that the system does not work as well (and I am experiencing that personally also). I already know of communism regimes, no need to tell me.

Communism has always been worse than anything capitalism has done.

Perhaps many of you don't know it, but on April 11th, it was the third anniversary of the massacre in Caracas in which 19-20 people were killed and 80-100 people were injured, when president Chavez gave the order to execute the Avila plan on the demonstrators, who numbered from 500,000 to almost a million people.

Some of the people that were shooting at the demonstrators were caught on tape, and if they had been the local police (which were not in favor of Chavez) as the pro-chavistas proclaim, it would have been very easy for the government of Chavez to have detained these people. Yet, to this day, not one of the perpetrators have been caught.

According to the Chavistas, those who are in favour of Chavez, say he never gave the order to use lethal force against the people, yet a recording was made when he gave the order to activate the Avila plan when he communicated by radio communication with one of his officers.

Here is a link to the conversation, in Spanish, where Chavez gives the order to activate this plan.
www.urru.org...

It is also worth to note that Chavez also refused to accept the original results from the monitored elections in 1999.

Here is a link to the election results which were monitored by the organization of American States.
Link


This man has followed step by sep what fidel castro did to Cuba when he also started the people's revolution. Chavez has called for the implementation of Cuban style neighborhood watch, which sole purpose is to indoctrinate people into accepting Chavez and his plans. He has shut down private tv stations and now allows only state sponsored tv stations, among some of the other things he has done.

In summary, i still have no idea why some people think that Chavez is not a totalitarian dictator, who by his own words sees fidel castro as a moral image that Venezuelans must follow....

---edited for errors---

[edit on 18-4-2005 by Muaddib]

I would like to post this AGAIN for those who did not bother to read it, these are not blind election promises like the US President makes, these things have actually HAPPENED!!!

Originally posted by ghostsoldier

1. Written a new constitution. Fifty percent of it was written directly by the population. It was put to a referendum and it won the support of 70% of voters. This constitution extended the democratic, social and human rights of the population far beyond the boundaries of a simple parliamentary democracy. The constitution calls for participatory democratic bodies of people to organise and implement new initiatives, such as the ones mentioned here.
   
2. Eradicated illiteracy according to United Nations standards.
   
3. Lowered the infant mortality rate.
   
4. Created 3000 new Bolivarian schools.
   
5. Brought in more than 1.5 million people into the education system free of charge.
   
6. Established a free university system aimed at the poor majority traditionally excluded from tertiary education (the poor receive free textbooks, free transport to university, free meals at university). Students and staff also work together democratically to create the curriculum.
   
7. Built more houses for the poor in two years than in the previous 20 years under the old governments.
   
8. Created access to fresh, clean and safe water for millions of people for the first time in their lives.
   
9. Re-distributed millions of hectares of unused, idle yet arable (agriculturally usable) land to landless poor people.
   
10. Renamed Columbus Day (Christopher Columbus the ‘explorer’) Invasion Day and are rebuilding the nations’ knowledge of real indigenous history and indigenous resistance.
    
11. Opened popular food markets which buy food from food cooperatives, it then gets sold in the popular food markets at 30% below the price of food in the big supermarket chain stores.
    
12. Opened 1000 free kitchens have been opened to provide free meals for people without homes.
    
13. Constructed a massive free healthcare system which now provides free healthcare for the first time in history to poor workers and unemployed people.
    
14. Struggled for and won back control of the gigantic oil industry (off corrupt executives and top management) which is now managed jointly by the government and the oil workers.
    
15. Increased taxes on corporations, and forced them to actually pay their taxes (McDonalds and Coca Cola were shutdown for three days as punishment for avoiding payment of their full tax bill).
    
16. Increased the minimum wage by 30% in 2004 (this was not the first increase since 1998). Government revenue from corporate taxes and oil sales have been used for many social programs and minimum wage increases.
    
17. Banned employers sacking workers (which was declared by the government in early 2003). This has been extended and continues, allowing the rapid growth of a strongly rank-and-file-active democratic trade union movement that is washing away the pro-boss unions.
    
18. Recognition of domestic work, extending permanent social security payments to people who do domestic labour (mainly women), none of this payment is taken away if their companion is in work.
    

Hands Off Venezuela
Venezuela Solidarity

Originally posted by ANOK
There is a BIG difference between the Communist Manifesto and something that has actually been done. The things on that list have actually BEEN DONE. Not a pipe dream, not Utopia, real fact!

The Communist Manifesto was the VERY FIRST piece of literature written on Socialist Politics by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels… Any who has read this, good for you – anyone who thinks it is the be-all and end-all of Socialist politics is an idiot – go out and read some Trotsky, Lenin, Guevara – EVEN EINSTEIN WAS SOCIALIST…

www.marxists.org

Originally posted by ANOK
Why would people remove him because he is socialist?

The rich upper class (20% of Population) people TRIED to remove him from power via a Coup, I am almost certain that the CIA helped in the process someway… None the less within 48 hours of the majority of the people had violent protests to put him BACK IN POWER… Why? … Because he is one of the greatest men on earth… Half the constitution that was passed was written by the people, HE ENCOURAGES THEM TO READ IT! How often does president Bush tell you to read the constitution – tell him whats wrong with it – then go off and fix it for you?

Originally posted by ANOK
Europe faught Germany in WWII to rid the world of fascism, the U.S. faught to reap the rewards.

The Trotskyists and World War II
The Trotskyist analysis of World War II was that it was many wars in one. Ernest Mandel, Belgian Trotskyist and the most prominent postwar leader of the FI (Fourth International), describes it as

1. An inter-imperialist war fought for world hegemony and won by the United States (though its rule would be territorially truncated by the extension of the non-capitalist sector in Europe and Asia
   
2. A just war of self-defence by the Soviet Union against an imperialist attempt to colonise the country and destroy the achievements of the 1917 Revolution.
   
3. A just war of the Chinese people against imperialism which would develop into a socialist revolution.
   
4. A just war of Asian colonial peoples against various military powers and for national liberation and sovereignty, which in some cases (eg Indochina) spilled over into socialist revolution.
   
5. A just war of national liberation fought by populations of the occupied countries of Europe, which would grow into socialist revolution (Yugoslavia and Albania) or open civil war (Greece, north Italy). In the European East, the old order collapsed under the dual, uneven pressure of popular aspirations and Soviet military-bureaucratic action, whereas in the West and South bourgeois order was restored – often against the wishes of the masses – by Western Allied troops.
   

Ernest Mandel: The Meaning of the Second World War (Verso: London, 1986, pg 45) Mandel wrote extensively on Marxist economics and politics. His two best known works were Marxist Economic Theory (Merlin Press: London, 1962) and Late Capitalism (Verso: London, 1978)

Originally posted by djohnsto77
Corruption exists in every system. The USSR didn't collapse due to corruption, it collapsed since communism simply doesn't work. It looks nice on paper but doesn't take into account the human equation, and leaves the population devoid of any ambition or hope to make a better future for themselves. Incidentally those items left out by the communists are the major ingredients of the American dream and what makes our country and generally capitalist systems everywhere so successful.

The USSR collapsed because Stalin RUINED the Russian Revolution, what Stalins regime did to the USSR caused it to fail, it was doomed to revert back to the primitive social system that is Capitalism… Do some research…

Capitalist systems everywhere are not successful – they are basically screwed, the only Capitalism that actually works “effectively”, is Imperialistic-Capitalism … The only reason the US is so “successful” is because it destroys and leaches of other countries…

Originally posted by Muabbib
This man has followed step by sep what fidel castro did to Cuba when he also started the people's revolution. Chavez has called for the implementation of Cuban style neighbourhood watch, which sole purpose is to indoctrinate people into accepting Chavez and his plans. He has shut down private tv stations and now allows only state sponsored tv stations, among some of the other things he has done.

In summary, i still have no idea why some people think that Chavez is not a totalitarian dictator, who by his own words sees fidel castro as a moral image that Venezuelans must follow....

CHAVEZ CANNOT BE A TOTALITARIAN DICTATOR – HE WAS VOTED IN UNANIMOUSLY BY SEVENTY PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE OF VENEZUELA!!!

How dumb must you be to not get that trough your head… All your information is either from FoxNews or the privately owned news stations in Venezuela (WHICH HAVE NOT BEEN SHUTDOWN!!!) … He allows those Right Wing bigamists to exist because they have TRUE freedom of speech… The Venezuelan privately owned media is full of propaganda against Chavez because it does not suit their Capitalistic desires. And yet, 70% of the people STILL WANT HIM THERE! This is a growing majority might I add, not a declining majority

I repeat…
CHAVEZ CANNOT BE A TOTALITARIAN DICTATOR – HE WAS VOTED IN UNANIMOUSLY BY SEVENTY PERCENT OF THE PEOPLE OF VENEZUELA!!!

Hands Off Venezuela
Venezuela Solidarity

Workers of the world Unite!
Feed the poor, eat the rich!

[edit on 18-4-2005 by ghostsoldier]

[edit on 18-4-2005 by ghostsoldier]

Capitalism = An economic system that benefits a minority at the expense of the majority.

Socialism = An economic system that benefits the majority.

Capitalist = A person who seeks to gain for himself the resources of the World at the expense of his fellow man.

Socialist = A person who seeks to gain for the whole in an equal and fair way.

That's very simplified but which one sound better??

I find a lot of people seem to think that one person making a lot of money (as in capitalism) is beneficial to all of us. It's a lie, perpetuated by those who gain from making such statements. When one person gains someone else has to lose.
Like I said before, psychologically people cling to the capitalist lies because they are under the false allusion that they might one day be rich themselves.

Where is the freedom in capitalism? Where is the equality?
All capitalism does is give you the freedom to exploit your neighbours equally.
But most people (the MAJORITY) don't have the power to express that version of capitalist freedom.

People not power!

We have two of those channels on cable... Caracas (ch 10) and Venevision (ch 12). If Chavez was really a totalitarian he would ordered them to be shut down indeed. They're on right now of course. If they were off the air, my dear grandma would've already gone to Venezuela and killed Chavez for taking away her soaps... Just kidding...

And once again... This is not a competition between capitalism and communism on who is worse. I didn't come up with that subject, you two (Seekerof & Muaddib) did, bot are bad, and both have blood in their history. So both do not benefit mankind, plain and simple.

[edit on 18-4-2005 by TheBandit795]

Originally posted by ANOK
Capitalism: An economic system that benefits a minority at the expense of the majority.
Capitalist: A person who seeks to gain for himself the resources of the World at the expense of his fellow man.

Socialism: An economic system that benefits the majority.
Socialist: A person who seeks to gain for the whole in an equal and fair way.

Which one DOES sound better, I put my vote on Socialism... Although this is slightly off-topic, I think it is EXTREMELY Relevant...

The Invisible Laws of Capitalism
by Ernesto "Che" Guevara

The laws of capitalism, invisible and blind for most people, act upon the individual without his awareness. He sees only the broadness of a horizon that appears infinite. Capitalist propaganda presents it in just this way, and attempts to use the Rockefeller case (true or not) as a lesson in the prospects for success. The misery that must be accumulated for such an example to arise and the sum total of baseness contributing to the formation of a fortune of such magnitude do not appear in the picture, and the popular forces are not always able to make these concepts clear. (It would be fitting at this point to study how the works of the imperialist countries gradually lose their international class spirit under the influence of a certain complicity in the exploitation of the dependent countries and how this fact at the same time wears away the militant spirit of the masses within their own national context, but this topic is outside the framework of the present note).

In any case we can see the obstacle course which may apparently be overcome by an individual with the necessary qualities to arrive at the finish line. The reward is glimpsed in the distance and the road is solitary. Furthermore, it is a race of wolves: he who arrives does so only at the expense of the failure of others.

I shall now attempt to define the individual, the actor in this strange and moving drama that is the building of socialism, in his two-fold existence as a unique being and a member of the community.

I believe that the simplest approach is to recognise his un-made quality: he is an unfinished product. The flaws of the past are translated into the present in the individual consciousness and constant efforts must be made to eradicate them. The process is two-fold: on the one hand society acts upon the individual by means of direct and indirect education, while on the other hand, the individual undergoes a conscious phase of self-education.

[edit on 18-4-2005 by ghostsoldier]