I wonder if there is any actual law cited as opposed to Bush style "terrorism" allegations.

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forcing them to give up their 5th Amendment rights and then forcing them to face secret GJs after which when they try to 'remain silent' they are thrown in jail. But wait, that would be here in the US. Venezuela seems to need some actual reason to do this kind of thing. Here it's all so secret, the reasons, but it's for our security, so who cares?

He did NOT incite any kind of terrorism or threaten anybody. All he is doing is posting about what is REALLY going on in Cuba. Assaulting his house sure doesn't seem like the kind of thing that would happen in a "democracy".

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It's actually kinda sad to see how many people in here look up to Chávez as if he were some kind of saint, when they're really in no position to make any judgments.

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as much to improve the lives of millions and celebrate their success. Why is it sad? Progress in Venezuela and other Latin American countries shows how fighting for social justice ...... works, it's a good example of hope for all of us, no matter where we are. Do you chastise Chavez' detractors in the same way? I haven't seen it.

Sure, Chávez has helped out the poor. But he has also simultaneously planted seeds of hate between those who follow him and those who don't. In October's elections, Chávez won with roughly with 54%, while Capriles won 44%. That's almost half the population of Venezuela, and Chávez has been waging war on that significantly large minority, a minority which holds most of the middle-class. Chávez and his lackeys are, everyday, insulting without reason to anyone who does not consider themselves chavistas, saying that everyone who doesn't follow Chávez are traitors or exploiters of the poor, when this is clearly not the case. Chávez does not deserve praise because he's only given the poor short-term solutions to their problems simply because they are people who just don't know any better.

Just think about it, if you had grown up all your life in a shanty town, and then the government suddenly gives you a refrigerator just so you go vote for him, you wouldn't say no now, would you? I'm not saying Chávez hasn't done anything for the lower class of Venezuela, I'm just saying that, with all the oil income Venezuela has received since Chávez became president, he could easily be giving the poor more long-term solutions for their problems without actually jeopardizing the lives of anybody who is in upper social class levels while at the same time improve people's lives in general. But he hasn't, he's just given the population a bit more than what they're used to having before he came in, and that automatically makes them cheer for him. While he's done all this, the government has expropriated lands and industries that actually were doing a decent production job and are now barely producing because all their original staff have been replaced with chavistas who are put in charge based on their loyalty rather than their capabilities, and let's face it, this is not gonna give you people who are well-prepared to run such companies. This also leads to a serious deterioration of industrial safety nationwide and quality of service. Just look at what happened some months ago in the Amuay Oil Refinery, or the fact that every so often there are blackouts in several regions of the country. All public services are under the State government's control, and throughout the years, it's been shown that they've done a terrible job of running them. Every day we have to import more and more products simply because the national production is down the toilet, so we have to rely on importing goods from other countries. The infrastructure itself is decaying: every so often I hear about some new hole or bridge that broke down due to poor management of streets and highways, which can't also be blamed on metropolitan governments controlled by the opposition, as anything involving public highways and roads are also the State government's responsibility.

And of course, we have the crime rate: just last year there were nearly 20,000 homicides in the country. And that number has only been getting worse. This is a combination of the poor's resentment that stems from the hate-filled speech that Chávez has been giving for years now, poor gun control policies, a corrupt state police force, and a seriously lacking public education system, ALL of which are the government's responsibility. This is the problem that most Venezuelan citizens consider the worst, and it's even spread into schools. Just a few days ago a young girl was murdered in the Andres Bello lycée located in the Libertador district of Caracas. I myself have friends and family who have been kidnapped and held at ransom, and they were abducted right at their front door. Of course, Chávez and his government lackeys still blame the policies of the preceding government, even though such numbers didn't exist during those times, and they've also had more than 14 years to fix the problem, yet they're not doing anything about it. You tell me who's to blame here. And you've probably also heard about recent mutinies that occurred in several of the largest jails in the country, where they've found military-grade weaponry held by corrupt wardens.

In the end, the problems of Venezuela are much more than just the poverty. There is infrastructure, national production, civil and industrial security, economic stability (inflation level is one of the worst in Latin America, by the way), public education, and so on. But most of these problems don't matter to the greater half of the population, simply because they are humbled people who simply don't. know. any. better, and are satisfied with their government as long as they're given something every so often.

credit for here. They've been part of the process since the beginning, and are more attuned to and involved with the political process than most people I know here in Canada. Definitely, the improvements in education, health-care, housing security and all of the other things we take for granted and that they didn't have before, are a big reason for such loyalty - and where on earth wouldn't they be? - but they've now known what it feels like to have some control in their own destinies and have experienced some pretty great changes, I don't blame them a bit for their support for him or the fear they must have of losing it.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/11087061

The most promising aspect of the Venezuelan government's social development agenda is the proactive effort to promote democratic engagement and citizen control over local conditions and possibilities. We should all take note that these efforts are taking place in the middle of a global financial, economic, and ethical meltdown, when many countries are sharply scaling back social policies and embracing the neoliberal polices Venezuela has repeatedly rejected.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11086720

The figures speak for themselves, as do the credentials of Venezuela’s democratic process. Surely, the real question, then, is: what are the root causes of that popularity? Reading the reports of mainstream Western media sources, you would be forgiven for thinking of the Venezuelan masses as a herd of blind sheep unthinkingly following a caudillo-type supremo with slavish devotion. After all, an example of an alternative system that works, a system in which making money is not the prime objective of government policies, truly is a dangerous thing. So, we hear reports of ‘human rights abuses’ in Venezuela, with no specification of what these supposed abuses are, exactly. We are told of Chavez’s use of Venezuela’s oil wealth to gain electoral support, without further elaboration. Indeed, it may be difficult for people living in a country with such a moribund political system to imagine that any politician could genuinely gain the support of his compatriots. So, let us explore the possibility in a serious way.

Why is it that the majority of the Venezuelan population keeps re-electing Hugo Chavez’s government? Is it because a country once mired in corruption and poverty now has the lowest level of inequality in the whole of the Americas? Is it because, since Chavez came to power, 22 universities have been built – are all completely free for students to attend, and which encourage those from less privileged backgrounds to do so? Is it because people living in the barrios(poorer neighbourhoods) in the hills surrounding Caracas can now take a cable car into the city that has transformed a lengthy journey into a relaxing 10 minutes, and is completely free for anyone to travel on? Is it because the government has built playgrounds in city plazas for young children to play on? Is it because of the government education misiones which have taught elderly women and men to read and write for the first time? Is it because the Bolivarian Constitution, written by the public and passed by a national referendum, enshrines the rights of indigenous people for the first time, or is it because it bans any foreign country from having a military base on Venezuelan soil?

http://www.zcommunications.org/who-is-hugo-chavez-frias-by-jody-mcintyre

Living now in Vancouver, Canada, she considers Chávez “an essential revolutionary leader” but a “contradictory person.” “He is a soldier who believes in popular participation. The important thing is to see the fruits of this thing.” Venezuela is the least unequal country on the continent.

____________________________________________________

Folha – How do you evaluate the political situation in Latin America?

Marta Harnecker – I am very optimistic.

When Chávez won he was alone and now the scenario has changed a lot. I consider the most advanced situations to be in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. My last book was on Ecuador and is called Ecuador: Una Nueva Izquierda en Busca de la Vida en Plenitud. The concept of these governments is that of an alternative to capitalism, in which the human person has full development...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11085647

Women's Rights Groups Present Proposals to Chavez for Government Plan

By Rachael Boothroyd

Source: Venezuelanalysis.com

Monday, September 17, 2012

Women's rights groups presented a series of proposals to Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez on Wednesday evening in a televised event at the Teresa Carreño theatre in Caracas. The groups are hoping that the proposals, which are related to specific issues affecting Venezuela's female population, will be incorporated into the Chavez administration's governmental plan for 2013-2019.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11085513



... Venezuela’s Worker Control Movement and the Plan Socialist Guayana

In 2005 the first worker controlled factories came into being when the Chavez government expropriated paper factory Invepal and valve factory Inveval in January and April of that year respectively, after workers launched occupations against the former owners. The factories were established in “co-management” with the state, whereby workers owned 49% and the state 51% of the factory and administration was shared between the two. Of the two factories, Inveval developed the deepest worker participation, with decisions made in weekly worker assemblies and a factory council formed in January 2007.


Finally, by what has been achieved so far, Venezuela’s worker control movement demonstrates to the world that workers can indeed collectively self-manage their factories and workplaces, and that capitalist hierarchies and divisions of labour are not the only, nor best, way of organising economic life. By running production in a collectively democratic manner, workers’ alienation from their labour and the unfair distribution of produced resources can be overcome, while leading to the greater education and consciousness of workers. Such a model can also benefit society as a whole, as production is geared toward the needs of society and not profit for capitalists, and lays the basis for deeper economic and social transformation. In the context of austerity being imposed by an elite upon peoples across Europe and North America as a result of the latest crisis of capitalism, worker control in Venezuela is another example of not only how another, better, world is possible, but also what that world could look like.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11084569



Reclaiming tourism from the rich: nationalisations, public investment, and worker participation.

“The teleferico was constructed under the Jimenez dictatorship, and when the dictatorship fell it still hadn’t been inaugurated. The punto-fijo governments that followed wanted to dismantle it, but the communities protested and it was decided to finish it, plus it turned out to be more expensive to get rid of it than finish it. It turned into a tool of exclusion, only the wealthiest people could afford it. So there’s a social debt because a lot of people here in Merida haven’t had a chance to use it,” said Martinez.

“The governments didn’t bother to invest in it, it was wearing out and in 1991 there was an accident, and over a period of twenty years the teleferico was closed for 11 years 11 months for lack of investment and repairs. Following the line of the IMF, in 1994 and 1995 the government started to privatise it, something the Chavez government reversed when it was elected,” he explained.

In 2008 the current government decided to suspend the teleferico service, and began studies to rebuild it with better structures, more towers, larger and faster cabins, larger, more attractive stations with lifts for people with handicaps, and repairs and modernisation, and in 2010 began the construction, with an investment of US$ 318 million. It should be finished in 2013, “normally it would take seven years but we’re doing it in three”.

“In the rest of the world they are firing people, but here the government is investing money in public works for quality tourism,” Martinez said. “The new teleferico will transport more people (320 per hour compared to 160 previously) and that will have an impact on the local economy.”

http://www.zcommunications.org/beautiful-venezuela-tourism-with-a-social-conscience-by-tamara-pearson


Editor's Comment: Venezuela's National Assembly passed extraordinary new labor laws in support of workers on April 30, 2012. In a time when workers have had their rights stripped away and capitalist economies are collapsing throughout the United States and Europe, the Venezuelan government has managed to keep its economy thriving and has given the bounty to Venezuelan workers. We regard these new laws to be the most progressive labor legislation in the world today. We thank Axis of Logic Columnist, Arturo Rosales for his report and analysis.

- Les Blough, Editor

Arturo Rosales: This report does not include all the benefits to Venezuelan workers in the new labor law passed by the Venezuelan National Assembly but it provides the following key elements:

Maternity Leave: As soon as woman is pregnant she cannot be forced out of her job or paid off. She gets 6 weeks prenatal leave with pay from her employere and 20 weeks maternity leave and is guaranteed her employment for two years after the birth of her child. The father receives 6 weeks paternity leave with pay and is also guaranteed his job for two years following the birth. If the child is born handicapped the mother cannot be fired and has a job for life.

Social and Pension Payments: Pensioneers must be paid their due by their employer into a personal fund in a private or public bank or into a government program, depending on the choice of the worker. Double pensions have to be paid if a worker is dismissed unjustly. If a company goes bankrupt – either legally or illegally – the workers’ rights have to be paid before any proceeds from the bankruptcy can be paid to any other claims made by corporations or beneficiaries of the business. If the owners who claim bankruptcy do not have any money to pay the workers - their assets and properties will be seized on behalf of the worker.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11082757


And on and on and on ....



They're also fully aware of what the right-wing opposition represents:

In an unexpected press conference yesterday, the national assembly legislator for the opposition party A New Time (UNT) charged the MUD with developing a neoliberal economic package behind closed doors, to be implemented if opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski won the October 7 presidential election.

“Democrats in Venezuela don’t accept hidden agendas…or neoliberal obsessions,” he declared.

Ojeda was referring to an MUD economic policy document leaked to press two weeks ago, which advocates the deregulation of banks, opening up the economy to more private investment, and the reduction of state funding for public services and communal council projects.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/11085504


You're deluding yourself with your 'they don't know any better' comment. I bet you really hate those very successful literacy programs he implemented, heh? Your claims would be so much easier otherwise.

I think it's wrong to equate government social spending to "handouts" or "bribes." Though, it is no coincidence the largest expenditures tend to come around election time. That's fine though, even if it causes an imbalance to those who don't have the capacity to make social spending policy and therefore are incapable of having the same draw electorally.

I think that the chavistas have 1) smart social spending policy and 2) a large network with which to reach out to the electorate. That gives them, obviously, an advantage when it comes to the polls. There's nothing wrong with that but it would be wrong to say that said advantage doesn't exist.

It does remain true though that chavistas and chavismo itself pits Venezuelans against one another socially and politically. While I am all for partisanship, I refuse to believe that this is a good way to be partisan. I can say I disagree with conservatives about health care policy while at the same time explaining why a progressive health care policy is better than not having one. I can show them how, for example, single payer is cheaper than the system we have now, and they might bury their head in the sand and disagree, but it's a far sight better than pitting people against one another.

There's a reason the homophobic bigot Maduro unconstitutionally kept power, he needs to have access to the Fonden funds to continue using the massive chavista network to maintain good social spending policy while at the same time reaching out to the electorate to get elected. He knew that had he not kept that power, Cabello, as sitting President, would have the coffers at his disposal and it would've weakened the homophobic bigot Maduro's position completely.

I just happened to remember those articles as clear as day the second I read this: "But most of these problems don't matter to the greater half of the population, simply because they are humbled people who simply don't. know. any. better, and are satisfied with their government as long as they're given something every so often." Unbelievable, right?! I may not 'live' in Venezuela, but because I've been reading some of the amazing information that's been posted on this board for so long, I'm glad to be able to counter at least a little bit of that mess.