Good for Chavez!  We need an American leader who will put the fascist corporate whores, who have taken over our government with their vulgar, grotesque corruption, back in their places.

To Sane Person:  Like a typical fascist, your label is, no doubt, the complete opposite of what you are!  Freedom and Democracy, is that what we have in the U.S.?  I think YOU are insane, deaf and blind.  Since Ronald Reagan, the U.S. has been on a collision course, rapidly transforming into no less a totalitarian fascist state than Venezuela is a totalitarian communist state.  Which is worse?

correction:
(BUT have absolutely to rights or freedom with which to overthrow it).
should read:
(BUT have absolutely no rights or freedom with which to overthrow it). and i should add - no right to vote or speak against it.

all of you people are insane.
move out of the US if you don’t like freedom and free market society. my fiance and her family are from venezuela…

besides closing down independently owned and legally licensed TV stations, rigging elections and confiscating privately owned land, chavez is now on a tear to nationalize the phone companies and electric power companies in venezuela - this is communism ala fidel castro. so what if there’s foreign investment. enact a law that promotes FREE business from within the country to compete with and win against foreign businesses. give tax breaks to privately owned venezuelan business and tax the hell out of foreign business. that’s one thing you can do among many.

here’s another doozie: he has also frozen the assets of the entire nation. this article mentions the use of currency abroad specifically, but also, according to my fiance’s family, if you want to move your money out of a venezuelan bank over to a US or swiss bank account- anywhere, it is strictly forbidden. imagine - your own money controlled/kept by the government.... both my fiance and her uncle are trying to get their money out of venezuela without success.
http://www.gkcaracas.um.dk/da/menu/Eksportraadgivning/ Markedsmuligheder/Landeinformation/HandelspolitiskeOg&# xC3;˜konomiskeForhold/CADIVI/

remember, he intends to abolish presidential term limits so that he may stay in power indefinitely. can you say dictator? here’s a search about the method chavez has been using and intends to continue to use in order to win any election or any referendum put forth to the people of venezuela. (they’ve tried to vote him out of power twice, at least). basically, even if the country votes against him, even if foreign nations question him on the legality of his actions, his illegal voting practices will allow him to say that the changes were voted upon by the people of venezuela and approved. that he is simply doing the will of the poeple… all lies according to every venezuelan person i have talked to (at least 10)…
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=U.S.+Investigates+Vot ing+Machines’+Venezuela+Ties&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1 &cop=mss&ei=UTF-8
if the link doesn’t work, go to yahoo and run a search on this: U.S. Investigates Voting Machines Venezuela Ties

lastly, here’s an organization you may not have heard much about, but you can see what they stand for on their website. chavez is against this organization, he would like to dismantle it and has called the leader of this organization, in a recent speach, a “pendejo”, rather than referring to him by name, simply because he expressed disapproval for the closing of legitimate TV stations in venezuela.
http://www.oas.org/
http://www.eluniversal.com/2007/01/12/en_pol_art_12A82 3735.shtml

take a moment to research who chavez’ principle allies are. (don’t get me started on that)
this is a decent article:
http://www.cfr.org/publication/11285/

you support this fcuker, you support the death of freedom and democracy. socialism DOES NOT WORK. government owned and operated agencies fail because no one has the opportunity to better themselves and are eternally dissatified with their leadership, (BUT have absolutely to rights or freedom with which to overthrow it). you remember bread line in russia? meanwhile, we have hundreds of types of bread to choose from around the world. competition breeds success. and while there is a level of corruption that MUST BE FOUGHT AGAINST, it is nothing compared to the corruption and rape of people’s rights to succeed and make a better life for themselves. to improve the quality of goods and services through recearch, develpment and invention in order to thrive in a competitive market. competition breeds improvements, business and choice.

you are all nuts. it’s truly sad to see.

If you have not read John Perkin´s book I WAS AN ECONOMIC HIT MAN, then do it.

These utilities were ¨privitazed¨in 1991. Chavez is only righting a wrong. As to compensation for these corporations......nobody compensated the people of Venezuela for the theft of their utilities at bargin basement prices.

Do not the people of a country own the resources of that country? This is the pertinent question. Granted the companies that invested funds to develop those resources are entitled to compensation for their effort & financing, BUT how many times are they entitled to get paid back? What is a fair amount of compensation for their capital outlay and what is a fair margin of profit for continuing to provide a service or product? Who deserves to benefit most from the utilization & depletion of resources...the real owners of the resources (the people), or an invented non-living entity (corporations)?

Oil is a good example of how twisted things have become in America. While millions of Americans struggle to make ends meet, because of artificially raised oil prices, the oil companies report record profits. How is this fair when ‘We the people’ are really the owners of these resources?

Then there are those who claim that if the people owned the resources, and they were administered by our government, inefficiencies would be greater than if run by the private sector. This is true, in some instances, but only when ‘We the people’ allow it to be so through lack of transparency & oversight. A good example of this is a comparison between the much touted privatization scheme proposed for social security and the existing system. Another example is the Medicare Part D prescription coverage. Families USA just proved the new prescription coverage costs citizens 58% more by putting it in the hands of private companies, than the military pays. A massive giveaway to private drug companies.

I can’t slight Chavez for actions which help millions of his needy citizens when they are done at the expense of greedy corporations. ‘We the people’, in ANY country, have rights that supercede those of private corporations. I’d rather see a few corporations go under than see thousands of needy people put in the ground from lack of necessary resourses. It’s a no-brainer outside of corporate boardrooms that businesses have an ethical responsibility toward their customers & people in general. Those sitting at the board need to understand this also.

When people get paranoid about the term ‘socialism’, much of that due to being brainwashed by propaganda from the likes of Sen. McCarthy/V.P Nixon & J.Edgar Hoover, I would remind them the first two major European settlements in this country (Plymouth & Jamestown)were and still are in states known as ‘commonwealths’. What does this word mean?

I agree. For the moment, Mr. Chavez appears to be working for the common person in his country. I am not going to believe that he does not also have some personal ambition as well but for the moment the people are doing better under him than they were. This is a good thing.

What the people, all people, need to do is bet on the horse that will win YOU the race now then bet on the next when it starts to limp. Learn a lesson from the corporations and follow the money. Bet on the winning horse, only make it run the race that’s good for all of us, not just the horse that’s running for itself. As long as they make life better for the average person and their family, give them your support. The minute they stop, help pull them down.

It brings a whole new meaning the term “rat race” doesn’t it? :D

Chavez took control from greedy corporations and gave out equally to social programs.
I feel optimistic about it. Someone is doing for the poor, most vulnerable ones. Not for the greedy ruts.

Poverty is not inevitable. War is not inevitable. We can fight against capitalist ideology. We can win.

Public services in this country are run by private monopolies and cartels (telecom, healthcare, garbage collectors, gas production and distribution, water-bottlers, you name it). They make huge profits for a select few at the expense of the ordinary citizens. They thrive on capitalist model of exponential growth, by imprinting the “consume, consume, you ass,” mantra on your medula oblongetta.

A government can do the same thing, perhaps, with a lot of waste, but no one gets to be bill fcuking gates.

But, of course, you have a couple of highly liquid billions in the banks, and you want the FCC to change the rules so you can merge CBS with Fox.

Viva la Capitalism!

Or, perhaps, you are just another headless running dog of capitalism.

viva Chavez! building socialism for the 21st C!

There will always be debate over whether socialism can be made to work. It’s history so far is sketchy and like all forms of gov’t I guess in the end it always comes down to the people. But I for one see faint rays of hope in its continued survival.

It boggles my mind that we in this country do not see how clearly our rampant capitalism has such a chokehold on us and is in effect killing us. The robber barons have returned only this time around we are allowed to run ourselves into eternal personal credit oblivion to hide the fact that if not for living beyond our means we’d all be living in shanty towns. We go into debt and convince ourselves that we are doing well, that we have it better than the rest of the world. We do, and we don’t. We are living as we do as long as we are allowed to do so. Can you imagine what life would be like if all those loans and debts were called? What if all our credit lines were cut? Can many of us imagine what our lives would be like if we tried to stop living in debt? I mean is that even possible anymore? I just can not believe that THIS is the American way. The words “neither a borrower nor a lender be” come to mind.

Competition is a good thing. I believe this. But if you look at our country… at the jobs available, who can get them, how far we can get, how much we can earn, how much it costs to get there, how much it costs to live, what our expectations are in life… I mean really look at it honestly, can anyone say that it’s really fair? We have replaced security with convenience. And in the wake of that exchange we have convinced ourselves that what we need to live & be successful and happy equals being eternally in debt. We accept this as “the way it is”. I for one do not subscribe to this “reality” anymore and think it’s high time people in this country rejected this perspective as well.

In our past, labor rose up and we actually had elected officials that went after the kind of corporate power we have today. Granted, Teddy went after them more because they were getting more powerful than he and the gov’t, but they were knocked down a peg. They learned from that and now, in many ways, they ARE the gov’t. So I guess, in today’s world, the only ones left to fight this battle are we the people…

I like the cut of your jib, Headless.

The old adage still rings true. “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

If Chavez wants to limit the influence of the international corporations, he can do it without nationalizing them, through the laws of his land.

Chavez has a chance to bring power back to the people, out of the hands of the International corporatocracy. I fear he will instead be seduced by the dark side as all in the past have been.

Ultimately he too will be known as a cruel
dictator.

Truely unfortunate.

Is Karl Rove being with Chavez ? How come the President of Venezuela has the same idea what Bush & Co. doing now ?

Chavez, for all I really know about him, may be a raving lunatic, but I don’t care. I have to love anyone who can scare the living hell out of the sociopathic, bottom-line feeding, corporate officers.

I have been saying for a long time that these string-pullers, as well as our elected officials, whose stings they pull, should be scared.

They have gotten away with too much for too long and are invisible to most Americans. They feel too safe for our own good.

With the exception of nationalizing privately held companies (ours being monopolies) it appears that Mr. Chavez is following the Bu$h government doctrine. Consolidate power and resources and crush dissent. I guess Karl Rove has been busy south of the border too.

Why is everyone so surprised about this guy?  He is Castro’s best buddy and following in his footsteps.  What did Fidel do when he came to power?  He is a communist, so he nationalized all corporations, period!  History repeats itself folks...get use to it.  As long as we keep electing ultra right wing fruit cakes to office, the rest of the world will balance it out by electing ultra left wing fruit cakes.

What an insult to fruit cakes. 

Headless

Only the monster up north and the local oligarch views the public ownership of public services as scary.

Scarlet O´Hara did not need Milton Friedman and 4 syllable words to say ¨It is easier to steal from the poor than the rich¨.

What these companies bought at forced fire sale, World Bank and IMF prices, then proceeded to raise prices and make billions off a captive population needs to go the same way as Bechtel in Bolivia......out of the country.