I doubt seriously Hugo Chavez’s popularity is in decline.  Here is the last news I have heard from Venezuela:

https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#label/Venezuela/122ae8a32587632f

@Ardee Pt II:

Almost all of the banks have been “repatriated” or “nationalized” and inflation is steadily climbing. The few companies that have yet to be repatriated are slowly being strangled to death by governmental control of foreign currency. In order to purchase dollars, pounds sterling, or euros business owners have to submit a request for funds and wait. The government simply sits on the request, waiting for the business to default! Those few who decide to purchase inferior equipment and supplies—if available—from China, Russia, or Cuba have their request for funds processed expeditiously. When businesses are left idle without needed supplies for production or reparation of production equipment workers are left idle also. Who suffers most for such asinine economic control? The poorest of the nation! Chávez’s hatred of the West is dooming his economic reforms!

The Chávez government implemented laws making it illegal to purchase foreign currency on the black market. Those who have lived in countries with high inflation—like Bolivians under the Chicago Boys fiasco—know that the poor are the ones who suffer most by not being able to purchase foreign funds as a hedge against inflation. This policy worsens the shortages of goods due to the fact that people are forced to buy anything they can in order to sell it later at an inflated price. Anything is worth more and holds it value longer than the national currency and that’s the only way the poor can hedge inflation. By the way, the penalty for dealing in black market currency is 7 years! Chávez didn’t serve that many years for two attempted government takeovers –which is treason and usually punishable by death in most societies!

Land reform is having a negative effect on production and jobs also. While I’m in total agreement that land reform throughout all of Latin America is desperately needed there is a better way to go about it. The Chávez government is “repatriating” land that is used by larger companies and corporations and turning it over, in parcels, to individuals –usually Chavistas! The problem is that most of these people do not have the skills, equipment, or the capital to produce the amount of grain, cane, beef, etc. to meet the demand of the country.

I’ve a question for you. How is it that under such dire circumstances Hugo Chávez, a former Venezuelan paratrooper, so poor that he didn’t always have shoes to go to school as a young child, now finds himself a millionaire? The only job he had before president for life of Venezuela was that of a paratrooper. Have you any idea what a paltry sum lower ranking officers make in the Venezuelan military, especially before Chávez´s socialist government?

Avarice and hubris whether practiced by corporate thieves and their democratic minions in government or socialist heads of state is still the bane of any society!

@Ardee Pt I:

I don’t know what segment of the populations you’ve been in communication with but I can assure you that in Venezuela Chávez’s popularity is in decline. While the literacy rate and medical services to poor neighborhoods have improved under Chávez most other critical criteria have seriously faltered.

Venezuelans are experiencing nation-wide, 3 hour electrical blackouts daily and there are shortages of critical food stuffs such as flour, butter, milk, etc. (also meat in larger metropolitan areas like Caracas and Valencia) When food stuffs such as flour, beans, etc. are available they are the inferior quality, collective produced, government provided food stuffs. The white Harina Pan (flour) used by the vast majority of Venezuelans—especially for one of their main staple foods, arepas—is either in very short supply or non-existent. Venezuelans are being forced to use the inferior yellow flour if available. In addition to food there are shortages of critical medicines. All the free medical service in the world won’t help much if you’re unable to find the needed medicines for treatment.

PDVSA’s production is down 30 to 50 percent of what it was pre-Chávez. Most of PDVSA’s professionals and trained personnel left Venezuela years ago. Many of the experienced workers—who were unable to leave—have quit or been fired by less qualified Chavistas who are given preferential treatment.

Repatriation of private companies is also having a negative effect on employment and production. It’s nothing for the owner of a business to arrive at his company in the morning only to encounter armed guards and discover that his company has been nationalized! In many cases there are absolutely no warnings given! Walk around any city in Venezuela today and count the businesses shut down for having not complied with one governmental edict or another. They’re all over the place! One of the more common offenses was not having the new cash registers that showed sales tax on the receipt. It mattered not that demand for the new machines—due to the new law—created a shortage and there were none available! I’m not talking about foreign owned Big Corp chains; they are mostly local businesses that have been in operation for decades.

nemesis2010, February 21 at 7:15 pm

Perhaps you might deign to attempt proof of your statement that the govts. of Chavez and Morales are failing. In the case of Cuba I think it remarkable that they enjoy any success at all with the imperialist forces so aligned against them.

Interestingly the populations of Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba think differently, with Hugo and Evo being elected with large majorities. I do note that many who reject socialism use the failures of a communist state, one that wasnt even true to the outline Marx set down, as proof of something it is not.

This surely has to do with the WTO and the NAFTA, CAFTA, etc. Trade Agreements, because all this started after these awful trade agreements started.  I am of the opinion that the WTO and all those agreements should be scrapped totally, and a new liberal democratic trade plan made where the populace receives benefit along with the capitalists.

@MarthaA:

The “Grupo de Rio” (Grupo de Rio de Janeiro) is an organization of Central American, South American States, and Caribbean States. There are currently about 22 member states. It was formed in 1983 by Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, and Panamá as a vehicle for peace solutions in war-torn countries like El Salvador, Nicaragua, etc.

As much as Castro, Chávez and Morales want to keep the Empire out of this organization the U.S. has two client state members—Mexico and Colombia—who act as counterbalances to Venezuela, Bolivia and Cuba.

I don’t blame any nation trying to liberate itself from Yankee imperialism but most of the socialist leaning leaders of states like Venezuela and Bolivia are replacing one failed economic system with another failed economic system. The failure of both systems is reaping catastrophic hardships for their people. In the case of Bolivia it is doubly sad because Bolivians had to endure the destruction of their economy and government by the Chicago Boys. Worst, these leaders are enriching themselves—just as their imperialistic overlords did—while their nations and peoples are falling into the abyss!

Men like Castro, Chávez, and Morales come into power because of AmeriCorp foreign policy which is basically to steal all the resources of others while propping up oppressive, right-wing dictatorships or capitalist systems like that currently in control in the U.S. where 90% of the wealth is held by 1% of the population.

U.S. Americans are going to find out first hand just what their form of capitalism wreaks upon other populations because the economic troubles in the U.S. are the result of the same avarice-driven capitalism that they’ve imposed on the rest of the world.

rollzone, February 20 at 4:28 pm;
that has been our intention, and if they do sever the
cord, is it time?
===================================
Are you serious?
I’m not sure I’ve read anything so bereft of
historical information or accuracy.
And for any market (drug or otherwise) to exist there
must be buyer. We fill that roll nicely.
====================================
And then you say; if we eliminate the illegal drug
profits, and the world turns quickly away from
biofuels: they are again in very uncomfortable
economic conditions. sober up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What pray tell are you smoking? When will that happen
in our life time?

Viva Morales and all of the indigenous peoples south
of our border trying to get back to a realistic existence which we so cruelly ripped away from them
in our mad imperialist march towards hegemony of this
hemisphere.

Martha

Mr. Morales is the president of Bolivia, and the article doesnt restrict the desire to run from the control of American imperialism to just Mexico.

I can understand why the Mexicans would like to get away from U.S. imperialism, so would I.

I can understand why the Mexicans would like to get away from imperialism, so would I.

Evo Morales proposed:
A new Organization of American States (OAE), without the north, without the empire, without the United States and Canada, will be developed at the meeting of the presidents of the River Group to take place in Cancun, Mexico.
In the press conference, it was pointed out that a new movement of political heads of state was being planned and that the creation of a new Latin American institution, without the North, is an excellent proposal and that it would be “an instrument by which Latin America might free itself from North American imperialism.
“Actually, imperial policy is not oriented to coup d’état but rather to create internal conflicts, to siege revolutionary governments with capitalist projects and also with militarism.”

“New military bases in Panama might appear, or strengthening of military bases in Colombia or there are confidential and excellent relations of the Southern Command staff with Peruvian commanders. The use of military bases in the Caribbean may be offered, or under the pretext of humanitarian relief for Haiti, 10,000 U.S. soldiers arrive. It’s a new form of aggression to liberate Latin America. 
He (Evo) added: “If we presidents are responsible for dignity, sovereignty, equality and liberty, we are obligated to develop a new institution, a new OAS without the empire; this should be the goal of the Cancun meeting, where said proposal will have to be solidified. Morales confirmed that on the 21st they will meet with social movements, governors, and mayors in Federal District (Mexico City).
After mention of the state takeover in Honduras, he said: “This is the work of the United States.”  He pointed out that “since our ancestors, from the European invasion, we are anti-imperialists, we are of this struggle, we are of these rebellions, for which we are going to participate in the Cancun meeting.”

“Oddly enough, no English sources, as yet, appear to have latched on to this story, so the text below—from one of the hemisphere’s most respected newspapers, La Jornada—is in Spanish.”

Of course no English sources will report it. We’re obsessed with whatever the pretty weak Green movement does in Iran, but we could care less about the important developments taking place NEXT DOOR.

hello. what does this say to the status of new world order? our own benefactors want independence from us. they are intoxicated from generations of gift loans and trade developments, and want to crawl in their infancy from beneath the imperial umbrella. that has been our intention, and if they do sever the cord, is it time? will we not be responsible for bailing out their failures of developmental trade economics? my opinion is give them more rope, but it is not time to dissolve the partnership. if we eliminate the illegal drug profits, and the world turns quickly away from biofuels: they are again in very uncomfortable economic conditions. sober up.