The deliberate ignorance of individuals like DaveZx3 has much to do with why this world is as badly screwed up as it is. I’m constantly gobsmacked at how willing people are to make outright, demonstrably false statements to buttress their warped views of what should be reality on the rest of us. The Presidential Palace DaveZx3 refers to was in fact used by sitting Cuban presidents (just like the President lives in the White House) up to Batista, who was the last President to actually reside there. That’s the same corrupt dictator backed by U.S. corporate interests who was allowing Mafia interests to control his country until he was kicked out in the 1959 Revolution. It is now a museum. By all objective accounts Castro has lived a simple life even though in the United States controversy still surrounds him. Wikipedia’s entry which addresses these allegations states:

A KGB officer, Alexei Novikov, stated that Castro’s personal life, like the lives of the rest of the Communist elite, is “shrouded under an impenetrable veil of secrecy”. Among other things, he asserted that Castro has a personal guard of more than 9,700 men and three luxurious yachts.

In 2005, American business and financial magazine Forbes listed Castro among the world’s richest people, with an estimated net worth of $550 million. The estimates, which the magazine admitted were “more art than science”, claimed that the Cuban leader’s personal wealth was nearly double that of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, despite anecdotal evidence from diplomats and businessmen that the Cuban leader’s personal life was notably austere. This assessment was drawn by making economic estimates of the net worth of Cuba’s state-owned companies, and used the assumption that Castro had personal economic control. Forbes Magazine later increased the estimates to $900 million, adding rumors of large cash stashes in Switzerland. The magazine offered no proof of this information, and according to CBS news, Castro’s entry on the rich list was notably brief compared to the amount of information provided on other figures. Castro, who had considered suing the magazine, responded that the claims were “lies and slander”, and that they were part of a US campaign to discredit him.

Those who live in glass houses shouldn’t be throwing stones. That ‘elected’ politicians in the States are virtually guaranteed reelection because of a massive systematic bias towards incumbents and potential third parties should give little right to criticize other countrys’ politicians for wanting the same thing.

So…No examination of the criminal charges made against the man?

Just complaints that he was a critic of Chavez and therefore should be set free

I suppose in Truthdig’s world, anyone who is a critic of Chavez couldn’t possibly be guilty of corruption

Commune115

The devil is in the details:

Mexico is indeed the US’s main source of oil but the US buys a similar amount
of oil from most its suppliers thus spreading it’s sources and avoiding taking
too much risk. Contrary to popular belief the US has diverse oil suppliers and
it’s in it’s best interest not to favour one supplier over the other. This is one
reasson why Chavez constant threats that he will stop sending oil to the US
have gone largely unanswered (another is that the specific kind of oil that
Venezuela produces can only be refined in refineries built specifically for that
kind of oil and the majority of these are in the US so they are empty threats to
begin with).

Additionally both Mexico and Venezuela produce roughly the same ammount of
oil: 2.6M bpd (which is incidentally a far better indicator of resources than
wether or not you sell it all to the US) the difference? Mexico’s population is
106M and Venezuela’s is 27M. My point is your comparisons don’t work
because there is way more money for far less people in Venezuela than in any
of the other countries that you mention and this has been the case from day
one of the Chavez presidency. 

Your statistics about Colombia seem wrong since in 2009 it’s unemployment
rate was 11.3 or 12.3 depending on the source but more tellingly it has
reduced in the last decade starting at 20% in 2000 at about the same rate that
Venezuela’s unnemployment rate has (18 to 7.4% we started 2 or 3 points
below them and we still are) so your point about Venezuela’s better handling of
the economy and job market is wrong since both countries saw a comparable
decrease in the unemployment rate of roughly equal proportions in the same
period.

Further, your choice to ignore the dangers of the state being the largest source
of employment, and particularly a state that professes an ideology which is not
shared by all in the country seems hard to justify especially since not all his
supporters back him for purely ideological reassons, they simply are not
reading the fine print. As for the rural zones in Colombia being worst than in
Africa (again no clue how you compare) I could take you to some areas of
Caracas were you would not notice the diference between Caracas and Cape
Town except for the fact that you would be TWICE as likely to be murdered in
the first.

I would love to see some evidence of these new medical institutions being
constructed in so called record time. The Central University hospital is in
deplorable state and so are the hospitals where Venezuela trains its physicians
and while the government has constructed some basic care facilities which are
those where the cuban doctors operate these can hardly be substitutes for
heavily needed investments in infrastructure. I know this because I am
Venezuelan and Caraqueño and because I have visited and sought care at both
types of facilities. With regards to new medical schools I won’t even bother
expecting a response; this is just false. At most a few new especializations in
emergency medicine but nothing to tackle the underlying cause of the
professionals deficit: higly educated Venezuelans don’t want to live in a
country where you are likely to be raped, robed, killed or kidnapped so they
leave.

The argument stands. With so many resources, with so much time and with so
much power all the Venezuelan government has to show for itself is quite
pathetic. Though 11 years seems like a reasonable amount of time for you, I
did not grow up in a country where you live in fear of crime and bodily harm
for you and your loved ones or where receiving a call demanding money for
the release of a loved one is such a serious risk that insurance companies have
started selling kidnapping insurance. All this while the government makes no
visible effort to stop crime.

I am sure you would not be so ready to defend experiments of this kind if you
had to endure them.

Commune115.

Yes, really. You are talking about statistics and those are inevitably reported by
official sources which can’t be trusted. One example is the fact that the access
to healthcare that you talk about is provided by Cuban doctors that have no
licence to practice in the Country (a fact that Chavez simply ignores alongside
the obvious damage to the rule of law that this entails). Venezuela pays Cuba
for this assistance by sending oil at heavily discounted prices to Cuba and we
have seen no parallel investment in Venezuelan medical infrastructure,
Venezuelan public hospitals, which double as medical schools, have in fact seen
their funding freezed and sometimes even reduced with some sad examples
such as the Periferico de Catia hospital having to shut down because they have
no money to care for patients. Clinics maned by Cuban doctors do not face
these burdens. Now tell me if this is sustainable and forward planning or just a
government trying to score cheap political points by throwing money at a
problem without looking at the underlying cause for it. Venezuelans deserve to
meassure their healthcare in terms of quality as well as quantity.

I am not familiar with the current employment rate but those numbers come
from the same statistics bureau that recently had to apologize to Chavez for
publishing less than stellar literacy statistics and corrected them after the boss
gave them a public scourging (or do you think the UN has a team of
statisticians working on every country on the planet?). I can also tell you that
last MONTHS inflation rate in Venezuela was 5.2% and that the minimum wage
if 1,223 BsF which at the unofficial rate used to import EVERYTHING since
Venezuela only produces oil and rum comes to about 152 dollars a month. This
coupled with the government’s unstoppable seizing of private property
effectively stops foreign investment and makes the State the largest source of
employment. Now, would you be willing to critizise or in any way think
differently than the government’s approved line of thought if your job
depended on it? 

Finally, comparing Venezuelas’ problems with Colombia, Peru, Mexico,
Honduras and Guatemala is not wise since Venezuela is one of the worlds
largest oil producers with the largest heavy oil reserves surpassing even Saudi
Arabia. None of the countries you seem to think are so similar to Venezuela
have that amount of resources coupled with a relatively small population. The
real question is: with so many resources and a government that has enjoyed
more than a decade of absolute control over every branch of the administration
how on earth do we run out of water and electricity, how does a bridge
connecting Caracas with the countries largest port falls to ruins while the Vice
President of the Republic claims he did not know something was amiss and
how on earth do you justify 130 murders per 100,000 citizens and all the
kidnappings that happen daily among other things.

It is patently obvious that Venezuelas largest problem is distribution of wealth
and that a socialist government with clear strategies to bring this about
without unjustly damaging working class people who have worked for what
they have might benefit the country enormously. However, do not be fooled for
a minute into thinking that the Chavez administration has anything resembling
a plan to that end.

Its funny that this debate takes place on an article about Baduel, and it’s
hilarious that some of the comenters seem to think this guy, while he was
stealing all the money he allegedly stole, was any diferent than all his pals
which are still in the government.

Finally, Chavez’s clever use of the anti american discourse earns him cheap
politicall points in a world tired of an overreaching US but do yourself a favor
and look behind the discourse, or even take a careful look at the unedited
discourse of Chavez, whichever you prefer, and you will see that its all BS.

Articles by Eva Golinger are always objective… riiiiiiiight
Find ONE thing the woman has said that is critical of the current Venezuelan
government, I dare you!

The same goes for Venezuelanalysis: try and find any reference to the
Investigative Institute of Co-existence and Citizen Security study that last year
put the murder rate in Caracas at 130 per 100,000 citizens (the Uk’s is 2 per
100,000 and Cape Town, no-ones nominee for safest city on earth is 62 per
100,000) and all you will come out empty handed. Is this just not an important
enough subject? I would imagine it’s at least required to provide “far better
news and discussion about Venezuela”
This is where the debate on Venezuela splits between the Venezuelan people
who have to live with incredible levels of crime, lack of basic public services
such as water and electricity (Chavez blames el niño like he only started
running the Country yesterday, the truth is he and his team of innept people
have not made the required investments in infrastructure during all his years in
power, prefering instead to give oil revenues to other Countries in exchange
for the international image that the Venezuelan govenrment has today and
some cuban doctors whose working conditions are dangerously close to forced
labor) and those who simply support him because of his leftist discourse which
in the end ammounts to nothing more than that: a discourse without actions to
back it.

If only ideolically leftist people realized that by throwing their support behind
Chavez they actually do a disservice to their beliefs half the problem would be
solved. The other half does not look so easy…