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Chavez launches biting US attack ["Captalism: road to Hell"}
BBC ^ | 3/11/2007 | BBC

Posted on 03/11/2007 12:35:47 PM PDT by HarmlessLovableFuzzball

The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, on a tour of Latin America, has launched a stinging attack on the US. Visiting Bolivia, the firebrand leftist leader said that capitalism was "the road to hell". Mr Chavez underlined the billions of dollars of aid Venezuela is ploughing into Bolivia's economy at a time when the US is reducing its contributions.

US President George W Bush has avoided discussing his rival's regional trip during his own visit to Latin America.

Heaven and earth

"Those who want to go directly to hell, they can follow capitalism," Mr Chavez said in the town of Trinidad in Bolivia.

"And those of us who want to build heaven here on earth, we will follow socialism," he added.

Recent floods in the town left thousands of homeless and their livestock drowned.Venezuela's aid package of $15m (11.4m euros) outweighed the sum offered by the US tenfold.The country also sent in aid workers who attended their president's speech on the airport runway. During his visit, Mr Chavez also pledged more than $1bn (£0.5bn; 0.76bn euros) for oil projects and community radio stations in the country.

Mr Bush spent Saturday in Uruguay where he spoke of the US care for the "human condition" and its "quiet, effective diplomacy".

Rural retreat

He defended capitalism, saying one way to lift people out of poverty was to encourage investment.

"I would call our diplomacy quiet and effective...aimed at helping people, elevating the human condition, aimed at expressing the great compassion of the American people," he said.

Mr Bush (right) said Americans cared about the human condition. The US president has pointedly refused to directly respond to Mr Chavez's comments as they make parallel tours of the region.

Mr Bush's presence in Latin American states has been met with protests and marches, some of which have turned violent. About 20 people were arrested in the Uruguayan capital Montevideo on Friday after an estimated 6,000 people took to the streets.

On Saturday, Mr Bush avoided the crowds by meeting the president at his rural retreat some 125miles (200km) west of the capital. Mr Bush is heading to Colombia on Sunday where he will meet the region's most loyal ally, President Alvaro Uribe, followed by Guatemala and Mexico.

There are about 22,000 members of the security forces posted around Bogota in preparation for Mr Bush's arrival in the Colombian capital.

Mr Chavez, meanwhile, travels on to Nicaragua.


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bozo; bush; clown; hugochavez; hugoping; socialist; venezuela
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To: GeorgefromGeorgia

You are correct in your statement and let me add; the Venezuelan people are capitalist at heart. One has nowhere more to go than to the streets sourrounding the Parliment building and Casa Amarilla in El Centro (downtown Caracas) to see street vendors demonstrating capitalism at its most basic form. Unfortunately, Venezuela has a 70% plus poor population that lived under numerous corrupt right of center corporate like governments; corruption is nothing new to the Venezuelan people hence they tolerate it from Chavez's cronies. The difference is that Chavez has given the poor a percieved voice which they never had before. Until the Venezuelan right understands that government answers to all and not just the wealthy Chavez will continue to rule.


41 posted on 03/11/2007 2:36:47 PM PDT by Sine_Pari
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To: Bringbackthedraft

Fat head Ted is a lock. He's Massachusettes pet rock, no one cant get rid of it either!


42 posted on 03/11/2007 2:37:01 PM PDT by ronnie raygun (ID RATHER BE HUNTING WITH DICK THAN DRIVING WITH TED)
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To: GSlob

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Do you mean majoritarianism, as in let's vote on whether farmer Juan takes his pig to the butcher and distributes the meat to everybody in the village?


43 posted on 03/11/2007 2:38:27 PM PDT by dr_who_2
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To: Sine_Pari

I think people (not just in South America) tend to think that capitalism is not so much "you do something for me, i do something for you" but "I've got lots of allies vs. Will you be my buddy?" instead.


44 posted on 03/11/2007 2:40:38 PM PDT by dr_who_2
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To: HarmlessLovableFuzzball

A "Biting" attack, eh? That sure gives Chavez a lot more credit than he is due.


45 posted on 03/11/2007 2:41:51 PM PDT by webheart
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To: dr_who_2
No, classic corporatism, aka collectivism [in one of its forms]. The social individuals there tend to be not biological individuals proper [unless it be the el supremo of the day], but the social corporations/groups: a "party" [or rather nomenklatura thereof] like PRI, the "movement", "the church", etc. The thing is that the farmer Juan of your example is not much [if any] of the social individual. The "cacique" of his village or district is [to an extent] a social individual - but only as a cog in a larger machine. That machine is a social individual in its own right. And liberal democracy, as traditionally understood, is feasible only in an individualistic society.
46 posted on 03/11/2007 2:47:45 PM PDT by GSlob
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To: HarmlessLovableFuzzball
"Those who want to go directly to hell, they can follow capitalism," Mr Chavez said in the town of Trinidad in Bolivia.

The question is: Why don't we taech capitalism in our public schools?

47 posted on 03/11/2007 2:48:44 PM PDT by JmyBryan
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To: GSlob

Hmmmm!


48 posted on 03/11/2007 2:48:49 PM PDT by dr_who_2
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To: dr_who_2
You may have something there...I like to think that capitalism allows me (the individual) to produce as much as I can for my own benefit. At the micro level the individual benefits i.e. personal wealth and a better life. At the macro level, society as a whole benefits as the individual's business grows it helps others and the overall economy. At any time the government stifles the individual, personal success is interrupted.
49 posted on 03/11/2007 2:53:34 PM PDT by Sine_Pari
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To: Sine_Pari

Personal success is interrupted whenever the individual is stifled by anybody. Unless that person is about to slit their own throat. Only so much you can do about that.


50 posted on 03/11/2007 2:58:36 PM PDT by dr_who_2
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To: Texas_Jarhead
Without oil his communist experiment would be impossible.

And charisma, lies, and, of course, Foggy Bottom.

51 posted on 03/11/2007 3:19:27 PM PDT by Calvin Locke
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To: HarmlessLovableFuzzball

If capitalism is hell, Chavez should ask the people of Cuba about the socialist paradise they are living in.


52 posted on 03/11/2007 3:34:51 PM PDT by The Great RJ ("Mir we bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
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To: GSlob; Cacique

ping

They're talking about you


53 posted on 03/11/2007 3:34:58 PM PDT by bert (K.E. N.P.)
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For the want of a bullet millions will live in fear, terror and degedation.


54 posted on 03/11/2007 3:57:01 PM PDT by wodinoneeye
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To: HarmlessLovableFuzzball

Good grief. If the tragedies of the 20th century didn't persuade Mr. Chavez that the road to hell is paved with excessive government control over the economy and its people, then I don't know what to tell him.


55 posted on 03/11/2007 4:01:07 PM PDT by I Hired Craig Livingstone
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To: Yorlik803; ripley; HarmlessLovableFuzzball
" If it was up to me, I would blockade the bastard..."

Chavez needs to sell his oil more than we need to buy it.

"Of course you realize ..." <Bugs Bunny voice> "... this means War!" </ Bugs voice off>

56 posted on 03/11/2007 4:37:53 PM PDT by NicknamedBob (I know where I have gone wrong, and I can cite it, chapter and verse.)
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To: HarmlessLovableFuzzball
I recall the words of Reagan;

"Communism only works in heaven, where they don't need it, and in hell, where they already have it."

I can't improve on that!

57 posted on 03/11/2007 4:40:21 PM PDT by LibKill (RudycRAT is lying his way to power. Look at his record. He's 100% DemocRAT.)
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To: I Hired Craig Livingstone
The only possible benefit of Chavez will be that young folks who think they are leftists,and have neither experience with nor real picture of 20th century realities will see the destruction in real time. They believe Chavez is a good guy. Chomsky says so, after all. Unfortunately, good innocent folks in Venezuela are going to suffer.
I believe Mr Chavez is not sane. Normal rules do not apply. He shares the distictive thug/paranoia/controlfreak complex of Stalin,Hitler,Amin and Hussein. It is a toss up whether he or the economy cracks first. Both are in progress.

Recent Views of Chavezonomics
Associated Press: Holding on to the family nest egg has suddenly become much harder in Venezuela, where inflation and uncertainty reign as President Hugo Chavez says,nothing and no one can stop him from transforming the country into a socialist state.

LATimes; Inflation, food scarcity roil Venezuela Economists say the government is overreaching in controlling prices, fueling a black market.

Salon: A famous Venezuelan, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, referred to oil as the devil's excrement. For countries, easy wealth appears indeed to be the sure path to failure. Venezuela might be a clear example of that.

New York Times: President Hugo Chavez has threatened to jail grocery store owners and nationalize their businesses if they violate the country’s expanding price controls.

58 posted on 03/11/2007 4:42:39 PM PDT by pending (TODAY)
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To: HarmlessLovableFuzzball

"And those of us who want to build heaven here on earth, we will follow socialism,"

Right, that's why Russia and China had to kill 30 and 20 million* of their own people to get the rest of their people to submit to socialism, because it was such a heaven on earth.

*Or was it 20 and 30 million respectively - it gets so confusing when those kinds of numbers are reached.


59 posted on 03/11/2007 4:46:36 PM PDT by Let's Roll ("...given the choice between war and dishonor, you chose dishonor - you will have war"- W.Churchill)
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To: pending
I believe Mr Chavez is not sane.

Definitely agree with you there. The one thing that keeps me optimistic when all the winds seem to be against free societies is that socialism is a miserable failure wherever it's tried long enough.

"Chavezonomics" will be relegated to the ash heap of history along with other flavors of massive forced wealth distribution. But when will the world learn?

60 posted on 03/11/2007 4:59:51 PM PDT by I Hired Craig Livingstone
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