h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I know how I feel: how do you feel?

'Sporting a red shirt embossed with a picture of the revolutionary Che Guevera, Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez received a hero's welcome Sunday at the World Social Forum, where activists greeted him with hugs and cries of "Here comes the boss!"

Chavez, a self-described revolutionary, is mounting an aggressive land reform campaign and funneling profits from Venezuela's oil riches to the poor as part of a political movement loosely based on the ideas of South American independence hero Simon Bolivar.'

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBYDUVXL4E.html

(In case anyone wonders how I feel: http://www.alternet.org/story/16255 [the article, not the headline])

Hmm. He's a very dangerous man, Chavez. A leftie who's winning.
Given that Venezuala is (I think) the largest importer of oil into the US I don't think he's going to last a very long time.

Maybe Dubya will offer him the post of head of the World Bank.

I like him because he's stuck two fingers up at the monetarist/free market/ big business paradigm and actually helped the people who need help in his country.

PS anhaga, I can tell the threads you start just by the titles

Sounds like an interesting guy, though i'll have to do some more reading on him before i make up my mind.


Can't imagine he will last very long though, I imagine Chavez's opponents will suddenly soon find themselves in possesion of a large quantity of American money and guns.

They will then be encouraged to dispose of Chavez, with the US Government claiming that Chavez supports terrorists/communists/satan and threatens to flood the US with drugs/bombs/homosexuals.

Considering the damage that the US has done to Venezuala in the past, they need a man to stand up to the US and do the best for the country. Afterall remember the lengths the US went to in Chile, its disgusting the way they only want the rich whites there to be secure and happy. They will do anything and everything to discredit Chevez, and they won't stop at killing him either. I wish him every success and very good body armour.

When's the last time any of our countries had a leader who was greated by the masses like a rock star? When's the last time any of our leaders got that kind of greating while on a foreign visit?

Perhaps we should start a campaign for Hugo as Secretary General of the United Nations. Or President of the World.

I don't know much about him. It sounds nice what he's planning, the whole oil money for the poor thing, but I have to say that based on the news article, he seems scarily populist to me.

The people of that country finally have a representative who is one of them, they are celebrating, maybe that is why he seems populist?

I was referring to publicity stunts like travelling 80 miles (or was it kilometers) to drop fish into people's fields.

He sounds great to me

It should probably be mentioned that he's not something new: He's been president of Venezuala since 1999. He's one of the elder statesmen of the world by now.

'I was referring to publicity stunts like travelling 80 miles (or was it kilometers) to drop fish into people's fields.'


Better that than travelling 8000 miles to drop bombs into people's fields.

Hes done well to last, I know the US have tried very hard to oust him.

I think Aïna is right - there is clearly a bit of a scary side to him.

He might be better than previous Venezuelan leaders, but frankly it would be difficult to be worse.

If you're looking for right on South American leaders, personally the chap in charge of Brazil would be more my cup of tea.

sprout

I guess I just feel impressed by anybody that tells the IMF to F off.

I think it is important to note that he is democratically elected, vastly popular, and enacting laws that are beneficial to the majority of the people.

One of the reasons why it's important is so we can brace ourselves for all the stories of dictatorship, mass repression and possible WMDs when someone in a distant capital decides it's time for him to go.

A wikipeda article on Chavez's life:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Chavez


Found this homepage for a group oppossed to Chavez:

http://militaresdemocraticos.surebase.com/en/index.html

I always thought Chavez was a good thing for Venezuela. He's totally democratically elected, he not only wants to but IS improving things for the poorest in his country. I suppose he might end up being a danger if a certain nation decides it can't live with democratically elected socialist governments popping up next door AGAIN and marches in their with guns to force things to be fascist and very evil simply for their own convenience AGAIN. In which case surely the certain nation and its President are the dangerous people who will ruin things for Venezuela? I hope and pray they've learnt to leave well alone.

Chavez is a controversial figure. Whilst many Venezuelans are pleased at some of his social reforms and efforts to help the poor he is a sort of leftist Margaret Thatcher - an authoritarian who doesn't like argument and aggressively looks to get his way.

Chavez is an ex-paratrooper and often appears in military fatigues, which is extremely odd (and not a little worrying) for an elected leader. He was democratically chosen but there is strong resistance to him in Venezuela, including from the trade union movement. Around the time of the failed coup against him in 2002 (I think) there was an anti-Chavez march against him which was fired upon by government troops. I seem to recall several protesters were killed.

Chavez is democratically elected but his authoritarian style has made him increasingly unpopular. He is a throwback to an earlier time, back when South Americans did politics with gun-barrels rather than ballot boxes. I don't think he's the future for the South American left, I think President Lula of Brazil (who stood on a platform of similar promises to Chavez, whilst not turning issues like poverty into issues of class conflict) is more the man to watch.

Unfortunately, the fact that Chavez is unpopular with the United States (who were rumoured to be involved with the attempted coup against him) means that a great many people will regard him uncritically. That would be a mistake.

'Notwithstanding Bush's rhetoric about creating democracies throughout the world, the United States has tried mightily to facilitate the overthrow of twice democratically-elected Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez. But it has thus far failed. There was talk last week at the WSF that the U.S. is attempting to get Colombia to invade Venezuela, but Chavez and other Latin American leaders are trying to diffuse the situation.'

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/020205AA.shtml