What did you know about President Hugo Chavez?

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   PoetasDsignsposted 12 years ago

   What did you know about President Hugo Chavez?

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   Dont Taze Me Broposted 12 years ago

   He was a larger-than-life political figure who served as Venezuela's president for 14 years. He has died from cancer at age 58...he's dead, for me that's enough.

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   FatFreddysCatposted 12 years ago

   I knew that he hated America, and that he's dead. That's about it.

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      Old Empresarioposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      The US made an attempt to overthrow him once he started independently reforming his country. So he was not fond of our government. Now you know 3 things.

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   JThomp42posted 12 years ago

   All that I know of him is that he was a dictator who hated the United States and we still bought oil from him. And, now he has passed. God rest his soul.

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   Billie Kelpinposted 12 years ago

   I listen to Amy Goodman on Pacifica Radio, and through the years, she's had journalistic pieces on Hugo Chavez which I have to review today because, while I try to keep up, I must admit that I can't keep world political leaders straight in my mind.  Your question reminds me that, in essence, I know nothing about Hugo Chavez, and I need to find seek out more. Thank you! I'm going to stream Amy Goodman's take on this event in the background while I write right now and listen to the BBC later today for their take on Chavez.  As a person who was in college during the Vietnam War and whose husband went to that war, I experienced a great deal of moral angst about our role in that conflict. I vowed to never be so uninformed again about world politics.(Sometimes vows lose their umph).  However, I believe that our very lives and others' lives depend on our ability to understand the interactions of the world players and to understand our roles in shaping those interactions, for collectively, especially as those privileged to be able to speak out in a free society, we DO have a role and an obligation to be, at the very least, informed.

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   Old Empresarioposted 12 years ago

   I know that everyone in the world loved him, except people in the US who get their information from television. He was confused about the American people, but he hated our government's actions.

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      jeanihessposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yeah, he took an ordinary salary, drove a beat up car and had no personal security:)

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      Old Empresarioposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Our president's White House is barricaded and he drives around in a tank-limo and is surrounded by the Praetorian Guard.

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   Justsilvieposted 12 years ago

   This question is becoming redundant so I am too!
   
   If you read more than the local press you find out he is not as hated as the US would like him to be. His people must have liked him for a reason!
   
   Some of us may remember him as a loud mouth tyrant but to some Americans he will be remembered as the man who got his country to donates free heating oil when they were in need and other companies and turned their back while the raking in major profits...
   
   (By the way I hope we all noted the financial report that corporations have had another more successful year in profits than ever before.) Those poor rich people are really suffering after all getting richer in a shot economy must be very stressful! And the republicans fighting for them with all their might must really warm their heart!)
   
   It’s just strange who we call tyrants in this country since the planet thinks we have plenty of our own.
   
   Read more
   
   Venezuela donates free heating oil to 100,000 needy US households
   
   http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/342972#ixzz2

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   LandmarkWealthposted 12 years ago

   Some of these answers are hysterical.  He was loved around the world !!!  Really ??? Apparently he was loved by the worlds tyrants like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Has anyone bothered to note that the Venezuelans who were fortunate enough to be freed from his opression and make it to the United States are celebrating in Miami in the hope that true democracy might one day be restored.  This is a man who amassed a fortune of over a billion dollars while his people starved. Citizens from his country fled in droves when they had the opportunity to do so.  I am always amazed at how people in this US can praise the regime of a nation that you must secretly defect from in order to leave the country alive. We heard the same nonsense and still do about Castro's Cuba while to this day Cubans float on hand made rafts through shark infested waters in the hope of making it to Miami.  How many Americans have risked their lives to flee to Cuba or Chaves's Venezuela ???
   
   During this mans rile, the people suffered terribly. Crime soared across the country. Political opposition was not tolerated and were simply jailed or forced to flee the country to seek asylum.  Opposition in the media was completely shut down for state run media that simply repeated his rantings. And private assets were simply nationalized byt the govt.   This is somehow the model for a great leader to some.

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      mintinfoposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      What is the purpose of the School of the Americas? Please know that no dissenter from capitalism is left to his own faith for fear that he may become successful.

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      LandmarkWealthposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      There is no system of government in the history of mankind that has ever lifted more people from grinding poverty than that of  the free market system. While the stateist has produced nothing but poverty in the name of the collective good.

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   mintinfoposted 12 years ago

   He was an honerable man who fought for what he believed in. Sure it did not sit well with the ideology of some namely capitalists. I know that capitalism is an ideology with little sympathy for the disadvantaged or those who would stand in the way of profit. "A rising tide raises all boats" is often the excuse but reality reveals a dirrerent situation. Some would commodify life itself it they could in order to make a profit. They operate by a "survival of the fittest" agenda and all who don't play the gave face the wrath of sanctions and covert actions of sabotage on all levels; economical, medical, psychological, religious and all out divide and conquor.
   
   Don't get me wrong, I am no socialist but I know that business can be carried out without the exploitation. Why do we need to commodify water, kill organic plants and replace them with genetically modified ones that we can charge a profit for and why do we need to kill indiginuous peoples in order to get control of the oil under their feet? The excuse is that the Earth is running out of resources so everyone has to conform to a system of globalization. The truth is it maximized profits for the elite.

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    LuisEGonzalezposted 12 years ago

    A president who heavily leaned towards socialism, nationalized many industries, amazed over 1 billion dollars and downgraded the economy of a once rich nation; BTW; I was in Venezuela last year and I personally witnessed hundreds of Venezuelans crossing into Colombian to buy staples like milk, bread, eggs, meats and petrol. So yea he was a hero, just like Fidel............not !
    
    And if you did not know, he had "private" militias that would intimidate those who openly defied him as well as shutting down a popular TV station because they had the "nerve" to criticize him.

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       LandmarkWealthposted 12 years agoin reply to this

       My sister inlaw is from Columbia and goes back 3-4 times a year.  She has told me the same.  It's a sad state of affairs for the people of Venezuela.

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