The left is on the march in Latin America and all the efforts by discredited pro-U.S. governments to try to tie this popular upsurge in support for progressive alternatives to Hugo Chavez are bound to backfire, just as they did in Bolivia. Further evidence of America's growing isolation on the world stage.

Chávez is an interesting character, to say the least. But, he just opposes US policy and is a leftist, plus his country has vast reserves of oil. Those issues put him in the spotlight, thus everything he says is analyzed to the nth degree. He seems to enjoy the spotlight (and that's fine), but he's not the "threat" to the world that some reports indicate.

Regards,
Tyler W. Berry
Santiago, Chile

If Humala also wins in Peru, we could be looking at a new bloc comprising Venezuela, Peru and Chile.

Some will call it a socialist bloc. I would call it an Inca bloc. Truly an astonishing historical development after 500 years' suppression, and one to be mostly welcomed in my opinion.

It's hardly surprising that this prospect should generate paranoia among the Mexican establishment. In Mexico the Spaniard's hegemony over the indigenous inhabitant is absolute but maybe precarious.

The racial aspect of these politics is consistently underestimated in the States.

While Chavez is outspoken, the opposition to "Free" Trade has universal appeal. It takes the form of riots by French students and South Korean farmers. The call to secure America's borders by the American people is another result of "Free" trade and the decline of the Middle Class workers in America because their jobs went with American factories to China.
As to right wing politicians in Latin America, they have long ago sold out their countries to foreign interests. First They sold out to the British, then American business interests, and with, "Free Trade", to the Multinationals who belong to no country.
Chavez better watch his back with China. They are the last Economic Imperialists that are fully backed by a govermnet.

OD wrote:
"If Humala also wins in Peru, we could be looking at a new bloc comprising Venezuela, Peru and Chile.

Some will call it a socialist bloc. I would call it an Inca bloc."

The Inca never held any territory in what is today Venezuela. Their empire never reached further northeast than modern Ecuador.

and while the Inca held sway over much of northern Chile, President Bachelet is as European in origen as all of her Chilean predecessors.

Please do not equate Michelle Bachelet's pragmatism to Chavez's neopopulism

Of course Chavez is the Perennial Issue.

South American people want free education, free health care and a government that can provide jobs and services for them instead of steal from them.

They see hope in AMLO and Humala and that's why they are going to sweep, it's about time Mexico and Peru get decent goverment that can improve their standard of living.

Chavez will get blame for everything happening in South America that Bush doesn't approve, most media is controlled by the extreme right at the service of the US including this one.

Le Bloc!

Mayans from Mexico, Incas from Peru, Aymaras from Bolivia, Caribes from Venezuela, Apaches from US, Black foot from Canada.

Time to scalp the cowboy!

It is astonishing that Chavez complains about US intervention by the endowment for democracy in Venezuela, but Chavez funds and does some of the same actions in a number of countries. In fact, he spends a great deal of money spreading a revolution heavy on his image and ego. That money should be spent helping Venezuelans and improving the infrastructure of Venezuela which is just a disaster...an absolute state of disintegration. He has a big mouth for a leader of a country that relies on one commodity for the majority of its income. Any drastic change in the petroleum marketplace...(it will have to be demand side alterations, like hydrogen cars or more ethanol use or more powerful batteries) any drastic change in demand will absolutely destroy Venezuela, the revolution of Hugo Chavez and the economy and future spending for Venezuela. The best advice I give is to go and try to live in Venezuela. See for yourself what this "revolution" consists of. Take notice of the conditions in Venezuela and how a country with so much money can have such poor infrastructure. Realize that Chavez has been in office since 1998, he has fought hard to change the entire system so that he is left with total control. He has stated he wants to stay in power until 2021...and he will change the Constitution again to allow him to stay in power. While he is not overtly violent, Chavez does enjoy the lawlessness of Venezuelan society and does not oppose his Chavistas from using violence to supress the opposition. His National Guard troops are notoriously brutal and use machetes instead of batons. He packed the Supreme Court with his own justices a la Roosevelt. If Americans are up to it and understand spanish, I would recommend watching Alo Presidente, his four to five hour weekly broadcast where he takes all of the airwaves to speak about his trips or how a family should not have two cars or how children shouldn't go to theatres because it costs too much or how if you know a family that has two houses and you have no house, just take the second house... The radical messages he says but hasn't acted on in his show are what frightens the productive, educated middle class of Venezuela. Everyone feels that the recently pro-Chavez dominant National Assembly just elected has a blueprint to create a new Cuba in Venezuela. People feel that sooner or later laws will be created that put property rights at risk, and that criminalize free expression, free press, etc. Bottom line is... live in Caracas and then make a determination on the credibility and competence of the Hugo Chavez government. If someone choses the uncivilized, unjust society of Venezuela over the stability, safety, opportunity, equality, justice and goodness of America... then so be it. At least in America we take care of physically and mentally handicapped...but in Venezuela lepers, mentally retarded and down syndrome individuals live on the streets. Ya! Basta con la vaina... Americans from my Democratic party that are socialists and people who receive free gas from Venezuela must not be bought out and must not have the wool pulled over their eyes. Live in Venezuela...live in a military dictatorship and see how much you will miss the United States.

"... the uncivilized, unjust society of Venezuela... the... stability, safety, opportunity, equality, justice and goodness of America... "

If I were one of those refugees from New Orleans and I read this, I'd say to you: "Forget Venezuela, man, just come over with all the stability, safety, opportunity, equality, justice and goodness you can muster. We still need plenty of all that very badly here, man. Right now. No damn words no more, man, just the real thing, you know? Just the real thing."

But I am not from New Orleans...

Andrew: "...live in a military dictatorship ...". A military dictatorship in which most of the TV stations and newspapers are owned by the opposition

The TV stations are routinely commanded by Chavez... all stations in venezuela are taken every Sunday for about 4 to 5 hours for his lectures. At any time he or his ministry of communications can and do take the airwaves to promote some message. The newspapers are different, I am not aware of who owns the newspaper outlets but the ones I read (El Universal and El Carabobeno) are generally critical of Chavez. There is a new interesting law under Chavez created that allows the government to determine the truthfullness and validity of news reports and allows for massive fines and loss of transmission licenses if the government decides a news outlet is lying. As for the comments comparing the conditions between the countries and Americas failure in Katrina, I agree and am embarassed that that happened in my country. However, a Venezuelan government in a similar situation would never have created any sort of levee system.
I say again as always...live and try to survive life in Venezuela. (Adversaries in Venezuela always bring up Hurricane Katrina... and it is true, we lost face on an international level and we lost credibility...thank you Mr. Bush, Mrs. Blanco and Mr. Nagin)

It's interesting watching the US from outside... I've lived in Argentina for the last 5 years and one of the most entertaining political dramas is the back-and-forth between the US and Venezuela. Chaves is a charmer, no doubt. His comical nicknames for Bush & others are refreshing.

At the same time, as a Democrat, almost nobody in the US in my own party has dared to speak up so honestly, lest they expect to be swift-smeared like Joseph Wilson or John Murtha, for example. Earlier this week Chaves declared "The war in Iraq is lost. The US has lost the war!" Who said it first? Is it true? I don't know, but I don't think anything short of the original vision is a win... and the vision keeps changing, bait and switch.

In the view from outside, the US looks every bit as corrupt as it is here - if not more at the federal level. Latin American corruption is just a 't-shirt of the week' issue, something always convenient for rhetoric writers out of Washington to point at. While it's easy for people to write as the gentleman above: "go live there and see for yourself," I don't think he's living there himself. hehe. I recently visited Bolivia and there's no way I'd want to live in La Paz, but then I wouldn't want to live in Mississippi either.

In my opinion the biggest problem in Argentina right now is almost the same as in the US: the middle class is being squeezed. Class lines are much more distinctive here. In Argentina and elsewhere in Latin America the rich don't seem to understand that nurturing the middle class makes them better off in the long run. Tieing this back to the Chaves issue, what gets lost in the bluster is the changes going on in Venezuela with things like labor unions. There is a lot going on there people don't know about.

A couple of interesting links: http://pinr.com/report.php?ac=view_report&report_id=285&language_id=1
and for a bunch of pro-chaves stories: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/

I lived in Venezuela 2 times, in Caracas and Valencia... I am married to a Venezuelan and I am heavily invested in Venezuela and immersed in the news cycle by both private and government sources. I tried to live there and would move back if not for Chavez. I have lived there... I ask others who support Chavez to try it out. You will see quite a difference.

Where's che?

Everyone wants a Che Guevara but such romantic idiots get drunk and crash their motorcycle into some tree and they die when they're still in their tweens. Gone is our romantic revolution.

Chavez is just a populist, he is friends with Castro and Castro throws people in jail when they disagree with him. Nice choice of friends, Hugo.

Chavez is just an idiot like any other oil farmer. Suck that black stuff out of the ground and sell it to the Chinese who exploit their workers with a fierce passion. Nice red flag you got there Hugo, it's colored in blood isn't it?

And Hugo, you feel justified railing against the USA? You have the moral high ground? Keep on pointing that finger as if you do.

W. vs. Hugo - put'em in tights, put'em in the cage, grease'em with oil, give Condi's piano stool to the roid-ravaged Vince McMahon and let's revel in the level to which business-suited thuggery has descended. God willing.

I compliment Mr. Chavez on his truly independnet and American values stand. As a student of the between the 1st and 2nd World Wars and the developement of a Nazi dictatorial and genocidal system, I am greatly alarmed at developements in Mr. Bush's administrations. I am concerned in the direction the U.S. may be traveling. We in the U.S. are no longer known world wide for the good things we used to stand for. We are now known for creating wars, hardship and imposing our apparently misguided will on other countries. Maybe our capitalistic system needs to be revised, as they do not seem to represent the equality demanded by the third world today. I recently looked at a world map and it appears that Europe and the U.S. are together just a dot on the map, compared to the the area the rest of the countries make up. Maybe it is time to adjust and incorporate new ideas and needs of the rest of the world. It does seem more fair that the needs of the majority of the world populations and not the needs of the minority of the worlds populations should be considered as important equaly. Mr. Chavez is attempting to do exactly what the British colonies in North America did to England...demand to be free from what he sees as a tyanical treatment, from what he sees as world economic colonization by his current King George. Have we learned anything from U.S. history. The new world demands statesmanship and not aggression: political, economic or by force.

The above statement is jus plain wrong. Chavez has no desire to lift the economic well being of his citizens. He wants to impose a cuban style society where noone has necessities and thus noone can formulate an opposition to his increasingly entrenched power. His revolution is only about him, his ego and his place in history. He doesn't understand economics nor the repurcussions of his economic policies (like a fixed monetary exchange ratem or ridiculous tax rates for operating business or consumption taxes.) The gentleman above seems to not like nor trust America... thus his future efforts would be best spent supporting the Chavez government... he should spend his energies advancing Chavez's ideals and then when he is older and plans on retirement and health care and his childrens education and safety, look to Chavez for that.

Mr. Koster if you are worries about the US developing a possible dictatorial and genocidal type system please rest your confused head.

Mr. Chaves can fulmigate all he likes, he is getting cosy with with the Chinese and the Russians who can teach the Americans a thing or two about dictatorial and genocidal tendencies thankyouverymuch indeed.

JVD: Don't forget about Iran. Chavez is quite cozy with that regime as well. Not exactly the beacon of democracy. Rather, it's a theocracy and Hugo's neo-populist revolution is starting to take on all the trappings of a state-mandated religion, with the deity as Chavez himself, and no room for other beliefs.

I've got to give it to Hugo. The man knows how to push those buttons! The people advising him are no fools, that is for sure.

Hugo is a small ant in the big picture of things... he is leading his people to economic ruin. The individuals advising him are selected for loyalty to MVR and not for their knowledge. Just look at the fact that the only bridge connecting Caracas to Maquetia (international airport) is closed because of its poort condition and will be closed for approx. 1 year. The infrastructure has deteriorated under Chavez. There is no security, no justice, no oversight of Chavez's expenditures, no checks and balances.

Andrew, you've had your say. enough posts from you. Your rhetoric is entirely negative and the suggestion that people should go there and live is very petty, as I suggest to you now, go live in Missippi and tell us how good it is. The fact you are "heavily invested" in Venezuela betrays what class of which you belong, and one might assume you're sitting in South Florida whining with the Cuban rich who fled their sugar plantations - wealth that wouldn't exist without the labor of slavery, or something very close thereto.

If you want to preach about how bad everything is in Venezuela, first tell us about your investments, and how much per hour the people in those companies are paid? What healthcare options were available to them before and now? If it's oil companies and energy related, how many years of scandalous level profits have you reaped up until recently?

If you want to preach, maybe you could be a guest on the 700 Club. People would like you and feel sorry for you there.

Having never been to Venezuela, I cannot comment directly on the effects of Chavez's domestic policies. I am also not "invested" in Venezuela. Still, I think all people who pay attention to world affairs and undertake to learn about why things are as they are should feel free to express their opinion on subjects with which they are familiar.
To my mind, the best measure of Chavez is gained by listening to the arguments and watching the actions of his enemies. From that perspective it is clear that he must be something approaching a saint, for he evidently causes great pain and worry among the very worst people.
If only for that reason (and there are many more), I thank you, Hugo.

There's always hope in South America that this time the revolution won't be betrayed by the Americans, Russians, by people like Castro or fill in the blanks who is to blame this time. But private initiative is fundamental, individual effort drives an economy and if the state taxes that individual to a degree that his/her efforts aren't going to make a difference in his material circumstances then he or she will stop making that effort. And it's those individuals that initiate economic effort, they create opportunities for others in the form of jobs and benefits through taxation / redistribution. Capitalists make jobs and pay taxes.

Capitalism is the best system because it gives space to individuals to deploy their initiatives and doesn't overtax them so that they feel their effort is not in vain. How did China turn around? Through enabling private initiative and now Chinese workers and employees are clamoring for representation and better pay and labor conditions, which creates the kind of economic groupings through which societies can become democracies.

Railing against the USA is so hopelessly populist. South America is strongly feudalist still and revolutions be they nationalist or socialist have almost always seen one european ethnic elite replacing the previous one and everything stays the same.

What's really so different in Venezuela? Is Chavez trying to create a middle class by stuffing them with oil dollars, without fundamentally creating the competitive economic circumstance in which a democracy can be born? Karl Marx was correct when he ascribed the power to change society to economic groups and relations of production; Marx was wrong in that he thought a paradise was around the corner in which all people would share equally. It hasn't happened and it's folly to assume it will anytime soon. What has happened is that economic groups have used democracy to create a balanced society, and such societies now exist in very different shapes from Sweden to the USA.

Sweden is unattainable for a country like Venezuela, in Sweden egalitarianism is part of babyfood, it's fundamental in an education that in many cases takes two decades to complete. Even then some of the worlds richest people like the founders and venture capitalists involved in IKEA and Ericsson choose to stay in Sweden and pay well over 50% of their earnings. In Venezuela they would have bolted and would have moved to the USA.

Everyone is entitled to believe what they want, to believe for instance that this time Chavez is Queztalcoatal.

Who are you to tell people how many times they can post? He seems to have knowledge of the circumstances. It seems you just dont like what he was saying. The U.S. has the first amendment so we can say what we want. Maybe that different in buenos aires, but this is an american newpaper.

TJH...
I am no oligarch. Just a small investor who owns an apartment with my wife in her home city of Valencia and who bought shares of KRY or Crystallex, a gold mining company with right to the Las Cristinas mines in Estado Amazona. I believe rising inflation and rising demand from the growing economies in China and India will drive demand for gold in the coming years. I work two jobs and my wife works one so we can provide a decent lifestyle and not be dependent on society in any manner. What I see in Venezuela is a society of increasing dependence and increased government interference in the marketplace. There should absolutely be social welfare systems set up, much like what exists in the USA... but there really isn't. The government provides assistance to people depending on their political loyalties. It isn't petty to say "go live there," it is in fact the best dose of reality for those interested in the revolution occurring in Venezuela. Do not go with Global Exchanges...as that outfit is just what Castro, or Chavez or Kim Jung Il would want, a tour of preselected sights authorized by the government.
One unfortunate outcome of Chavez's leadership is that any industry or business created by a Venezuelan in Venezuela will be subject to nationalization if it for "el pueblo." If petroleum was nationalized because of the social benefits, then any other business or industry would be nationalized if the benefits to the majority outweighed the owners rights. With that in mind, how many businesses can emerge in Venezuela to be competetive and innovative and be forward looking with out fear that the government can take over operations when it wants. Will we see a Aracruz, or Companhia Rio de Vale Doce, or Bancolombia or Fabricato, or Embraer Fomex or Cemex...etc.
One more note to TJH in Argentina... you speak from a country that is indebted to Venezuela. Argentinians are known for their arrogance and for not being like the other latinos... more associated with Europe. They were so arrogant that they pegged their currency at a 1:1 ratio in exchange. The Argentinians spent loaned money from the IMF like drunken sailors on weekend leave. The resulting run on the banks and devaluation has brought reality to the Argentinians that they aren't dynamic and not such an economic powerhouse (seeing the investors took their money out after deficits of little more than 3% of GDP.) Now, Venezuela has come to the rescue of Argentina by buying debt. If Argentina didn't respect the loans from the IMF and couldn't repay them...why does Chavez think Venezuela will see a good return on investment from his loans? That money should be building up Venezuelas tourism industry or creating a textile industry like Colombia or create public works programs to clean and repair infrastructure.
I am going to stop because I have written way too much about this subject in my postings and that government does nothing but make me mad. It makes me mad that the governor of my wifes state of Carabobo is a criminal. General Acosta Carles, the governor who won as governor not only was accused with heavy evidence of providing fake identification cards and passports but he also slammed a woman to the ground by her hair during the national strike. He was in the process of forcing open a coca-cola botteling plant because it is a civil right in Venezuela to drink coke and business owners must obey price controls --- even when they operate at losses... which is what is happening with coffee in Venezuela. This General stole merchandise, cracked a womans head open on the ground and sold fake id's out of his mansion. It is his photo hand in hand on the billboard that was outside my window that made me puke "SI PODEMOS." That is the leadership and corruption and abuse affiliated with Chavez and his Movimiento Quinto de la Republica.

"South American people want free education, free health care and a government that can provide jobs and services for them instead of steal from them. "

Dream on, populism never brought utopia before, it won't now. Chavez is nothing but a foul-mouthed version of Juan Peron.

Chavez is a populist, a criminal? Are you talking about Chavez or Bush? Who is the killer?Iraquies know the answer. There are hundreds of thousands of americans killing people from other countries everyday. Gread democracy, go ahead americans... the world will became better with your help

Speak of the devil...

Read the April 2006 edition of National Geographic. The article "The New Venezuela" explains some corruption of Chavez and his government.

"Iraquies"??? It is illiterate people like you who cause people not to take the Bush/America haters seriously.

Andrew

Very interesting post from you this time - many supporting arguments.

On the Crystallex mining issue and threats of rescinding concessions, etc. it's pretty clear the market got spooked by misinformation and speculation on your stock in particular. (see http://www.antandsons.com/faceoff/crystallex/ ) Mis-translation even proved devastating, which was the fault of the press... why aren't you railing on the press?

What I know about concessions to foreign companies from being in a similar situation - with an Argentine wife, but living here since just before the crash you mentioned is this: South America has been a playground for large international corporations to come in, play dirty, and abscond with outrageous profits. That is a fact, and there are many documented cases of everything from bribery, child labor, theft, and tax evasion to environmental pollution.

Most ordinary Latin public service concessionaires like water and telephone companies really did little more than downsizing existing workforces, upgrading technology (often with used equipment from elsewhere) raised prices, and harvested tremendous piles of cash- at the price of trivial investments for them. Sometimes for infrastructure projects the IMF was brought in, and competitive bidding turned out to be something quite a lot less than fair. Thus, the IMF debt you mentioned went to pay for projects by companies like Enron, the taxpayers are left saddled with the debt, and if the project was actually ever completed, it cost a great deal more than it would have if it had been done by local businesses. If you think the IMF is some sort of benevolent helping hand you are a sheep. It is an extension of political forces.

The Argentine debt is quite a lot more complicated than the way you described it. In fact, the IMF debt has never been defaulted on, and remains current to this day. The defaulted debt was of a different nature altogether - most of it underwritten by large US banks. These securites were pushed and over-sold to unsophisticated investors and when the wealthy pulled their cash out of the country there was no flow to make payments on this type of debt. When it came time to underwrite the new debt-swap, many a US bank was disqualified from involvement because of their questionable activity in earlier issues.

The new Argentine federal debt purchased by Venezuela has actually been a rather lucrative investment for them. They have resold some portion of it on the international market, though I don't know if the numbers have been published anywhere.

Right now in Buenos Aires at least, one would think the economy is quite hot- especially in the real estate sector. High-rise apartment buildings are sprouting up at an astounding rate. Argentina is following in the footsteps of the US with a housing bubble. Inflation sucks, the middle class is being squeezed, but much of the money that left the country before the crash seems to have come back.

To respond to one other issue, corruption... This is the perennial issue with almost all South American governments and I made light of it in an earlier post. However, I do believe these people do sometimes get their due. There is no government on earth that is completely free of corruption, and I believe the Bush administration is big league. Money is more important than human life to the current administration and the way to get the money flowing to their good old boys club is to start wars. Even though your example of a corrupted government official is quite vile, it's nothing for one woman to have her hair pulled and be thrown to the ground compared to 30,000 dead human beings in Iraq.

While I don't have much faith in the Bush Administration, neither do I want to be too strongly pro-Chaves. What I find interesting is there is something new being tried in Venezuela - a new model that opposes the neo-liberalist poisen that much of Latin America can thank for a lot of it's problems. I also enjoy the comical Bush bashing.

Just to note, I never said Argentina defaulted on its loans. I said they were Argentina "couldn't repay the loans." The last offer by Argentina I believe was 30 cents on the dollar which is preposterous.
I also question why you made no mention of the ridiculous policy in Argentina of pegging the peso to dollar exchange rate at 1:1. This was a huge factor in the collapse of their economy... a fixed exchange rate in emerging economies will cause more harm than benefit.
The Argentinian economy is hot right now because it is experiencing a "dead-cat" bounce. And Crystallex just exploded upwards for over 20% this week. (Chavez understands that he needs jobs and other exports other than petro.) It is funny, because I know the same thing will happen to gold as it did to petroleum. Since Venezuela has no experience in mining, nor the equipment, they will need experts like Crystallex or Goldcorp or Anglo American Gold or etc. But just like petroleum, once they have the infrastructure in place to sustain the industry, Chavez will take the projects and force the companies out.
TJH is right that the USA government has corruption, but man are they undercover about it. And USA gov. does a lot of good around the world, there are very few places in the world where we don't have assistance programs, or disease eradication programs.

TJH,

I think you are just upset that Argentina is going to lose in the first round of the world cup. Los Boludos no se pueden!!! This is the year (again) of Brazil!!!

TJH, Andrew, Jefferson, I have to butt in again - I post a lot lately on this blog and I can't help it much because the discussion is of a high caliber and the posts here make me think and ponder and I can't help but want to formulate my point of view.

I'd have to say that corruption and lack of social cohesion is the true affliction of South America, it is as if the conflict is in a perennial Spanish civil war between catholic conservatives and catholic liberation theologists / socialists. At the same time there's a vast reservoir of ethnic tension between colonial and native / poor driving this thing and after each revolution or war the status quo is somehow restored and the state never reaches legitimacy. Only now in the last two decades since the fall of the Soviet Union has the deck been reshuffled but the democratic institutions in South America are mostly still too weak really to be able to stand up to foreign meddling (be it American, Chinese, European or Cuban).

The South American people will have to stand up and get to work, vote like they have in Chile and Brazil. They have to strengthen the rule of law in their countries. They must find a way to build up their middle class into an effective self aware force that is capable of setting its own moderate political course. When people can effectively sue their own government and local companies and win, when independent courts can reject laws and establish jurisprudence, when parliaments has the power to legislate truly independently is when you'll see a change in South America. Not when the next mob hits the streets.

TJH like I said I wish Che Guevara were alive and that Quetzalquatl would return. Chaves hasn't shown he is interested in the rule of any law but his own, everything he is doing seems motivated by a desire to build up a formidable power base not just in his country but around the world. He might be genuinely interested in the well being of his people but people said the same thing about Mao Zedong. Here is this new revolutionary, you're willing to give him the benefit of the doubt while he thoroughly entrenches his powerbase and waltzes over democratic institutions and the rule of law. And you laugh about his anti-American antics?

Do South Americans desire dictatorship? Are they like most Arabs who have leaders just blame Israel and the Great Satan for everything that's wrong? It's easy to blame the US for all hurts that befall South America. Imagine the US wasn't there, what would be different? Populists would only have lost their most favorite object of hatred and ridicule, they'd find another though. There's plenty wrong with how the world is abusing South America's people and resources so don't let em buy their way in, build up solid institutions; now's your chance.

JVD has many good points. One thing that all Venezuelans tell me is that corruption has existed since Colombus and Venezuela was never viewed by Spain as an important state as compared to Bogota or other mineral producing states in southern South America. Their were never the investment in education, universities, industry in Venezuela as compared to Colombia. This culture as a militarized state not deserving of educational systems like Colombia had is one deep rooted reason why populism is working for Chavez. The mob or flavor of the week is always left with totalitarian like control of government institutions. This is exactly what is happening in Venezuela.

Timmy,
have you ever seen the inside of a turkish prison?

i agree with tjh that it is intresting to witness a different style of government that Chavez is creating.
All countries have thier coruption, some more then others, and to say that chavez is worse in trating his people then bush is wrong.
If you visit the Bronx or the inner citys, you will find conditions atroucious to some of those that in venezuala, in many instances identical. Our governments, state and federal treat these areas as trash and invest no money what so ever, taking away as much as they can so they can use it elsewhere in the city. The devastation in N.O. shows this. The people who were left on the roofs were the loower class minorites, left to fend for themselves as no one helped them get out of the city. When everyone crowded in the dome, still no help arrived and people became desperate to survive, hence the viloance.
Andrew, you say that to know the truth you must visit the place where it excists. Before you say that chavez is a terrible man, you should look around your own country. Becuase these horrible conditions and corruption by governments is in every country.

Varg...learn to write grammatically correct english and then you may have better opportunities and a brighter outlook on the greatest country in the world...the U.S.A. I think we have another person here who needs a dose of reality in other countries to compare to the country where Varg lives. Why would Varg live here if it is soooo bad?

Andrew, learn to write spanish and then you may have better opportunities in Venezuela. Why you invested in Venezuela if you are from USA?, Why you do not stay in your own country?. That is the best thing you Americans can do, stay in your own country. By the way "the most undesirable countrie for the rest of the world". Go ahead americans, you still need to kill many millions of persons in other countries... go ahead... "USA's democracy?"

Jhon, conchale pana, lea las pautas que yo escribi arribe. Yo estoy casado con una Venezolana. Tengo muchisimo opportunidad en Venezuela...pero la vida alla es horrible. Ud. vio lo que paso con los tres hermanos de Canada. Asi es la vaina en el tercero mundo. Ademas, inverti en una empressa que produce oro por sus operaciones en Venezuela. Que se vaya lejos Chavez!!!

Otra cosa huevon Jhon... no tenga miedo de nuestro poder. Somos responsables con el poder.

Interesting comments by all. Great work, guys.

Andrew, sua faculdade de spanol e muito horible! Voce escreva como gente sem educacao. No qualquer maniera, so o futuro sabe o que vai pasar sobre nosso mundo. Bjs.

Lula,
sientate en tu dedo y hazte vueltas. No hablo ni escribo lo mejor en espanol...pero soy mil veces mas educado que un Brasilero hijo de puta tercero mundista con sidas. Disfruta tu vida llena de pobreza y miseria!!!! Yo vivo y amo en Los EEUU!!! TODO EL MUNDO SABE QUE LOS EEUU ES LO MAXIMO!!!!

Another thing Lula, if you are smart enough to understand english, the universal language of business. Only a stupid Brasilian like you would come into the Washington Post and leave commentary in Portugese... as if any one in the Americas besides Brasilians speak or have use for Portugese. That is why Brasilians all speak Spanish so they can assimilate.

Ok, I will tell you all poor an illiterate Latin-Americans (specially Venezuelans, Argentineans, and Brazilians) what you deserve: the death. The world is better without you. America (Canada, Mexico, and the rest of it) is for Americans (and I mean USA citizens, the ones that have our roots from England, not the real original native Americans). We know how to use with responsibility the power of our nuclear weapons and how to use scientific research: to make the rest of the world for us. Stupid Iranians (and others), they think they also have rights to use nuclear energy for their homes.

John, and ggg, don’t be stupid, we only kill when it is necesary.