I'll volunteer to put one between his eyes while bigcat cries.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013 … -dies?lite

It's all Bush's doing.

Maduro also said there was 'no doubt' that Chavez's cancer, which was first diagnosed in June 2011, was induced by foul play by 'the historical enemies of our homeland'

Dmtdust wrote:

‎"Wealth inequality in Venezuela is half of what it is in the United States. It is rated the 'fifth-happiest nation in the world' by Gallup. And Pepe Escobar writes that, 'No less than 22 public universities were built in the past 10 years. The number of teachers went from 65,000 to 350,000. Illiteracy has been eradicated. There is an ongoing agrarian reform.' Venezuela has undertaken significant steps to build food security through land reform and government assistance. New homes are being built, health clinics are opening in underserved areas and cooperatives for agriculture and business are growing."

Adios Hugo.  You gave it the best you could, and given a few years more, I suspect Venezuela would of been even better off.

Dusty..... Why must you dirty up the board by citing facts? 

If we do not hate Chavez then we are not Americans. Don't you remember a fucking thing
Gee Dubya  and Co. told us?

Oh, Chavez also donated home heating fuel to many Americans in need.

Support our troops. 911 never forget. Blarble blarble economy blarble blarble.Magnetic ribbons blarble blarble.  Please feel free to add your favorite bullshit catch phrase here.

Emmeran wrote:

Maduro also said there was 'no doubt' that Chavez's cancer, which was first diagnosed in June 2011, was induced by foul play by 'the historical enemies of our homeland'

We can do that?!?!  Cool!!

Bob Marley.  Never Forget.

Say what you like, the Dude had heart.

I wonder why i have to either love or hate chavez (et. al.)? 

Can't i just not care either way, or maybe i like this aspect or dislike that one?  Why does my american idiot brain only have crayons of black and white?

Dmtdust wrote:

Banjo wrote:

Anti-America only hates us until they start benefiting  from us. Classic case in point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/0 … 60603.html

So stop with the America sucks BS.  It always makes you look stupid at the end of the day.

Who is being "Anti Amurican"?  Can't someone be pro Chavez without being judged "Anti Amurican"? Sheesh, it all gets back to me, me, me.

Don't be silly.  Folks have to know if you're fur us or agin us.

If it was only $2 billion, he was showing more restraint than some of his neighbors.  Many of his predecessors made out like bandits as well.  He did tank the economy, and seriously harmed the oil industry there.  It is wrong, however, to say that offered the poor nothing but a line of bullshit.

Ok - let's see what left leaning Bloomberg has to say:  Chavez's Legacy of Ruin

Comments from elsewhere:

Good things Chavez did:
Free education from daycare to university, for everyone.
Under Chavez, Venezuela shot up to having the fifth highest population percentage of students in the world.
Under his government, the Venezuelan population became the fifth happiest in the world.
Reduced population-percentage of people under the official poverty line by 44%.
Increased the country's degree of self-sufficiency in terms of food.
Cut infant mortality in half.

On the other hand, he inherited a country consistently fucked over by dictators and oligarchs since forever ago, so some of those things were bound to happen (like poverty reduction) - crime rates have soared to such an extent that Venezuela is now the third most violent country in the world, also... kind of an authoritarian asshole. Not to mention his antisemitism and shacking up with Bashar al-Assad and the North Korean military junta. Did some good stuff and said some good words about the US (though a lot of his criticism was shit as well), but overall, not exactly a paragon of leftist virtues.

So, whose perfect?  No one.

Emmeran wrote:

It takes a different strategy than ours to pull a shit-hole country out of the muck, he did many things right and many things wrong.  Worst of all was his inability to shut the fuck up.

Come on, his off the cuff remark about brimstone after Bush left the UN?

The Empire's attempts to diminish Chavez's stature are not confined to its absurd reference to his rule as a "dictatorship", despite Carter's affirmation that the "Election Process in Venezuela is the Best in the World." This de-eulogizing campaign carried out by human rights organizations and mainstream media also operates in other, more subtle ways, such as calling him a "self-proclaimed revolutionary" and a "self-styled socialist", insinuating that objectively speaking, he was neither. Another pervasive technique used to detract from his democratic credentials, is the emphasis on the "cult of personality" he supposedly nurtured in order to cling on to power. This discourse aims not only at presenting the revolutionary leader as a power-crazed demagogue, but also at recasting popular support for his leadership as stemming from the manipulation of irrational impulses rather than his organic relationship with the people. In this manner, the massive outpouring of grief that has overwhelmed Venezuela, is reduced to "raucous" and "militant" street politics in dire need of a civilized, western liberal corrective. Because when masses of people elect a leader from their own ranks to represent their cause, and then shower him with love and praise for remaining true to their cause, this is clearly the anti-thesis of democracy in the western liberal lexicon ~ Amal Saad-Ghorayeb

otoh, chavez did fuck over some big honking corporations.  You would rather sandpaper uncle sam's ass in a phone booth than fuck with exxon. 

Chavez nationalized oil interests there and his 'educated' population couldn't figure out how to run them.  He ended up sidling up to exxon (chevron, etc...) and sucking their dicks, while begging them to come back and run the refineries while he still had them nationalized.

I'm surprised he lived this long.