Chavez affirms that he is a dictator.

[Kidlicious]

There's a serious movement to replace capitalism in Venezuela. Powerfull forces are going to do whatever is necessary to prevent that. The movement has to be strong. I don't deny that there are potential dangers to Chavez getting more powerfull though. I hope for the best. I worry more about some of his policies though. He reminds me a lot of FDR though, and his policies could get better.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Odin
Chavez is showing some disturbing signs, but whether it is just your typical 3rd World populist athoritarianism or something worse it's hard to say.

Your typical 3rd world populist authoritarianism = dictatorship, I think.

[Dinner]

Constantly rewritting the Constitution to maintain his grip on power and to eliminate seats held by the opposition isn't exactly democratic. Some people would call that gerrymandering while more honest people would call it out and out fraud designed to disenfranchize the opposition.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Oncle Boris
No boy, there's a difference between allowing someone to run for an indefinite amount of terms and rewriting a constitution to make yourself dictator.

Poor child. There is no difference once the party in power stacks the electoral districts to insure they always win. That is going through the farce of having election where only one party ever wins due to a rigged system. Mexico did that from 1918-1990 or so and dispit holding elections no one would call them a democracy. Chavez is worse because it isn't one party in power switching people around various government posts and instead he is just the strong man who controls total power.

A democratic leader wouldn't be nationalizing all of the key media players and closing most of the independent media outlets. You are out to lunch on this one but there is nothing new about that.

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Poor child. There is no difference once the party in power stacks the electoral districts to insure they always win. ...

A democratic leader wouldn't be nationalizing all of the key media players and closing most of the independent media outlets.

Stacking the electoral districts to ensure he always wins is dictatorial. Nationalizing all of the key media players and closing most of the independent media outlets is dictatorial.

But abolishing term limits is not dictatorial. What makes the current situation dictatorial is the abovementioned actions.

[Dinner]

OK, that is fair enough. I still stand by the statement that Chavez is no democrat and in fact is no more a democrat then Mubarak in Egypt or Mussaraf in Pakistan dispite the fact that both of those men have also been "elected".

[Kuciwalker]

Abolishing term limits in the context of those other actions is dictatorial.

[LordShiva]

Trivially, as we've already established that the existence of those other actions is dictatorial in the first place.

[Traianvs]

Re: Chavez affirms that he is a dictator.

Originally posted by Oerdin
No surprises to anyone who hs been intellectually honest here. Chavez has announced that he intend to yet again rewrite the Venezualan constitution to extend his stay in office and to give himself more power. WOW, WHO COULD EVER HAVE GUESSED? Nope, no one called this one.

Chavez now says he wants to stay in office at least until 2030 and he wants to yet again redraw electorial districts in order to give his party yet more seats; any honest person would call that still more gerrymandering from the man who created the most gerrymandered state in the western hemisphere. I honestly can't see why anyone would be stupid enough to support a man who is obviously a dictator at heart.

A dictator is not necessarily bad. An oppressive mean muther****a is.

You could argue that the Bush dynasty isn't kosjer either. The entire family has top spots all over the place... And supposedly there will be a new Bush member going for president soon enough. We'll have to see bou that however. Yah...


Chavez does has some oppressive traits though. This probably needed to fight rightwing dictatorship in the region. You can shoot all you like on Chavez, but this is because he is given no other options. I doubt a US favoured presidente would be any different in taking away liberties (well... he'd simply give all the natural resources ready for plundering to the rich foreign businesses instead)

[Barnabas]

Oerdin, Venezuela has normal presidential elections, not like the USA

Electoral districts are irrelevant to presidential elections, in Venezuela whoever gets more votes in the presidential election is the president.

All that messing with electoral districs can do in Venezuela is making Chavez get more deputies in the congress than other political parties.
Peron did the same.
An example of how it would be.

Lets imagine, a city has 3 million people.
With 2 working class neighbourhoods of 1 million people each of mainly Chavez voters, and a wealthy neighbourhood of 1 million people mainly anti chavez.

If neighbourhood is an electoral distric then chavez would win in the 2 working class neighbourhoods, and the oposition in the other one.

With this reforms, what I guess Chavez will do, is to draw the limits of the districs again, so that in all possible distritcs he has a majority of supporters.

[Dinner]

Electoral districts matter a whole lot when you need 20 more to yet again rewrite the constitution and to maintain your iron grip on power. Thus we see the even further gerrymandering of the electoral districts to insure Chavez gets his cronies into office.

Then of course there is the issue that it is fundimentally impossible to have fair elections when the ruling dictator controls all of the mass media and refuses to allow the opposition to run ads and in fact orders the media to continually attack the opposition. That is not a democracy and the person who runs it is a dictator.

[Barnabas]

Lol, the venezuelan media is rabidly anti chavez, has been like that since he won, and they still are like that, they all supported the military coup against chavez too

[Dinner]

There are links provided above.

[Barnabas]

Yes, there are links about Chavez making laws, which no longer allow the media to say anything they want about the president, or supporting military coups, without getting a lawsuit.

Reality is most media in Venezuela is private, and almost all private media is rabidly anti chavez, and they are still that way nowadays.

If you want to believe most venezuelans like chavez because he controls the media, thats fine, but it is just not true.

Even before the April 2002 coup, owners, managers, commentators, and other personnel affiliated with the five private mainstream television networks and most major mainstream newspapers have stated their opposition to the Chávez administration. These media accuse the Chávez administration of having intimidating their journalists using specially dispatched gangs. Chávez has in turn alleged that the owners of these networks have primary allegiance not to Venezuela but to U.S. interests and to the advancement of neoliberalism via propaganda. Private media’s most prominent political commentators have reported that, among other things, Chávez is mentally ill and that he harbors a “sexual obsession with Castro”. Chávez, in turn, has described the four largest private television networks as "the four whores of the Apocalypse", has stated that the late Catholic Archbishop of Caracas, Cardinal Velasco is "in hell", and that his opponents resemble a "truckful of squealing pigs".

Coverage of the 2002 coup
Private media coverage of the 2002 coup only exacerbated these tensions. Private media openly urged their audiences to support the coup, broadcasting widely criticized footage by, among others, international journalists for its subjective selection of detail and even digital manipulation of images. During the April 11th opposition demonstrations leading up to the coup, Chávez took over the airwaves shortly before gunfire broke out. The private TV stations defied the president by showing his address and the protest simultaneously, via a split-screen presentation. Chávez then ordered them to be taken off the air in a forced blackout which lasted until several stations started rerouting cable TV signals in order to continue covering the protest. On the first morning after the 2002 coup, many of the new Carmona government’s highest-ranking members appeared on-air to offer their appreciation to the private media for their support. Once the counter-coup was launched by Chavistas and loyalist elements of the Palace Guard, these five stations censored any reporting on the events. Private media owners and managers instead chose to broadcast classic films and sitcom reruns.

[Dinner]

Check back with me in 2030 and tell me if you still feel Chavez is not a dictator. He's a Mugabe if I ever saw one.