Yes, you read that right. Hugo Chavez was a hero. Not just to his own people, but to millions of poor Americans.

In 2005, Chavez did more for our fellow Americans than any US oil company has ever done: He gave cheap and affordable home heating oil to Americans who had trouble affording it.

Who knows how many of our nation's eldery was saved from freezing to death due to Chavez's actions. Before anyone has the audacity to critize Chavez, have you ever done such a noble thing for your country and your fellow countrymen?

While Chavez was in power, he transformed Venezula. He wouldn't take bribes from fascist corporatists. Instead he diversified Venezula's economy, shared the oil wealth, and millions went from living in cardbox shacks to real homes. Under his tenure, education was vastly expanded, as was health care coverage. He made the nation less dependent on oil, Venezeula's GDP went through the roof.

In 2002, the fascist corporatist heading up that nation's Chamber of Commerce, along with the aid of the U.S., attempted a military coup of that nation, just as corporatist interested tried to overthrow the US gov't when FDR was in power.

Chavez was back in power 48 hours later. Chavez turned a nation that had historically been the victim of military dictatorships, supplied and protected by the US corporate military complex, and turned it into a functioning democracy. His approval rating continually ranked higher in his own nation than any US President enjoyed in the USA.

He brought forth great international cooperation in Latin America. Helped move nations that had traditionally been incredibly impoverished to move towards modernization.

Chavez was a man who made this world a far better place. For this he will always be remembered as one of this world's greatest leaders.

He will be missed.

Why get in bed with the likes of Ahmadinejad, Castro, etc..?

The enemy of my enemy is my friend?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2289427/Was-Hugo-Chavez-worth-1bn-died-Claims-amassed-huge-fortune-countrys-oil-wealth.html

Hugo Chavez, the champion of Venezuela's millions of poor was worth over $1 billion at the time of his death having plundered his country's enormous oil wealth according to a respected analyst.

A report from risk assessment and global analysis firm Criminal Justice International Associates (CJIA) alleges that the Chavez family and hundreds of other associates have stolen one-tenth of the $1 trillion raked in by Venezuela since 1999 in oil sales.

The head of the CJIA, Jerry Brewer has said that since Chavez rose to power in 1999, his family have joined in league with criminal organizations to appropriate $100 billion up until his death on on March 5th 2013.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/09/opinion/frum-chavez-venezuela

Venezuela has not invited any international election observers since 2006 and anomalies have been observed in past votes, especially the 2004 referendum to recall Chavez from the presidency

Yet it should also be said: In Venezuela, the most important forms of vote fraud happen well before Election Day.

First, the Chavez regime systematically controls and manipulates the mass media, especially television.

The use of state oil funds for this kind of electioneering is driving Venezuela's budget deficit for the year to the astounding level of 20% of GDP,

Venezuala, with a population smaller than Canada's, suffers more homicides than the United States. Robberies at gunpoint -- "express kidnappings" as they are called -- are regular occurrences in middle-class neighborhoods. And if middle-class neighborhoods evince any disaffection from the regime, they lose what little police protection they have, or even discover the police suddenly abetting and aiding the criminals that prey upon their community.

Hugo Chavez has laid Venezuela's economy to waste. One of the world's great energy producers must turn its streetlamps off at night. One of the world's wealthiest exporters cannot afford to import enough food. One of the world's energy superpowers is seeing its production slowly dwindle away because of chronic under-investment in the oil fields and the loss of access to technology as foreign companies are harassed and expropriated.

You're trusting the opinion of a Bush speech writer to tell you "the truth" about Chavez, when it was the Bush administration that attempted a failed coup and install corporatist fascists as a dictator?

Yeh, we know full well the lies the corporatists have told for years about Chavez. The same people who piss and moan about "voting anomalies" are the same people who try to prevent blacks from voting in the United States.

The same people who peddle this bullshit lie about how Chavez "systematically controls and manipulates the mass media", are the people who fail to mention that Chavez shut down a single TV station, that was owned by the same interests who attempted the failed coup, and TV station was talking about overthrowing the government again. Imagine what would happen here in the USA if a cable news channel, all day, everyday, talked about how we need to overthrow the US government. Think the FCC might take them off the air for BREAKING THE FUCKING LAW?

Oh, and a number of Venezuelans protested this TV station being taken off the air. Not because they agreed with the OVERTHROW OF THE GOV'T, but because that TV station ran Venezuela's most popular soap opera.

So much for the truth from the critics of Chavez. Frum's bullshit article claims that Venezuela was a suffering and "decaying society". Strange, when cardboard houses get replaced with cinderblock houses, somehow that's "decaying". What's more accurate is that Frum is a FUCKING LIAR. The same people who tried to have Chavez killed are not above lying about him. They wanted him killed simply because he was not a fascist corporatist. He was actually loved by his people, and he loved them. Why? Because he transformed the nation to make it a better place.

How about some cold hard numbers, that puts the lies of an ass like Frum in their place.

Sine the gov't nationalized the nation's oil, GDP growth grew by an ASTONISHING 94.7% in 5 years, averaging 13.5% annually. This is the same kind of massive growth on par with China. To put this in perspective, GDP growth since 2007 has averaged 0.78%.

Most of the growth in the Venezulean economy has been in the private non-oil sector of the economy.

Poverty rates were cut by more than half, from 54% of households in 2003 to just 26% of households by the end of 2008.

Extreme poverty has fallen by an asthonishing 72%.

Real (inflation adjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998 to 2006.

In the same years, infant mortality fell by more than a third.

The number of primary care physicians increased by 12 fold from 1999 to 2007, providing health care to millions of Venezuelans who previously didn't have any.

Gross enrollment rates in higher education more than doubled from 1999 to 2008.

Unemployment fell from 11.3% to 7.8%.

The gov't total public debt fell from 30.7% of GDP to 14.3% of GDP. Foreign public debt fell from 25.6% to 9.8% of GDP.

THAT is what Frum stupidly calls a "decaying society". We could only hope that the United States would "decay" at the same rate.

Was he any worse than our most recent  NY mayors , Koch, Dinkins , Giuliani or  Bloomberg

Did his strong belief in Christ hold him back from wholesale slaughter of his own people ?
 
 http://www.buzzfeed.com/ellievhall/the-17-most-outrageous-quotes-from-hugo-chavez


 
"Ahmadinejad's claim that Chávez will be resurrected with Jesus 'went too far'

Iranian president's tribute to late Venezuelan president criticised by some of his country's influential clerics as against Shia Islam "  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iran-blog/2013/mar/07/ahmadinejad-chavez-resurrected-too-far

The Chávez administration has used an array of legislation, threats, and regulatory measures to gradually break down Venezuela’s independent press while building up a state media empire—a complete reversal of the previous landscape. One result: Vital issues are going uncovered in an election year.

In March, José Gregorio Briceño, governor of Venezuela’s southern state of Monagas, appeared on national television and complained that federal officials were not addressing claims of contaminated water in his state. An oil pipeline managed by the state-run oil company PDVSA had recently burst in the Guarapiche River, which runs through Monagas. News accounts followed with testimonies from independent experts and families with ill children.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez Frías vowed to act—not to investigate potential water contamination, but to counter the “media terrorism” threatening the country.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/21/world/americas/venezuela-faces-shortages-in-grocery-staples.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

By 6:30 a.m., a full hour and a half before the store would open, about two dozen people were already in line.

Venezuela is one of the world’s top oil producers at a time of soaring energy prices, yet shortages of staples like milk, meat and toilet paper are a chronic part of life here, often turning grocery shopping into a hit or miss proposition.

The shortages affect both the poor and the well-off, in surprising ways. A supermarket in the upscale La Castellana neighborhood recently had plenty of chicken and cheese — even quail eggs — but not a single roll of toilet paper. Only a few bags of coffee remained on a bottom shelf.

At the heart of the debate is President Hugo Chávez’s socialist-inspired government, which imposes strict price controls that are intended to make a range of foods and other goods more affordable for the poor.

They are often the very products that are the hardest to find.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/09/20/venzuela-crime-chavez-reelection/1581261/

Instead, Chávez has made it worse by arming groups who support his presidency and taking over state and city police forces, León said.

Murders and kidnappings have soared since Chávez took office in 1999. Last year, the Observatorio, estimates 18,850 people were murdered, up from 4,550 in 1998. There were almost 16,000 kidnappings, up from a few hundred in 1998.

Venezuela now has more murders annually than the U.S. and European Union combined,

http://www.latintimes.com/articles/2065/20130307/hugo-chavez-dead-much-venezuelan-president-worth-wealth-billion-oil.htm

A report from risk assessment and global analysis firm Criminal Justice International Associates alleges that the Chávez family and hundreds of other associates have stolen one-tenth of the $1 trillion raked in Venezuela since 1999 in oil sales.

Head of CJIA Jerry Brewer has said that since Chávez came to power in the late '90s, his family joined in league with criminal organizations to appropriate $100 billion up until his death on Tuesday

http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/03/05/venezuela-chavez-s-authoritarian-legacy

By his second full term in office, the concentration of power and erosion of human rights protections had given the government free rein to intimidate, censor, and prosecute Venezuelans who criticized the president or thwarted his political agenda. In recent years, the president and his followers used these powers in a wide range of prominent cases, whose damaging impact was felt by entire sectors of Venezuelan society.

Assault on Judicial Independence
In 2004, Chávez and his followers in the National Assembly carried out a political takeover of Venezuela’s Supreme Court, adding 12 seats to what had been a 20-seat tribunal, and filling them with government supporters.

The packed Supreme Court ceased to function as a check on presidential power. Its justices have openly rejected the principle of separation of powers and pledged their commitment to advancing Chávez’s political agenda.

This commitment has been reflected in the court’s rulings, which repeatedly validated the government’s disregard for human rights.

Lower-court judges have faced intense pressure not to issue rulings that could upset the government.

In 2009, Chávez publicly called for the imprisonment of a judge for 30 years after she granted conditional liberty to a prominent government critic who had spent almost three years in prison awaiting trial.

The judge, María Lourdes Afiuni, was arrested and spent more than a year in prison in pretrial detention, in deplorable conditions. She remains under house arrest.

http://news.yahoo.com/chavez-body-put-permanent-display-221540986.html

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) -- Hugo Chavez's body will be preserved and forever displayed inside a glass tomb at a military museum not far from the presidential palace from which he ruled for 14 years, his successor announced Thursday in a Caribbean version of the treatment given Communist revolutionary leaders like Lenin, Mao and Ho Chi Minh.

"We have decided to prepare the body of our 'Comandante President,' to embalm it so that it remains open for all time for the people. Just like Ho Chi Minh. Just like Lenin. Just like Mao Zedong," Maduro said.

Well, he nationalized large parts of the oil industry to make Venezuela Petro the majority owner. As I recall, Exxon left the country in disgust and declared billions of dollars in losses - all tax deductible by the way, so remember that the next you get on your Exxon didn't pay any taxes high horse.

     So, yeah, he was a hero sort of like Robin Hood.

Chavez did many good things...

One thing in particular I was intrigued with was his love and at the same time, his skepticism of the Catholic church...

On a side note:

The authors of "Petrus Romanus" were researching the supposed Luciferan rituals in the Vatican. They claim in a radio interview that Chavez ran from the Vatican in terror during a ceremony in which he witnessed a "Giant" living under the Basilica.....

Interesting...

The oil came from Venezuela!  They have a right not to sell to Exxon or anyone else!

Wasn't he party to a coup attempt back in the early 1990's?

HYPOCRITE.

The guy was a thug and a thief. My uncles created a concrete business from nothing. 40 years later, he nationalized their company because "the poor could not afford" their product. Chavez and his Marxist Redshirts stole their assets and made their business a DEMOCRACY. (They fled Venezuela and now live near Miami)

First, they had the employees (now "owners") of the company elect a manager. He couldn't find his ass with both hands and a map. The company had ZERO customers and ZERO suppliers by the end of the month. The new democratically elected "manager" was jailed by Chavez for being a "puppet and a stooge" for the Capitalists who wanted to see the company fail. Then, a 5 person committee (the new owners, again) was elected to run the company. 3 fled the country by midweek. All were gone by the end of the week in fear for their lives.

Today, the company sits in ruins, as vandals have picked the place clean of anything that could be sold or used. No jobs. No product. The poor cannot get concrete products at any price. Neither can the Evil Vile Rich. Today, nationalized companies (state corporations) supply what little they can to prop up state projects. They pay their employees pennies on the dollar of what they used to make.

The only people making any money are the black marketers who bring in from Columbia aspirin and toilet paper to sell on the black market. Many poor Venezuelans wipe their ass with stolen telephone books.

Viva Chavez!  Viva la Revolucion!

And who suffered when Exxon had to write that bad debt off, despite any alleged "tax write off"? It's investors. Like my mother.

She sends her thanks.