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I've always liked Chavez...

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I really don't want his oil. I never buy from Exxon Mobile anyways. And isn't is a global commodity? It will end up getting to us eventually just maybe not from Exxon mobile.

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Can't say I saw this coming but after hearing a certain commercial on the radio last month it was obvious Chavez can't be trusted:

http://www.automanifesto.com/2008/01/venezuelan-oil-assistance.html

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Chavez is like a person who got famous and rich quick. He had no friends, and now he has a bunch because of his pile of oil. If Venezuela runs out (it has been discussed) or he's deposed, he'll suddenly find that no one really liked him in the first place, just the money and power from the oil.

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Viva Chavez! I hate Exxon anyway.

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You mean because he's willing to take a stand against economic imperialism, and because his socialist policies actually benefit the majority of his people, instead of the wealthy elite?

I'm reminded of the last coup d'etat where Chavez was deposed, in 2002. Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in the streets until he was returned to power...

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Maybe because he is self centered pinhead who constantly interferes with the internal affairs of other countries, why trying to illegally shut down any one in his home county who as different opinion, while he rules by decree and tries to make his term limit endless. This is just more typical hypocrisy of the left wing moonbats. This love and adoration of a thug who only has power and influence because of oil, which he pumps without any care for the environment. Your true colors are showing. Oil and pollution is fine, if you are socialist. So I guess he gets a pass because he tell funny jokes about Bush? Disgusting, but not surprising.Viva La Moonbat!

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Trying to illegally shut down his opponents? His opponents virtually owned the country, being in control of every media outlet except for the state TV station. When *they organized a coup against him*, they used their stations to *help deploy people* against him, and when the counter-coup occurred, they cut off all news and instead played soap operas. What do you think would happen in the US if US news companies pulled that kind of stunt?

Anyways, Exxon-Mobil is the "worst of the worst" among oil companies -- everything from human rights (like their torture centers in Aech) to the environment (such as their active global warming campaigns, even paying scientists bounties to publish papers saying it's not happening) and so on. I don't care who it is, as long as they're doing things to hurt Exxon-Mobil's bottom line. I think it's a nice tit-for-tat. Sure, oil is fungible. But it's still a disruption. Exxon siezed $300 mil of Venezuelan money, but that's only 3 1/2 days of Exxon's profit.

Besides, for those who hate Venezuela and hate Exxon-Mobil, it's a double win. Venezuela gets less income, Exxon-Mobil gets less income, everybody wins :)

Finally, while oil is fungible, changes in shipping patterns aren't free. There's a reason why the US buys so much oil from Mexico, Canada, and Venezuela: they're close. Shipping oil long distances costs serious money. It's part of the reason why rice prices are so high in Cuba, despite the huge production of US gulf coast rice. They have to import it through Europe.

#4) Don't be so quick to assume that a drop in Venezuela's oil income will be some sort of instant deathblow. I'm having trouble finding the article right now, but I read an interesting economic analysis of Venezuela's budget. Apparently, they budget state spending on a very low price for oil (I want to say 30-something a barrel), and have been investing the rest. Many of the state's economic policies are apparently designed around outliving a drop in oil prices. So, don't count on a fall in oil prices or a cutoff in Venezuelan exports being some devastating blow.

And yes, many of Chavez's supporters love him. Not all are eternally loyal, as the last election showed, but think of the fact that something like 40% of the Venezuelan public was basically willing to elect him president for life. That's some *serious* fandom.

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Oh, here we go:

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_2007_07.pdf

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Lotsa Chavez fans here.. Interesting..

Your admiration I'm afraid is misplaced. Under Chavez, Venezuela has the highest per capita CO2 output in all of Latin America. Since gas is subsidized at 13 cents a gallon, anyone who has a couple bucks in the bank, drives a Hummer. If you were to believe the statistics that come from the Venezuelan government, then you might believe the poor are prospering under Chavez.. If you've actually spent anytime in Venezuela the past year, you'd have seen the long humiliating lines the "poor" have to stand in, just to get a quart of milk. It's called "inflation" -- socialism has this funny way of breeding it... Because of those marxist policies so many of you fawn over, the only people left in Venezuela this time next decade will the the "poor" --- since anyone who values their business, will take their entrepreneurial spirit elsewhere.

Turbofrog, you might have sympathy for the "poor" people living in Caracas, but none for the "poor" who live in rural Venezuela being displaced as Chavez expropriates more and more rainforests for mining, natural gas, and pipelines to nowhere.

For those of you who think Chavez has the balls to cut the US off, I have one question: Where do you think Chavez sends his Oil/tar to be processed? Thats right, to the United States. Sure, he can sell his junk to china and Iran unprocessed, but they're going to give him roughly half of what he fetches in the US since we have the tech to filter all the junk out of his crap oil. We're pretty much his only option. He knows it. And anyone who's been following Chavez's empty rhetoric knows it.

And just for the record, Chavez attempted his own coup in 1992. He failed. Did Jail time, decided to give democracy a try in 1998. Couple months ago, he tried to bury democracy for good in a referendum, and was rebuked.

Like Guevarra, Chavez promotes himself as someone who will stand up against US imperialism. Guevarra managed to rebuke American Imperialism only to replace it with Soviet Imperialism. We can see how that worked out for Cuba. Unfortunately for Chavez, so can the Venezuelan people.

Holler.

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Maybe Exxon paid Chavez to stop selling to them so they could drive the price of oil up even further to increase their profits by another bazillion dollars this quarter...

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Doesn't anyone have a bullet with Chavez's name on it? I'm getting tired of that guy.

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I wonder how many days from now the White House will announce that Venezuela has weapons of mass destruction.

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I don't think anyone here is defending Venezuela's environmental record. And it's only going to get worse, the more of their ultra-heavy crude they produce.

Who do you think is voting for Chavez, if not the poor? Who do you think it was who staged the counter-coup, if not the poor? Who were the ~40% of Venezuelans who *tried to eliminate his term limit*, if not for the poor? The poor love him. Why? Because he's channeled huge amounts of money into social welfare. Check the above PDF for examples of how Venezuela's government spending has changed over the years (note the oil strike in 2003). For all of the following, realize that population has only grown from 23.4 million in 1998 to 27 million in 2006:

* Government social rose 314% from 1998, from 8.2% of GDP to 20.9% in 2006.
* Poverty rate pre-Chavez was 43.9%. Rose to 55.1% during the strike, and is now down to 30.4% (as of 2006). But poverty rates only consider income, not "quality of life", which is what social programs provide (free food, medical care, education, etc)
* Unemployment pre-Chavez was 15%. Reached 18.4% in 2003, now down to 8.3% (as of 2006)
* Inflation pre-Chavez was 36%. Rose to 40% in 2003. Now 19.4% (still too high, though, but typical for the third world).
* Fastest economic expansion in Venezuela's history -- 76% since 2003 (previous fastest was 31% from '73 to '77, and oil prices rose a lot more then, and '73 to '77 had its own downturn preceeding it like 2003 did.) The oil strike only cost Venezuela 24%.
* Private sector has grown faster than the oil sector. Fastest growing private sector, finance and insurance, has grown 240% from 2003 to 2007. Construction is up 144%, trade and repair 127.5%, communications 99.5%, and transport/storage 87%.
* Primary care physicians in 1998: 1,628. 2006: 19,571
* Emergency rooms in 1998: 417. 2006: 721
* Rehab centers in 1998: 74. 2006: 445
* Primary care centers in 1998: 1,620. 2006: 8,621
* HIV patients recieving retroviral treatment in 1998: 335. In 2006: 18,538
* School children benefitting from a school food program in 1999: 252,000. 2006: 1.8 million
* Opened 15,726 stores providing subsidized food; these plus expanded programs for the extremely poor, benefitted 67% of the population in 2005 and 43% in 2006.
* Primary school enrollment in 1999/2000: 271,593. 2005/2006: 1,098,489
* Formal sector employment in 1998: 4.41 million. 2003: 4.72 million. 2006: 6.06 million.

I could keep going if you like.

The rural poor? You have got to be kidding me. Chavez gained a tremendous amount of ire among wealthy landowners by *helping the rural poor*. It was one of the sparks of the coup against him, and one of the first things that Carmona did after Chavez was overthrown was to reverse Chavez's land reforms. What land reforms? He allowed the rural poor to confiscate any unused land so long as they put it to use. Basically, legalized squatting.

Chavez is no role model. But let's not repeat talking points that have no basis in reality. The facts are that the Venezuelan poor are his biggest supporters, and he's funneled a truly staggering amount of money into social programs to help them over the past several years.

Oh, and by the way: pull up Google Earth and show me where I can find a *single* food line in Caracas. Go on, I dare you. Things like that are visible on Google Earth. I'm browsing around Caracas right now, and there's not a line in sight. Perhaps I'm missing these "humiliating lines" you speak of.

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You're all complaining about Chavez? Why go so far? Look at your own country, your own government, and the fuckheads who are running it...then talk about Chavez. It feels like shit doesn't it when someone acts cocky and headstrong. Maybe he took lessons for Bushit.

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meme:
It's amazing how when a 3rd world government wants figures to go well, they suddenly do. Cuba is a workers paradise too, and we know cause the government says so. Both are envious of the prosperity in North Korea I'm sure, we all know things are rosy there, cause the government tells everyone so.

And where would an argument about this stuff be without someone like Viva La Pin Head to blame a group who has nothing to do with the situation and call them names. What happened, did a liberal run over your dog?

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@thegreatgreenhummer

There's always two sides to a coin. But Chavez is exercising power regardless whether you can say that he is willing the policies and trades for his interest or not. But even if it was like you say, Bush tops any political figure. He became president when he didn't get the majority vote. We americans don't live in a democracy. He tinkered with the voting system in Florida. He goes and attacks Iraq when there was no weapons under the cloud of 9/11 and gets his buddies record profits for the past three or more years while using taxpayer money to support them.

The only difference is that Bush has never gone to jail for his illegal actions, like becoming president and fighting against social progress and innovation by going against alternative fuels that can replace gas and mixing religion into politics to get his vote.

So you want to talk about corruption and bad power-hungry people, talk about Bush first before anyone else. So I support the people who say Chavez has the guts to stand up against american imperialism because Exxon can't be satisfied with their record profits and wants more.

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So, maybe our policy of being completely dependent on people like Chavez to sell us oil, at whatever price they want to charge us, is not such a great idea.

Plan B, which involves the occupation of other countries with hundreds of thousands of troups, spending hundreds of billions of dollars, and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, just so we can take their oil, is not such a great idea either.

Maybe it's time to consider Plan C, electric cars, more windmills, more solar panels, and yes, even more nukes. Then we can tell them to keep their oil.

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I agree with BlackBirdHighway.

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I think that Chavez and Bush actually have a lot more in common than either leader's supporters would like to admit.

No problem. I'll just ride my bike to work.

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