Since this is my first post I think I'm going to introduce myself first.

My name is Guillermo, I'm an English teacher from Caracas, Venezuela. I don't have any political affiliations although I sympathize with liberal social democrats.

First of all I hate my president.... That being said let's talk about Venezuela. Venezuela is an upside down country. We have one of the best higher education systems in the world (the best in Latin America) and a below average for highschool education. Cars are expensive to buy but gasoline is cheaper than dirt, about $0.85 to fill a gas tank. Size does not determine the cost of a home, but rather location. Nobody pays income taxes if they make less than Bs. 47,000 (about $20,000) a year. In the last 7 years the country has being run by a so called "socialist" named Hugo Chavez, yet most of the wealth belongs to a few like in any capitalist nation. By statistics we should be a rich country but we have higher poverty rates every year.

We use to be a very united people. Race, class, background and political views were never an issue before Chavez. Now we are divided to an almost perfect 50% pro Chavez and 50% anti-Chavez. That 50% that supports him are the less educated, the lower income classes and South American immigrants.
One would say it's a miracle he's still popular after almost eight years of things deteriorating. Well, you just have to drive around Caracas and see why.
It's like a chapter from George Orwell's 1984. Chavez's face at every corner. "Achievements" of the government printed everywhere with propagandist slogans like "Chavez es El Pueblo"(Chavez is the people). He's the "BIG BROTHER" of the common man so if he is attacked his subjects will respond in rage.
This has not been done overnight though. He has systematically filled peoples heart with hatred towards an enemy to have a common purpose which makes the people follow him like cattle.
The best example would be his bashing at president Bush. When you see pro-government marches or pro-government spokepersons saying that the fault of all our problems is "Bush and his imperialist-oligarchs goons". Of course they would never publically say that 70% of the oil we sell goes to the United States at $100+ a barrel.
The only way to attack Chavez is attacking his managerial abilities and not the man. I try to change minds every time I can to "unwash" brains and make people see the truth behind almighty Chavez.

I hope everyone in this community realizes that Venezuelans are not the problem, it is this man is jeopardizing the future of this wonderful beautiful country.   
 

That is a pity, i wish i could trade leaders with you.
  By what statistics should Venezuela be a rich country ? Certainly not by GDP.  Although that is being rectified by the Chavez government who had overseen 15 successive quarters of economic growth, at last time of checking.

But Venezuela could have been a rich country by now, had it not been for the pre Chavez era.  An era that saw a greater decline in the economy than experienced by most of Africa. That is the harsh reallity - rampant capitalism and elitist political domination destroyed your country.  Luckily President Chavez is rebuilding it and regaining national independance.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/1148

The idea of being a united people is an emotional appeal that is not backed up by statistical analysis.  Of course you live in Venezuela and so people will more likely accept your emotional rhetoric than mine, but i have spoken to and saw through the media Venezuelans who tell a very different story.  They say that before Chavez, yes there was unity, but unity among the educated, political class only.  The poor were not part of this homogenous group, but were rather cast aside from society, helpless and apathetic.


http://ivorytowerz.blogspot.com/2007/12/chavez-loses-in-venezuela-so-has.html

I also have to challenge the idea that there is a 50% split pro and anti Chavez.  If this were true Chavez wouldnt have the won the 2006 presedential election by a massive 3.1 million votes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elections_in_Venezuela#2006_Presidential_election


But things havent deteriorated, have they ?  Not only has poverty decreased in terms of cash incomes, but services have undoubtedly improved, have they not ?


In terms of cash income, poverty has fallen by 17%, a success in anyones books, surely. 


http://www.rethinkvenezuela.com/downloads/ceprpov.htm


But when 90% of the media runs hate campaigns against the government of course the government is going to run its own propaganda campiagn.  This happens all over the world - even in countries in which the private media backs the government.  In Venezuela it is so important the government tries to get its message across when it fights against a media  who attempt to overthrow democracy and install their own capitalist dictatorship.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144


http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela



And why should he not tell the truth about the enemy.  The oligarchs brought 35 years of recession - the statistics do not lie.  And the empire is an enemy, not only of Venezuela but of humanity. George Bush and the US empire are hated all over the world, not only in Venezuela.  I am British, possibly America's greatest friend, and capitalists also, but i can assure you, if there was an election here between Chavez and Bush, Chavez would win hands down. 

And what if the oil didnt get sold to the US, what do you think would happen ?  Another coup, that is the answer.

Venezuelans are not the problem, Chavez is not the problem.  People all over the world love the Venezuelan people, precisely because they elected Chavez.  The problem is the empire, the problem is capitalism ad the oligarchs, all the oligarchs and capitalists of the world, not only Venezuela's.

They are the only enemies Venezuela has.

Gommi.
Thanks for your reply.

Let me answer a question with another question. Can you tell me about the quality of life in the US?
You see, Venezuela is practically a one-product economy Oil, which makes up about 90% of our income. PDVSA is a state owned company that has absolute contro over the exploration, exploitation and commercialization of Venezuelan Oil. Whenever you hear someone saying "he/she is a PDVSA executive" we are talking about a VERY rich person... putting aside the fact that directives who opposed Chavez were publically fired in his TV show Aló Presidente and replaced by friends loyal to him who didn't have experiance in the oil business, the salary of the workers of PDVSA is pretty much the same as any worker from the public or private sector.
About a year ago, a proposal of an opposition candidate was to give every working venezuelan an equal percentage of the surplus from oil sells, an idea I personally think it's ridiculous. Obviously a surplus should be reinvested wisely or be put into social projects, and it does! but the quality of projects are not representative of the vast quantity of money that this surplus is.
And the "missions" as they are called (yes, now everything has a military theme) are questionable at best about their contribution to social development.
On the other hand, the private sector, responsable for more than 80% of the jobs in this country is shrinking everyday. Everyday, you can see on the newspaper a new company that leaves the country and going to other South American Countries or out of the continent. Even POLAR industries are moving, the largest private company in Venezuela, which had more than 100 years of history. This is making job practically impossible to find.
So that leaves the common young Venezuelan 2 options: informal economy or crime. Informal economy has being pounded in the last 2 years severily hammered by the government since vendors don't pay taxes ( and don't want to), so they sell their products illegally without permit. The police, knowing they need to feed their families, do not act except when the national guard arrives at the streets where the informal vendors sell their merchandise.
So you have VERY rich and VERY poor people living a few kilometers apart from each other, that is if they actually have a house to live. Sounds familiar?... yes, it is the same pattern of the typical capitalist society. Quality of life is determined by who you know in the government. Anybody who has the chance leaves the country to find a better future.  I hope this gives you an idea of what goes on here...

Comrad Joe

Thank you for yoour post.

You are right, I should have started my post saying I hate my president, Mr. Bush and his friends and all leaders who profit from the toiling their subjects.

Why would a country like Venezuela NOT be rich? im not an economist but oil rich countries with the exeption of Nigeria are in a much better situation than Venezuela.
And YES you are right! Venezuela steady has had economic growth for the last 3 years. Of course the government will announce this in a celebrating tone, but they will not announce that inflation duplicates such growth. So there's your first misinformative piece of government manipulation of the truth.


The pre-Chavez era as you call it was terrible! oil prices were low and production was high so we were not receiving a fair share in my opinion. But it was a time when every five years everything changed with the comming of another president. Reforms, plans and project were made. Of course they never worked... but  poverty grew at the rate of the population growth, poor people were not "created". Independence was gained in 1824 and Oil independence was gained in the mid 70's oil nationlization by Carlos Andres Perez, the guy Chavez tried to topple in his second term in 1992. He's dying by the way...poor old fart.
Venezuelas new infrastructure since Chavez is decaying by the way. A school and a hospital just crumbled a few weeks ago for lack of planification. 

Looking at your comments and your data I just knew a second before looking at your link it was from goverment controlled press.
In 2002 we had 5 open broadcast channels with news coverage. 2 of them (RCTV and GLOBOVISION) were openly oppossing the government, another 2 (VENEVISION and TELEVEN) were somewhat balanced and the state-run channel was openly pro government. I can't tell you about radio stations since i don't listen much radio. After the failed coup in april 2002, VENEVISON and TELEVEN became anti goverment for 8 months or so, an then, out of the blue they were sold and changed their directive, and now they are pro-government. 7 new channels are now on open broadcast: Avila, CatiaTV, La Tele, Tves, AN TV and 2 others (can't remember the name now). All of them pro-goverment. Of the 2 others RCTV and GLOBOVISION, the first had not it's first broadcasting permit renewed so it had to leave, and the second is being threatened by the government. Additional press is released every day but it is pro-governmet and of course government-controlled.
Is there a Media war? YES!... and Chavez has the upper hand. in VTV the state own TV station, the news segment never says something bad happened in Caracas. No one gets killed, there are no anti-governmet marches, no protests. He criticizes the opposition media for what then?, for opposing him?, because it's not because it is bigger than his own media. Newspapers ar the same story: 4 or 5 oppositionist and honestly I stopped counting after 30 pro-goverment newspapers.
Personally I am sick of seeing Chavez's ugly head outside my window that says "Con Chavez todos somos Venezuela" (With Chavez, we all are Venezuela). Caracas is looking more and more like the beautiful city of Havana, with pictures of Fidel's and Che's faces everywhere.

I guess I support Chavez's claim that Bush is the Devil, but don't use an imperialist, oligarch foreign government to unite your followeres. Use a common motivation of national spirit that makes everybody follow the common goal of making the country grow, making progress, educate everyone on being a gret member of society.
But instead we get "The US wants to destroy us", or " Bush is the cause of our crisis".
I hope they don't ban me for this but that is plain BULLSHIT.
Yes Bush is a terrible hum... animal but he is not the cause of our problems.

Im sorry Comrade Joe to have to argue with you so pointedly but I mus say one last thing. The title of my post was clear in a deeper way, if you don't live here, you don't know what you're saying.
 

To Ahkenaten:
Oil CAN'T be sold to other countries on the short run because there would have to refineries to be built in other countries to use venezuelan oil. Petroleum from different parts require customized refineries. It takes years to modify them and the cost... you don't wanna know.

You are right, the US doesn't really care much if they have to buy more from Mexico or take more from Iraq.
But it is not going to be the same for us if we stop selling to the US, even if the price soars to $200 we still can't make do with the US not buying.

Welcome aboard Comrade Joe! The empire has been growing at least since the Mexican War of 1846. Every war since has been at the behest of international bankers like J.P. Morgan. The House of Morgan continues its slippery actions to this day.

OswaldTheOsprey

I already gave a good reason why Venezuela is not rich - 35 years of recession !  35 years of oligarchs stealing the nations wealth.  Now that is changing.  Now Venezuela gets richer by the day, that is under President Chavez guidance.

Give the government a break.  They cant fix everything right away.  They have limited resources to work with, infact relatively little capital.  That being as a result of 35 years of recession.  Not everything will improve right away.



Which of my posts relied upon government media.  I know for a fact at least 3 of my sources are independant private sources - so you cant just cast them aside - they are valid sources.  I havent researched who put the others together, so please tell me which is government sources.


It seems to me that all it takes for you to call someone pro chavez is to be neutral.  Televen is neutral is it not ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Televen#Criticism

Again i will re-post this link, i hope you read it, and please feel free to challenge it.

http://mondediplo.com/2002/08/10venezuela


And Venezuela is a democracy, you have to get re-elected.  If you have a popular leader why not maximise their appeal by using their picture That is the name of the game in politics - you have to win voters however you can.
The US is a very real threat to Venezuela, you must remember the coup.  You must know of the coup in Chile, in Guatemala, the invasion, terrorism and espionage in Cuba.  It would be irresponsible of a government to not raise the very real threat with the public.  He does no different from governments all over the world - they talk about the threat, be it real or not - at least Chavez talks about a real threat.

If you want to see fear being put into the people come to Britain, were all politicians speak of is the threat from islam, terrorists, immigrants, asylum seekers, Iran, the Russians, the Chinese.  Our politicians invent a threat.  The threat you face is very real.

Well i am also sorry, sorry that you now look desperate.  You have been faced with cold hard facts, you have been shown solid statistical analysis, and rather than refute it, because you cannot - it is irrefutable, you resort to emotional rhetoric.  If what you said were true, that you cant have any knowledge of a state without living in it, then no one could criticise nazi germany - could they ?  After all, none of us lived there !  What we do is use statistics and sources and make an analysis.  I have provided a solid analysis and it seems to me you do not like it, because it shows your rhetoric up.

And remember this, you are not the only Venezuelan, your opinion is nopt reflective of public opinion.  For every one of you there are two Chavistas.  And i myself have spooken to Venezuelans who fall into that bracket.  They are the majority - i put my faith in them, not the oligarchs and capitalist sympathisers.

Here is some of the real economic results the Chavez government have overseen.


http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/948

Rhetoric rarely can be reconciled with statistics.  I know i will always trust hard facts before opinion.  That is not to say that jobs will not have been lossed.  That happens everywhere, jobs are lost for new ones to be created.  But the statistics clearly show rapid public and private sector growth.

Too many replies to make... so little time.

To Comrade Joe.

First of all I think you feel I am trying to scoff at what you say... on the contrary! I welcome the fact that I can talk with a pro-Chavez individual intelligently and who has argumentative replies. I think you are a breath of fresh air from many loudmouth countrymen who don't know how to talk about politics in a mature intelligent way.
But before I make the following comments I will tell you this: Though I have my own opinions, am not into politics nor have an agenda. I have never lied in my life and I never will as my father taught me, and what I am about to tell you may cause me some problems, although I find it very difficult the government can track me down.

I'm a 26-year-old father. I studied political science at UCV ( Central University of Venezuela ), one of the most prestigious Universities of the Hemisphere and yes, it's public. I practiced politics for one year and hated it. I hated everything about it. I couldn't deal with the dishonesty and crookedness of the system. So I started to work as an teacher at middleschool, and after that I taught at the UBV (Bolivarian University of Venezuela) which is a new University created by Chavez for students loyal to his revolution. A friend of a friend got me the job, you know how it works... Anyway I worked there for 2 years and I said enough, now I work in a private company. It pays better and I need the money since I have a newborn, it's not that I favor international capitalist companies.

www.venezuelanalysis.com IS government funded. The husband of my cousin works there. I'm almost positive that www.rethinkvenezuela.com is a subsidiary of PDVSA though I can't be 100% sure on that but I will ask someone who can tell me for sure.
Every Sunday the government gives data to the public through national TV and Radio Broadcast. This data is NEVER negative but... how come things are always worse and worse?... people all around me are loosing their jobs, things are more expensive everyday, crime is rampant. Me and my family were in better conditions before Chavez. I'm a middle class person I'm not a rich guy and I can't benefit from half of the government "missions" because I'm on the Tascon list (the list of people who signed petitions to revoke Chavez from his office). Also I'm not a member of the PSUV (Partido Socialista Unido de Venezuela United socialist party of Venezuela ) nor did I want a membership, which was the reason I got fired from the UBV. I was in good terms with the director of the language department of the UBV but when I refused to become a member of the PSUV I got a week notice the next day. That's Venezuelan Democracy for you.

This government is FULL of crooks, and Chavez is one of them. If you look at the Venezuelan news you will see a recent article where the Chavez family bought $350.000.000 worth of land on Apure State. On a president's salary that's just impossible to buy!
As well as stealing money, he does manipulate the truth my friend, I have lived it. I have seen UBV teachers teaching lies to the students for crying out loud.
Televen by the way IS pro-Chavez although subtlety like Venevision, but they used to be SUPER ANTI CHAVEZ... I don't think they just "rectified" my friend.

Now I understand you are British and you don't elect your prime minister directly, but let's say you did. Now Brown wins by more than 50% of the votes and after about a year (presidential elections are every 6 years in Venezuela) you start to see his face everywhere!... I guess you Comrade Joe would say "wow, that's a brilliant strategy the bastard came up with" but he's no fascist for doing that. Am I right?

And yes, no one can resist believing statistics, but I'm a skeptic. I only believe my eyes that look around on the streets. I don't even believe what I see on TV or hear on the radio anymore.

Like I said. I don't deny that the US government is a real and present danger, but you can't just blame them for everything that goes wrong with this country! We don't need a common enemy, we need a common leader!

I feel embarrassed for having to argue everything you say Comrade Joe but I feel I must. In any case I'm enjoying this post!

Tu Gummy:

Jobs are almost impossible to find. You have to know contact from a given company so you can get an interview. The state tries hard enough to make new jobs, but ironically for a socialist regime most of them pay minimum wage, although it has fair benefits.
national companies are going bankrupt monthly and new foreign investment is rare. Without kickbacks nothing gets done. For every formal employee, there are 100 inforal employees.

I don't know if I'm missing a question so remind me if you want a reply for something in particular