# Chavez Doesn't Like Obama Either??? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 18, 2008, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897 "2008-07-18T00:49:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![kitemaker\_chuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a88e4f/32.png) [@kitemaker\_chuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitemaker_chuck)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/1 "2008-07-18T00:49:15Z")
I’ve seen some online news reports from various news agencies (Reuters, etc.), that President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is now saying something to the effect that even with Barak Obama as President of the United States, relations with the USA will not improve. So now he hates Barak Obama??? Why won’t he give Obama a chance? Is the only way that Chavez can hold onto power is to have the United States as an eternal enemy? Will Chavez even refuse to at least talk to Obama face-to-face if he has the chance?? ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/2 "2008-07-18T00:51:40Z")
Why exactly would you expect him to like Obama? You think his dislike of the US is simply an artifact of Bush being in office? -XT ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/3 "2008-07-18T00:58:50Z")
Well, if he doesn’t like Obama, why does he [fund his campaign](http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/chavez.asp)? 😉 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/4 "2008-07-18T01:25:45Z")
Chavez gets a lot of mileage out of “standing up” to us _Imperialistas Yanquis_. Don’t matter who sits in the oval office. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/5 "2008-07-18T01:42:53Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme] Why exactly would you expect him to like Obama? [/QUOTE] Isn’t Obama like supposed to be a secret socialist, or something? Here: [Is America Ready for Obama? Is America Ready for a Socialist?](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/1768917/posts) I can see how anyone who believes suchlike might be confused by Chavez’ hostility. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/6 "2008-07-18T02:04:51Z")
If he was the re-incarnation of Che he would STILL not win points with that loon Chavez simply because he would/will be the AMERICAN President. As John said earlier, Chavez gets major points simply for ‘standing up to America’ while hefting his big, furry balls in our general direction. 😛 -XT ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/7 "2008-07-18T02:07:58Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme] If he was the re-incarnation of Che he would STILL not win points with that loon Chavez simply because he would/will be the AMERICAN President. As John said earlier, Chavez gets major points simply for ‘standing up to America’ while hefting his big, furry balls in our general direction. 😛 -XT [/QUOTE] That is almost certainly the main reason Castro is as popular as he is in Cuba: Just for being the first Cuban leader since 1898 to stand up to the U.S. and make it stick. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/8 "2008-07-18T02:55:26Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] That is almost certainly the main reason Castro is as popular as he is in Cuba: Just for being the first Cuban leader since 1898 to stand up to the U.S. and make it stick. [/QUOTE] Sure, and that popularity can be measured by all those fair elections Castro has won, and all of those polls he has done so well in in a free press. I hope you can see the absurdity of your statement - in a society like Cuba’s the popularity of Castro cannot accurately be measured. Even conversations on the street aren’t reliable - nobody in their right mind would criticize Castro in public. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/9 "2008-07-18T02:57:57Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Sure, and that popularity can be measured . . . [/QUOTE] That’s why I said “as popular as he is.” How popular he actually is might not be known with certainty until long after he’s dead. It is certain he has **some** popularity; and the reason I gave for that is probably the most important one. ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Moto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de0a6/32.png) [@Mr.Moto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Moto)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/10 "2008-07-18T03:01:41Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] That’s why I said “as popular as he is.” How popular he actually is might not be known with certainty until long after he’s dead. It is certain he has **some** popularity; and the reason I gave for that is probably the most important one. [/QUOTE] Funny, I’d think total control of the education system, the media, and the livelihoods of individual citizens might have more to do with it. And Chavez is heading down this same road - steadily shutting down or taking over more and more institutions he does not control. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/11 "2008-07-18T03:05:11Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] Funny, I’d think total control of the education system, the media, and the livelihoods of individual citizens might have more to do with it. [/QUOTE] Something to do with it, but I’m quite sure that Castro has more sincere and heartfelt popularity in Cuba than many dictators similarly situated, such as Saddam Hussein, have had in their countries. It all comes down to national pride and resentment of the U.S. [Interesting article from a reporter who has been there recently:](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080414/timerman) > [@](#): > > “The worst problems we have are food, transportation and housing,” said a blue-shirted clerk at a rations store just outside of Havana. As he spoke he also measured out the week’s ration of crackers for neighborhood women coming in one afternoon. He deftly put the plastic bags they brought with them on a scale and scooped in the appropriate portion of hard, round crackers, later checking off the appropriate slot on their ration booklets. > > He explained very carefully the economic conundrum faced by most Cubans: “We get a basic food basket, and that’s very subsidized. It’s supposed to last a month, but it can’t, it lasts two weeks. So people have to get a little more, like at a farmers market or elsewhere. But that’s more expensive. You have to find a way, invent something.” > > Behind the clerk, samples of items covered by the ration booklet, labeled with the negligible cost and how often families are entitled to each item, sat forlornly on the shelf: a cup of rice, one of beans, a carton of cigarettes, a bar of soap. > > Asked about Castro’s eventual death, the clerk furrowed his brow. “I’m 42, I’ve never had another leader. I don’t know what happens,” he said with a shrug. And it is difficult for anybody to really know, he said. “There’s no free press here, you know.” And there can be no opposition “because there is only one party, and you have to do what they say, or else they make you disappear.” But one of the shriveled old women buying her rations interjects. “I saw what it was like before,” she said, showing her toothless gums and shaking her scarf-covered head. “I don’t want anything to change.” ---
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/12 "2008-07-18T03:12:48Z")
. Regardless, it’s certainly the reason Castro is popular with _Chavez_. . ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/13 "2008-07-18T03:18:00Z")
It’s not just Chavez, many of the regional “revolutionary” radicals tend to have a high deal of scorn for the Obama candidacy, apparently based on the proposition that the guy has got to secretly be the biggest Tom on Earth for \*“Them” \* (you know… _“Them”_) to have let him even live this long into a campaign. He’s a trick set up by \*“Them” \* to fool us into believing the USA actually has a democracy and is making progress. Remember also, that to a lot of the world’s “leftists”, when looking at the USA the paradigm is so different that even Bernie Sanders is at best an enlightened centrist from their POV. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/14 "2008-07-18T03:20:10Z")
[QUOTE=JRDelirious] Remember also, that to a lot of the world’s “leftists”, when looking at the USA the paradigm is so different that even Bernie Sanders is at best an enlightened centrist from their POV. [/QUOTE] Actually, that’s probably also true of most of the world’s “rightists.” ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/15 "2008-07-18T03:43:40Z")
[QUOTE=xtisme] Why exactly would you expect him to like Obama? You think his dislike of the US is simply an artifact of Bush being in office? -XT [/QUOTE] He’s was trying to play it that way for awhile at least. This is a pretty big nail in that coffin, though. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/16 "2008-07-18T03:52:17Z")
[QUOTE=Mr. Moto] And Chavez is heading down this same road - steadily shutting down or taking over more and more institutions he does not control. [/QUOTE] If you’re basing that on the fate of [RCTV,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCTV) please consider, compare and contrast what almost certainly would have happened to the FCC license, and the executives, and maybe even the stockholders, of any American TV network that had publicly backed a failed coup attempt against the United States government, and that while the attempt was going on. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/47e85d/32.png) [@Captain\_Lance\_Murdoch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Lance_Murdoch)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/17 "2008-07-18T03:57:22Z")
Where would Chavez and co. be without the U.S. scapegoat? Their only choices seem to be to vilify Obama as just another American imperialist or to claim credit for him as a socialist compadre whose path to power was paved by their hard work. Apparently the later is too absurd even for Hugo. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/18 "2008-07-18T04:00:48Z")
[QUOTE=Captain Lance Murdoch] Where would Chavez and co. be without the U.S. scapegoat? Their only choices seem to be to vilify Obama as just another American imperialist or to claim credit for him as a socialist compadre whose path to power was paved by their hard work. Apparently the later is too absurd even for Hugo. [/QUOTE] [Would it were too absurd for American RWs.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10013476&postcount=8) :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/19 "2008-07-18T04:10:49Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] [Would it were too absurd for American RWs.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10013476&postcount=8) :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] :rolleyes: yourself! Did you miss the word “jokes”, or was it just inconvenient? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2008, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897/20 "2008-07-18T04:14:11Z")
[QUOTE=Cisco] :rolleyes: yourself! Did you miss the word “jokes”, or was it just inconvenient? [/QUOTE] I read the word “jokes” and it was in that post (and in all **Weirddave’s** posts in that thread) inapposite. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/chavez-doesnt-like-obama-either/456897.md?page=2)