Venezuela is Coming Apart at the Seams

[gonzomax]

We need Chavez out of there. What they desperately need is another right wing dictator puppet state installed by the benevolent American military . Those people are getting kind of uppity and must be put back in their place. Peons should stay peons.

[erez]

@gonzomax

We need Chavez out of there. What they desperately need is another right wing dictator puppet state installed by the benevolent American military . Those people are getting kind of uppity and must be put back in their place. Peons should stay peons.

Nice false dichotomy.

[gonzomax]

Venezuela - Health and Social Security Yep, Venezuela is actually doing its people some good. we can not have that. They should be controlled by international corporations forever. Then, they will know peace and prosperity.

[erez]

@gonzomax

Venezuela - Health and Social Security Yep, Venezuela is actually doing its people some good. we can not have that. They should be controlled by international corporations forever. Then, they will know peace and prosperity.

Do you even read your own links or are you just throwing stuff out there in case it sticks? You just cited an article from 1990!

[fruitbat]

@erez

I knew that this forum would be the place to find blind ideologues willing to overlook obvious free speech abuses if they are by somebody they agree with politically and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.

Oh no, “it continues to act like an opposition party!” They “aren’t an objective broadcaster!” That can’t be allowed in a democratic society, right tagos and Dick Dastardly? The Organization of American States, the United Nations, the Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists all need to listen to tagos, BrainGlutton, and Dick Dastardly, since they obviously had no idea what they were talking about when they said Venezuela is using the judicial system to limit free speech and it targets government critics. How dare these conservatives Hillary Clinton, NY Times, and Washington Post bring up Chavez’s abuses?

You are absolutely wrong about Globovision. Chavez’s pretext for attempting to shut them down is their coverage of an earthquake. If Globovision or RCTV did anything illegal in their coverage of the 2002 coup attempt, where are the convictions by the courts? BrainGlutton, you need to inform yourself about why the owner of Globovision is still free before you embarrass yourself further. It’s because he fled the country and is in hiding.

You are in complete denial about Chavez. He is simply a dictator. I noticed that you conveniently skipped over all other free speech violations I mentioned. Why don’t you respond? There are many, many more.

For example, “After releasing a highly critical report about Chávez two years ago, José Miguel Vivanco, the Americas director for Human Rights Watch, and a fellow investigator for the group were detained at their Caracas hotel and escorted by armed agents onto a Brazil-bound flight” (OAS) or “religious groups, like others that criticized the Government, were subject to harassment and intimidation during the reporting period” (U.S Dept of State) or “First up in court was the election-monitoring group Sumate, which has meticulously documented Chavez’s manipulation of the electoral system. The caudillo ordered up the trial of its top leaders on treason charges during his weekly television show two years ago” (Washington Post) or "…a popular young opposition mayor in Caracas and the leader of the only political party to nominate a candidate against Chavez. Like Sumate’s leaders, Capriles was first charged in 2004; like them he has seen the case against him discredited and thrown out by appeals courts, only to reappear as Chavez tightened his control over the judiciary. His trial is now due to begin by early May. " (Washington Post) “He has since turned into a standard-issue autocrat — hoarding power, stifling dissent, spending the nation’s oil wealth on political support.” (NY Times)

Venezuelans rejected Chavez’s bid to eliminate term limits. How did he react? "He and his supporters are increasingly resorting to intimidation. Mobs have occupied the municipal government headquarters in Caracas, which is run by the opposition, and lobbed tear gas canisters at the home of a TV executive who has been critical of the government and others. The leader of one hard-core group is threatening “war” if Mr. Chávez loses, according to news reports. " (NY Times) Guess what, it passed the next time, he is still the president!

You are supporting a dictator. You are his pawns. Wake up.

I know this makes me terribly naive, but this post sums it up. I just cannot believe that there is support for Chavez here. I know there is a certain tendency to leftist lunacy, but he isn’t even a crafty dictator. Chavez combines a bit of Kim Jong Il with a hefty helping of Castro. Shockingly I think that moving towards declaring oneself president for life is a pretty bad sign.

[Spoke]

I’m confused. Wasn’t Chavez elected? Can’t the people vote him out if they don’t like him? So why do US conservatives (and apparently Canadian ones too) obsess over the guy? Is it really that frustrating that people in another country don’t vote the way you want them to?

As I’ve said in threads long past, I guess it comes down to what we value more highly: democracy or capitalism.

Do we value capitalism so highly that we are willing to thwart democracy to protect it?

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@emacknight

All we have is an anecdote, we don’t actually know anything about this warehouse; where it is, how big it is, who works there. We know nothing about the conditions that caused the food to rot; was it lack of trucks, lack of a/c, too much moisture, improper packaging. Perhaps the CIA was involved, perhaps the food was rotten to begin with and someone tried to screw over the government. Without all of the facts we can’t possibly make a conclusion as dramatic as to suggest a country is falling apart. This article is almost a month old, and the country appears to still be there.

So in the end, all we have to do is reject the premise.

Done and done.

Perhaps this WSJ article will be helpful to you.

Venezuelan authorities discovered nearly 1,200 shipping containers full of rotten food at a state-run warehouse and have arrested a former top official in the government’s food distribution network.

The discovery of the 30,000 tons of out-of-date milk, rice and wheat flour at the warehouse in the port city of Puerto Cabello is seen as an embarrassment for President Hugo Chávez, who has been blaming opposition forces and private industry for a recent rise in food shortages.

Try to imagine the amount of food in 1200 shipping containers.
Chavez even admits the failure of his government and agrees with Sam

President Chávez, addressing the issue late Tuesday, said the food was left to go bad due to “mistakes, inefficiency” and “bureaucracy” within the government, …

[emacknight]

@The_Flying_Dutchman

Try to imagine the amount of food in 1200 shipping containers.

Sounds like a lot, but this is a government run organization, so they’re probably at best 70% full.

It’s also just a number without anything to compare it against.

Here is a lawsuit against CVS Pharmacy:

@Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal

An investigation found 20 or more stores in the state selling items past their expiration dates, including baby formula, energy drinks, cough and allergy medicines, and dairy products.

Mad Money had the the CEO of CVS on to talk about the cost of removing those items from shelves, basically stating they did a cost benefit analysis and concluded the lawsuit was cheap compared to hiring more staff at each of their 7000 stores.

So what are we angry about? That food was wasted, or that the government wasted food?

I do a lot of work with an organization called Second Harvest. They try to collect surplus food from restaurants and grocery stores to be distributed to charities. The quantity of waste would blow your mind.

Which is why I started purl=Government Waste vs Market Inefficiencies - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board]this train wreck of a thread. We have one anecdote of 30,000 tones of food wasted by a state organization. If instead we had a free market working in Venezuela, how much food would be wasted, and would we care?

[Spoke]

@The_Flying_Dutchman

Chavez even admits the failure of his government and agrees with Sam

Now convince the Venezuelans of this, and maybe they will vote Chavez out. See how democracy works?

[XT]

@Spoke

Now convince the Venezuelans of this, and maybe they will vote Chavez out. See how democracy works?

:smack: Never thought of that! Hell, why didn’t the Cuban’s think of that with Fidel or the Iraqi’s with Saddam?? They could have just VOTED them out! Instead, year after year they got nearly 100% of the vote.

I’m glad you cleared that up. Maybe the Venezuelan’s will wise up and simply vote him out.

-XT

[Spoke]

There are opposition parties in Venezuela (unlike Cuba or Iraq). They just can’t get the votes. (Or they boycott the elections when they know they’re gonna lose.)

Look, I don’t support Chavez’s apparent turn toward marxism, but the direction of Venezuela’s economy is not my decision to make. That’s up to the electorate of Venezuela.

Or are you proposing some alternative to that?

[PrettyVacant]

@Spoke

Or are you proposing some alternative to that?

I guess some folks in the US are still getting used to the novelty of central and south American countries having elections free of ‘external influence’.

[emacknight]

@xtisme

:smack: Never thought of that! Hell, why didn’t the Cuban’s think of that with Fidel or the Iraqi’s with Saddam?? They could have just VOTED them out! Instead, year after year they got nearly 100% of the vote.

I’m glad you cleared that up. Maybe the Venezuelan’s will wise up and simply vote him out.

-XT

Interesting that you choose those two examples. Sounds like you’re suggesting we treat Chavez to the same neocon system of nation building that Saddam got and Fidel was supposed to get.

I’d still like to know what we’re angry about. And if there is a specific gross tonnage of food waste that will cause a country to come apart at the seams.

So far we have about 120,000 tons of food wasted.

The US wastes 27% of available for consumption

Grocery stores discard products because of spoilage or minor cosmetic blemishes. Restaurants throw away what they don’t use. And consumers toss out everything from bananas that have turned brown to last week’s Chinese leftovers. In 1997, in one of the few studies of food waste, the Department of Agriculture estimated that two years before, 96.4 billion pounds [about 48million tons] of the 356 billion pounds of edible food in the United States was never eaten. Fresh produce, milk, grain products and sweeteners made up two-thirds of the waste. An update is under way.

The new study, from the University of Arizona (UA) in Tucson, indicates that a shocking forty to fifty per cent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten.

So what is going to cause the country to come apart at the seams? Food waste, or food wasted by the government?

[Spoke]

@PrettyVacant

I guess some folks in the US are still getting used to the novelty of central and south American countries having elections free of ‘external influence’.

Damn it, that nervy sonofabitch Chavez is sitting on our oil!! Screw democracy!! Let’s get him!!

[BrainGlutton]

@xtisme

:smack: Never thought of that! Hell, why didn’t the Cuban’s think of that with Fidel or the Iraqi’s with Saddam?? They could have just VOTED them out! Instead, year after year they got nearly 100% of the vote.

I’m glad you cleared that up. Maybe the Venezuelan’s will wise up and simply vote him out.

-XT

And, unlike the Cubans, etc., they could if they wanted to.

As you know.