How Hugo Chavez Became Irrelevant

[Turenne]

presume much?

I never implied one arrest makes the entire nation corrupt, but are you saying its not corrupt?

are you aware of the phone hacking scandal, maybe you've heard of the MPs expenses scandal, what about the cash for honors scandal, or the cricket match fixing or the recent football gambling corruption, what about the dodgy accounting in the PFI schemes, the corruption in BAE and other defense firms that's just came out.

maybe your too busy picking tatties to notice but the UK is wholly corrupt, I thought the Irish should know better then anyone

I'm aware of all of these things, it doesn't mean the UK is more corrupt then Venezuela. Your whole post is one enormous fallacy(nevermind being off-topic) every country has corruption to certain degrees, its typically a question of if it is systematic or not. And unlike Venezuela the UK is not systematically corrupt. If you want to look at properly corrupt European nations look at Italy not the UK - we are talking about corruption as a way of life, not something that happens to and by the odd group of individuals.

As for sports scandals...

 

[Resident Geordie]

I always stray from topics, my apologies

it would be nice if you could point to actual cases of corruption in Venezuela, though, even just to contrast with other countries scandals.

back on topic though

Venezuela Corrupt?
"Transparency International" Has Some Questions to Answer Itself

Monday, May 16, 2005

By Greg Palast

Transparency International has listed Venezuela as one of the world's most corrupt.

On what evidence -- You should know this: Transparency International is itself a corrupted organization - a kind of bribery cartel. One of its big benefactors is Balfour Beatty construction - Britain's 'Halliburton' - which has admitted to massive bribery.

Five years ago I reported how the former chairman of Transparency International's backer, "announced with enormous pride that he personally had handed over the check to the government minister for the Pergau Dam bribe." See, "War On Corruption? Not Quite, Minister," The London Guardian, Sunday, July 9, 2000.

TI's support comes from bribe payers who want to reduce their pay-outs -- but not eliminate them or the edge they give over honest businesses.

What is the source of the Transparency International corruption index? It runs "surveys" of corrupt countries by asking corrupt corporate leaders which nations they consider corrupt.

The oil industry is the world's most corrupt in terms of dollars paid. Exxon Mobil paid hundreds of millions of dollars in funny money to the president of Kazakhstan. Oil industry executives are never done telling me that the bribery under Ahmad Chalabi and his gang in US-occupied Iraq is some of the worst on the planet -- "far worse than under Saddam," according to a Hess Oil executive. Yet, I've never had a single oil executive tell me they had to pay off Chavez insiders.

That doesn't mean there's no corruption in Venezuela; doubtless there is, though what I've found in Venezuela is mostly a problem with sabotage by opponents of Chavez - and the president's high tolerance with incompetence within his administration. (A big exception: in oil, the recovery of Venezuela's production under the guidance of Ali Rodriguez is nothing but brilliant.)

The TI index oddly leaves off the top of the 'most-corrupt' list the most corrupt nations of all in terms of bribery -- the USA and Western European states. Where does all that bribe money come from? Not Poland.

Transparency International's corporate controllers would serve the world best by beginning their survey of corruption by looking in the mirror.

Greg Palast | Investigative Reporter

 

[Resident Geordie]

Venezuelan elections: It’s either Chávez or Washington! (Op-Ed)

Published: 06 October, 2012, 18:23
TAGS:
Election, South America, Politics


This Sunday’s elections will pit incumbent President Hugo Chávez Frías against neoliberal pro-US opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski. Opinion polls vary widely both ways, proof it will be a head-to-head race.

This election is not only of vital importance to Venezuela, but to all of Latin America, as Chávez has been a veritable barrier against traditional US interventionism in the region.

Get Chávez!
That’s been the rallying call in the mainstream Western media, demonizing Chávez’s refusal to align Venezuela to the Western powers’ geopolitical objectives throughout the world, something the US and its allies find very hard to swallow.

That’s why they’ve put all their clout behind young up-start Henrique Capriles Radonski, as if he were a savior of democracy in Venezuela.
But that’s not quite the case when you consider that Capriles Radonski was very much involved in the failed US-backed coup in April 2002 to oust Chávez, and even spent a short spate in jail for it.

Chávez, in turn, is presented as “authoritarian and not democratic”. And yet, when he lost the 2007 constitutional reform referendum or the 2010 congressional elections, his government fully heeded the electorate’s will. No one today doubts that Sunday’s elections will be transparent and fair.
So why all the anger and fuss against Chávez?
To those who haven’t got the message yet: “It’s his foreign policy, Stupid!”

Irrespective of whether his domestic policies are good or bad, his foreign policies have held Venezuela’s sovereignty and self-esteem very high indeed, actively supporting all nations being savagely attacked by the US, UK, NATO or Israel.
Such is Venezuela’s support of the martyred peoples of Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, all flagrantly bombed, invaded and devastated by the Western powers based on outright lies, perverted distortions of the truth, and corporate greed to grab oil resources.
Today, the West targets Syria engineering internal strife and civil war as they already did in Iraq, Libya and other Muslim countries: in Orwellian Newspeak, the “Arab Spring”. They also threaten Iran with unilateral military attack and commit murder, sabotage and financial manipulation inside Iranian territory whilst spreading all sorts of global media lies.
Israel Über Alles!!

It must be said: at the center of the “We Hate Chavez” movement is Israel, for here lies one of the clues to the sudden rise of Capriles Radonski.
Israel and the global Zionist Movement would love to greet him as Venezuela’s new president, and not just because he is Jewish on both his mother’s and father’s side – a rather surprising fact in a country of almost 30 million people, that has an extremely tiny Jewish community of 12,000 (0.03 per cent of the total population!!).

The real issue lies in the fact that he would join the global support-Israel-at-any-cost movement, in line with what already occurs in the US, UK, EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and even in Latin American countries like Mexico, Chile and even Argentina.

Here we must pause and make sure we don’t confuse politics with religion: not all Jews are Zionists; not all Zionists are Jews, Zionism being a fundamentalist political ideology of global reach and huge political and financial clout, whose militants come from a variety of religious faiths.
No one better than the United States’ Roman Catholic Vice-President Joe Biden who, on April 7, 2007, declared on Israel’s ShalomTV “You don’t have to be Jewish to be Zionist. I‘m a Zionist!”
Fine! So, yes, Capriles Radonski is in that same camp which is why Zionist media and money are staunchly supporting him.

For they will never forgive Chávez’s hosting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Caracas, rendering him international political support in his fight against threats, aggression and the murder of his country’s politicians and scientists committed by CIA and Israeli Mossad assassins.
They will never forgive Chavez’s support for Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi, murdered on live TV by NATO-backed thugs to the boisterous laughter of Hilary Clinton.

They will never forgive Chavez’s support for the legitimate government of Syria in its fight against local and foreign terrorists financed, armed and trained by the US, Israel and UK, as openly stated by US Senator John McCain.
They will never forgive Chavez’s influence in Latin America, which inspired other countries to take an independent stance towards Iran, as the cases of Bolivia, Ecuador; even Brazil and Argentina show.
Clearly, Henrique Capriles Radonski is the absolute favorite of the US and its allies, and of the Zionist organizations and lobbies that reign over them.

The real goal: Conquer Venezuela!
Whilst their very short-term goal is to defeat Hugo Chávez; the medium-term goal is to defeat Venezuela and, further ahead, their long-term goal is to defeat all of Latin America.

If Venezuela falls into the hands of Capriles Radonski and the Global Power Masters supporting him, he will then join forces with Colombia, whose pro-US President Juan Manuel Santos is a member of David Rockefellers “Americas Society” and its mega bankers. He will join forces with pro-US/UK regimes as Peña Nieto’s in México and Piñera’s in Chile.
A defeated Venezuela would become subordinate to the goals and objectives of the US and its partners, who are planning and starting to implement a “Latin American Spring”.
Capriles Radonski would become a milestone in such a “Spring” which, like its Arab counterpart, promotes Western powers’ hegemony over the entire region, promoting “regime change” in countries not fully aligned to them, their multinational corporations’ natural resources appetites, and their mega bankers’ greed.
Engineering social uprisings and civil wars is what “Democracy Made in USA” is now all about.

By the way, it’s no coincidence that this long-planned on-going process is now guaranteed by the powerful US Fourth South Atlantic Fleet, which Baby Bush reactivated in 2008 after it had been scrapped almost half a century ago.
Hugo Chávez understands this very well; so does Brazil, which is actively strengthening and modernizing is air and naval military forces. Only misgoverned and mismanaged countries like Argentina under Cristina Kirchner look the other way whilst all of this takes place right under their noses.

But that’s the kind of regime that “Democracy Made in USA” promotes in countries like Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Honduras and Panama.
That’s the role that presidents like Kirchner, Menem, Uribe, Santos, Calderón and Zedillo are there to play: keeping their peoples ignorant and dumbed-down, throwing the ghastly masses of the poor a bone every now and then, whilst they and “friends” are all busy getting rich through corruption and embezzlement.
Most importantly, they always, always lend a willing ear to whatever messages emanate from “The Embassy” (of the US, or Israel, or the UK of course!)

Regarding Chavez’s health, boy oh boy how Washington, London and Tel Aviv would have loved for his cancer to take him out!!
Time and again Reuters, Fox News and The New York Times practically had him dead and buried, and yet the good doctors and treatment over in Cuba brought Chávez back to health. Maybe it’s because Merck, Abbott, Glaxo and the others are NOT in Havana? Poor Cuba: yet another country under decades of attack from Big Brother to the north.

Naturally, there’s still much to be done to improve social conditions in Venezuela; of course mistakes have been made, but above all Hugo Chávez has held up Venezuela’s honor and dignity and, by extension, that of Latin America as a whole, against common adversaries to the north.

Lucid, awakened and honorable Venezuelans know this but, as with all countries, there is also a massive deadweight of the population that will “vote with their wallets”, only catering to their own personal interests, whilst caring little or nothing for the common good.
Of the latter, Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón once said that “their most sensitive organ is their pocket…”
Let’s hope a majority of Venezuelans will be inspired to vote with a strong heart and a clear mind.
Adrian Salbuchi for RT
Adrian Salbuchi is a political analyst, author, speaker and radio/TV commentator in Argentina. Adrian Salbuchi
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Venezuelan elections: It

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

I don't understand why Newarkhiphop, who's so radical, loves to live in a capitalistic and free market society so much. Why not join the struggle? It's the equivalent of rocking a Che shirt and ordering a meal at a corporate food chain like McDonalds.

 

[newarkhiphop]

I don't understand why Newarkhiphop, who's so radical, loves to live in a capitalistic and free market society so much. Why not join the struggle? It's the equivalent of rocking a Che shirt and ordering a meal at a corporate food chain like McDonalds.

ah that didnt take long

I should go back to Africa right?

 

[newarkhiphop]

(a) it doesn't say that in the link and (b) you are simply backing up my point, that corruption is rife in his nation. the idea that he is only responsible for what happens in his one administration and not his nation is farcical.



Could you re-write so it makes some kind of sense grammatically, thanks.

he announced two wars on corruptions on people outside his administration not people within the government

the link he provided as corruption based on current governments

yea my bad i wrote "as " instead of "was" what i wrote makes no sense though

 

[newarkhiphop]

Why did you highlight the corruption part anyway?

Lets get to this though

Translation:

This index classifies countries according to the amount of PERCEIVED corruption among public figures and politicians, using surveys given to business owners and evaluations from analyst within each country.

Right off that bat , this isn't no scientific measure of the amount of corruption happening , this is no independent study by a outside source ,this how much corruption "they" THINK might be happening and by "they" this is given to wealthy business owners and corporate elite which represent a minority in ALL of these countries based on surveys they hand out. Like i said tomorrow the people will decide.

But obviously you post links and go on rants just to make you look points without doing any fact checking before hand.

You have a good day though.

 

[Turenne]

...you do realise the Gallup survey that you were gassing up a couple of pages back also deals with 'perceived' corruption from people within the country? Can you spell 'hypocrite' for me friend?

And I know exactly how TI does its surveys. You aren't telling me anything new, I however see no problem with them using information from many many many sources - people who are after all in the best position to judge whether the country is corrupt - within the country, along with other sources.

 

[newarkhiphop]

...you do realise the Gallup survey that you were gassing up a couple of pages back also deals with 'perceived' corruption from people within the country? Can you spell 'hypocrite' for me friend?

And I know exactly how TI does its surveys. You aren't telling me anything new, I however see no problem with them using information from many many many sources - people who are after all in the best position to judge whether the country is corrupt - within the country, along with other sources.

so you dont find it funny that the average person , the population, finds Venezuela one of the LEAST corrupt countries, while the wealthy business men find it one of the MOST corrupt countries? The same businessmen who formed a coup against chavez and tried to have him assassinated.

Who we supposed to believe?

 

[thekingsmen]

Corruption in Venezuela - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In Gallup Poll's 2006 Corruption Index, Venezuela ranks 31st out of 101 countries according to how widespread the population perceive corruption as being in the government and in business. The index lists Venezuela as the second least corrupt nation in Latin America, behind Chile.[5]

Gallup Polls

Fake ass polls that distort real actual facts.

 

[Grano-Grano]

where should I start ? The title? Saying Chavez is irrelevant and like I said he is irrelevant enough to write a article about two days before elections in his country. A article which on purpose gives a shocking title but provides little to no substance. That's American propaganda 101, but I'll do a break down nonetheless.

Paragraphs 1-2: Says nothing of importance

Paragraph 3 : Calls the sovereign governments of Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and Nicaragua and Cuba "radicals revolutionaries" all this when the leaders of these countries where chosen by the people, but it just so happens that these governments want to take away the natural resources and wealth which the rich oligarchy's have been abusing for years and give some of that power and money back to average peasant , Hearts and Minds. This is all a setup for paragraph 4

Paragraph 4: This paragraph now names a whole other set of countries Brazil, Uruguay and Guatemala. It calls there leaders "moderate" . This is more of ploy to have the reader think that's its VS thing good Latin american countries vs bad ones , again all made on baseless claims no real facts provided. If you really look at it. It should be one list of countries that over the past 6-8 years have done right by there people by spreading the wealth, the movement is in its infancy , with Uruguay not even belonging there, Uruguay for the most part doesn't suffer from the same social and economic issues of the others.


This good vs evil thing is a good intro too , because the theme of the rest of the article is a Brazil vs Venezuela thing. The article itself though provides no solid facts of this but themselves admit defeat



Don't be fooled , there is no division with Brazil , Venezuela and the rest of Latin America , do different leaders have differences every once in a while? Sure but what world leaders agree on everything all the time? None. Brazil and Venezuela continue to lead the way in economic independence from the United States in Latin america, not only are they doing but there providing the blueprint for other countries to do it.

The rest of the article like i said earlier is nothing more than your standard anti Chavez rhetoric which has gotten old at this point , from the second half of the article you can literally take out the words Chavez and Venezuela and replace with it.

Cuba & Fidel Castro
Iraq & Saddam Hussein
Taliban & Afghanistan
Iran & Ahmadinejad
Libya & Qaddafi
Arafat & Palestine
Syria & al-Assad

ETC ETC ETC

God damn the trillest of this post

 

[Broke Wave]

Viva Chavez. Look wt Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay and you will see strong recession proof economic growth and poverty reduction. Non of these governments would have even possible without the Chavez revolution against neoliberalism.


sent from Mooks pig pen

 

[kermit da hustla]

Its over dude. Plus after 20 or so years in charge dude has completely failed to improve the social and economic conditions in the country while he has one of the worst humanitarian records in the region.

at thinking Hugo won't be re-elected.

 

[Allah]

i would never have expected this from nyt

 

[FaTaL]

i thought his cancer was terminal