Hugo Chavez Dead (1 Viewer)

[Mr. Sparkle]

I wore my Che t-shirt to work today in remembrance of El Comandante. Yeah.

My old employer (shipping company) had a major presence in VZ until a few years ago. It was bad enough when you had to have a Chavista on the payroll just because, well, just because, but when his troops started grabbing ships and holding the crew for days at a time in order to squeeze more $$ out, they moved their South American office to Colombia. Still call on Venezuelan ports, but wont put any people on the ground there anymore.

Good riddance.

 

[saintsfan84]

Ojeda. That is one of the hottest places in the world.

There is a hot little place called Mini Grande, where when you walk oil comes up from the ground.

I'll have to check it out whenever we make it down there!

 

[saintsfan342000]

Always nice to see members of Congress mourning dictators:


Hugo Chavez was a leader that understood the needs of the poor. He was committed to empowering the powerless.R.I.P. Mr. President.

— Jose E. Serrano (@RepJoseSerrano) March 5, 2013

I saw that...truly mindblowing.

 

[El Caliente]

For a guy that supposedly helped the poor, he sure was compensated well for it.

According to Jerry Brewer, president of Criminal Justice International Associates (CJIA), Hugo Chavez’s net worth might have been bolstered by absconding money from the people of Venezuela:


“The personal fortune of the Castro brothers has been estimated at a combined value of around $2 billion. The Chávez Frías family in Venezuela has amassed a fortune of a similar scale since the arrival of Chávez to the presidency in 1999 We believe that organized bolivarian criminal groups within the Chávez administration have subtracted around $100 billion out of the nearly $1 trillion in oil income made by PDVSA since 1999.”

 

[Big_L]

Jesus. I don't think you can actually make a wrong decision. Just so much to love about each girl representing their country. On one hand the Columbian women are slightly, almost unnoticeable to the trained eye, darker. It exudes that sexiness; compliments long dark beautiful hair and enticing eyes. The Venezuelan women have the same features yet have lighter eyes which just keep me in a trance. It's almost like the direct tv genie girl, when her commercial comes on and she makes that little pouty face with the lips and eyes my mind goes blank. She doesn't just have that effect on me either, my son is 5 and he just lost all motor controlled and dropped a full drink when the commercial came on.

It is an extremely difficult choice. Pretty much flip of a coin.

 

[nolaspe]

It is an extremely difficult choice. Pretty much flip of a coin.

South American women are the most beautiful women on Earth... (Call me a homer, but I'm partial to Colombian gals...)

Oh, and chad141fa, once again, its:

 

[Geldo]

For a guy that supposedly helped the poor, he sure was compensated well for it.

According to Jerry Brewer, president of Criminal Justice International Associates (CJIA), Hugo Chavez’s net worth might have been bolstered by absconding money from the people of Venezuela:


“The personal fortune of the Castro brothers has been estimated at a combined value of around $2 billion. The Chávez Frías family in Venezuela has amassed a fortune of a similar scale since the arrival of Chávez to the presidency in 1999 We believe that organized bolivarian criminal groups within the Chávez administration have subtracted around $100 billion out of the nearly $1 trillion in oil income made by PDVSA since 1999.”

If there was the slightest evidence that Chavez had embezzled millions don't you think the CIA might have released a full and well documented paper trail just before an election.

If you have any evidence then release it......

Otherwise why not accuse them of goat molesting.

 

[Geldo]

The Passive U.S. Agenda in Latin America is Becoming Costly

More of Brewer's impartial and rational analysis of Latin American politics.
Tea Party wet dreams are made of this 'expert ' analysis.

Struggled to find any evidence on his site of the enormous paper trail embezzled billions tend to leave behind though.

 

[DesertKajun]

If there was the slightest evidence that Chavez had embezzled millions don't you think the CIA might have released a full and well documented paper trail just before an election.

If you have any evidence then release it......

Otherwise why not accuse them of goat molesting.

So how much was he paying himself a year to be Comendente? Oddly most dictators get super rich while the poor they claim to look out for suffer even more.

 

[Geldo]

So how much was he paying himself a year to be Comendente? Oddly most dictators get super rich while the poor they claim to look out for suffer even more.

Do you really think everyone is motivated solely by money - after all how many green fatigues and red berets do you need.

 

[DesertKajun]

Do you really think everyone is motivated solely by money - after all how many green fatigues and red berets do you need.

Absolutely, if not the 400 million he was estimated to be worth would have been donated to help the poor. I am guessing he had a lot of nice mansion and a whole lot of women.

update its now estimated at 2 billion I hear.....

 

[Geldo]

update its now estimated at 2 billion I hear.....

You heard because El heard and shared and some right-wing anti-Chavez 'expert' made it up for you to hear and share. This story is two years old, the Castro story is 5-7 years old at least....and no compelling evidence or paper-trail has ever been produced.

As a journalist of 25 years experience I would like to think people actually check out what they hear rather than believe any old made up BS.

We all have a responsibility to check sources for credibility. Investigate, particularly when the source comes from someone whose views are diametrically opposed to the person they are accusing.

 

[DesertKajun]

Well his net worth is all over the place but we can rest assured he was worth a crap ton of money.

Why I am really glad he is gone, I have hopes we can get some Marine collection going as they have a fish I really want to breed for the aquarium trade...I can make a crap ton of money if I get these. Only in Venezuela as far as we can tell. It was photographed off an island there.

 

[El Caliente]

I am going to stand by my source. The guy made off like a bandit at the hands of the poor.

I can see why you are so vehemently opposed to the idea of Chavez being a bad guy, but get your head out of the ground (that is this romanticized socialist utopia that Chavez was swinging) and accept the fact millions in Venezuela are rejoicing the release from this dictator. Dude made a living off the dumb and poor, and saved a butt load (and not of the Geico variety).

BTW, what are your views on Pinochet?

I respect your opinion Geldo, but I do not agree with it.

 

[Geldo]

BTW, what are your views on Pinochet?

I respect your opinion Geldo, but I do not agree with it.

Same here my friend. It's not about agreeing - it's about respecting the opinion of others and debating with friendliness. That's what great about these boards. I make no secret of the fact I'm a Socialist - yet I really enjoy exchanging opinions with Conservatives. The one thing we have in common is that we care about people - we just believe in achieving a better world through different means.

As for Pinochet, well although he's the poster boy for Latin American torturers, he wasn't even close to being the worse. He was just more brazen than the others doing the whole messy torture thing in public in the middle of a football stadium in front of the media. Oh, that and planting a bomb in the middle of Washington DC which killed an American citizen. (Still Kissinger and Nixon weren't overly bothered with the death of Ronnie Moffat and the dismemberment of a former ambassador to the US in broad daylight in the heart of the nation's capital and even played along with Pinochet's game of blaming the Chilean Communist guerillas for a while).

Videla, Masera and Viola of Argentina killed at least 30 times more people for example. Pinochet only killed around 1,000 even though he is believed to have ordered the torture and detention of around 10,000.

Paraguay's Nazi leader Stroessner was probably even more repressive and brutal and Nicaragua's Somoza has a body count that may have exceeded even that of the generals.

Sadly, not even 50,000 deaths can get you near the top spots in the Latin American fascist dictator chart.

The hall of shame goes instead to the President of UnitedFruitemala Carlos Castillo Armaz (the beast who succeeded the democratically elected Arbenz); and Guatemala's assorted death squad supremos who succeeded each other in rapid succession and tried to out-do each other for the crown as the most lethal psychopath on the continent.

Armaz didn't last long enough to rival the greats for murder but he practically invented the death squad, disenfranchised half the population for daring to vote for a Socialist (And in case you're wondering Arbenz was also branded a dictator, a Communist and an embezzler - now there's a thing); and IIRC was rather fond of dropping people he thought of as subversive out of helicopters into the lava cones of the country's volcanoes.

The Guatemalan Caudillos total body count topped 18,000 in a single year (1982), while the civil war with an equally bloodthirsty leftist guerilla army cost the lives of 200,000.

If anyone has the stomach for mass slayings search for John Pilger's moving and disconcerting documentary on the subject - it's on youtube.

And yet all the while the US media barely said a word about the atrocities - failing to cover the killings even after the rape and murder of American nuns by right-wing special forces.

The same silent treatment was not elected to democratic lefties like Allende and Arbenz whose viscious crimes against humanity were attempting to nationalise the country's resoureces for the good of the poor.

Sorry mate, but in Latin America the right-wing presidents really do know how to play the tyrant. The best the left can muster is Che and Camilo and Camilo wasn't even really a Communist...