Chavez says goodbye

[AWdeV]

Ya man. It would help if he'd quit being a silly noisemaker/noisy sillymaker though.

 

[Eктωρ]

Didn't like Chavez much, populist leaders with cults of personality have no respect from me.

 

[Austupaio]

It's not how much government expresses their power, its how much they have. In a basic monarchy, a king has all the power. In modern democracy, the head figure does not have all the power.

I wouldn't agree with that, while a traditional monarch may have legally possessed more power of authority, a modern president/prime minister has a much greater technology with which to enforce his legal power.

Predator drones as an extreme example.

 

[Mandalorian]

Another world against me, crazy, dictator goes. I hope ahmedinejad will follow his true love in this road too.

Yet Ahmadinejad isn't a crazy dictator..

Maybe not. But he isn't a democratic leader too.

 

[Jhessail]

*either

that's the word you're looking for.

And he did win a democratic election and while the opposition did raise a ruckus over it, their accusations were much less severe than the BS pointed out in the last Russian and Belarussian elections and since we aren't boycotting those two... 

EDIT; yeah, EU is boycotting Belarussia in certain categories/thingies, so **** off, I knew that, but the principle stands, we still trade with them.

 

[Duke Daniel Milutin]

Another world against me, crazy, dictator goes. I hope ahmedinejad will follow his true love in this road too.

Yet Ahmadinejad isn't a crazy dictator..

Maybe not. But he isn't a democratic leader too.

Crazy dictators, crazy 'democratic' leaders... Just a piece of garbage in different package. One become president by falsifying elections while the other by giving false promises and talking about what people like to hear. Does the way they got to power really matter as much as what they are going to do with this power...?

 

[Wellenbrecher]

Ahmadinejad has hardly any "real" power compared to other folks down there.
He's a figure head, a loud shouty man drawing all the ire while the Mullahs do their **** undisturbed.

IIRC he's number six or seven or even less in terms of power.

 

[Mage246]

That seems like an old estimate. He's developed a strong independent following of his own, now. He's top 5 now, maybe even top 3. Making the Ayatollah nervous, in fact.

 

[Scully]

He once claimed there was a plot by the US to kill all South American leaders through cancer.

That's not crazy

 

[eth1234567890]

good news, let just hope the next leader is not Chávez the 2.

 

[Swadius 2.0]

He once claimed there was a plot by the US to kill all South American leaders through cancer.

That's not crazy

Seems a little excessively paranoid though. Granted, the US has been known for its assassination attempts, but claiming that the US is using cancer ray guns on South American leaders comes across as putting the blame all in one place without any justification aside from the most strenous.

 

[Bulle]

I notice that there is a lot of misconceptions about both Chavez and Venezuela in this thread. To begin with, no, Chavez was not a dictator. He has won every single election without cheating, without it being rigged and yes, there is an opposition which runs against him. Since he is democratically elected in a democracy he also accepts it when he loses, like in 2007 he lost a referendum and he has not tried to cheat in any way to change the numbers or tried to implement what the vote was about. Because he was not a dictator.
To continue, no, Chavez did not control the media. There is 7 major national newspapers, 5 supports the opposition and 1 of them agrees with the government but there really is no newspaper which is funded or controlled by the government. 14% of the radio is publicly owned and when it comes to TV private commercial ownership is at the least 75% and might be as high as 95% (depending on which source you want to trust). The vast majority of radio and TV is anti-Chavez with three of the major networks openly supporting and inciting the military coup against Chavez in 2002. When it comes to the economy they managed to greatly improve the Venezuelan economy and yes, they can totally handle a decline in oil prices, even if it is a very large decline. On top of the 31% drop in the rate of poverty there is also the increased access to health care and education which is not included in the measurement which significantly improves situation for poor people. Yes, inflation sucks and but it was way higher in the pre-Chavez era.

Some highlights:
Inequality has fallen drastically.
Social spending per person has tripled (it's inflationadjusted, don't worry!).
Infant mortality has decreased with onethird.
More people are getting educations, specially higher educations with enrollments are over doubled since when Chavez took power.
Both the governments public debt and foreign public debt has decreased a lot.
More 9000 new health care clinics has been constructed providing free health care.
Illiteracy has been wiped out.
More rights for indigenous people and women.

 

[Ambalon]

Where did you get those numbers, if you don't mind sharing?

 

[Bulle]

Where did you get those numbers, if you don't mind sharing?

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela-2012-09.pdf
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/the-chavez-administration-at-10-years-the-economy-and-social-indicators/
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/venezuelan-economic-and-social-performance-under-hugo-chavez-in-graphs
http://www.mediaaccuracy.org/node/62
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/the-americas-blog/media-bias-in-venezuela
On top of that I got the rest from wikipedia, WHO and the UN.

Edit: If I missed something let me know and I'll find it.