You’re making an irrational comparison, look at the quality of life of Venezuelan citizens vs US citizens.
As Tanner points out, there is an order of magnitude between what had/has been going on in Venezuela, and the average American experience.
Moreover, Hugo Chavez installed himself as the permanent ruler of a state and crushed all opposition through either financial means or horrifying abuse of government powers. He did good things for Venezuela, in the medium-term. He wasn’t Gaddafi or Hussein or any of the typical strongman dictators, but on a long enough timeline he becomes one, because of his commitment to absolute power, and his clear willingness to do business with gangs, jail his enemies etc.
The hypocrisy of him being a socialist who took billions of dollars from the state to give to himself and his family, while obviously terrible, is to be expected.
And, in the main, your feelings about the “illusion of freedom” contributes to the degradation of freedoms. The fact that you can compare what goes on with Venezuela in some broad way, sans nuance, implies that you’ve no interest in protecting any freedoms or “Democracy”, because you don’t believe that it exists.
But the same things happens here all the damn time, its just not as exaggerated, apparent, or extreme as it is in Venezuela.
Just because the lowest one here in the states has more than those over there, does not mean its not done here on the same level. Just because we live in a country that can afford to borrow to have nice things doesn’t make it irrational. Its a very valid comparison, and its not like im comparing our experience and reality with that of an African nation. If that was the case, Tanner would be correct in his statement, it would be irrational, if anything, it would be raw stupidity.
Now, im not defending him by any stretch, what he did was his business and the business of his people. He did his share of irrational shit, but what schwaffle said explicitly states that he isn’t paying attention here home.
Politicians sweet talk us, and practically buy our votes for only a t-shirt, and a fancy slogan. They behave in the same way Chavez did, and the only difference is that we are allowed to borrow money to have all the nice things we own, and we get to choose which side of the coin we happen to like more on any given day. Its the same song in dance, just with a different singer.
And you are right, i don’t believe in Democracy, nor I have any interest in protecting Democracy because Democracy is terrible.
To late about the freedom bit, they have already been deemed irrelevant by this great “Democracy”.
Now everybody’s an expert on Venezuela, I see. Must be nice to know everything about the world by reading 3 or 4 (unbiased, of course) news articles.
Chavez didn’t make himself supreme ruler. he just made it he can continue running for office.
Also, my life in venezuela wouldnt be all that different to living in the US. only differences would be. i wouldn’t be able to bathe as often in venezuela and the stores wouldn’t be packed with groceries. I’d still be living on welfare and trying to get by on whatever but i’d atleast be able to go to a doctor and study. Currently. im living off of welfare in the US unable to study and as someone born with asthma i can barely even afford any medical attention or proper equipment. but hey atleast i can eat,bathe, and not worry about insecurity(not worrying about getting robbed constantly).
Im not pro chavez or even anti. I do agree the guy is a huge fuck up. and venezuela would be in a much better state if it wasn’t for hoarding money for himself and bankrupting many businesses.
I think it would be fair to say that he tried to amass as much power and influence as he could, and was not the biggest fan of people who disagreed with him. Though, frankly, abolishing term limits should be the only red flag needed.
I’d wager that isn’t true, as the US doesn’t have massive food shortages etc. Also, our murder rate is substantially lower, but I’m assuming that wouldn’t affect your day-to-day life.
Yes, it practically a literally does.
This is a rather incomplete list of differences. We can start with how our presidents tend not to abolish term limits so they can preside in perpetuity, or imprison judges for making decisions they don’t agree with, etc. Nixon was pilloried and became a punchline for decades, for doing far, far less that Chavez did.
My point was, to say that everything is the same is to say that you wouldn’t mind letting someone like Chavez take power here, because there’d be no difference. I rather disagree.
Ahmadinejad gets in trouble for hugging Chavez’s mother.
http://news.yahoo.com/ahmadinejad-under-fire-hugging-chavezs-mother-091752249.html
actually that’s exactly what it means as you said yourself.
This country has so much excess that the amount of wealth that can be borrowed is easy and low risk enough that anybody can have a jab at it for little to no risk. That fact alone makes it seem that such actions aren’t common or aggressively pursued.
Power in this country resides in the congress not the president, and the president’s power. If we look at what congress does and how it conducts its buisness, its the same way Chavez did. Just change imprisonment with buying out or throwing enough money that any message is silenced. Congress doesn’t like something?? Pass a stealth law under all the pork, throw enough money at it that a lie becomes truth, attack the issue by manipulating the emotions of the masses, etc. Now the American president doesn’t conduct himself like Chavez did, but each president keeps adding expansions to executive power that completely circumvent the rule of law, sort of like Chavez did. Not as grandios, but its done at the same level when you look at the whole of the American Government.
And I do agree, not everything is exactly the same, but to make the claim that our “leaders” don’t throw crumbs at the general population to keep them happy is ridiculous, because its what happens here all the time. and that was my original point, Politicians in the United States behave in the same manner Chavez does, keep the people happy by sweet talking and feeding us grains from crumbs to keep us happy. The consequences of that behavior aren’t on the same level as Chavez, but its getting there. Look at how bad the economy is, and the general state of the government. Absolute clusterfuck
you’re not really saying much of anything but what you’re trying to say is: in america, corporations fuck the government and, in turn, the people…in venezuela, the government just outright fucks the people.
that said, one situation is clearly worse. talk to any non-rich person from venezuela (or any country led by a despot) and that shit should be obvious.