The Cool Blue Blog

Chavez Socialist dream

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wants to make sure that every kid in his country gets a good education: a good Socialist education, that is

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened the country's private schools with closure unless they adopt the government's socialist ideology.

Mr Chavez said schools must introduce a new curriculum being introduced this year that he said would help develop values of cooperation and solidarity.

Education had been ignored by past governments, Mr Chavez said. 

But many parents are concerned that the new curriculum will spell indoctrination for their children.

Ya think?

But it's not enough for a leader of a wannabe Socialist nation just teach Socialism in the schools, one must lead by example.

One must nationalize the industries (i.e. steal property from people)

President Hugo Chavez's government took over Venezuela's last privately run oil fields on Tuesday, intensifying a struggle with international firms over the development of the world's largest known petroleum deposit.

Of course theft has a way of alienating people

Chavez is urging the private companies to stay as minority partners. The two sides are locked in contentious negotiations and have until June 26 to negotiate the terms, including compensation and reduced stakes.

The companies appear to be taking a tough stand, demanding conditions — and presumably compensation — to convince them that Venezuela will be a good place to do business.

Chevron's future in Venezuela "will very much be dependent on how we're treated in the current negotiation," said David O'Reilly, chief executive of the San Ramon, Calif.-based company. "That process is going to have a direct impact on our appetite going forward."

Leading the people to the Socialism Utopia also means making sure the people are fed. And not unexpectedly, this also involves theft

The leftist Chavez this week created a state food distributor and loosened some price controls, seeking to end months of shortages for staples like milk and eggs that have caused long lines and upset his supporters in the OPEC nation....

Jose Anzola, a director of food company Alimentos Polar, told reporters that troops stopped 27 of its trucks over the last three days and described the seizures as "illegal, arbitrary and irresponsible."

...Polar, one of the country's largest private employers and best-known brands, produces and distributes grocery products including corn flour, a central element of Venezuelan cooking, and the country's most popular beer.

Business leaders say shortages of these products are caused by strict price controls, which have lagged inflation that is Latin America's highest.

             

The other thing a beloved leader of the Socialist Utopia must do is make sure everyone is participating in the Socialist way: i.e. no one is trying to make a profit

President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to take over farms or milk plants if owners refuse to sell their milk for domestic consumption and instead seek higher profits abroad or from cheese-makers.

With the country recently facing milk shortages, Chavez said "it's treason" if farmers deny milk to Venezuelans while selling it across the border in Colombia or for gourmet cheeses.

"In that case the farm must be expropriated," Chavez said, adding that the government could also take over milk plants and properties of beef producers.

   "I'm putting you on alert," Chavez said. "If there's a producer that refuses to sell the product ... and sells it at a higher price abroad ... ministers, find me the proof so it can be expropriated."

Addressing his Cabinet, he said: "If the army must be brought in, you bring in the army."

No wonder Hugo is so intent on early Socialist education: If kids know what is expected of them when they grow up then Chavez doesn't have to use the Army as a learning aid.

Just another cheap thug

Hugo Chavez stood in front of the UN General Assembly and called President Bush the Devil. Remember that?

He was the Left's best friend. Then Representative (now Senator) Bernie Sanders negotiated a deal with Chavez to bring cheap oil to Vermont and was praised for it by the Vermont Legislature.

That the General Assembly congratulates Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Representative Bernie Sanders for their joint effort arranging for the shipment of home heating oil to Vermont for discount sale and free distribution to needy Vermonters,

The Left defended him and Bernie

Leftist columnist Stephen Lendman defended Chavez and criticized Bush on freedom of expression.

In a post-9/11 climate, the right of free expression is under attack and endangered in the age of George Bush when dissent may be called a threat to national security, terrorism, or treason. But losing that most precious of all rights means losing our freedom that 18th century French philosopher Voltaire spoke in defense of saying "I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

So here I am wondering when Lenderman and the Left are going to condemn Chavez and recognize the difference between a cheap thug who espouses Marxism Progrssive Politics and the President of the United States who takes every single punch every news outlet throws at him without threatening or making any move whatsoever to shut down those media outlets.

You know, like Chavez is doing. (Update)

So how many Leftist Hollywood stars and politicians are willing to stand with him now?

Avalanche in Venezuela

According toJulie Farby reporter for All Headline News

Tens of thousands of people marched through the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, in support of the main opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales, who will face President Hugo Chavez in December's presidential poll.

The march, which filled the main avenues of the city centre, was the biggest opposition rally Venezuela has seen since early 2004, when protesters made an unsuccessful bid to oust Chavez from power in a recall referendum.

Here's an overhead photo from The Devil's Excrement (via Publius Pundit)

But there was some (attempted) trouble

About 50 Chavistas wearing red shirts showed up today in Avenida Bolívar of Maracay to attempt to show Rosales their new found love for Venezuelans by blocking the candidates path using violent means and stopping the rally. The group was clearly well organized and had planned its actions ahead of time. This was no spontaneous demonstration, but they failed to wear their newly found peaceful blue color, resorting instead to their customary and traditional brand new red t-shirts. Violence was averted thanks to the aid of the police and security forces as well as the pro-Rosales crowd, who not only refused to allow their rally to be interfered with, but were there in much larger numbers than the now "loving" but somewhat "squalid" group of Chavistas.

Fifty amongst "tens of thousands" were probably not even noticed.

Venezuelan arms

As with Iran and Syria, Russia is supplying arms to Hugo Chavez.

Chavez will sign a $1 billion deal to buy at least 24 Russian Sukhoi-30 jets...

"I would like to thank Russia, the producer of armaments, because Russia has helped to sever the blockade that was tied by the United States around Venezuela," Chavez said in the city of Izhevsk in remarks reported in Russian by Interfax news agency.

Chavez has also got licenses to begin manufacturing Kalashnikov rifles; the infamous AK-47 preferred by terrorists everywhere.

[Chavez] visited a firing range in Izhevsk and was set to meet Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the legendary assault rifle, who lives there.Chavez said agreements would be signed to build plants in Venezuela to produce Kalashnikov assault rifles and ammunition. Venezuela recently bought 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles as well as Russian attack and transport helicopters.

And why does he want all these arms?

Chavez, who says he is preparing his armed forces to fend off a U.S. invasion, is set to cement growing ties with President Vladimir Putin at a Kremlin meeting on July 27.

An invasion by the US? I know for a fact there is no secret plan to invade Venezuela. If there was, I would have read about it on the front page of the New York Times. So what is he really up to?

At the closing ceremony of the first meeting of Venezuelan   and Russian businesspeople, in the Presidential Palace of   Miraflores, Caracas, Chávez stressed that bilateral technical   military cooperation is moving forward at a steady pace.

"We have received messages from Latin American, Caribbean   and even African countries asking about the production capacity   of our rifle manufacturing plant. My dear Russian friends,   I am sure you will agree, this is a platform for integration   in other fields."

An analysis by Aaron Mannes of the Counterterrorism Blog points out

Africa has been among the stops on Hugo's peregrinations and in July he called upon African leaders to collaborate with Venezuela in resisting American hegemony and better leveraging their natural resources. In particular he urged African leaders to increase the taxes they charge on oil companies....

Africa is a well-established trans-shipment point for Latin American drugs. Hezbollah is well-established in West Africa and is particularly strong in the illicit diamond trade. Considering the warm relations between their respective patrons - assuming FARC-Hezbollah collaboration in Africa is no leap of imagination.

It is difficult to escape the impression that Russia is hell-bent on supplying all of the enemies of the US with arms and assistance. Chavez is in a unique position to be the nexus of arms distribution as well as the Grand Central Station of various terrorist networks because he has contacts with both Islamists and Communist groups (such as FARC). Islamists and Communists are the oil and water of the anti-American terrorists and don't mix well, but the Chavez network is the emulsifying agent that can keep both sides supplied and focused on their common enemy: the US and the Western Democracies.

All the while sheltering Russia from the direct consequences of the direct action propagated by it's proxies.

Chavez is a useful tool in the new, and reformed, Communist Bloc.

Venezuela Oil

Oil prices are down and that's got Venezuela's Top Thug worried. His Socialist utopia requires bunches of money to maintain.

While the Venezuelan president has caused international controversy with his angry denunciations of the Bush administration, this is where the rubber meets the road for Chavez's radical rhetoric. He is spending billions of dollars on anti-poverty programs, in what experts say may amount to the largest such effort in a developing nation....

"The issues in these neighborhoods are very old fights  --  water, land, decent housing," said Andres Antillano, a professor of social psychology and criminology at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas who has been an adviser to many neighborhood groups.

"For many years, the only relationship with the state was the police. They came here and put everyone against the wall," Antillano said. "Chavez has chosen to gamble on legitimizing these issues. The communal councils are a very serious attempt at grassroots organizing."

The policy appears especially popular in the hard-bitten slums of Caracas  --  although as is true elsewhere around the country, the electorate seems divided between a strongly pro-Chavez minority and an apathetic majority....

What is certain, however, is that Venezuela's petroleum export earnings are rising rapidly, and the government is spending the money with abandon. 

The government initially budgeted $857 million for social spending in 2006. But as oil money floods in, officials keep increasing the amount. It now stands at $7 billion, although many experts view that figure as a guesstimate of money being spent on the fly.

Public works projects are everywhere, ranging from subway lines in Caracas and Valencia to bridges over the Orinoco River. New medical clinics  --  mostly staffed by Cuban doctors provided under Chavez's oil aid program to Fidel Castro  --  are within reach of almost everyone in this nation of 25 million people. Illiteracy, formerly at 10 percent of the population, has been completely eliminated, and infant mortality has been cut from 21 deaths per 1,000 births to 16 per 1,000.

Another initiative that could change the lives of millions of poor Venezuelans is a new program aimed at increasing land ownership.

All of which sounds great, and to many Leftists in this country he is a hero and a model for what they would like to see happen in the US.

But all this government spending causes big problems with a country's economy. First, there's corruption

"Chavez is spending so quickly, with such a lack of oversight, through a parallel state apparatus, that corruption easily could spin out of control," said Teri Karl, a political science professor and Latin America specialist at Stanford University. 

Suspicions are so widespread that they have become the stuff of popular legend. Virtually every Venezuelan seems to know someone who formed a bogus cooperative in order to receive a large loan from a state-owned bank, then declared bankruptcy and pocketed the money, only to be allowed to repeat the process, milking the government for larger and larger sums.

And Big Government spending results in an economic bubble that creates terrific growth rates; so long as the government has money to spend. With the recent precipitous drop in Oil prices, the spending has to slow. Chavez is trying to counter this by reducing oil production, but that is a trap itself.

Venezuela said Friday it will cut oil production by 50,000 barrels a day to try and stem the recent fall in crude prices and President Hugo Chavez said an "appropriate" price for oil was US$50 to $60 a barrel.

But the oil markets ignored him.

There was no significant response on world oil markets, however. Analysts generally agree that supplies are ample, and the amount of crude Venezuela said it would remove from the market is equal to less than one-tenth of one per cent of global demand.

The problem with Chavez's move is that if does indeed follow through with the production reduction, he gets even less money because he's selling less oil while not affecting the price of oil one cent.

The second problem with Government money driving economic growth is that it produces inflation. And inflation discourages investment.

Venezuela's local-currency debt rally will stall in coming weeks as quickening inflation makes investors less willing to accept lower yields, said Alfredo Puerta, a trader at EconoInvest Casa de Bolsa.             

Annual inflation accelerated to a 10-month high of 15.3 percent in September as a surge in government spending buoyed consumer spending and left manufacturers struggling to meet demand. Inflation will probably keep quickening in coming months, eroding the value of the fixed payments on government securities, Puerta said.

And as we know from our own experience, the worst response to inflation is price controls, yet this is precisely what Chavez did.

President Hugo Chavez has made keeping inflation under control a top priority. His government imposed price controls on basic goods in 2003 and has stepped up food subsidies in state-run supermarkets to keep a cap on prices.

What's worse, Venezuela's state-owned refining industry has been allowed to rot. Earlier this year, the country's brand Citgo had to cancel contracts with stations supplying its product because the

Venezuelan energy company could no longer supply due to crumbling productive capacity.

And Americans are leaving the Citgo brand behind because of Chavez's remarks at the UN calling President Bush Satan, including 1800 7-Eleven locations.

But it is unlikely that now is the time for Chavez to pull the plug on Socialism. What with unemployment upwards of 12% and an election coming up.

But there is little doubt, that if the price of oil keeps falling, Chavez will have to choose between social programs and weapons purchases to keep the county's head above water.

The Devil is in the details

The AP is reporting that the 7-Eleven chain is giving Chavez the boot

7-Eleven Inc. is dropping Venezuela-backed Citgo as its gasoline supplier after more than 20 years as part of a previously announced plan by the convenience store operator to launch its own brand of fuel.

7-Eleven officials said Wednesday that the company's decision was partly motivated by politics...

Citgo Petroleum Corp. is a Houston-based subsidiary of Venezuela's state-run oil company and 7-Eleven is worried that anti-American comments made by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez might prompt motorists to fill-up elsewhere.

"Regardless of politics, we sympathize with many Americans' concern over derogatory comments about our country and its leadership recently made by Venezuela's president," said 7-Eleven spokeswoman Margaret Chabris.

"Certainly Chavez's position and statements over the past year or so didn't tempt us to stay with Citgo," she added.

Oh. Too bad. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

With the price of Oil going down, and fewer markets for their refined goods, perhaps Chavez will have to stop buying massive amounts of weapons and concentrate on making socialism work.

Which is a much tougher task than coming to my town and calling my President names.

Housewife defense

Hugo Chavez fears an invasion by the US so much he has formed a militia consisting of housewives and the unemployed.

The President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is recruiting and training a people's militia to help lead a "war of resistance" against what he claims is the threat of a US invasion. Housewives, students, construction workers and the unemployed are being recruited for the country's Territorial Guard. The first training sessions with firearms have already taken place.

It seems though that before firearms training, they started small

Chavez supporters lobbed fruit and eggs at the [US] ambassador's car

The US ambassador, William Brownville, has been accused by Chavez of provoking violence

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he will kick U.S. Ambassador William Brownfield out of the country if the envoy ``provokes'' violence again.

Chavez said Brownfield was responsible for an attack on the ambassador's own motorcade on Friday by a group on motorcyclists because Brownfield donated baseball equipment to little leaguers in a working class neighborhood in the capital Caracas.         

``It was demagoguery, handing out gloves and balls,'' Chavez said in a speech in Carabobo state. ``If you keep provoking the Venezuelan people, start packing your bags because I'm going to kick you out of here.''

Yeppers, that's how Brownfield earned the moniker of Mr Subversive here at the State Department; he's expert in giving bats and gloves to young impressionable kids.

The war as already begun in Chavez's mind

"I can assure you right away that also in this battle we will defeat the US empire," Mr Chavez said in a speech last week. A former army officer who turned to politics after his attempt at a coup in 1992 failed, he has raised the spectre of a US invasion so often that Washington's ambassador, William Brownfield, put it on record last year that "the United States has never invaded ... and will never invade Venezuela".

But we might arrange for a straight-jacket...