Venezuelan strong man and socialist dictator, Citgo Chavez said Thursday that his soldiers will accompany government officials when they assume control over several privately owned oil projects in the Orinoco River basin next month.
King Chavez, by way of official decree, has declared that Petroleos de Venezuela SA will take a minimum 60 percent stake in four heavy-oil projects in the Orinoco River region and, as a gesture of good will, has generously extended an invitation to the current ownership of those six companies to stay on as minority partners.
If any of you “big oil�? haters out there are keeping score at home, BP PLC, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Total SA and Statoil ASA stand to take a $17 billion financial hit when taking into account their losses in investments and loans related to these projects.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
Dictator? He was democratically elected, you moron. And his public support is far far far greater than Bush’s. You right-wing nutjobs are such dellusional numbskulls.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:32 pm
And before you fools babble on about how “dictator Chavez” (haha) is zeizing land for the good of his people, let’s look what’s going on in America:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/26/60minutes/main575343.shtml
Just about everyone knows that under a process called eminent domain, the government can (and does) seize private property for public use – to build a road, a school or a courthouse.
But did you know the government can also seize your land for private use if they can prove that doing it will serve what’s called “the public good”?
Cities across the country have been using eminent domain to force people off their land, so private developers can build more expensive homes and offices that will pay more in property taxes than the buildings they’re replacing.
Go ahead, tell me how when Bush and co does it it’s perfectly ok, but when Chavez does it, it’s evil socialism. Hahaha…
By the way, in case you didn’t know, the government is supposed to represent the good of the people, not be a corporate whore.
“The object of government is the welfare of the people.”
Theodore Roosevelt
April 13th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Rob, you lefty douche bag – Chavez has also set a plan into motion that will make Venezuela a socialist state before his term is up. So technically you are right, but it’s just a matter of time. Also, unlike the U.S., Chavez has the power to issue decrees and proclamations at will, and without consulting any other members of his government. In my book, thats a dictator.
April 13th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
I say we [the U.S.] go nuclear big time [as in power plants] and bypass jokers like Chavez. That guy is big trouble coming to a country near you soon.
April 14th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Joe Citizen, you moronic twit. Socialism is not a dirty word. Most countries of the world are socialist in some form of another. It may be difficult for fascists like you to wrap their mind around this concept, but the people in the rest of the world are quite happy with what you call socialism, and the quality of life in many of those socialist countries is superior to life in America. Every year the UN publishes statistics complised from all over the world measuring the best places in the world to live. The socialist scandianvian countries in Europe usually fill the top spots. Norway was #1 for 6 years in a row. The US is usually not even in the top 10.
The people in those other countries have better health care, they have a higher life expectancy (look it up), they have more paid vacation, they have faster growing economies, they have better educated citizens, they have better freedom of press, etc. etc.
Anyway, back to Venezuela… the people of Venezuela are quite fond of Chavez. He is certainly far more popular than Bush.
And before you babble on and on about how he runs his government, maybe you should take a closer look at the Patriot Act and how Bush has seized dictatorial powers by completely ignoring Congress and subverting the judicial branch. Bush is constatly breaking US law. He started an illegal war based on lies. By definition, he’s a war criminal. He goes against the wishes of the American people (the vast majority of Americans is against the Iraq war and even more are against the upcoming war with Iran.)
The Weekly Standard (an extremely right-wing neocon paper) recently published an article in which they gushed over how Bush ought to have limitless, dictatorial power.
It takes a tremendous amount of dishonesty (or uninformed stupidity) to accuse Chavez of being a dictator while he does what his people approve of, and in the same breath claim that Bush is a great leader.
You right-wing fascists are so full of shit, it smells as soon as you people open your mouth. You assholes do nothing but lie all day long.
I don’t know what’s worse… to think that all you people are really so dumb you can’t recognize the constant flood of propaganda on Fox News, or that you people are so souless and sociopathic that you will agree with any and every crime, from torture to mass murder, in the name of “patriotism” (read: national extremism aka fascism.)
By the way, the dipshit editor of this blog censored yet another one of my posts that I wrote yesterday. No surprise there. I mentioned Eminent Domain and how idiotic it is to demonize “socialist” Venezuela for seizing ill-gotten oil fields from US corporations in order to benefit the venezuelan people instead of some oil company dirtbags, while in the US big corporations use Eminent Domain to kick private citizens out of their homes and off their land.
You right-wing psychos are so unbelievably dishonest, hypocritical and full of shit, no wonder the rest of the world hates America.
April 14th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Hahaha… aaaand another one of my posts was censored. What a bunch of scared little sheep you are.
April 14th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Rob- First of all, there is no “editor” for this blog. Everyone here uses his or her best judgment when deciding how much bullshit they are able to tolerate from folks such as yourself.
You and I have obviously gotten off to a bad start, however I would be more that happy to continue accepting comments from you, but I think it would be in everyones best interest if we were to tone it down a bit.
Don’t get me wrong, I am far from being above exchanging personal insults with you, in fact, I kind of like it. Unfortunately though, most of the people that drop by don’t want to be bothered with that sort of stuff.
So, in the future, you are more than welcome to share your opinions here (in my posts), but I’m going to start deleting the trash talk.
BTW: WordPress has a great software/hosting package if you think you might be interested in starting your own blog. You could share your thoughts with all the other people that hate conservatism as much as you do.
April 14th, 2007 at 9:34 pm
That is very tolerant of you, Joe. However, our compassionate conservative advertisers don’t like excessive profanity and Rob’s poopoo mouth does violate our comment policy. I too feel connected to Rob as if he were a drunken uncle, but sometimes you have to give drunken uncles tough love.
April 14th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
“When arguing with a fool make sure he is not similarly engaged”
http://www.greatlakes.net/~churchcr/articles/general/when_arguing_with_a_fool.pdf
Hey Rob – I’m gonna help ya out there buddy. As you consider me one of the fools, I’m gonna relieve you of any potential little hassles of having to set me straight. I’ll just not read any comment written by you, so you won’t need to bother yourself with correctin’ lil ol’ me, anyhow. By me not reading your stuff that’s just one less idiot you might burden yourself with. I’m there for ya, man.
April 15th, 2007 at 6:21 am
I love the way you dishonest fools completely ignore the fact that “dictator” Chavez is more popular than Bush, Bush is constantly breaking the law and is seizing dictatorial powers, the US is not even in the top 10 in the Quality of Life charts, Eminent Domain, etc. It’s just so typical. Whenever you people are confronted with uncomfortable facts, you simply ignore them.
April 15th, 2007 at 11:20 am
actually being popular is not a good test of being a dictator or not
john adams was not that popular nor was john quincy adams
but franco and kim are fairly popular — in their countries
a better test is perhaps — can they be criticized openly within their own countries, especially by a free press and private citizens.
putin would for example get bad grades using this test, although he was elected
April 15th, 2007 at 5:01 pm
So now you’re trying to claim that Venezuelans don’t have the right to criticize Chavez? What a bunch of dishonest garbage.
Chavez was democratically elected, he is vastly more popular than Bush, and people in Venezuela are free to criticize him. There are some people over there who bitch about him. So, how is he a dictator?
FYI: This comment was edited to remove content that was not relevant to the post. In the future, please try to stay on-topic when commenting.
April 15th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Rob- Just in case you haven’t heard, Chavez has been silencing critics since he took office. He has shut down a television station, at least one radio station, and even warned a Catholic bishop that if he continued to speak out, Chavez would shut his church down church.
April 15th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
I spent a few years as a child under a right=wing dictatorship where people were not allowed to speak their minds and would disappear in the night. That is why I am always amazed when Americans who have lived their entire lives under a constitution ensuring them the freedom of speech spew sycophantic garbage from their pie holes in praise of those enemies of democracy who would deny their own citizens the same freedom.
I don’t recall the left ever defending right-wing dictators. What is the fascination with left=wing dictators? They are still dictators after all, twisted and evil.
April 15th, 2007 at 8:55 pm
“So now you’re trying to claim that Venezuelans don’t have the right to criticize Chavez?”
try reading my post without spinning it
you said, “I love the way you dishonest fools completely ignore the fact that “dictatorâ€? Chavez is more popular than Bush”
and i simply pointed out popularity is not an indication of being a dictator or not
April 16th, 2007 at 12:31 am
Geez, Rob is in Neverland. One of our celebrity bloggers actually lives in Venezuela and she can’t discuss him online because people, well, they are starting to disappear down there.
Liberals live in the world they wish to live in rather than the world that exists. Strange minds make a village, as Hillary said.
Socialists/communists like Rob cut Stalin a lot of slack too. You know, the enemy of your enemy must be your friend. Socialists are great friends of the despots of the world, for reasons Rob may soon explain.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Rob, Hitler was popular too – and an elected leader.