I see Roy’s bad writng (like mine, but hey I’m no teacher) but that does not imply that he is either a troll or lying. He is very accurate on his assertions and Dominguez seems to be colecting a salary from the Venezuelan goverment.

The thing with Chavez is power, the thing with his close supporters is money and the thing with his not so close supporters is resentment. Google on Julio Rivas, find out why this is a revolution without laborers or students, research about the credentials of the goverment figures or why there is always the same group of ten or twelve switching among all the different main roles (Vicepresident turned into General prosecutor, defense into vicepresident, elections officer as a prize for rigging elections turns into vicepresident, and so on)

Somebody said above that North Korea is not socialist, you can say the same thing about Venezuela. Go, live there and then we’ll talk

It shows how the press works to cover up even an assassination attempt!

Morales and Chavez are both doing great damage to their countries. Both have been voted in with the hope of bring real change for their nations, in the case of Morales, this is failing and will fail as a lot of his changes are leading the country towards civil war as he is bringing an apartheid political system where the Indian peasants have overwhelming power. This is against the urban Indians, middle classes (which would compare to the lower classes in Europe or America), and the upper classes.
In the case Chavez his style of rule is more akin to a despot than to democratic President. A president is a figure head of a nation, for the nation. Who is entitled to have a number of ideas himself, but should set the direction of the nation together with a parliament and a political party. In the case of Chavez he is the party, the parliament he tries to bend to his will, and the opposition is constantly being democratically weakened. (The opposition is an incredibly important tool in any system, be if of the right, left or centre, as it acts as the balance stopping the more radical or extreme actions of the ruling party). On top of this he is giving away his nations wealth for his political agenda (cheap fuel for the USA, incredible as most of the recipients of the fuel are vastly richer than the lower Venezuelan classes), fund for foreign political parties (which is illegal in most counties if not all).

Finally the socialist governments of Lula or Bachelor will bring their counties forward, as well as their populations, and the living standard of their people. The more radical Morales and Chavez will bring poverty in the long run, and dilute their nation’s wealth (both have so far only survived for so long due to the misuse of oil and gas revenues.

Talk about double talk, when Chavez, does a coup against a democratically elected, Carlos Andres Perez , its ok, but when the military pushes him out, for giving the order to shoot protesters(recorded on tape) its bad. About misappropriating funds, do you mean like when Chavez was caught sending a suitcase with $800,000 in cash, gringo dollars to Cristina Kirchner, on a PDVASA jet? (Accompanied by the Pdvasa VP) or maybe the money was for souvenirs. About support from the Venezuelan people, the reason the coup was not successful (for Chavez) was exactly because people did not come out in his support.
However when a provisional government talked about cancelling the new constitution without a popular vote, (when Chavez was pushed out) Chavez was brought back, by the same military that took him out.
Talking about campaign promises, when asked if he was a communist, Chavez said no, just as Fidel did in Cuba. Instead he offered some mumbo jumbo, about the third way, now he has power and indefinite re-election, he starts talking about socialism, which in poll after poll Venezuelans reject.
About the reason Carlos Andres Perez, was rejected by the Venezuelan people, you show how little you know about the country. CAP as he is know locally (as would know if you really studied the country) increased gasoline prices, which caused public transport to shoot up, and causing widespread anger among the poor. Cheap gasoline prices paradoxically favours the rich in Venezuela as only 10% of the population have cars.
Chavez has maintained cheap prices, because even he is afraid of increasing gas prices. About what makes someone a dictator, correctly you say being a socialist doesn’t make you a dictator, but having no checks and balances, does. When Chavez was running for president, he would say he only need one term to fix the problems in Venezuela, after receiving a trillion US dollars from oil, he has built fewer houses in ten years than other president’s, with lower oil prices, now he said he wants’ to remain in power till 2,020

the likes of economists , feer etc. are fond of wagging its fingers at china’s state censorship, but with such hypocrits at the helm wielding self censorship at will, who needs big bros ?

coming from the economist, such rhetoric sounds more like its a slip of tougue of their wet dream.

But seriously, WHAT WERE THE VENEZUELAN TROOPS DOING THERE? Vacationing?

As a long time Economist reader, I find the suggestion that the Economist is “right wing” laughable. I guess that might be true if your definition of “right wing” is anything to the right of Karl Marx, and you look back with fondness to the Soviet command economy.

That being said, the Economist certainly is a classically liberal capitalist publication, and I recall questioning the tenor and therefore the accuracy of the article myself. Nonetheless, Domingues’ criticism is far more obviously biased than the Economist article he criticizes. Plus, the grammatical errors weaken the attack. I’ll take my chances with the Economist, warts and all.

A guest article from Greg Palast in the Morning Star, the only truly socialist and independent newspaper in the UK and one which takes no advertising.

http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/features/obama_s_true_colours

in a recent thread about tibet, many posters were spewing lots of bushit about china and they were very abusive to boot.
i posted three responses, mainly factual rebuttal to the blatant lies , but all were deleted as fast as i could send them……..while those abusive craps were left intact. !!

mind you, the economists is considered one of the more “objective” paper in uk [sic]

http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/08/disinformation-in-the-economist/
h/t http://www.webofdemocracy.org/

Basically, the Economist is a snooty outfit that employs journalistic standards that would shame high school students.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Economist Diversifies Disinformation
Last week, we drew attention to The Economist’s pro-R2P propaganda; this week, we learn that they have been forced to show some contrition over an earlier, anti-Bolivian/Venezuelan piece of yellow journalism.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And when Chávez was pardoned, and ran for election, one of the first questions he asked the people at his campaign stops was, “Do you think I was right to try to overthrow CAP?” A sea of hands invariably went up. There are even pictures and news clips of it!

Like I said–under CAP, there was no public reinvestment in Venezuela. But hey, what a great democrat! He went back on all his campaign promises, and unilaterally imposed the very measures the people elected him NOT to impose. The essence of democracy, no? But at least he wasn’t a socialist…which, in the world according to guys like Roy, is what makes someone a dictator. Even if he’s elected by a populace that mostly thinks he was in the right to overthrow the phony “democrat”.

The mind boggles.

North Korea isn’t socialist. It isn’t even communist. It’s feudal, but the monarch uses the rhetoric of socialism to disguise his true nature.

As for Cuba–who are you to judge what it is or that socialism is evil based on what happens there? The Cubans on the island (not in Miami!) are the ones who get to decide what economic system they prefer, and they decided that they prefer being free to being rich. If not for the Revolution, they’d be another Puerto Rico–hopelessly dependent on their gringo “benefactors”, but with no voice and no real government. And rampant poverty in addition to wealth and power concentrated in too few hands. Fortunately, they resisted that! It was they who fought off the Bay of Pigs attack, which they rightly perceived as an imperialist invasion. They did not choose poverty, any more than they chose the blockade the US put up against them to try to break their system down (with active collusion from the Brits, I might add.) If Cuba is poor, don’t blame socialism–blame capitalism, because it was capitalists who tried to monkey-wrench the entire Cuban economy!

Cuba survives because its people have learned to co-operate–and to do without the “help” of the IMF, World Bank, etc. A pretty impressive track record–I hear that the current recession hasn’t hit them, but it has clobbered everyone who played by the Bretton Woods rulebook. Not bad for a supposedly shabby socialist country! And then, they have all those other things, too–free healthcare, free education, a vibrant culture, 100% literacy…need I go on? They didn’t have any of that when the oh-so-capitalist dictator Batista ruled the island! (Or any of the previous slave-masters, either.)

Socialism does not create poverty, any more than capitalism guarantees wealth to everyone. In fact, capitalism’s agenda has more to do with depleting wealth than it does with creating it; its method is to suck the money from the bottom to the top, not send it trickling down. But I don’t expect you to understand that. You’ve made it abundantly clear that you don’t understand the issue, much less the root causes of the economic crises eating up all the riches we were promised by those hucksters at the Economist.

Don’t be shedding any crocodile tears for “poor” Venezuela. They’re now reinvesting in their own economy, and contrary to what you claim, they HAVE wiped out illiteracy–100%. Something which the ultra-capitalist (and ultra-repressive) “leaders” of days gone by strangely neglected to do, because they were too busy lining their own pockets. But I guess you’d say they were great democrats, because at least none of them ever said the word socialism–eh, Roy?