Chavez makes energetic homecoming after surgery

[Marksman_91]

17. Facts? I'll give you facts.

The only times I didn't live there were between 2000 and 2003. Then I came back. Then I spent 10 months, between 2009-2010, in Europe as an exchange student. Then I decided to start my studies in FIU (because of how messed up the situation is in Venezuela, especially in Caracas, where I live) and left for Miami on Dec. 2010. Sure, I haven't exactly been living there since Dec. 2010, but I still go back every year for several weeks, and I also maintain contact with my close friends and family who still live there, and every day I watch out for news about what's going on in the country from a variety of sources.

Believe me, I will know more about what's going on in the country better than most people in this website. And before you accuse me of being some right-winger, or an anti-socialism capitalist, lemme just tell you that I sure as hell am NOT any of those things. I don't think at all that socialism is a bad thing. Hell, I only WISH that the US would embrace it, and hope that none of those GOP nutjobs running for president beat Obama this November. I probably have even less respect for those guys than Chávez himself.

Now, one might think that Chávez's ideas about the socialist agenda his government has sound good. But the truth is, the socialism he wants to impose there is NOT what he makes it out to be, and he merely uses the term as a way to win the hearts and minds of the poor. It's not the kind of socialism that European countries have. After nearly 14 years, inflation has gone through the roof, the country is barely producing anything for itself (we're importing almost everything now), which is likely a side-effect from his government forcefully taking away private firms and properties which used to be highly productive until they were seized. Crime rates have only gone up dramatically (approximately 13,000 murders a year, and that's without including those that nobody officially notices), media censorship is almost dictatorial, the infrastructure is in a horrible mess (this, of course, has much to do with the incalculable corruption within Chávez's government), our public education is mediocre at best, and Chávez himself has instigated a social-class war between the rich and the poor. His speeches are always filled with hate, always promoting hostility towards the "oligarchs".

He also sends enormous amounts of cash and resources to his buddies in Latin-America and other countries, namely the Castros in Cuba. He was also an avid supporter of Ghadafi, and that to this day, he still supports Bashar al-Assad, the man who right now is massacring his own people in Syria, and that the Chavez government is still sending oil to al-Assad to keep his war machine running. And what do we get in return for all these policies? Almost nothing, especially when compared to how much those governments get from us. All the while, he's purchasing old Russian and Chinese military hardware to arm his militias against God-knows-what when that money could instead be used to improve the country's infrastructure. He uses the excuse that it's to prepare for a potential US-led invasion, but we all know that's not gonna happen. Obviously he's arming his militia because he's afraid of the people revolting some day against his regime, so he's simply just assuring his spot as the man with the most guns. Oh, and let's not forget his association with other corrupt organizations like the close relationship he has with the Iranian government. There is nothing redeeming about this man, and for that, I wish he would not die, but instead rot in prison for the rest of his life in the case that he'd lose the October elections.