I'd like some commentary from the Venezuela experts here

[Lydia Leftcoast]

OK, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune published an article about Chavez's declaration that the U.S. was planning to invade his country. The comments section carried the usual freeperisms, and then there was a series of several long posts purportedly by an expat teaching English in Valencia. He claims that 75% of the people there want Chavez dead. Now a lot of the things he says sound right wing, such as his dismay that he can't bring his guns into the country.

I also know that many expats are Libertarians, rich scumbags who want to live like feudal lords in poor countries where they don't have to pay many taxes.

Is Valencia a right-wing hotbed, or is this correspondent just hanging out with the kind of rich people pictured in The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, the ones who complain about their servants getting uppity?

Here's the link to the comments.

http://ww2.startribune.com/user_comments/comments.php?d=asset_comments&asset_id=31140999&sort=L§ion=/world

The guy goes on at great length. Perhaps he's not really an English teacher. Perhaps that's only his CIA cover.

What do you all think?

[Bacchus39]

1. I have yet to see an ACTUAL Venezuelan expert here

although there are those who have neither been there nor speak Spanish who pretend to be experts. But I certainly do not claim to be an "expert" either.

yes, the business class is not fond of Chavez from what I am aware of.

but where would you find yourself if you lived in Valencia?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

2. I don't know--what is the general political situation in Valencia?

Is it a hotbed of anti-Chavez sentiment like Zulia?

[Billy Burnett]

3. Hold it! You're not a Venezuela expert?

Who would'a thought.

:rofl:

[EFerrari]

4. I'm no expert but if 75% of the people want Chavez dead

how does he win in clean elections?

:shrug:

[EFerrari]

5. Lydia, if I'm reading aright, Valencia has a bunch of corporate HQs

snip

The Carabobo State Chamber of Industry (CIEC)

The CIEC is a 71 year-old organization, headquartered in the Carabobo state capital of Valencia, which groups together more than 250 businesses in the region. Among those are dozens of subsidiaries which compose literally a who's who list of some of the largest and most powerful US corporations, including (among others): Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, Bridgestone Firestone, Goodyear, Alcoa, Shell, Pfizer, Dupont, Cargill, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Novartis, Unilever, Heinz, Johnson & Johnson, Citibank, Colgate Palmolive, DHL and Owens Illinois.

Without a doubt, the region carries important weight with heavy US interests. The new US Ambassador to Venezuela, Patrick Duddy, even said so when he visited Carabobo a few weeks ago on his first official trip within Venezuela.

"Valencia is a very important industrial center with a presence of American companies that create thousands of jobs and that also run social programs that benefit both their surrounding communities and their employees," said Ambassador Duddy.

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/2904

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. OK, that explains a lot

That makes that guy's sentiments a lot more understandable. If it has the Venezuelan headquarters of a lot of U.S. companies, then of course the people he hangs around with are going to be anti-Chavez.

[roody]

7. I am not an expert, but would like to be one.

Let's do a DU meetup in Venezuela. Soon.

[Peace Patriot]

8. 74.8% of Venezuelans think Chavez is a good president--the opposite of what this guy

says (that 75% of the people want Chavez dead).

See
Poll: Hugo Chavez Is 5 Thousand Times More Popular Than Bush
http://www.borev.net/2008/10/poll_hugo_chavez_is_5_thousand.html

And it makes sense. 75% of the people of Venezuela are poor to extremely poor. Chavez has reduced extreme poverty by 30%, poured money into schools, adult literacy programs and retraining, medical care care for all, small businesses, local manufacturing and many other bootstrapping projects. Why would they hate him? He is doing what they elected him to do--and has also produced a nearly 10% economic growth rate over the last five years, with the most growth in the private sector (not including oil). He has also saved nearly $40 billion in international cash reserves, renegotiated oil contracts to give Venezuela a better split of the profits, and taken other wise measures to cushion Venezuela against the Bushwhacks' financial 9/11.

I thought his popularity was running about 60%--not as good as Paraguay's news leftist president (90%!), Ecuador's leftist president (80%) or Bolivia's leftist president (nearly 70%)--but still very high. This poll says he's up there in the stratosphere with the best of them.

I'd say this guy is indeed hanging out with the rich who complain about their servants getting uppity. I would not be surprised if 75% of that crowd wants Chavez dead. In fact, that ilk is forever hatching assassination plots to make him dead. See, Chavez makes them pay their taxes, and treats the poor, the workers, the less privileged as equal citizens, with a right to have a voice in the government and a right to government services. These are outrages to Venezuela's rich elite. Their raw hatred of the poor is very Bushwhacky. It brings to mind Bush remark to the fatcat billionaires gathered at a glitzy fundraising dinner,"I'm glad to be here with the have's and the have more's" (--recorded in Michael Moore's film "Fahrenheit 9/11), and like the glitterati who gathered at the Waldorf-Astoria in the 1920s, for a "Hobo's Ball," where New York's richest people all dressed up like the homeless, and ate and drank and danced the night away, while their brother and sister Americans died of cold and hunger outside on the streets. Same crowd that wanted FDR dead.

[EFerrari]

9. LOL! So, he's a typical freeper in Upside Down world. n/t