Chavez dead

[Iris Sirius]

Chavez died?

Damn it. A glowing star in a world of darkness.  Faded.  Now gone.
On Mar 6, 2013 10:24 AM, "rich" <richard.romeo at gmail.com> wrote:

> the big question is whether he left in place to further what he stood
> for. problem with charismatic narcissists. they usually don't.
>
> oh, the Colombians hated Chavez, too
>
> rich
>
> On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 11:47 PM, Michael Bailey
> <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Greg Palast airing some insights about Chavez, front and center at his
> site:
> >
> > http://www.gregpalast.com/
> >
> >
> > sizable quote (fair usage, one hopes)
> >
> > On April 11, 2002, President Chavez was kidnapped at gunpoint and
> > flown to an island prison in the Caribbean Sea. On April 12, Pedro
> > Carmona, a business partner of the US oil companies and president of
> > the nation's Chamber of Commerce, declared himself President of
> > Venezuela – giving a whole new meaning to the term, "corporate
> > takeover."
> >
> > U.S. Ambassador Charles Shapiro immediately rushed down from his
> > hilltop embassy to have his picture taken grinning with the
> > self-proclaimed "President" and the leaders of the coup d'état.
> >
> > Bush's White House spokesman admitted that Chavez was, "democratically
> > elected," but, he added, "Legitimacy is something that is conferred
> > not by just the majority of voters." I see.
> >
> > With an armed and angry citizenry marching on the Presidential Palace
> > in Caracas ready to string up the coup plotters, Carmona, the Pretend
> > President from Exxon returned his captive Chavez back to his desk
> > within 48 hours. (How? Get The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, the film,
> > expanding on my reports for BBC Television. You can download it for
> > free for the next few days.)
> >
> > Chavez had provoked the coup not just by clawing back some of the
> > bloated royalties of the oil companies. It's what he did with that oil
> > money that drove Venezuela's One Percent to violence.
> >
> > In Caracas, I ran into the reporter for a TV station whose owner is
> > generally credited with plotting the coup against the president. While
> > doing a publicity photo shoot, leaning back against a tree, showing
> > her wide-open legs nearly up to where they met, the reporter pointed
> > down the hill to the "ranchos," the slums above Caracas, where shacks,
> > once made of cardboard and tin, where quickly transforming into homes
> > of cinder blocks and cement.
> >
> > "He [Chavez] gives them bread and bricks, so they vote for him, of
> > course." She was disgusted by "them," the 80% of Venezuelans who are
> > negro e indio (Black and Indian)—and poor. Chavez, himself negro e
> > indio, had, for the first time in Venezuela's history, shifted the oil
> > wealth from the privileged class that called themselves "Spanish," to
> > the dark-skinned masses.
> >
> > While trolling around the poor housing blocks of Caracas, I ran into a
> > local, Arturo Quiran, a merchant seaman and no big fan of Chavez. But
> > over a beer at his kitchen table, he told me,
> >
> >     "Fifteen years ago under [then-President] Carlos Andrés Pérez,
> > there was a lot of oil money in Venezuela. The ‘oil boom' we called
> > it. Here in Venezuela there was a lot of money, but we didn't see it."
> >
> > But then came Hugo Chavez, and now the poor in his neighborhood, he
> > said, "get medical attention, free operations, x-rays, medicines;
> > education also. People who never knew how to write now know how to
> > sign their own papers."
> >
> > Chavez' Robin Hood thing, shifting oil money from the rich to the
> > poor, would have been grudgingly tolerated by the US. But Chavez, who
> > told me, "We are no longer an oil colony," went further…too much
> > further, in the eyes of the American corporate elite.
> >
> > Venezuela had landless citizens by the millions – and unused land by
> > the millions of acres tied up, untilled, on which a tiny elite of
> > plantation owners squatted. Chavez' congress passed in a law in 2001
> > requiring untilled land to be sold to the landless. It was a program
> > long promised by Venezuela's politicians at the urging of John F.
> > Kennedy as part of his "Alliance for Progress."
> >
> > Plantation owner Heinz Corporation didn't like that one bit. In
> > retaliation, Heinz closed its ketchup plant in the state of Maturin
> > and fired all the workers. Chavez seized Heinz' plant and put the
> > workers back on the job. Chavez didn't realize that he'd just squeezed
> > the tomatoes of America's powerful Heinz family and Mrs. Heinz'
> > husband, Senator John Kerry, now U.S. Secretary of State.
> >
> > Or, knowing Chavez as I do, he didn't give a damn.
>
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