Chavez funding Farc What a load of Farc'n nonse.

Oh by the way Labour has chosen Curran to be the candidate. So so much for the by election chaos.
First class candidate chosen.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7493978.stm

Phew slightly better poll for Brown , thought we were going to lose him for a moment there.( on P Home 0

I don't think that you can beat Hari for either political or historical analysis at the moment.

Here he is not so much ripping that shameful imperialist Niall Ferguson apart, as telling us exactly what kind of a person he is. This article will stay with me for a very long time indeed.

http://www.johannhari.com/archive/article.php?id=909

"those ghastly anti-Chavez articles"

I wouldn't wish to misunderstand you, so is it that the articles concerned are badly written and layed out, or is it that Snr. Chavez is not, as I have always thought, just another in a long line of South American thugs and mountebanks whose ignorance and corruption is barely concealed behind a patina of anti-Americanism?

Thanks for supporting the PM newmania. I suppose the 11 years of consecutive economic growth have made you realise he is the best man for the job. You are right. I suppose it was deputy mayor chaos issue that made you realise the tories are not up to it.

No, David, the articles are always beautifully written, with lovely photographs, in glossy magazines, but inevitably full of total shit and pro-Us propaganda.

If being an ignorant and corrupt thug is a description of someone who wants a redistribution of wealth away from US owned multinationals and their Venezuelan glove puppets in favour of the working people of Venezuela, then Latin America could benefit enormously from more of them.

Of course, those who bow down to the dollar and rob their people blind will always be much more warmly received by some, both inside and outside of Washington.

"a redistribution of wealth away from US owned multinationals and their Venezuelan glove puppets in favour of the working people of Venezuela"

What on earth makes you suppose that the workers of Venezuela will get so much as a penny-piece from Chavez and his gangster apparatchiks particularly as, Cuban-style, the economy gradually goes down the pan?

If I may so so, gently, watch what people do, rather than listen too much to what they say. Chavez. The "redistribution of wealth" to which you refer was, in fact, theft and expropriation and it tells you all you need to know about the man who did it. People like you had similar illusions concerning that nice Mr. Mugabe, and people like me said then that he was nothing more than an old-fashioned gangster in, dare I say, a long line of African gangsters.

What a strangely gullible people those Venezuelans are. Not only do they see a gangster stealing their resources, they actually keep on voting for him to do so. if only they had a kindly Mr Duff to advise them.

of course, prior to Chavez, Venezuela was a land of milk and honey, where generous benefactors dished out their generosity to the handful of poor people in the countyside and everyone else enjoyed the trickle-down effect of prosperity. The tales of impoverishment and thousands shot dead in the Caracazo are just myths created in marxist gangster fairy tales..

I don't know what 'people like me' is supposed to mean, really. Presumably the Mugabe defence will be the ridiculous right-wing argument in opposition to all socialists that favour a redistribution of wealth. Are 'people like you' the sort that argue that the oil and mineral wealth of Venezuela should be concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority instead of being used for free health care through the Barrio Adentro or on education for the mass of the population. Probably.

Are 'people like you' the people that propped up apartheid racist regimes and are just apologists for slavery? I doubt it, but that's the sort of thing you get when you make wild stupid generalisations.

Er, "strangely gullible people" voted for Hitler and no doubt they had their reasons but that is no excuse for us, as outsiders, to be similarly duped.

I have very little idea of the previous history of Venezuela except that my guess would be that a series of gangsters ran it, that's why I described the latest example as being in a long line!

My attitude to Chavez, Mugabe, Hitler, Lenin and all their ilk has nothing to do with *my* politics, it is based on the rather old-fashioned concept that a thief and a murderer is just that, so it doesn't matter too much what *his* politics are, either.

I will have a modest wager with you. If Chavez remains in power for the next 10 years nothing much will change in his country except for the worst!

Not a wager that can be won. The constitution doesn't allow it, Although to be fair, Chavez did have a referendum to change that aspect of the constitution, but having lost the referendum, he said the Government must abide by the decision.

Nasty brutal bastard!

However, all measurable statistics, including even those from your beloved US State department, show that the health, education and standard of living of the overwhelming majority of Venezuela people have improved... or changed for the better as they might like to call it.

Errm, so, where are Chavez's gulags or concentration camps? Who is he murdering?

I didn't know that much about Venezuela when I began this conversation. Anyone with half an eye can take the measure of a man like Chavez, except out genial host here. Anyway, I just flicked through Google on the single word 'Venezuela' and copied these quotes from a whole variety of sources: A quick skim will give you the flavour of the place - and the man who leads it:

But the country's boom times are waning, with annual growth slowing to 4.8 percent in the first quarter of 2008, a four-year low, even as inflation neared 30 percent.

Venezuela's Roman Catholic Church is condemning efforts to ban 400 potential candidates — most from the opposition — from running in upcoming elections.

After Mr. Chavez's reelection in 2006, he took a harder line toward foreign ownership, and direct foreign investment in Venezuela plunged by $543 million that year. Venezuela's economy was buoyed by historically high oil prices and its $25 billion in reserves, but a budget deficit began to widen as growth slowed.

In December voters narrowly rejected his proposal to rewrite Venezuela's 1999 constitution along “socialist” lines and include a measure that would provide for the indefinite re-election of the president. It was Mr Chávez's first significant electoral defeat after nearly a decade in power. Since then, he has sought to reintroduce elements of the rejected constitution, in part by using a far-reaching enabling law, passed last year, to legislate by decree.

Amidst an economic slowdown, annual inflation of around 30% and an unprecedented crime-wave, his prospects of avoiding another humiliating defeat look slim.

The Venezuelan Congress dealt a severe blow to judicial independence by packing the country’s Supreme Court with 12 new justices, Human Rights Watch said today.

INTERPOL just announced what has been a foregone conclusion: Colombia did not fabricate files and data contained in laptops of slain narco-terrorist Raul Reyes, killed in Ecuador on 1 March this year. Since, information contained in said laptops have led Colombian authorities to seize Uranium in Bogota and cash in Costa Rica. President Uribe’s all out eradication policy against drug dealing terrorists from FARC will likely be boosted, given the wealth of data, much of which points to Caracas. That Chavez has been in bed with Colombian narco terrorists is nothing new.

Which just goes to prove the point that a little knowledge and google brain can lead you to make a right prat of yourself.

Some elements of what you plagiarise are correct - the rising crime rate, particularly in Caracas - is a major problem that the Bolivarians will have to deal with. But I could cut clippings from google that would make Boris Johnson's London look like Bedlam if I wanted to be that selective.

It would just take too long to debunk much of the nonsense here, but the farcical bit about Uribe's all-out eradication programme and Chavez support for narco terrorists is straight out of the CIA handbook on Columbia. The lovely bit of that is "given the wealth of data, much of which points to Caracas". Ummm, where does it point from, exactly? well, surprise, surprise, our old friends in Washington. now, there's a city that knows all about drug related crime.

Chavez has made no secret of his support for Farc's Bolivarian aims, but in doing so has condemned unreservedly their methods. To say he supports farc's terrorism is the equivalent of saying support for a united Ireland is support for the IRA. In other words, bullshit.

"Plagiarise"? Sir, I am hurt! They are *quotations* from sources such as The Economist, Human Rights Watch, New York Times and so on. Obviously, being a thumb-in-the-eye and knee-in-the-groin debater like yourself, I chose ones that suited my argument but, honestly, it was nigh on impossible to find any favourable ones for the wretched man - except from his own government-influenced papers. Actually, the only slight mitigation I could discern is the apparent fact that he's not very bright!

As the host I leave the last word to you, I am content to await future outcomes: "Hence shall we see,/ If power change purpose, what our seemers be."

... and I am content to believe 'tis a tale
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.'

Only joking.

Enjoyed it!