Chavez, alright, how come are all of the sudden in an uproar about him?

Question

Why did 7-11 quit buying his gas? What did he say about America that was sooo bad, I'm an American, but I honestly don't know and am interested as to why all of the sudden everyone hate Chavez. I personally don't even know who he is. Looked him up on wikipedia though and he don't look like that bad of a guy to me.

Answer 1

Hugo Chavez was a minor military official in Venezuela who once tried to overthrow the corrupt Venezuelan government on behalf of the poor and the native people, at a time when the country was suffering severe economic hardship. He failed and was jailed for two years, but that made him very popular with the poor, and unpopular with the rich.

After he was released he ran for president as an independent like Ralph Nader, only he beat both the two major parties and won, by quite a large margin.

He then organised mass grassroots forums to draw up new laws and a new constitution to help the poor. The new consitution includes lots of radical things, like nationalising the oil and never letting it be sold to private companies.

He has slowly drifted towards socialism and communism, and become more and more left-wing. But unlike other communist governments he has always used the existing democratic system, and has done very little to stop opposition groups, except by being more popular amongst the poor than them. Also unlike other communists he is a religious Christian.

So he does lots of things like making the rich pay higher taxes, and providing free welfare services, housing, and medical services to the poor.

So the rich don't like him, but the poor do. Also the rich don't like him because he is partly black and partly an American Indian, and they are quite racist and call him a monkey.

However the United States and its Venezuelan allies kidnapped the president and overthrew the government a few years ago, but this only lasted a couple of days before mass public protests in Venezuela forced them to release the president and let him return to government.

Then the rich and the corporations, particularly the oil company, decided to go on "strike" and stop doing business until the government was overthrown. It didn't work, and production was eventually restored.

Chavez frequently criticises George Bush and the war on the middle east, and defends and supports countries like Lebanon, Iran, and Cuba. Sometimes he goes too far and says stupid things like maybe the United States blew up its own buildings on September 11. But mostly he just criticises the war.

Chavez makes Venezuela provide free oil to poor people in the USA, and he says he has nothing against most Americans, he just doesn't like George Bush.

Actually Chavez is very popular in most parts of Latin America, and Venezuela has good relations with all countries in the world, except Israel (because of its invasion of Lebanon).

Venezuela has the world's largest oil reserves (but also the most expensive to extract and the lowest quality, so unless oil prices are high half of it isn't worth extracting). Previously some of the oil wasn't counted because it wasn't considered economical to drill, but now it is, so was very recently moved to the top of the list of oil producing countries. The United States isn't prepared to risk their access to that oil, so they still trade with Venezuela.

People have to buy oil from somewhere, and it is usually from crazy Islamic fundamentalists, so most people still buy venezuelan oil.

I don't think there is anything bad about Chavez. He is quite harmless, unless you are a rich Venezuelan who doesn't like paying taxes.

Answer 2

No foreigner, dictator, president, premier, or any other clown has the right to come into America and badmouth the President - that's our job!

The "uproar" was caused by Chavez's rhetoric during the United Nations General Assembly. Among other things, he called President Bush "the devil." He carried his blabbering into Harlem and around the New York area while he was here.

For what it's worth, Chavez is an ex con in his own country who rules with complete control. His people starve while he uses his country's oil riches for his own personal and political ambitions.

Basically, in my opinion, he's a typical scumbag dictator.

Answer 3

well the biggest problem is that in his paranoia, he is allying himself with every enemy that the US has, including Iran and North Korea. Having those nations getting a foothold in the Americas is a scary proposition.

His rants at the UN were publicly over the top, and politically only the most extreme left in this country really think the guy is something cool, but that is as much showing their own hatred of the US.

Answer 4

You partially answered your own question when you said you don't know who he is. Chavez presides over one of the most corrupt governments by South American standards. Despite huge oil revenues the Venezuelan people are not seeing major social improvements and unemployment and crime are rampant.
Chavez is definitely suffering from illusions of grandeur, imagining he is the second coming of Simon Bolivar.
If you can judge someone by the friends he keeps, let's mention Fidel Castro, who is the dictator of a nation of indigents,
Ahmadinejad of Iran, who prefers to pursue the Koran and nuclear power instead of running water for his citizens,
King Jong-IL of North Korea, who has 200.000 citizens in concentration camps and his main hobby is to rape young girls.
There you go, the four amigos.

Answer 5

Chavez,President of Venezuela.Called Bush a devil at the UN.Made the sign of the cross when he called him a devil,also said the place smelled of sulphur because Bush (the devil) was there.Very undiplomatic,uncouth,blasphemous choice of words coming from a man who has passed a law in his own country,making it illegal to speak bad of himself.He has also gone out of his way to cozy up to every world leader who it seems are chafing at the bit to bring America down;Castro,Ahmadinejad,KimSun IL etc. etc.etc.He has Oil,wants to make himself the new big bad guy on the block and specifically in South America.

Answer 6

It isn't all of a sudden, this has built for a while.

He has been trying to use his countries oil as an extortion means on the US by closing Citgo station to weaken our economy. He just recently went to Iran to pledge to fight the US if there was a war. He has been doing Bush tirades forever and to my knowledge we as a nation and Bush personally has done nothing to them. Like him or not Bush is our president and Chaves has been on a smear campaign on him.

Also he used his influence on his neighbor down there to take over the natural gas wells which has been a huge blow to the UK and Spain who had huge stakes in that and was felt in out stock market. He has been trying to under mind our interest just to build himself up as far as I can tell.

He has an ambition to attack our economy and I think most Americans realize it isn't a Bush thing, he would still be shouting his rhetoric if a Dem was in office. He is trying to align himself with any state who is our enemy. This has been going on for years, he just hit the spot light to most of America because of the UN statement.

Answer 7

he put Bush down at some big meeting, and yet he is letting his people starve while he's rich in oil. i mean i know there are a lot of people who don't like Bush, but that doesn't give anyone the right to bash him in a business meeting. it's just not right. and he's pot calling kettle black if you know what i mean.

don't buy citgo gas either...he distributes 60% to them.

Answer 8

you are too far in the forest to see the trees!!!!!! Chavez is a dictator and though you dont hear it much, ALL of south america has nothing to do with him.

stay away from citgo and that pile of garbage man

Answer 9

i don't think of it rather is racist, I in simple terms think of it rather is being geared in the direction of Hispanics. Now, enable me enable you realize the place the vast deal "for me" is obtainable in. nicely, I stay in SoCal, and of course we've the biggest difficulty with unlawful immigration. for this reason, because of the fact it rather is concentrated in the direction of Hispanics, it rather is for sure achieving numerous unlawful immigrants. what's the situation you will desire to ask? nicely, whilst companies try this (and it happens lots out right here with many considerable retailers in Hispanic neighborhoods), they have a tendency to hire bilingual workers, which nonetheless is sensible once you think of approximately who they like to attain. even nonetheless, once you are trying this, you isolate numerous different AMERICAN applicants. those retailers can not come out and legally say they like to hire Hispanics, so they do the politically and legally superb element and say "Biligual is a plus". In return, that daunts a great style of non-bilingual speaking applicants. it is the difficulty I even have with it...it rather is in simple terms yet another cycle to teach how unlawful immigration desires to be enforced. *And earlier absolutely everyone accuses me of being racist, i might have an identical situation with any unlawful immigrants from any united states of america. edit: education Day, maximum of u.s. became into not owned by potential of Mexicans, in simple terms California and a few factors of the Southwest. And at that ingredient, the inhabitants wasn't that vast in that area of the country.

Answer 10

bacause he's a Castro loving piece of crap. Move to Venezula for a few years, and you tell us.