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Yup. Chavez was a dictator, plain and simple, and Maduro was his chosen successor.
What they called their party and what political claims they made don't matter at all. Chavez was elected democratically, then once in office, took over the government and established a populist dictatorship that he held until his death.
If cancer hadn't gotten him, he would have been the dictator for as long as he lived, just like Castro, and Maduro would have remained his #2 for all that time.
Dictatorship is the most enduring form of government in Venezuela. It's one of those nations that have repeatedly gone back and forth between decades of dictatorship with brief breaks of democracy between one dictator and the next.
The names of the political parties change, but the names are just names. The dictators aren't socialists, communists, capitalists, or anything but dictators. They all do the same actions and say the same stuff.
Every dictatorship is always centered totally on the dictator alone.
They take over all the national news, control all the media, are the only faces of the government, and are the biggest stars of their show always.
That's how they gain their power and how they keep it.
By keeping all the attention on them constantly, an opposition has less opportunity to become known, so they can't become as popular, so they can't become as strong as the dictator.
Chavez was actually not a dictator. Everything he did was through the democratic process. He won most of his elections, including ballot measures and legislative allies, but when he lost he tended to abide by the results. He never had gulags, torture chambers, etc. He was a democratic socialist by any metric.
Of course Venezuela is not a pure study in Democratic socialism because of the dictatorship.
And it is insulting to the intelligence of this country for folks to throw this out as an example of democratic socialism and expect us to fall for it.
It was a study in Democratic socialism until Chavez died and Maduro took over. The policies of Chavez were socialist, and it was all done under democratic process--ergo, democratic socialism.
The question is why it is morphed into de facto dictatorship, as every other socialist experiment has.
It's not socialism. It's rampant corruption and violations of constitutional rights.
But hey, the C-D terms of use don't prohibit spouting impressively uninformed opinions, so good for you!
Your extended Venezuelan family? Oh well. That’s too bad, but the United States has no reason to bother with Venezuela’s problems. It’s none of our concern.
US calls for 'orderly transition' to a new government, days after Maduro began a disputed second term as president.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called Venezuela's government under President Nicolas Maduro "illegitimate" as Washington steps up its call for an "orderly transition" to a new government.
"We are very hopeful we can be a force for good to allow the region to come together to deliver that."
Someone doesn't understand Socialism. Denmark is a great capitalist nation so yes, they also prove that Venezuela's Democratic Socialism doesn't work as well in comparison to capitalist Denmark.
Socialism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive. As you mentioned, Denmark is a great capitalist nation, with free enterprise and private industry. It also has free healthcare, free college education and generous welfare, so it is also a socialist country.
People should not assume that adding some more socialist programs to the US will diminish our capitalist economy. That hasn't happened in Northern Europe.
Socialism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive. As you mentioned, Denmark is a great capitalist nation, with free enterprise and private industry. It also has free healthcare, free college education and generous welfare, so it is also a socialist country.
People should not assume that adding some more socialist programs to the US will diminish our capitalist economy. That hasn't happened in Northern Europe.
Let's not get carried away now. You do realize , nothing is free, even in Denmark.
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