Chavez proposes six-hour workday

[subsuelo]

Source: Reuters

CARACAS (Reuters) - President Hugo Chavez proposed a constitutional change on Wednesday to reduce Venezuela's maximum workday to six hours as part of broader legal changes to advance his self-styled socialist revolution.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSN152302772...

---

What a slimy bastard!!

[Tyler Durden]

1. How DARE he.

Are we sure he's not FRENCH??

We Amerikans must FIGHT for the right to work ourselves to death, serving our worthy, rich masters.

No sarcasm note necessary, I trust.

[glowing]

2. Wow, I wish... I work 56hrs every week... That's mandatory for my

meager salary.

[davidinalameda]

107. maybe you should look for another job

just saying

[Ganja Ninja]

3. Actually I would prefer four 8 hour days rather than 5 six hour days.

I'd rather have the extra day off and it would save me the cost of a daily trip to work.

[Tyler Durden]

4. Are YOU french TOO??

This board is becoming a haven for cheese eating surrender monkeys!!!

Remember that RW epithet? Oh, the nostalgia.

[CrispyQ]

29. My husband had that schedule once.

He took every Wednesday off. He never had to work more than two days in a row without a day off. He loved it! It was a great day to do errands, cuz everyone else was at work. Come Saturday, I relaxed in the morning, instead of sprinting to the store to beat the rush.

[arikara]

58. I used to work 4 on and 4 off

The days were longer, but it was sure worth it. I actually had time to do some living. Then I went to a 5 and 2, that with lots of free overtime expected. As far as I'm concerned, that is nothing more than slave labour. Nobody should have to work 50 or 60 hours a week.

I'm not working now, but I'm so used to living on a shoestring and going without the cheap China crap that when I do look for work, I think it'll be 3 days a week max. I'd rather have less money and a life.

Viva Chavez!

[KaptBunnyPants]

62. My last job offered something like that.

Four 10 hour days instead of five 8 hour days. Those 10 hour days really get to you though after a while though.

[smirkymonkey]

102. I am now doing 5 11-12 hour days as it is, so anything would be

an improvement. And I never take lunch - If I am lucky I run out and buy something and eat while I am working (so it takes a few hours to eat), but otherwise I have fruit and nuts in my drawer and I eat that or scrounge from a lunch left over in a conference room.

And I'm salaried, so no overtime for me. At least my company is pretty generous with days off, but I am completely fried all the time. I don't know how much longer I can take it. I would even love to have the old straight 9 to 5 with an hour lunch days back again.

[Prophet 451]

5. Hmmm

Perfectly within his rights, of course, and I can see what he's trying to achieve but I'm not sure of the wisdom of this one.

[Larry Ogg]

6. What the hell is wrong with this guy?

Hasn’t he ever heard of the domino effect? This could cause rich peoplein his country too work a maximum of one hour per weak. No wonder conservatives hate him.

[BornagainDUer]

67. ROFL! No wonder the rich hate him!

[William Tannenbaum]

7. Of course, we know

that working less equals more wealth.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mudoria]

16. Why? Because he holds a different viewpoint?

That would be a sad statement for the Democratic party I'd say..

[Javaman]

19. And yet you didn't give us your point. nt

[Exiled in America]

18. That's a little knee-jerk don't ya think?

[Tempest]

22. It must

Considering how many wealthy people there are in America who haven't done an honest day's work.

[SammyWinstonJack]

39. And george is at the top of that very long list, along with the rest of his criminal family members.

[lumberjack_jeff]

31. No, productivity = wealth.

If maximum hours of labor were the only path to wealth then Poland would be the worlds wealthiest country.

Welcome to DU.

[ProudDad]

51. Actually, it DOES

There have been studies that have proved that the productivity of the average worker in France where they have a 35 hour work week is HIGHER than that of a USAmerican worker slaving away at their 40+ hour week.

So yes, working less can equal more wealth...

That's why Hugo's doing it...

[nick303]

77. I'd be curious in seeing these studies

since just about all that I've seen showed the opposite.

[Warren Stupidity]

82. It depends on what you are measuring.

If you measure GDP per worker, ignoring hours worked, we rank higher. If you measure GDP per worker hour, France ranks higher.

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/icp0905.pdf

Per hour: France 129 USA 114. Per worker: France 111 USA 124.

Personally I rather be more productive per hour with more free time, my life would be richer.

[Judi Lynn]

81. Anyone curious about your comment can simply make a quick trip to the internetS.

Put in "work productivity France," and this is the very first entry I saw:

Work smart
Aug 7th 2007
From Economist.com



AMERICANS are hard workers, but not necessarily the most productive, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics. It has compared America's output per worker, and output per hour, with that of other rich countries. The average American worker produced $90,000 of output in 2006, measured at purchasing-power parity. Only Norwegians, some of whom work on oil-rigs, did better. Using output per hour, however, shows a different picture. Employees in Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and France all churn out more than Americans' $50 an hour. Proof, perhaps, that workers are motivated best by shorter hours and more holidays.
(snip)

http://www.economist.com/daily/chartgallery/displaystor...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I wouldn't have doubted you, obviously, but I just saw a post immediately under yours casting doubt on your truthfulness, and I went for the very quick answer, knowing it would be there immediately.

We don't get the same kind of dependability from the right-wing visitors to this board. If they really DID take the time to do their research, they wouldn't have anything on which to stand while attacking progressives!

[nick303]

86. Thanks

It appears I was mistaken/my information was out of date. I missed this article when I read the magazine.

In the future, I'd appreciate not being called a right-winger. I'm not the type to jam the alert button on someone, but it is a violation of the forum's Rule on "Civility". Thanks.

[One_Life_To_Give]

9. Unemployment problems?

When France placed similar limits. It was to spread the work over more workers so there would be fewer unemployed. The downside could include a cut in pay for hourly workers. Which for a fimily just getting by, would be ugly.

[Nikia]

72. That's why my great grandfather wrote several Congress people

Proposing the same thing in the late seventies, early eighties. He told them that this was vital to reducing unemployment and getting people back to work.

[eridani]

93. Not necessarily. If they still worked 40 hours, they'd get overtime for 10 of them n/t

[davekriss]

10. Half days?

(I work an average of 11 to 12 a day!)

[UTUSN]

11. Rest easy, Venezuelans!1 The great leader is willing to take up the slack by working Prez-for-LIFE!1

[classysassy]

47. President Chavez

we are green with envy,if we could only get our congress and great leader,you call him the devil,we call him shrub,to work just a bit harder for the American people.

[slackmaster]

12. Walt Disney promised me just that in 1966

A 30-hour work week.

Clean atomic power everyhere.

The Metric System.

Picture phones.

Well, here we are in 2007. One out of four isn't too bad, I guess.

[mike_c]

13. I wanted jet packs and flying cars, dammit....

[slackmaster]

15. How about a monorail while we're at it?

I'd love to commute to work on a monorail.

[Lorien]

Hey, I work for his company. 60-80 hour work weeks

are the norm for me. I haven't worked a five day week in 18 years. Never had time to meet a man or have a family. I'm rather tired, to say the least.

[slackmaster]

34. You work at Mauschwitz?

Sorry to hear that.

[Lorien]

35. Worked in Feature Animation '89-93, but now I'm a contractor

for the company. It works a lot better when you aren't actually in-house...well, except for when they refuse to pay me for months at a time, just because they can get away with it.

[ProudDad]

53. Ah, so you're working with the Metric System too

[regularguy]

14. Regularguy proposes 1-hour workday!

Who's In?

[KansDem]

36. Forget it! They already tried this in the Emerald City...

get up at 12, start to work at 1, take an hour for lunch, and then at 2 we're done

Merry Old Land of Oz

And you remember what happened to Dorothy when she visited there, don't you?


Yeah...they threw her under the bus...

I'll never forget that!

[Tyler Durden]

17. To the naysayers

I'm not a Chavez Booster although I call myself a Neo-Socialist.

That said, I see nothing wrong with a reduced work week, and I am sick and tired of seeing GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE used as a synonym for "LET'S WORK OUR PEOPLE TO DEATH AND THEN OUTSOURCE TO MAKE OODLES OF CASH!"

[pitohui]

43. to those of the class who don't work by the hour give up 1/4 of yr pay and get back to me

we can't lose 25% of income just like that, with no hope of replacing it, ever, because of limits on hours worked

guess what, not everybody on DU is a rich salaried management dude

i'd say many or most democrats are paid by the hour -- and the issue of reduced hours is already becoming HUGE factor in the growing poverty of this nation

[raebrek]

48. So does Overtime

kick in at after the first 30 hours? That would be sweet.

Raebrek

[ProudDad]

55. You are displaying an amazing

ignorance of the basic characteristics of Socialism...as usual.

[Tyler Durden]

98. Thank you.

I was too bored and tired to respond to that nonsense.

[KaptBunnyPants]

63. Venezuela is becoming more socialized.

The people making an hourly wage would be the ones with the largest economic incentive in supporting that. What you lose in the "right" to have an 8 hour standard workday would be more than made up for the expansion of provided services. It's the "rich salaried management dude(s)" who are pissed off about it, as they are used to having a government which works only for them.

[Chovexani]

105. Er, I'm salaried and I'm not rich at all

This is my first salaried position (at a call center, and hardly management), and I'm actually making about a dollar or so less per hour than I did at my last hourly job. Better benefits mean more coming out of my check every time, so there's less take home pay. I get commission so it kind of evens out, but that's a crapshoot.

There's a lot of other Democrats in my position too. Salary does not automatically mean rich management dude/lady. The only benefit being salaried has is they can't fuck around with your hours like at my last job, when post-peak season saw us having like zip to do in data entry and we were getting sent home early everyday. And this was around Christmas. Thank goddess I didn't have kids or a family to support.

Also, management doesn't mean anything either in terms of pay. I had a conversation with my team manager the other day when he was talking about how he's taking on a part time job at Target to make ends meet--same place where another manager at the company works.

[Joanne98]

20. The next thing you know he'll be bringing back the siesta!

[donsu]

23. and in the rising heat a siesta is a sane thing to do

heat drains energy

[Joanne98]

24. Yep! I think we should all have them!

[IronLionZion]

27. That is common in hot areas

everything closes down in the early afternoon, but then people go back to work when it gets cooler. It's not safe to be outdoors then in many parts of the world. It is also common to go home to have a good lunch with your family instead of buying unhealthy stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siesta#Siesta_in_other_cul...

[donsu]

21. he is a sane civilized man - how lucky for Venezuela

a man with emotions and empathy.

[KillCapitalism]

25. 30-hour work week sounds great! Go Chavez!

Venezuelans will be enjoying more free time while we slave away working longer hours and taking less vacation time to boot.

[nashville_brook]

26. makes sense when there's not enough work to go around as was predicted

after the *industrial* revolution -- let alone the information revolution. i read recently that oil scarcity is going to make this even worse on a global scale.

[nashville_brook]

28. been wondering what "productivity" reports actually mean -- you know, those numbers reported on

every so often that say "the US is 5 percent more productive this year than last." i don't think you can measure the individual quality known as *productivity*. rather, i think they are measuring how many fewer people are doing the same job today as was done last week. in other words, when your coworkers are *downsized,* then your department is more "productive." but that doesn't mean that the same work is being done with less people. it means that some people have NO JOB and some people have more job than they can handle.

if i remember my labor theory correctly, lowering workweeks is the classic solution to the "problem" of "natural productivity" -- where people are able to produce more with the help of machines. my career is a perfect example -- publishing. it used to require whole buildings of people to put out a publication (between writing, compositing, color separating, printing and distribution). now, one person can sit at their computer and do all those things with software. print shop darkroom work used to be highly regarded blue collar work and it basically doesn't exist anymore.

[rinsd]

30. Changing the Constitution for this?

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Bo]

33. Power corrupts.... and absolute Power corrupts absolutely

[GreenTea]

37. And Bush has absolute power and wants any liberal you or Chavez gone, so how does one

who is a marked man by US industrialist, American propaganda, American military and the greedy oil corporations....How can Chavez protect himself...just go along with yours or Bush's idea's what's right for his country?

[SammyWinstonJack]

38. No kidding! What a real jerk!

[pitohui]

44. yeah if you're paid by the hour that is a serious reduction in pay

that is a 25 percent loss just in base pay and forget about any more chances at overtime

i'm amazed how a thread like this brings out the issue of class

are there really this many democrats who obviously don't work by the hour and don't care about anyone who does

[BornagainDUer]

68. You raise a damn good question. I wonder how this all pans out in

the wealth redistribution process?
Have wages gone up for people since Chavez took over?
Certainly benefits like health-care and education have drastically improved and equalized. This must be factored into the wage decline as a result of the reduced hours.

[eridani]

95. You may be wrong on that

If the official work week is 30 hours, that doesn't mean you are limited to workign 30 hours. It just means that if you work 40 hours, you get overtime for 10.

[GreenTea]

40. CARACAS, Aug 14 (Reuters):Venezuela has witnessed an economic boom under President Hugo Chavez

http://www.reuters.com/article/economicNews/idUSN141776...

[ohio2007]

41. Chavez promises supporters "elected" president for life

http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=8668&formato...
If he gets the constitution changed to reduce the weekly work hours, he will be able to become presidente for life.

[Name removed]

45. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ohio2007]

52. SO, south american countries are all part of some sort of (right wing )

conspirecy ?

Mercosur at present is made up of the four founding countries from 1991, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and as of this year Venezuela. Chile and Bolivia are associate members. Besides, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia have expressed their desire to join the group but are to a certain extent limited by their own Andean Nations Community. Mexico has also expressed an interest.


http://www.mercopress.com/about.do

stick to your small circle of kool aid drinking sources that feed you that hostile narrow pov

http://www.mercopress.com/photogallery.do?action=show

[KaptBunnyPants]

64. Do you have any reputable evidence at all that Venezuelan elections are fraudulent?

Is Jimmy Carter in on it too? Better tell the guys at FR, this is HUGH!!!!

[ohio2007]

76. Captain "bunny pants" ? nt

[KaptBunnyPants]

80. I take it you haven't seen my hareskin trousers.

If that damn orphanage hadn't asked so many questions I'd be Kaptbabypants.

[pitohui]

42. that is a true hardship if you' re paid by the hour

for example i don't know what we would do if my husband's job had such a policy, one of us would have to give up the luxury of living i guess -- and i guess i'd be the one elected

sigh

[GreenTea]

46. Not when there's little inflation & gas at 12 cents a gallon in Venezuela!

Along with many government provide programs - food, shelter, health & educations for the poor and workers...

Bush hates it and calls this socialism with negative connotations when it comes to the poor....but has no problem with our tax dollars going to his rich corporate friends with corporate socialism -subsidies, tax breaks and bail-outs!

[BornagainDUer]

69. Good reply. This is a fascinating topic. It's all in how you quantify

the benefits.

[nick303]

79. Venezuela has high inflation

For source, see your own post #41, and just about anywhere else that mentions the subject.

[qb]

49. The 8-hour day didn't just come out of nowhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eight_hour_day
The 8-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement (a.k.a. the Short-time movement) had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life and imposed long hours and poor working conditions. With working conditions unregulated, the health, welfare and morale of working people suffered. The exploitation of child labour was common. The working day could range from 10 hours up to 16 hours for six days a week.Robert Owen had raised the demand for a ten-hour day as early as 1810, and instituted it in his socialist enterprise at New Lanark. As early as 1817 he had formulated the goal of the eight-hour day and coined the slogan Eight hours labour, Eight hours recreation, Eight hours rest. Women and children in England were granted the ten-hour day in 1847. French workers won the twelve-hour day after the February revolution of 1848. A shorter working day and improved working conditions was part of the general protests and agitation for Chartist reforms, and the early organization of trade unions....

Combined with pressure for higher hourly pay this sounds like a winner for the workers.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

56. Don't forget the Haymarket riot.

People DIED for the eight hour day.

Or as Studs Terkel said:

He went up to a yuppie couple and was talking to them. The man said "We HATE unions."

Terkel said: "How many hours a day do you work? Twelve? Fourteen?"

The man said: "Eight".

Terkel: "Do you know why?"

Yuppie man: "No."

Terkel: "You work an eight hour day because people DIED for the eight hour day back in the 19th century. Thousands of people starved, protested, worked and agitated for the eight hour day and some gave their lives for it, until it was made the law."

Yuppie man: Stunned silence.

[NotGivingUp]

65. Hooray for Studs Terkel! n/t

[Bill McBlueState]

83. but according to some in this thread

We should be angry about the eight-hour day. We hourly workers could make more money if we worked fourteen-hour days.

[Judi Lynn]

89. Fourteen-hour days? That's probably in the long-range plan of the P.N.A.C.!

They've been hard at work, trying to remove every bit of progress made by Democrats like F.D.R., and JFK, and LBJ, etc. Without a doubt, if they could swing it for us to work 14-hour days, for a few pennies an hour, it's going to happen!

What's this with these idle Democratic children? There's probably some scheme ahead to put them all to work, as well, after Republicans privatize public schools, and the 14-hour daily workers bringing home those $5.00 weekly checks can't afford to send them there any longer!

[eridani]

96. Enjoying your weekend?

Thank a union member.

[ProudDad]

50. Oh, the horror!!!

That nasty commie Dictator!!!

What torture will he come up with next???







(for the fact challenged anti-Chavistas who are BOUND to slime this thread)

[David__77]

54. Interesting, but probably premature.

I don't think the country can afford it. They need more work, not less. Once poverty is wiped out, yes, work hours should be reduced to improve people's quality of life.

[ProudDad]

57. You are making the typical

fallacious corporate capitalist assumption that more hours automatically mean more productivity and more wealth...

The wealth is ALREADY THERE!

What the Bolivarian Revolution is doing is changing the process of distribution of that wealth...

The wealth used to be distributed almost exclusively to the top 1/2 of 1% -- the oligarchy that was in charge.

Now the Revolution is changing that distribution pattern to include everyone. The very top takes a hit (yipee) the average person gets a decent standard of living.

[David__77]

59. I (sort of) agree.

Hey, I support the transformation there, and wish them luck in promulgating a socialist constitution. But the essence of socialism, in my opinion, is not redistribution per se, but rather advancing aggregate wealth. If existing economic output were equally-distributed, it still would be far short of what the country needs to be prosperous.

More hours does not necessarily mean more wealth. Venezuela needs rational economic planning and efficient labor utilization. But, for a period, it could benefit from broadening the working class through eliminating unemployment and underemployment. An 8-hour day is not unreasonable for a certain period.

[Tempest]

60. Shorter hours can also lead to higher employment

Additional workers will be required to pick up the slack.

It means higher costs to corporations, but I don't think Chavez (or the people) consider that to be an relevant issue considering how corporations have dictated policy for decades in the country.

[Megahurtz]

61. Right On Chavez!!!

After all, why should we just live to work???

BushInc. just wants everyone here (and outsourced) to work their asses off as slaves for long hours so he and his friends and family don't have to work and he can give Free Handouts to his wealthy Corporate buddies.

Viva Chavez!!!

[Deja Q]

66. No wonder his people find him popular!

[RainDog]

70. wouldn't this make venezuela more productive?

they have had huge problems with poverty, which Chavez was elected to address. If two people each work a 6 hour day in one job, then a work day is 12 hours rather than the typical 8 in corprate jobs, and more humane than the long hours and terrible conditions in subsistence jobs.

If the job hours run anywhere from 8 until 2 and 4 until 10 in some cases, with other jobs at 10-4... getting to work wouldn't waste as much oil b/c of decreased peak traffic times, and public transportation could accomodate numbers of people going to work, and with time that's not spent at work, people have enough time off to not burn out/stress out.

If Venezuela owns its own oil, it can employ people to deal with its use ... like companies that have employees who are on boards to determine policy, except done in a more democratic way, based upon numbers of a population.

I thought this idea of staggered work hours was something long suggested as a way to stop having to build more than more 8 lane hwys.

[ohio2007]

78. moonlighting 2nd jobs. Cutting hours would mean cutting take home pay

by 25 % a week
People will need to supplement their incomes. Could stir cottage industries to make up the difference.

[RainDog]

87. In Venezuela?

I'm talking about very poor, long-disenfranchised often indigenous people that Chavez is trying to lift out of poverty and provide a decent life. He is anti-imperialist and wants to create a democratic socialist govt that also draws from the Simon Bolivar revolution (self-governance and a unifed Latin American power bloc -- he wants to return the wealth of Ven. oil income to the people, not the oligarchs..which is why he is so hated by them and the corporate elite in the U.S.

I don't think the intent is to have people working two jobs. the intent is to have them earn more money working less hours.

A concept hard to grasp in the U.S., most certainly.

[lynne]

71. Wouldn't that also reduce your daily pay?

I wish there was more info at the article. Not enough there to really know if this would have any negative impact, such as reduced wages.

[Judi Lynn]

73. It's obvious a man who has committed himself to helping IMPROVE the lot of the massive

poor population of Venezuela will NOT be doing something which will create less income for them. The entire effort of his administration has been from the very first to make life safer, less painful for them. That's why they are so loyal to, and supportive of his administration.

[robcon]

74. How to impoverish a country.

The six hour workday.

[RainDog]

90. based upon what data?

did you pull this grand statement out of your asset portfolio of economic proclamations? --where do you have anything to back up your statement? Is the way work is currently structured in the U.S. the only way it can be structured? why would anyone think that's a rational reaction to this announcement?

I bet they said the same about the 8 hour day, and outlawing child labor...but it seems the world didn't collapse when those things changed.

[tom_paine]

104. Ummm...isn't that what they said about the 8-hour workday?

You know your history, don't you Rob? If you don't, it is outlined nicely in the posts all around us.

To summarize:

The workday was once 10 to 16 hours. Oddly, massive prosperity did not seem to be the norm for any society at that time, and certainly not for the workers who worked those hours for a pittance and without health insurance, etc.

Answer me this, since you seem to be a pretty reasonable guy who answers to and with logic, not ad hominems:

Why would the shift to a 6-hour day from an 8-hour day cause impoverishment of the nations while the shift from 10- and 12-hour workdays to the 8-hour workday in the first two-thirds of the 20th Century seem to coincide with the greatest expansion of economic strength in the world, which occurred in the Old American Republic during this time, even including the Great Depression?

I understand correlation does not imply causation, but clearly if such a down-shift of hours was so deleterious, an expansion of that size would have been dragged down or eliminated, no?

Further, I also understand that at some point reducing hours gives back diminsihing returns, such as 6 to 4 or 4 to 2, but is 8 to 6 the place where that happens?

I await your answer to my question. Why is what you said about 8 to 6 any different than the self-serving rationalizations the 19th Century Robber Barons gave when their workers asked them to reduce 12- or 10-hour days to 8-hour days?

[leaninglib]

75. A constitutional amendment...?

Mandating a nation of part-time employees...

[NJCher]

84. I've got news for all you 8-hour a day proponents

Even though Americans are at work 8 hours a day, that doesn't mean they work 8 hours. In fact, recently there was an article in the NY Times that quotes a Microsoft et al study as saying people only work about 3 days out of 5. The rest of the time is spent in nonproductive activity.

A quote from the article (PM me if you want the whole thing):

American workers, on average, spend 45 hours a week at work, but describe 16 of those hours as “unproductive,” according to a study by Microsoft. America Online and Salary.com, in turn, determined that workers actually work a total of three days a week, wasting the other two. And Steve Pavlina, whose Web site (stevepavlina.com) describes him as a “personal development expert” and who keeps incremental logs of how he spends each working day, urging others to do the same, finds that we actually work only about 1.5 hours a day. “The average full-time worker doesn’t even start doing real work until 11:00 a.m.,” he writes, “and begins to wind down around 3:30 p.m.”

The experts disagree on how we are wasting all this time. The AOL survey says time is lost to surfing the Internet (given the source, that is either self-congratulatory or self-incriminating).


Personally, I think the 8-hour day is tyranny. I can't stand to be away from my animals and my house 8 hours a day. And work isn't interesting enough to hold my attention for 8 hours.



Cher

[nick303]

85. It's amazing how the tales of Chavez get more ridiculous week after week

and the same usual sycophantic suspects show up every time to defend him. A 6-hour work day? Does anyone ever stop to think that there could be results other than those intended?

It's going to be unfortunate to see what happens to the average Venezuelan when either A) oil prices aren't as high or B) Venezuela's oil productivity continues to decrease.

[1932]

91. It's amazing how the MSM finds him such a threat to the hegemony that they spin so hard against him.

[nick303]

92. Checklist

( ) Addresses topic immediately at hand
( ) Effective jab
(X) Negative stories about Chavez can only be Corporatewarwhoreprofiteeringmedia spin and never have any merit regardless of what objective aspects the story contains

[ProudDad]

100. Checklist

(X) Call Chavez "supporters" sycophants
( ) Call Chavez a "dictator"
( ) Call Chavez a "thug"

and expect folks to want to engage you in "reasoned argument"...

[1932]

103. Yes. Just like with Allende and Arbenz and every other decent anti-neoliberal.

Ignore history at your own peril.

[yurbud]

97. what are the intended results of our dear leaders economic policies? They aren't even trying

to help us.

If a corporate donor could make a buck turning us into soylent green, most in DC would gladly shove us into the grinder (as soon as we finished voting that is).

[defendandprotect]

88. While capitalists are offering the downward spiral -- more hours/less pay -- no benefits and . . ..

no retirement funds --

Chavez is doing the obvious -- cutting the work day for health and happiness --

and more employment --

Capitalism, meanwhile, has been working to do as much harm to labor as possible --

[yurbud]

94. the photo says it all. Which American president would have recommended Chomsky?

Chavez is honest about what's going on in the world while our politicians either try to scare the shit out of us in the case of the GOP, or feed us a warmed over pablum of platitudes in the case of the DLC.

[conspirator]

99. HORAAY! I am moving to Venezuela. I am already taking a spanish course n/t

[Judi Lynn]

101. Are you serious? What a tremendous time to go, seeing the country come to life!

It's probably going to be very interesting there unless the right-wing American administration finds a way to bump off the top Venezuelan officials and launch another coup, seizing the government and returning it to a US servant capacity.

Fill us in on any of the details you might want to discuss if and when the spirit moves you.

Congrats!!

[conspirator]

106. It's still just a plan. I am staying 3 months next year. we'll see... n/t

[Taverner]

108. Real Socialism