Since we're having Chavez threads today. Here is why I get mad when people say Chavez is a dictator:

[Smith_3]

Because judging from the experience of Iraq, "Chavez is a dictator" is just one step away from "We should send our military to bust up the populist movement of Venezuela" You can call him a dumbass or say that he is doing a terrible job at governing, but when not a single human rights group or the United Nations can find any fault in the election procedure, calling him a dictator is a smear akin to "Obama has no birth-certificate" or "Kerry shot himself in the foot to get out of Vietnam". I have a friend from Venezuela who told me, that he doesn't agree with Chavez, neither the contents of his politics or even his way of doing politics. But he sees it as part of the tragedy of his country that this type of politician is the best they can expect and that some things have improved over the recent years. I think it is wrong to judge the politics of another country from the position of having it much better than the people there. As far as the politics of Venezuela, there is really only one statement I can make about them: The United States need to stay the hell out of it.

[cali]

1. I agree that Chavez isn't a dictator.

I agree that the U.S. has ZERO business intervening. But no one has posted that he's a dictator in either of the threads posted today in GD. Why not focus on the topics in those threads?

Chavez is neither the devil incarnate or the glorious leader beyond reproach.

[tandot]

2. Never mind. I didn't pay attention

[NeedleCast]

3. You have to call his intentions into question

Is Chavez the only person who can continue the populist movement in Venezuela? I mean, he's gone to a lot of effort to solidify his party, is there not someone else who's capable of taking the reigns? Why the need for referendums (the first of which failed, so he had another vote to get the result he wanted) to allow him to continue running for additional terms? Has to make one wonder that if he were to lose an election, if he'd really step down.

[Wednesdays]

4. MORE Top Ten Trivia Tips about Hugo Chavez!

1. Hugo Chavez will often glow under UV light.
2. Marie Antoinette never said 'let them eat cake' - this is a mistranslation of 'let them eat Hugo Chavez'.
3. Women shoplift four times more frequently than Hugo Chavez.
4. It's bad luck to put Hugo Chavez on a bed.
5. A rhinoceros horn is made from compacted Hugo Chavez!
6. If your ear itches, this means that someone is talking about Hugo Chavez!
7. About one tenth of Hugo Chavez is permanently covered in ice!
8. The book of Esther in the Bible is the only book which does not mention Hugo Chavez.
9. There is no lead in a lead pencil - it is simply a stick of graphite mixed with Hugo Chavez and water.
10. If you toss Hugo Chavez 10000 times, he will not land heads 5000 times, but more like 4950, because his head weighs more and thus ends up on the bottom.

[EFerrari]

5. I need these on a wallet sized card!

:hi:

[EFerrari]

6. That's exactly right, Smith_3.

All of our attacks on democracy in Latin America have been predicated on that idea or on a version of that idea: Their leader is not a good leader, their democracy is not a real democracy or their elections are not real elections.

And twin of that justification is: the people are ignorant.

Just last week, this story was floated in our media:

Most electronic voting isn't secure, CIA expert says
By Greg Gordon, McClatchy Newspapers Greg Gordon, Mcclatchy Newspapers – Tue Mar 24, 3:53 pm ET

WASHINGTON — The CIA , which has been monitoring foreign countries' use of electronic voting systems, has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela , Macedonia and Ukraine and a raft of concerns about the machines' vulnerability to tampering.

snip

Stigall, who's studied electronic systems in about three dozen countries, said that most countries' machines produced paper receipts that voters then dropped into boxes. However, even that doesn't prevent corruption, he said.

Turning to Venezuela , he said that Chavez controlled all of the country's voting equipment before he won a 2004 nationwide recall vote that had threatened to end his rule.

When Chavez won, Venezuelan mathematicians challenged results that showed him to be consistently strong in parts of the country where he had weak support. The mathematicians found "a very subtle algorithm" that appeared to adjust the vote in Chavez's favor, Stigall said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090324/pl_mcclatchy/3196949_1

But, this story was debunked by CEPR years ago and confirmed by the Carter Center -- as stenographer Greg Gordon could have found had he bothered to do a simple search and had he not simply repeated what CIA told him:

Study Finds Economists' Allegations of Fraud in Venezuelan Referendum to Be Groundless
Results Concur With Carter Center's (September 17) Review of Audit Procedures
For Immediate Release: September 20, 2004
Contact: Debi Kar, 202- 387-5080

On September 3, economists Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and Roberto Rigobon of the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management, presented econometric results that the authors maintain are evidence of fraud in Venezuela's August 15 recall referendum. The paper was reported by four major international news outlets and was used to raise doubts about the validity of the referendum among U.S. legislators and policy-makers. It was also used to support claims of fraud by opposition leaders in Venezuela.

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/-study-finds-economists-allegations-of-fraud-in-venezuelan-referendum-to-be-groundless/

During the 2002 CIA-backed coup attempt, Ari Fleischer said from the podium that Chavez was repressive and that the Venezuelan people had decided to remove him -- the opposite of what was happening. Do you think the CIA is any less invested in getting him out in 2009 if they're running around spreading this discredited bs? :)

/oops