[Sixstrings]

Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoRjmYm6ry4

Just saw this on Netflix the other day. It's available on instant viewing, I think the whole thing is on Youtube too if you want to search for it. Several Netflix reviewers warned to keep in mind it's propaganda, but then again what isn't these days right?

So anyway it's worth a watch. Bush is long gone now and this isn't a hot topic but I learned a few things. Chavez comes off as pretty likeable. Oliver Stone makes a strong case of outright lying in the US media, where they mixed up footage to tell stories that aren't true, etc. But again, nobody has clean hands anymore and I'm sure Chavez must have his skeletons too that weren't mentioned in the documentary.

Anyhow, I've never had the sense Chavez was some evil dictator and the film confirmed that. Is he really a dictator at all? I think he's won 11 straight democratic elections. He meddles with the media down there, but then again politics is complex in Latin America -- the media are all controlled by the business oligarchs, who'd rather the poor keep right on suffering.

Stone also flies all over South America interviewing the presidents of Boliva, Ecuador, Paraguya, Argentina, and Brazil. I wasn't quite aware of this before but practically the whole continent is a Chavez power bloc now. They're all socialist presidents, all friendly with Chavez. As far as American national interests go, it's pretty clear Bush did a lot of damage to our influence over that continent.

And what right do we have to "influence" anyway? Should poor people starve and live in the dirt while we support coups and real dictators, all so that we can be 100% certain the oil will flow?

There are some funny moments in the film.. Chavez jokingly tells Stone he's going to show him the place where they're building the nuclear bomb for Iran. It turns out it's a cornmeal plant that Iran built for them.. they sell the cornmeal at low prices so the poor don't go hungry. Overall, he seems like a good president for his country.. works very hard, cares about self-sufficiency. They used to import all their corn, but since he first took office he's now got it built up so that they grow all their own corn and don't need to import it.

The interviews with the other presidents are interesting. They universally dislike both Bush and the IMF. The IMF didn't want Brazil to pay off its loans, but the president insisted and now they have around a $260 billion annual budget surplus -- that's more than we can say, with our gargantuan deficits.

The most shocking thing was something the former Argentine president said.. he casually mentioned that Bush told him the best way to improve an economy was through war.

Oh.. and Chavez explains to Stone that Bush's plans were all about oil. He meant to go after Venezuela first, and then Iraq. There was a brief coup after his first election.. the IMF rushed in and offered money to the new dictator, and the US told the coup leaders to get a letter of resignation from Chavez. The army rebelled against the IMF supported dictator, and reinstalled Chavez. (keep in mind he was democratically elected in the first place)

So anyhow I realize this could all be propaganda.. maybe there's horrible things Chavez has done that's not in the film. Although the Fox News clips are a laugh they're so over the top.. they accuse the Bolivian president of being a cocaine pusher when in reality the native Bolivians have chewed coca leaves for thousands of years to help them live at high altitude -- and coca leaves aren't processed cocaine in the first place.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '.')..So anyhow I realize this could all be propaganda.

[mos6507]

Oliver Stone I guess is trying to follow Michael Moore's footsteps.

I would do some extra research before forming your opinion of Chavez solely on this.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'G')ood thing. I was starting to think you were being pretty naive and gullible.

[Sixstrings]

Ok I was being lazy.. here's what I could dig up on Wikipedia:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Amnesty International has criticized the Chávez administration for targeting critics following several politically motivated arrests.[145] Freedom House lists Venezuela as being "partly free" in its 2009 Freedom in the World annual report, claiming that women's rights and indigenous rights have improved, but that press freedom has been threatened.[146] A 2010 Organization of American States report found concerns with freedom of expression, human rights abuses, authoritarianism, press freedom, threats to democracy,[147][148] as well as erosion of separation of powers, the economic infrastructure and ability of the president to appoint judges to federal courts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_chavez#Human_rights

[mos6507]

My problem with Chavez from the vantage point of the US, even if you're willing to write-off the country's oil, is his foreign policy.

He has a very immature approach to foreign policy that goes something like this.

US bad, therefore the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Venezuela MUST spite the US, therefore we will form alliances with Iran, say "nicey nicey" stuff about Kim Jong Il, etc...

There's no diplomacy here. It's all shaking his fist and holding grudges. All he ever does is whine and complain, not just about the US but about other countries as well. That's why the king of Spain told him to STFU. He's like the Al Sharpton of latin america. He who presumes to speak for his downtrodden people, but who is in fact just an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur.

When Obama went to South America, Chavez was at least not hiding under his desk afraid of some assassination plot like the schtick he usually pulls, but he handed Obama a book that is all about the evils of US imperialism. The problem is, Chavez has no real roadmap to bury the hatchet with the US, and it certainly isn't going to make matters better by continuing to strengthen its bonds with Cuba and Iran.

It's no stretch of the imagination that Venezuela will eventually be a benefactor of Iran's nuclear program, and once that happens, all bets are off.

I wonder what Chavez's hero, Fidel, would think of that, considering that a) Fidel is still a fan of Obama, and b) he wants his legacy to be nuclear disarmament.

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'H')m.. pretty mild, by South American standards. I'm sorry, I just don't see any "evil dictator" stuff here. I'm not reading anything about average folks not having the freedom to travel, or tens of thousands of political prisoners in jail. Nothing here about massive embezzlement -- to the contrary, the oil money is being shared with the poor.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', 'h')e has compromised the judiciary..

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')My point here is that I don't see how we can criticize since we've gotten worse results in the right wing governments we prop up.

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', 'h')e has compromised the judiciary..

[Sixstrings]

double post

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', 'W')here was I criticizing Brazil?

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'T')here's no diplomacy here. It's all shaking his fist and holding grudges. All he ever does is whine and complain, not just about the US but about other countries as well. That's why the king of Spain told him to STFU. He's like the Al Sharpton of latin america. He who presumes to speak for his downtrodden people, but who is in fact just an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')Biggest problem I see with Chavez is that he may be in the process of *becoming* a dictator. Dictators often start out with good deeds and intentions.

[pablonite]

Loyal servant of the empire.

Loyal servant too!

He is moving out to the sidelines now after his block buster World Trade Center?
Bah! garbage! Watched a little bit of it but that stuff is really just a mess of half truths. South America, especially Paraguay is where communism or socialism - whatever you want to call it - was perfected by 1700, they called them reductions, implemented by the Jesuit missionaries to finance Spanish armadas into England and crush the Reformation. Nothing much has changed down there. If you want to see a good, reality based South American movie watch Tropa de Elite, 2007.