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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 203.134.166.99 (talk) at 02:41, 16 January 2006 (What is going on here?). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Archives: Peer Review • Archive 01 • Archive 02 • Archive 03 • Archive 04 • Archive 05 • Archive 06 • Archive 07

Random Information

Saravask, here below is some more random informartion. I leave it up to you to decide what is relevant and where to include any of it. The source is the same Marcano and Barrera book. A lot of this is mushy mushy family stuff that most likely is not relevant given the tone the article has (more politics and less private life). But here it goes anyway. You decide. Now, if I see Silence again unable to refrain himself from being baited and continue to increase the size of this page with his ego boosting retorts about unrelated matters, I may have to end up leaving the information in your own page. BTW, take note that a few times I have said that I agreed with things Silence said -even in his own page- but as it is obvious, he cannot let go as long as I making any comment that hurts his ego a bit. Lets hope he is finally letting go and will soon prove me wrong. --Anagnorisis 04:26, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

  1. By the age of 12-13 years old, Chavez was very thin, with big feet and consequently got the nickanme of "Tribilin" (that is the Spanish name for Goofy -Mickey's friend). Pages 54-55
  2. Chavez family moved to Barinas with the rest of the children and lived nearby his grandmother's house. But Chavez and his brother Adan kept living with the grandmoter. Page 56.
  3. While in Barinas, Chavez best friends were a couple of brothers living nearby who were the sons of Jose Ruiz, a communist who had been incarcerated during the government of military dictator Perez Jimenez. In the library of the Ruiz family Chavez started to read his first political books about communism and socialism. Pages 52 to 54.
  4. As a young man Chavez had only two girlfriends. Both were ugly. The girls always preferred his friends, the Ruiz brothers, as Chavez was considered very ugly. Page 58.
  5. Chavez childhood hero was a Venezuelan that played professional baseball in the USA as pitcher in the major leagues. He was named Isaias Latigo Chavez (unrelated to Hugo). When Latigo Chavez died in a major airplane crash in March 1969, Chavez was so impacted that he didn't go to school for two days. Five years later Chavez was still writing about his childhood hero in his diary. Page 58, 59.
  6. Already attending the military academy, Chavez never discussed politics with his family when he went to visit them during holidays. He actually disliked talking politics with his father, who was a member of the COPEI political party (and who became Education Director for the Barinas state during the COPEI government of Luis Herrera Campins). However, he always visited the Ruiz family house to talk politics there. Page 66.
  7. As a young man, once when a young attractive woman didn't pay any attention to Chavez, he went to pick the decomposing head of donkey that was by the side of the road and left it at her door. Page 66 (I think he was already showing his resentful behavior - he still behaves the same way).
  8. During 1971 - 1973 a group of Panamanian military students came to his academy. From them he learned of president Torrijos and the Panamanian revolution and their efforts to take back from the USA the Panama canal. Torrijos then became one of his heros. But it was the model of the revolution of peruvian general Juan Velasco (head of Peru's government during 1968-1975) the one that most impacted Chavez. In 1974, together with other 9 students, he went to Peru to the celebrations commemorating the 150 years of the Battle of Ayacucho and he met Velasco in person. Velasco gave to Chavez a blue book, a pocket edition of La Revolucion Nacional Peruana. This book became sort of a fetish that Chavez carried with him everywhere, until he lost it at the moment of being arrested in 1992 during the coup attemp. It is after this book, that Chavez fashioned 25 years later he ordered to print millions of small blue booklets of the 1999 new Bolivarian Constitution. Page 71 & 72.
  9. Chavez looked at other senior latin military leaders in order to choose his heros and anti-heros. He openly admits liking military men from the left, like Velasco (Peru) and Torrijos (Panama), while disliking another military man from the right Pinochet (Chile). It is interesting to note that he doesn't mention Allende (Chile), a civilian and a democratically elected president from the left. Page 72.
  10. In 1974 for a few months Chavez writes a personal diary. He was careful and proper in the language he used in his diary, unlike today. His leftist political orientation is clear in the diary. He already writes about his negative feelings towards the USA and how Venezuela lacks its own identity; baseball and the music heard in Venezuela is all from the USA he writes. Page 77.
  11. At the age of 23, he marries Nancy Colmenares, also from Barinas. Her friends all gossip that she was already pregnant of their first daughter by the time they married. Page 77.
  12. At the age of 23 Chavez starts to carry a double life: he fakes discipline and obedience to his superiors and "neutrality" to his family, while he starts to meet in hiding with communists and socialists. Page 81.
  13. In 1978, dressed in his military uniform, he met and helped then presidential candidate Jose Vicente Rangel (now his vice-president) afix some election material in Maracay. Had his superiors found out about this, he could have been expelled (at the time military men were forbidden to get involved in politics -furthermore doing so in uniform was sanctionable). Page 82.
  14. In 1983 Chavez with a handful of his military colleagues from the academy starts the EBR-200. The name comes from Ejercito Revolucionario Bolivariano and the 200 because it is the year celebrating the 200 anversary of Bolivar's birth (1783). Page 90
  15. In March 1986 during the third "congress" of the EBR, which takes place in San Cristobal, near Colombia, is when the inner circle comes together. They are 9 people: 6 military and 3 civilians. The other leader of the 1992, and Chavez major counterpart, is there already: Francisco Arias (who later lost an election to Chavez). Among the civilians is an uncle of Chavez and also the only woman: Herma Marksman, who by then had already been Chavez's lover for 2 years. Pages 93 to 95.

This is it for now. More to come soon over the next few days. --Anagnorisis 04:26, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Those look like some fantastic additions to make to Early life of Hugo Chávez. Great work! I also think we may want to consider moving a little of our current "Early life" section on this page to that page, since some of the recent additions aren't there yet and they don't all seem immediately relevant to the main Chávez page, which is already quite long.
  • Information we may want to consider keeping on the "Early life" subpage includes: "he was sent with his older brother Adán" (why is Adan especially significant?); "As a result, Chávez would develop an unusually strong bond with her, while his attachment to his own mother waned." (why is this tidbit especially relevant to this page? nothing else about his relationship with his parents is mentioned here); "In 1974, Chávez and a dozen fellow cadets and young soldiers travelled to Ayacucho, Peru in order to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the eponymous battle. There, they were personally greeted by the leftist radical President Juan Velasco Alvarado. Velasco gave each of them a copy of La Revolución Nacional Peruana (The Peruvian National Revolution) and impressed them — especially Chávez — with his strong bond with both the rank and file of the Peruvian military and the Peruvian masses." (this seems like a great bit of info to add to the Early life page, but I don't see how this incident is so much more significant than the hundreds of other formative events in Chavez' early life that aren't on this page). If I'm wrong about any of these bits being vitally important to the main Chavez page, do correct me; it just seems like this is mostly great stuff to beef up some of the lacking sections of Early life, especially the far-too-short "college years" section. Of course, the Early life article is already remarkably good, in my view, despite its unfortunate lack of any images. Very nicely-written. -Silence 05:57, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
I do not think Adan is that significant that he needs to be named. Saying just "his older brother" could be enough -unless the brother pops up again somewhere else in the article. I think the relevant thing to say is that they both were sent to live with the grandma (this had a great impact on him). In a family of six, had he been the only one sent, it would be even more weird (there are some nasty rumours in regards to some family relations, but I haven't found any written source).--Anagnorisis 07:08, 25 November 2005 (UTC)
  • OK, sounds good. Hm, you know, with the help of the above details you've provided, maybe we can even work to make Early life of Hugo Chávez a Featured Article eventually. :) That would be the logical next step, ne? Getting every subpage of Chavez FAd? Madness! Of course, might not be as interesting as starting on an entirely new subject to work on improving, but the plus side would be, it'd be remarkably easy, since we're already pouring through these countless sources for the main article anyway... ;) Just a thought! -Silence 18:31, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

We are moving on

I am happy to tell anyone who may have read the prior exchanges in this page between Silence and myself, that we have communicated directly, we have made peace and are moving on. Things were not intended by either one as bad as they may have looked. There are no hard feelings and we are happy to continue working together in this article. Silence, please correct me if I am wrong. --Anagnorisis 07:08, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Ha ha ha. He proved me wrong: he does have a sense of humor. ;-) Well, that is one thing I am glad I was wrong about. Cheers.  ;-)
  • It's easier to have a sense of humor among friends than among enemies, I've found. I'm glad we were able to resolve this peacefully in the end; I was about to give up hope on ever seeing a happy end to our dispute, and then you suddenly left that very nice note on my User page! A pleasant end to a mediocre day. (Well, it's 2:51 AM, so I guess it's a bit past the end of the day. Oh well, same difference.) -Silence 07:52, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

"1999" and "Coup of 2002"

Because of its length, I have subdivided "1999-2002" into two sections: "1999" and "2000-2001" (2002 wasn't actually addressed in this section, and it's already gone into in "2002 coup" and "2002-2004"). This was surprisingly easy; there's an extremely obvious distinction, both topically and chronologically, between these years. I feel that this will help a lot with getting readers to stick with the article after the first few sections (which are, by comparison, extremely short and compact, probably because they have sub-articles to move details to, unlike most of Chavez's presidency years). However, there's another thing I feel we should work on to get more readers to go through as much of the article as possible when this article goes on the main in a couple of weeks.

"1999" and "coup of 2002" are the two sections that I see as needing a fair amount of clarification and explanation for the typical reader to read through easily. This is important, because many of the sections afterwards are very smoothly and clearly written, so it won't do to scare any readers off with complex, unexplained economic terminology before they can get to most of the article! It may also be a good idea to shorten these sections a tad, considering that "1999" is given so much more coverage than any other year of Chavez's presidency (which is made very clear by my separating "1999-2002" into two sections). Of course, it being longer isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it was an enormously important year, but making it a little shorter would probably be a good idea. Shortening "coup of 2002" somewhat, of course, should be easier, since it does have a sub-article to move any non-vital details to: Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002. But yeah. What do you think of those ideas? I've finished copyediting the "Presidency" sections, which is why I bring this up now. I'll be moving on to copyedit the rest of the article next, but I feel that clarifying and tightening up these two sections is an important goal, at least for us to keep in mind, to maximize the important information we convey, minimize the less important information, and make sure the important information is as clearly-explained as necessary for readers who aren't already familiar with this topic. -Silence 19:51, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Major reorganization of "Presidency" subsections

OK, once I started playing with restructuring and renaming the Presidency subsections, I couldn't help continuing! Please feel free to immediately revert my latest change; I almost put it on a separate test-page or reverted it myself and just linked to the previous edit where it would be, because it's such a big reorganization, but in the end this is really the easiest way to compare this and the previous version yourself and then decide what to do. What do you think? I changed the following sections:

  • 1999–2002
  • Coup of 2002
  • 2002–2004
  • Recall vote of 2004
  • 2004–present

to this:

  • 1999: Economic crisis and new constitution
  • 2000–2001: Reelection and reform
  • 2002: Coup and worker strike
  • 2003–2004: Recall vote
  • 2004–present: Focus on foreign relations

This involved separating the first section into two sections (because it was too long; specifics above), merging the second section and the beginning of the third section into a single "2002" section, properly labeling the "recall vote" section as being a long process spanning 2003 and 2004 (and also added the remaining "2003" info to the beginning of that section), and added general titles to each section to give people new to this article a general idea of the most major events or trends in each time period. I welcome any criticism of problems with the new system, and am certainly not trying to impose such a major change too quickly if there are any problems with it (though it'd be nice to settle this before this article goes on the main page, certainly); let's discuss the best way to handle the section names and organization. Currently, the main problem I see with my new system is that it makes the "2002" section too large, considering that we seem to have absolutely zero images from that entire year that would meet the image requirements for an FA. I left one image at the top of that section in my reorganization just so it wouldn't be completely barren, but there's no relationship between the text and the image, so it will probably have to be moved. If we could find an image or two from 2002, this problem would be solved; there are three on Venezuelan coup attempt of 2002, but apparently they're Fair Use and thus unacceptable (which is unfortunate, because the top image on that page in particular is fantastic, and I think very well-known—plus almost all Featured Articles I've seen do use plenty of Fair Use images :P). Incidentally, even if we leave the page organization more or less as it was before my new change, this was already a pre-existing problem (though not as bad because the "2002" section wasn't as long, so we got away with putting an image next to the "worker strike" stuff by having it be a general image for that whole 2002-2004 period): an image isn't vital, but I think it would help a lot, considering how long the coup section is. Anyway, I've rambled on long enough (for now!). Thoughts? -Silence 20:38, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm cool with the changes. Another fair use image wouldn't hurt. Saravask 14:30, 26 November 2005 (UTC)



The recent large edit

I agreed with Anagnorisis above that some aspects of the edit were worth considering including in this article, but that doesn't mean that I don't think reverting the edit first was a good idea. Although some of the edits are salvagable and may prove valuable, most, I'd say, are not, or at least would need heavy revising to be acceptable. And for a new Featured Article that's going to go on the main page pretty soon, we shouldn't let new POVed and possibly inaccurate text stay on the page while we discuss what elements to remove; we should keep it off the page while we discuss what elements to re-add, since we agree that some of the edit is good, and some isn't. To help decide what aspects are acceptable, I think I'll try to break down the edit based on the different types of changes made. -Silence 04:13, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

OK, here we go. Struck text is information he removed, bolded text is information he added. Also, I've removed all footnotes from every version of the text, since they screw things up and aren't involved anyway. Feel free to comment on and discuss any of the changes below using :* beneath the line in question. -Silence 05:16, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

OK. I'll start right now ... Saravask 06:19, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Removals (that don't also involve additions)

  • his ribald promotion
  • By the way, you realize that none of these are my suggestions, right? I just summarized the ones that were in the recent contentious edit that someone made to the article. I put them here to make it easier for us to review them all individually, not necessarily because I endorse them. Just wanting to make sure you realize that; your bellow comment on the "the the" edit makes it sound like you're talking to me. -Silence 07:33, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • while pledging to dismantle puntofijismo, the traditional two-party system of political exclusion and patronage.
  • OK, considering that Chavez's own election doesn't lend much credibility to Chavez's claims that the system was excellent at "political exclusion" Saravask 06:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Chávez has just as radically upended Venezuela's traditional foreign policy procedures.
  • while the Cuban people were still suffering through the the Special Period
  • He also extensively lobbied other OPEC countries to cut their production rates as well.
  • The presidency was also dramatically strengthened, with the power to dissolve the National Assembly upon decree. The new constitution also converted the formerly bicameral National Assembly into a unicameral legislature, and stripped it of many of its former powers.
  • For example, General Manuel Rosendo, chief of the National Unified Army Command (CUFAN) at the time, reported that he and others presented the newly-deposed Chávez two options
  • Actually, I think we should keep the dash. It's standard English to do so: "Chavez was newly deposed" wouldn't have a dash, but when used adjectivally, as here, "the newly-deposed Chavez" is preferrable. -Silence 07:33, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Chávez resumed his presidency in April 2002 amidst popular outrage at his overthrow.
  • Yes, very minor difference. I have a very slight preference for "amidst" in this case (it gives more of a feel of general mood), but both versions are fine by me. -Silence 07:33, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Alarmed, Chávez responded by firing PDVSA's anti-Chávez upper-eschelon management
  • Chávez justified this by alleging their complicity in gross mismanagement and corruption in their handling of oil revenues, while opposition supporters of the fired workers stated that his actions were politically-motivated.
  • Most notably, during his speech at the 2005 UN World Summit, he denounced development models that are organized around neoliberal guidelines such as liberalization of capital flows, removal of trade barriers, and privatization as the reason for the developing world's impoverishment.
  • Disagree with this removal. "Neoliberal" is, IMO, a very precise and NPOV descriptor for the specific set of policies advanced by the Washington Consensus. Removing it makes the target of Chavez's critique vague (which it is not). Saravask 06:34, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Non-critical additions and changes

  • He also was a devoted reader of the writings of 19th-century socialist white European writers like Victor Hugo Victor Hugo.
  • After an extended period of popular dissatisfaction and economic decline under the IMF-program-inspired neoliberal and reformist Pérez administration,
  • Not so sure of having this in. Yes, though some elements of Perez program were in line with IMF style reforms, he also did not pay attention to other demands by the IMF. Perez at times barely managed to pass the requirements the IMF imposed before giving loans or extensions.--Anagnorisis 17:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Chávez utilized his charisma and peculiarly idiosyncratic flamboyant public speaking style.
  • Ok either way.
  • Chávez also attempted a comprehensive renegotiation of 60-year-old royalty payment agreements with oil giants Philips Petroleum ConocoPhillips ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil.
  • By December of 2001, Chávez's capital-control policies had reduced inflation from 40% to 12% while generating 4% economic growth.
  • Responding to these disturbances, Venezuelan elite army soldiers loyal to Chávez called for massive popular support for a counter-coup. These elite soldiers later stormed and retook the presidential palace, liberating Chávez from his captivity.
  • First, Chávez fired sixty generals and completely replaced the upper eschelons of Venezuela's armed forces, substituting them with more complacent loyalist pro-Chávez personnel.
  • He boosted support programs, pay, employment, and benefits for veterans, while promulgating new civilian-military development initiatives.
  • As a result, Venezuela ceased exporting its former daily average of 2,800,000 3,100,000 barrels (450,000 m³) of oil and oil derivatives.
  • I think both figures are right. It just depend which counting you use. I do not remember now which is which, but I think Venezuela itself uses the lower figure as it claims some bitumen sands should not be counted, whereas Opec wants to use the higher number.--Anagnorisis 17:49, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Then maybe we should mention both figures, and say that one is used by Venezuela, the other by OPEC? (But if we use the larger figure, we certainly can't leave "450,000" unchanged in regards to it!") -Silence 20:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Sharp increases in global oil prices gave Chávez access to billions of dollars $84 billion in extra foreign exchange reserves oil profits.
  • prison sentences of up to 40 months for serious instances of character defamation launched against Chávez and other officials was enabled enacted.

Addition of text that seems negative or critical of Chavez (whether true or not)

  • He is deeply anti-American and has never had anything but severe criticism for the U.S., which he identifies as 'the empire' and 'the source of all evil' (during a trip to Jamaica) in his milder characterizations.
  • True. So much that already in his 1974 diary he already criticized the US in his diary. But not sure if, even it being true, it would sound not NPOV. Perhaps tone it down eliminating "deeply" and also replacing "has never had anything but severe criticismfor the U.S., which he identifies as 'the empire' and 'the source of all evil' (during a trip to Jamaica) in his milder characterizations." for "often criticices the US, which he at times call 'the empire' and 'the source of all evil'." --Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Also this kind of stuff belongs more in "foreign policy" than in the very beginning of the article, don't you think? And we'd probably need a cite for that quote. -Silence 20:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • and survived a 2004 recall referendum on promises of aiding Venezuela's poor majority which have grown much poorer after his six years in power.
  • Well, though support this fact and would like to debate the point with any pro-Chavez person that says the opposite, given that statistics can be twisted either way, in the article it would sound very POV. So I will keep it out.
  • and multilateral cooperation amongst the world's poor nations, especially those in Latin America, in places like Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, three places where a recent Economist survey identified him as most hated and feared among Latin America's leaders.
  • Could only be included if the specific survey was cited, quoted word-for-word, and not treated like gospel. Also clearly doesn't belong in the opening, move to a paragraph about his relationship with Latin America. -Silence 20:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Over the coup's course, Pérez himself eluded capture, though 18 deaths and 60 injured resulted from the ensuing Chavez-initiated violence.
  • Chávez went on to win the Carter Center-endorsed 1998 presidential election on December 6, 1998 with 56.2% of the vote. The opposition said that Carter was easily duped and massive irregularities were documented by respected economists like Ricardo Hausmann at the Massachusetts Institution Of Technology. The U.S. State Department has yet to comment on the merits of the Carter findings, stating that since it was not an actual election, they would have nothing to say.
  • Seems too minor to add to the main page, there are plenty of other Chavez elections where reports of voting fraud were much more pronounced and well-documented. Adding "Opposition to Chávez argued that Carter was easily duped and, large-scale irregularities were reported by some economists, such as Ricardo Hausmann at the Massachusetts Institution Of Technology." to the Venezuelan presidential election, 1998 page; needs a citation, though. -Silence 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Instead of continuing Venezuela's past support for U.S. and European strategic interests, Chávez has promoted alternative anti-American, anti-Western development and integration paradigms for the Global South, designed to ensure their isolation.
  • I would keep "alternative" and also "anti-American" and "anti-Western" but would not include the last few words(very POV and I do not think that is a goal but more an unwanted result). --Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • The severe controversy surrounding Chávez's policies spawned a transitory 2002 overthrow of Chávez, an alleged 2004 paramilitary coup attempt, a 2004 recall attempt, and rumors and allegations regarding foreign conspiracies, mainly from Chavez's unsubstantiated claims, to overthrow Chávez via additional military coups, assassination attempts, and even military invasions.
  • Can we prove that those claims are unsubstantiated? Allegations already means there are not proved. So, we should say allegations regarding foreign conspiracies, mainly from Chavez's claims, that are claimed to be unsubstantiated. Too ridiculous, just delete this edit. José San Martin 20:02, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Not adding the POVed line about Chavez's unsubstantiated claims, but removing "an alleged 2004 paramilitary coup attempt" from this section because it's redundant to the "and rumors and allegations regarding foreign conspiracies" part of the sentence. -Silence 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • These programs were widely criticized by Chávez's opposition as corrupt and inefficient. Meanwhile, the Financial Times reported that the Venezuelan navy has become a major player in the Colombian drug trade, known as 'The Sun Cartel.'
  • Ironically, the state bureaucracy had been purged after the recall referendum through the use of a unique 'Tascon List' Tascon List - a blacklist of Venezuelan citizens who had legally used their new constitutional rights to sign the petition for the 2004 recall referendum. The net result of the list was that Venezuelan civil servants were fired from their jobs, denied employment, and denied services, such as the issuance of passports. Chavez in this regard succeeded well in punishing his political enemies but nevertheless, continued to blame the remainders of the loyal bureaucracy that were not purged.
  • Although unsuccessful in his attempts to renegotiate Very successful in breaking the signed contracts with the oil corporations and by fiat, delivering new terms to them, forcing the corporations to re-consider new investments and for many, to consider pulling out., Chávez also succeeded in improving both the fairness and efficiency of stepping up harassment from Venezuela's formerly lax tax collection and auditing system, especially for major foreign corporations and landholders.
  • Neither is 100% correct. Chavez has managed to slowly put more and more pressure making the companies agree to new terms. It is a matter of debate how one phrases such actions and how they are considered (technically a breach of contract or not).
  • I agree that both the version we have now and the version that is suggested are heavily POVed, in opposite directions. Any suggestions for a good compromise wording? -Silence 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Not sure how we could sort this one out. Perhaps mixing text from both opposing views we can get one sounding NPOV -though to make this sound NPOV may be difficult. --Anagnorisis 01:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • It also increased the presidential term of office from five to six years and introduced a presidential two-term limit, something that is expected to be changed as Chavez declares his intent to remain in office until at least 2020.
  • True that Chavez has said this many many times. I would keep something that mentions him saying he would stay until 2020. But would take out the reference to the changing of the consitution -if I remember well, it is a matter of how Chavez is interpreting what the law would allow him. --Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Judges would, under the new constitution, be installed after passing public examinations and not, as in the old manner, be appointed by the National Assembly. However, the Supreme Court was reassembled with independent jurists removed and expanded to include strictly Chavez loyalists.
  • All of Chávez's aims were, in one move, dramatically furthered, however, Venezuela now has become a one-party state with power concentrated in the hands of Chavez's MVR. Voters now have about as many electoral choices as Cuban citizens do, under Fidel Castro's regime.
  • By the end of the first three years of his presidency, Chávez's main policy concerns had successfully challenged the Venezuelan oligarchy's people's control over Venezuela's land, with a special targetting of Spanish immigrants' land, effectively rendering them 'Kulaks' as Stalin had achieved before him> He and
  • True about the Spanish (it would seem by the large number of them that complaining in the press) but it cannot be proven as government policy. Language is very biased so will not include it. Perhaps mention of the "Spanish" thing can go in one of the sub-articles. --Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • introduced reforms aimed at improving the social welfare of the population by lowering infant mortality rates, introducing land reform confiscations against dissidents and foreign immigrants,
  • Well, though it is happening and is true, the language is very biased. What is happening is that at times a large group of poor people would come and invade a property claiming it is not being well used and the government then supports the invaders. But the government often does not clain the land or properties for itself. A mention of this could be made but toning down the language. --Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • and implementing a cursory government-funded free healthcare system and education up to "university level", something that has produced no internationally recognized scholarship.
  • He ordered several investigations to be carried out, and their official results from these Chavez loyalists supported Chávez's assertions that the 2002 coup was U.S.-sponsored.
  • I already had an issue with this the way it was as it sounded to me very pro-Chavez. Problem is that the edit now makes it sound very anti-Chavez. Maybe solution would be to note that the investigations were conducted by Chavistas controlled institutions and thus would give credit to claims of being biased. --Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • and dismissing 18,000 PDVSA highly skilled employees.
  • Re-adding "skilled" to the article (as "18,000 skilled PDVSA employees"), though the addition seems a bit unnecessary and very slightly POVed... -Silence 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Later, allegations arose from anti-Chávez activists that Chávez had authorized the creation of blacklists to prevent the employment of strike participants. Since then, these workers, unable to get work, have moved on to places like Canada to develop their oil-sands industries, as a long expose in the Los Angeles Times on Nov. 25, 2005 showed.
  • A disputed Venezuelan court ruling declared the dismissal of these workers illegal and ordered the immediate return of the entire group to their former posts. Nevertheless, Chávez and his allies have repeatedly stated that the ruling will not be enforced and it never has been.
  • However, the opposition called the results fraudulent, claiming saying that the true results were the complete opposite of the reported ones, and showed documentation to prove it.
  • Changing to "However, the opposition called the results fraudulent, citing documents which indicated that the true results were the complete opposite of the reported ones." -Silence 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Economic growth picked up markedly, reaching double-digit growth in 2004 and a projected 8% growth rate for 2005, much of it spending on government projects. 7,000 small companies were driven out of business based on foreign-exchange controls, heightened regulation and bureaucratic harassment. Many of them had their assets confiscated.
  • Nothing really new on that. It has always been like this in Venezuela. Well, worse now, but saying that only makes the article sound biased. This could perhaps better go in one of the sub-articles.--Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • In late March 2005, the Chávez government passed a series of media regulations that criminalized broadcasted libel and slander "insults" directed against public officials;
  • Sort of, but the implications are very different. I say we should use whichever phrase is most directly said by Chavez and his people (in fact, ideally we'd use a direct Spanish quote and then translate it, to avoid any possibility of mischaracterization), so that we don't have to make a value judgment in this matter. -Silence 20:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
      • I am leaving here a couple links in English that you can check better. It seems the problem most people have is how vaguely defined things are. Even if an individual citizen class a station and says something that is considered an insult of a high government employee, the station is responsible.

[1] [2] Let me know if you would like a link to the text of the actual law (in Spanish). --Anagnorisis 00:38, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Chávez also worked to expand his land confiscation and redistribution and social welfare programs by authorizing and funding a multitude of new Bolivarian Missions
  • Actually not saying anything makes it sound pro-Chavez as land redistribution is too mild for what he does. In reality what they do is legal harassment that results in an almost forced negotiated settlement with the owner. It is a soft confiscation of sort. But not exactly what confiscation means. I would say something (not so mild as it was) but confiscation (though the end result) is not exactly what goes on (technically). --Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • What would you call it then, "land seizure"? Tell me if you think of a suitable term we can use to minimize this example of pro-Chavez whitewashing. -Silence 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • (just moved above what I had initially inserted here - wrong location). As to this point, I do not think that there is an easy way to say it with a couple of words. Perhaps "strong-arm" negotiation tactics? Actual 'land-seizures,' there have been very few. And these end up being challenged in court. So the government has been smart not to go head to head this way. Instead it harasses and makes life difficult by asking for all kind of bureacratic papers. What the government does is also more efficient. Harass the land-owner so that he is forced to negotiate. For instance, sometimes a horde of people would go and invade a property. Police and security forces would be soft and not force them out. Then government employees come to help by 'mediating' between the parties and listening to the poor fellas. While somewhere in the background (media) a high level government official starts to say all kind of nasty things. Of course the owner ends up negotiating under pressure. Better to give away a portion of his land than to go head to head with the government. At times security forces surround the property and do not allow anyone in or out. Of course, nothing has been seized ... but the owner can do nothing and is afraid of leaving the property for fear it will be invaded during his absence. Then Chavez goes and lands in helicopter sets up a tent and broadcast his Alo Presidente from the property (but outside the house of the owner). Then he goes and very amicably visits the owner at his house in the ranch and negotiates with him in friendly terms. After the owner having been in the news for 3 weeks every day with all kind of talk about his property about to be seized, he is reassured by the magnanimous president who negotiates the owner keeping X% of the property (and probably also is enticed due to being offered to be part of the new business the government is going to help develop in the other Y% of his property that 'now he is willingly' giving up). Chavez then goes on Tv saying that this new method of amicable negotiations between owner and government is the way to go forward. He called this the Chaaz method (Cha: Chavez Az:Azpurua -name of mentioned owner- first to negotiate this agreement). Other owners who in the meantime are being harassed by the government office in charge of overseeing land reform, and who are being asked to submit proof of their land titles going back 300 years and all other kind of things, then see not much choice when approached by government officials talking to them about being part of the Chaaz plan. Now, I am not so sure how effective this is to the actual poor people that get some land. IMO it is more about the media circus generated. Afterall, how many big land-owners are in Venezuela? A couple hundred? If the government really wanted to move forward, it would get in touch with all 200 and try to negotiate seriously with them, showing resolve and decission, but without the media circus. I really think it is more about "showing" they are doing something without actually doing that much all at once. I think this way the government does not run out of enemies fast: the revolution needs every month a new bad guy. Today is so and so from ranch X and tomorrow is somebody else from ranch Y.--Anagnorisis 01:42, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Meanwhile, Venezuela's doctors went on strike, protesting the siphoning of public funds from their existing institutions to these new Bolivarian ones, run by Castro's Cuban agents.
  • Re-added as "Meanwhile, Venezuela's doctors went on strike, protesting the siphoning of public funds from their existing institutions to these new Bolivarian ones, run by Cuban doctors." -Silence 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Chávez stated that the "neoliberal model" of development had utterly failed in improving the lives of Latin Americans, and that an alternative, non-capitalist anti-capitalist model would be conceived in order to increase trade and relations between Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil.
  • Chávez's Venezuela is thus increasingly purchasing arms from alternative sources, such as Brazil, Russia, China and Spain in a bid to intimidate neighboring Colombia.
  • At the same time, he granted inalienable titles to over 6,800 square kilometers of land traditionally inhabited by Amazonian indigenous peoples to their respective resident natives that nevertheless cannot be bought or sold as Western-style title deeds can, ending all possibility of turning them into capital for improvements.
  • I agree, it's an important distinction—but tone down the POV a little by removing the unnecessary "for improvements" from the end. -Silence 20:41, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Re-added as "—however, this land could not be bought or sold as Western-style title deeds can, making it impossible to turn them into capital.", and changed beginning of next sentence accordingly. -Silence 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Chávez also went on to warn of an imminent global energy famine brought about by hydrocarbon depletion (based on Hubbert peak theory), stating that "we are facing an unprecedented energy crisis.... Oil is starting to become exhausted" just as Venezuela's oil production began to slide sharply from lack of investment.
  • Chavez took the same opportunity to state that "the taste of victory" was apparent with regards to the promotion of his own trade alternative, the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA — Alternativa Bolivariana para América), which Venezuela and Cuba inaugurated on December 14, 2004. These declarations were not well supported by most media accounts.
  • Chávez took over the Venezuelan airwaves several times in the early afternoon in what is termed a cadena, where he breaks into all television stations, public and private, and monopolized the airwaves with hour-long speeches, similar to Fidel Castro's,
  • Actually, I think it is interesting to explain what a cadena is a most readers from outside Venezuela may not be familiar with this forced "break-in". So far the law allows him to do this only on free TV. He says he wants to modify regulations so that he can include cable-TV. I would of course keep out the castro comment. --Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Gunfire and violence erupted between several sides, with snipers reported from the Chavista quarters, including the two groups of demonstrators, Caracas's metropolitan police and the Venezuelan national guard.
  • So true an undeniable that could be kept. But instead of saying quarters, I would say the areas where Chavistas were concentrated. Chavistas now claim they could have been anti-Chavistas infiltrated among them who did it to later blame it on them. --Anagnorisis 18:53, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Changed to "Gunfire and violence erupted between two groups of demonstrators, Caracas's metropolitan police, and the Venezuelan national guard, and snipers were reported from the areas where Chavistas were concentrated. The police and the national guard were taken to have been under the control of opposition and officialist interests, respectively." -Silence 05:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Changing plain text to "what he calls...", etc.

  • of both what he calls Latin American integration (he means to forge an anti-U.S. alliance) and anti-imperialism,
  • That's an interesting claim, and such details and elaborations, properly cited, belong in their respective areas of this article, not in the lead. :) -Silence 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
    • I think something along those lines could go without the need to find a source. He has said things along those lines that is like Bush talking about the axis of evil. No debating saying he didn't say it. --Anagnorisis 06:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
    • What is this about Chavez being "anti-U.S."? Is Chavez "anti-U.S." in a manner similar to how Adolf Hitler was anti-Semitic? Does Chavez want to exterminate all people in the U.S.? Or perhaps does Chavez only oppose the financial interests of the tiny minority of Americans who are rich/elite, while repeatedly in his speaches demonstrating his love and support for the vast bulk of Americans (ordinary poor, working, and middle class) through his foreign aid and his repeated and documented professions of love and support for ordinary Americans? Is Chavez perhaps, with the above evidence, only anti-neoliberal and anti-imperialist and anti-Bush? People, let us please get our pathologically vague terminology straight and precise here. Saravask 06:48, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Actually not (to your second question). So in that sense you are right. He has always been careful of saying he is not against the US people. But he is very much against the current US government. So yes, he is basically anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and anti-Bush. But please Saravask, you are smart, please do not fall for his "his speaches demonstrating his love and support." He knows how to play the media game for his own benefit and how to atrack attention with those things. I have doubts about how honest his "good" acts are. But that is another subject --Anagnorisis 06:58, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • and his radical criticism of what he claims is neoliberal globalization
  • The "bitterly and aggressively" is clearly unnecessary. I'm also deeply confused by the "what he calls the Washington Consensus"—is this a term he'd made up? I know "neoliberalism" can be a loaded term at times (though this editor seems to go a bit overboard in removing it), but I was under the impression that everyone called "the Washington Consensus" that. Now I'm really lost. -Silence 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Much of Chávez's philosophy of "Bolivarianism", including its so-called anti-imperialist and socialist aspects
  • After school was dismissed, Chávez said he would peddle his grandmother's caramelized candies on the streets of Sabaneta.
  • What? Even if Chávez is the only source for his supposedly doing that, why on earth would he lie about something so trivial? In fact, the fact that it seems trivial to me (if it has some significance, please tell me, I apologize if I'm just looking stupid right now) is why I've been heavily considering just moving that tidbit to Early life of Hugo Chávez, as I've moved many other details from that section there. The only reason, in fact, that I haven't done it already, is because that note is footnoted, and I've have to go through and change every footnote from the same source (changing "b" to "a", "c" to "b", "d" to "c"...) if I wanted to remove the info and the footnote, and I'm a terribly lazy person. :3 -Silence 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • This doesn't make any sense to me. "Supposedly"? Either they're inspired or they're not. And how can a philosophy be "white"? I didn't realize that ideologies came in colors. -Silence 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
LOL. I guess maybe he meant to say "inspired supposedly by ...." --Anagnorisis 06:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • In working to gain the trust of voters, Chávez drafted an agenda that drew heavily on what he called Bolivarianism. Chávez thus campaigned on what he said was an anti-corruption and anti-poverty platform,
  • Totally unnecessary. We've already explained that he and his college/military buddies coined the term "Bolivarianism" above, and his platform really was to end corruption and poverty; political platforms rarely have anything to do with what the candidate actually ends up doing, but those empty promises are still just as much the platforms of the candidate in question. :) -Silence 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
Agree. --Anagnorisis 06:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
  • moving away from the government officially embracing a free market economy and what is vaguely called neoliberal reform principles
  • Yet despite these claimed attempts to seize power from the Chávez presidency
  • This seems accurate, from what the article currently says elsewhere; later in the article it mentions that Chávez has provided no evidence that any of these coups and invasions were actually planned. Just putting "claimed" may not be the best way to do it, but we should certainly make it clearer that these are just things Chávez has said have occurred, as our current phrasing makes it look like those things very likely did occur. -Silence 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • while the Cuban people were still suffering through what Castro called the Special Period, meaning, the collapse of communism due to its economic unsustainability.
  • Chávez stated claimed that such changes were necessary in order to successfully and comprehensively enact his planned 'social justice' programs.
  • This is more POVed than the original version. Using "quotation marks" and other grammatical (?) tactics to subtly discredit what some term 'ideas' is "discouraged" on so-called Wikipedia. -Silence 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • His administration had also claimed it had increased primary school enrollment by one million students.
  • If this is accurate, an NPOV way to state this might be "His administration had also reported increased primary school enrollment by one million students." Then we make it clear that the administration's the only source of this supposed statistic, but without using the POV "claimed" (which implicitly suggests that the claim is false). -Silence 06:24, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, the problem now in Venezuela is that many people are very skeptic even of official numbers given by the government. Just as an example of how bad are things now with official figures, recently in a newspaper was a piece of news about an official release from a government agency with the figures for crime for the previous (year or quarter - not sure now if it was for Caracas or the whole country) saying it had increased by X%. In the same page was a senior government employee talking about the progress in crime reduction saying that the previous period (same as the other article) crime had gone done by Y%. Yes, I think that it makes sense doing something along what Silence says. But not sure about it being the only source. It may be the only source with THAT number. Thus it may make sense to say that that is what the government says (or claim or states or whatever) it achieved. --Anagnorisis 06:11, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Well, let me answer with this: People are very skeptical about U.S. unemployment, economic growth, and productivity figures as well. Such figures as Noam Chomsky, Stan Goff, Michael Ruppert, and others have picked apart these figures as often inflated or doctored. Does that stop all the U.S. related pages from using these figures? Why should figures from the U.S. government be treated any differently from that afforded the Venezuelan government figures, especially noting that I know of no statistical *evidence* that Venezuelan government figures are doctored. Thus I say this, it may be true about your crime example in municipal Caracas, but until hard evidence is presented that casts doubt on the enrollment figures, I don't think we can but "claimed" in front of every Venezuelan government statistic and not do the same for U.S. Census data, U.S. government economic figures, etc. If evidence is presented that less than 1 million were enrolled, then I'd be more than happy to then put that into the article, as well as the word "claimed". Saravask 16:20, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
      • Do you remember the official figures regarding the economic of China's progress during the 60s and 70s? What about North Korea official numbers? It comes a point where for some cases, government figures start loosing all credibility. That is why the figures from different government are at times not treated equal. --Anagnorisis 23:23, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Removals of "alternative", additions of "leftist"

  • by fostering alternate leftist collectivist models of economic development
  • where he was first acknowledged by his peers for his fiery lectures and uniquely radical-leftist critiques of Venezuelan government and society.
  • During this period, Chávez placed much greater emphasis on alternative leftist economic development and international trade models, much of it in the form of extremely ambitious hemisphere-wide international aid agreements.
  • I actually kind of like these changes. "Alternative" is not only a bit too generic, but also, for me at least, has positive connotations of ingenuity, progress, and creative problem-solving. It brings to mind an underdog fighting for unpopular but valid new ways of thought. It's a very subtle POV, but I think it's there. For at least one of the above examples (nothing wrong with mentioning "alternative" once), as long as the "leftist" description is accurate, I'd support the change. -Silence 06:06, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Claims that Chavez is unpopular among the lower class

  • Same deal as per my comments below: the edit is not supported by empirical evidence. Meanwhile, the negation of the edit's claim (i.e., the lower classes have by and large not criticized Chavez) is empirically supported through the results of nine elections that Chavez supporters took in landslide victories (see below). Saravask 07:52, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • He has alienated Venezuela's lower, middle, and upper classes, who have reported widespread political repression and human rights violations under his rule.
  • I presume that when we refer to the lower class, we are referring to what the majority of them do or how they react. So for example, if Chavez "alienate[s] Venezuela's lower ... class", then I presume that user:Sandalistawatcher means to say that the majority of the lower class are repelled by Chavez, and that the majority of the lower class (which consitutes more than 80% of Venezuelan society) haved joined Sumate, are actively organizing against his re-election, etc. Under the empirically documented circumstances, this is a rather peculiar statement to make, considering that Chavez received 60% of the vote in last year's recall referendum. Saravask 07:52, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
    • What user:Sandalistawatcher says is true for most of the middle and upper classes (but a minority of people from the middle and upper class do support Chavez). Chavez popularity is greater among the lower class. But by the same token, he is not liked by all the poor. The thing is that the poor that like Chavez are much more passionate about liking him that those poor that do not like him are about disliking him. By the same token those in the upper classes that like him are more passionate about disliking him that those that like him are about showing it (am I making any sense?). Then the end result is that the ones that make noise about liking him are the poor while those that make noise about disliking him are the rich and middle class. Sounding elitist, some people say that the poor that dislike Chavez are the poor that are smart but as they are surrounded by other poor that like him, they keep quiet (I myself know of first hand accounts from poor people that dislike him and the trouble they endure in daily life in their dealings with Chavistas). --Anagnorisis 06:21, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Communism/socialism insertions

  • Chávez is known for his democratic socialist at a minimum, socialist governance, (he declared himself a Marxist-Leninist on a recent trip to Bangladesh),
The descriptors we should use in the most important part of the article (the lead) should reflect Chavez's most prominent traits, and not resort to vague phrases (explained below). For example, if Einstein took a trip to Bangladesh as well and happened to refer to himself as "an idiot", would we all then jump to replace the work "genius" with "idiot" in his article? Considering that Venezuela still follows a very capitalistic economic model, and Soviet-style bureaucratic central planning is not a large part of government intervention in the economy (rather, devolved and local planning and management are mostly manifest), we cannot refer to Chavez's policies as "communist" or "Marxist". Moreover, a quote from the article on Marxism-Leninism:

"Popular confusion abounds concerning the complex terminology describing the various schools of Marxist-derived thought. The appellation 'Marxist-Leninist' is often used by those not familiar with communist ideology in any detail (e.g. many newspapers and other media) as a synonym for any kind of Marxism."

Thus, the phrase "Marxist-Leninist" has devolved into a sort of conceptual Jurassic Park — that is to say, this abstraction has been emptied of whatever precise and unambiguous connections to well defined policies it once held. Instead, detractors and warring tribes of self-declared "Communists" and "Marxist-Leninists" have appropriated the term for their own ends, thus imbuing what was originally an abstract term meant to neatly bundle together related socioeconomic prerogatives with its own mechanism reality. Who has seen "Marxism-Leninism"? Who has seen "democratic socialism". These were both born as abstract terms to bundle together concrete ideologies. As per the above quote, average Wikipedia readers, if prompted to define "Marxism-Leninism", would probably balk and sputter vague notions they have been programmed with since birth. Such polemic and loaded terms not tied to an unambiguous list of policies and positions should thus not be used. Saravask 06:50, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Agreed. Redundant. Probably anti-Chavez folks prefer "Communist" because Western media (IMHO) have done an excellent job of emptying the term of precise and factual (in reference to demonstrably coherent policy objectives) descriptions and have instead loaded it with vague ideological platitudes and stereotypes (presumably via some noospheric analogue of Hebbian learning). In essence, the word "Communism" has become the subject of our Western society's "Two Minutes Hate" (as per Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four) — an ingeniously vague totem of an equally vague enemy is presented before people, so that they may mindlessly denounce the totem (even while most cannot even precisely define what they are denouncing). This same thing has not been done to the term "socialism" to nearly the same extent, and so it is relatively free (again, IMO) from the subjective and POV connotations. Saravask 06:58, 27 November 2005 (UTC)
  • Not far off the mark. The Bolivarian Missions et al are socialist — democratic socialist to be true to the context of their emergence. Again, as per above, where is the Soviet-style command economy in Venezuela? Where is the all-out class war? The definition from the Wikipedia article on Communism:

"Communism refers to a theoretical system of social organization and a political movement based on common ownership of the means of production. As a political movement, communism seeks to establish a classless society."

Where is the "common ownership" and the successful drive towards a "classless" society in Venezuela, one of the most class-riven, capitalistic, and polarized societies on Earth? Where is Chavez's decree outlawing private businesses or property? That would be Communism. What he is doing now is socialism. Surely, Chavez does want a less class-striken society. The definition of democratic socialism:

"Democratic socialism is a broad political movement propagating the ideals of socialism within the context of a democratic system. In many cases, its adherents promote the ideal of socialism as an evolutionary process resulting from legislation enacted by a parliamentary democracy. Other democratic socialists favor a revolutionary approach that seeks to establish socialism by creating a non-parliamentary democratic system, usually based on democracy rooted at the local level as well as at the national level, including broadbased popular associations such as workers' councils, community groups, and other similar organizations."

Wouldn't you say this is a far more apt and precise description for Chavez? I hope that this seals the debate. Saravask 07:21, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Impressively informative and clear rebuttal! I have a newfound respect for you after the above clarifications in response to the "communism" insertions. Talking to you teaches me even more about these issues than reading the actual article does :) (and I learned a lot from reading through the Chavez article in detail) Now all that's left is the lengthy and complicated process of sorting out the good from the bad in the two "edits and changes" sections... Some of the changes look good (if we word them more neutrally), but most will probably need sourcing if they're too be included... -Silence 07:42, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Whew! Done! Now, let's specifically analyze which to re-insert into the article as they are, which to leave out entirely, and which to alter so that they can be re-inserted. If the original poster of any of these claims is still around and interested in making sure as much of this is put back in the article, he should provide support and citations for many of these claims, since it's not so much a problem that they're necessarily untrue as that they're uncited that would prevent many from being added. -Silence 05:16, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

  • Mmm. I'm in heaven right now. Line-by-line, in-depth, clearly-thought-out analysis of honest and significant factual and terminological disputes is my idea of paradise. If only more of Wikipedia's editing disputes were handled in such a thorough and efficient way! Who needs sleep? Not I! -Silence 07:42, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

General comment on this last part. First, I disagree strongly with one of you above saying "one of the most class-riven, capitalistic, and polarized societies on Earth?" Venezuelan society lately (a few decades at least - as far as what I have seen given my age) has not been that class-riven and capitalistic. Certainly not class-riven. As to capitalistic it is a matter of apreciation; basically depends against what other country you compare it. Private sector has never been as big as it could have been due to the state always interfering a lot in everything. Venezuela has had a badly managed soft-capitalist system which you could also call a badly managed soft-socialism. As to polarized .... that has started to happen now only as a result of Chavez inflamatory discourse. However, on the matter of trying to define Chavez, he has always been careful of not defining himself very well publicly; at least not using clear cut 'labels'. While he cites Che Guevara, he raises a cross in his hand. At one time or another he has said that he is not this and that he is not that. And when he says he is something, he is most of the time making up a new concept or using words in new contexts. Only thing that is clear is that he is anti-capitalist. What he is saying lately is that his philosophy is a new one: what he calls now the '21st century socialism.' Now, what does Chavez style resembles most? Well I know he himself would hate this if he were to hear it, but his government style in a sense is IMO very similar to that of Carlos Andres Perez during his first presidency -with the exception of the vulgar and 'bald' language he uses. He has said that being rich is a bad thing and pushes a lot for heavyly-socialist work systems; people associating themselves and having communal ownership of things. In a sense also similar of the beginnings of Castro's government in Cuba -remember that there they became more and more communist as time passed. They started light and moved deeper into it. Now, after all this mumo jumbo, I am not sure if I have said anything that would help you guys with the edits. But ... that is how I see it. Cheers. --Anagnorisis 06:43, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Anagnorisis, it is generally accepted fact among academics (such as developmental economists) that South America is the most polarized and inequitable continent on Earth. You ask for statistical evidence of this? Well, let's see. Let's look at the Gini coefficient, generally accepted as the most telling empirical indicator of social and class inequality. Let's see, how does Venezuela rank out of around 200 nations? Venezuela ranks 20th]. Yes, in the top 20, or the top 10%, right after such wonderfully stable and equitable societies as Nigeria, Mali, Niger, and Zimbabwe. So yes, Anagnorisis, Venezuela is most certainly a class-riven society.

And by the way, that CIA data determining Venezuela's extremely high Gini index (which again measures income inequality) was taken in 1998, before Chavez came to power. Check it out here for yourself. Salu2. Saravask 16:36, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

And is inequality the same as "class-riven"? Hmmmm ... not so sure. Or maybe I have been wrong all along in my understanding of the term. I thought that what you talk about and class-riven were different things. I thought "riven" had a more conflictive meaning, like "torn to pieces" or "teared apart." And if I am right in the meaning (having travelled around the world, and lived in 4 continents) no statistic is going to convince me over what I have seen on the ground and know already: which is that venzuelan society is one of the most teared apart by class diferences. There may be class diferences, but the diferent classes all got along very well. Unlike many many many other countries which fare far worse in that department. But of course, I may have been awrong all along regarding the meaning of the term, and you could be right. --Anagnorisis 23:35, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I guess so. It is theoretically possible for a nation or society to have an inequal family income distrubrution (like Venezuela, with a small wealthy elite and an overwhelming (80%) low-income majority, AND for that society to be perfectly peaceable. Again, your impeccable logic beat me out. But, we must remember the Caracazos, the left-wing guerilla movements in Venezuela during the 60s and 70s, as well as all the hordes of security guards stationed everywhere in Caracas. If Venezuela is not "class-riven", then why all these reactions to class privilege? These are NOT normal conditions in which humans live (i.e., China, India, Europe, Japan, North America (which together represent most of humanity) do not face these conditions. And again, another empirically demonstrated fact: the more inequal the income distribution in a given country (such as in highly class unequal Venezuela, as per its ~50 gini coefficient), the more likely that country suffers war, class conflict, mass crime, rebellion, coups, insurrections, and guerilla attacks. These are social pathologies that have blighted Venezuela long before Chavez. Yet they do not afflict Norway, Sweden, Japan, New Zealand, Cuba, etc. Cuba is an interesting example in and of itself: very low crime, no war, no hordes of security guards needed in Havana to protect every single building, luxury car, and elite subdivision. No walls or chains or fences or electronically monitored gating systems needed to protect certain neighborhoods. Why is the situation so different in Cuba vs. Venezuela? Income inequality. The Gini coefficient for Cuba is much lower. Thus, Cuba is not as "class-riven" (due to much less class-based (or class on class) crime and war and social pathology).
But, please, I never inserted the phrase "class riven" anywhere in the text. I am OK with you putting in as many of the changes above that you agree with directly, and we can discuss them with more of the same wonderfully calm rationality later (I am being sincere here), after your reinsertions. That's to say, please reinsert whatever you want that is reasonable. Thanks Saravask 00:00, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, I remember the Caracazo. But that can be seen as an isolated incident. Guerrillas from the 60s? And what about the liberation army Patty Hearst joined in the 70s in California? And the Branch Davidians in Wacko? By the same token I could argue that the USA is far worse. Remember the LA riots? And also those in many other places in the USA (Seattle during some summit there) etc. However nobody would say the USA is more unequal than Venezuela -but certainly there is a lot more friction among its communities. Anyway, we are digressing. This was a point of disagreement about things argued here in general and not the article itself. So, I think we are fine. As to making edits, I prefer only to do the small and easy ones. You and Silence are doing such a good job that I happy giving you input here. Cheers.--Anagnorisis 01:13, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Hugo Chávez is the current President of Venezuela, known for his democratic socialist governance, his anti-imperialism, and his radical criticism of neoliberal globalization and United States foreign policy. A career military officer, Chávez gained popularity following a failed 1992 coup d'état and was elected President in 1998 on promises of aiding Venezuela's poor majority. As President, Chávez has inaugurated massive Bolivarian Missions to combat disease, illiteracy, malnutrition, poverty and other social ills. Abroad, Chávez has acted against the Washington Consensus by advocating alternative models of economic development and fostering cooperation amongst the world's poor nations, especially those of Latin America. However, Venezuela's middle and upper classes have severely criticized Chávez, accusing him of repression and electoral fraud, and he has survived both a 2002 coup and a 2004 recall referendum. Chávez remains one of the most complex, controversial and high-profile figures in modern politics.

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You know, really, Image:Chavez-WSF2005.jpg would be a fantastic main-page image if someone just upped the contrast in Photoshop or something. Or at least we could try that to see if that would make it look better for this article, anyway. Can anyone do that? And, heck, for that matter, what's wrong with using the full-sized image Image:Chavez Tachira.jpg? It seems like the best of all the close-up images of Chavez we have, doesn't it? Only issue is that it's not on the main page, and if it's acceptable to add to Hugo Chavez, we could certainly do that.... -Silence 16:28, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do with it right now. Saravask 16:47, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
left|100px|Hugo Chávez (2005)How's this? We can change the one in the main article to this version as well, so that Raul654 won't object. Let me know if contrast needs to be upped further. Saravask 16:55, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

It would appear like this:

Hugo Chavez (January 2005)
Hugo Chavez (January 2005)

Hugo Chávez is the current President of Venezuela, known worldwide for his democratic socialist governance, his anti-imperialism, and his radical criticism of neoliberal globalization and United States foreign policy. A career military officer, Chávez gained popularity following a failed 1992 coup d'état and was elected President in 1998 on promises of aiding Venezuela's poor majority. As President, Chávez has inaugurated massive Bolivarian Missions to combat disease, illiteracy, malnutrition, poverty and other social ills. Abroad, Chávez has acted against the Washington Consensus by advocating alternative models of economic development and fostering cooperation amongst the world's poor nations, especially those of Latin America. However, Venezuela's middle and upper classes have severely criticized Chávez, accusing him of repression and electoral fraud, and he has survived both a 2002 coup and a 2004 recall referendum. Chávez remains one of the most complex, controversial and high-profile figures in modern politics.

Recently featured: Mandan – Waterfall Gully – Michel Foucault

Saravask 17:14, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

In this site belonging to a government entity is a pic of Chavez when he surrendered on Feb. 4. This could be an interesting pic for the article -for a change from so many similar pics: [3] There is even a link there to hear what he actually said when surrendering (that could be an interesting link to have at the bottom of the article. Anagnorisis 06:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Comment & Question

  • Comment: I was reading one of the sub-articles and perhaps it is time that once we are done with this after the FA date, some of us spend some time correcting in those some of the same type of early mistakes that were present here early on -like the undue relevance some things are given in the articles when compared to the local reality. Any of you guys candidate for continuing doing some work on those?
  • Question: Do you still want more of that random information I have supplied at times? Or it is a bit later and perhaps better not start including new material so close to FA date? Please let me know; I could go fish for some more. Anagnorisis 04:22, 29 November 2005 (UTC)
Yes, it its time to clean them up of their whitewashing, undue focus, and POV. Yes, we could always use more info. I'm putting your's into the "early life" article right now. We could also always make the "Early life of Hugo Chavez" article into an FA, and make it appear on the main page so that Anagnorisis's work is displayed. Thanks. Saravask 11:18, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

Interesting quote

I think this is an interesting thing to show ir regard to what Chavez says of his petro-diplomacy -perhaps in the foreign policy section: Chavez told the Argentine newspaper Clarin last month that Venezuela has "a strong oil card to play on the geopolitical stage" He said, "It is a card that we are going to play with toughness against the toughest country in the world, the United States." It comes from the Washington Post. Here is the source [4]

I converted the source to ref/note format. Saravask 11:15, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

More random info

Early life? Or perhaps good for the 1992 coup sub-article (we do have such a subarticle, right?). I am not sure some of this info below could perhaps going into the "early life" sub-article. Some of it maybe, but other may be too specific to the military coup attempt of 1992. Perhaps we can use some of it in that sub-article. the info is from the same Marcano book I have mentioned before.

  • By 1986 - 1987 it was clear that Chavez and Francisco Arias were the leaders of subversive organization they had formed earlier: Bolivarian Revolutionary Army - 200. It was already then that they decided to go ahead with a coup attempt half way through the next government (regardless of who would win the elections). The reason they said was because mid-term governments were at the lowest popularity level. Page 98.
  • Leaders of extreme left party Causa R, like Pablo Median, started meeting regularly with Chavez from 1985. Page 98.
  • Medina says in their meeting Chavez was a person who was always jovial, but spoke little. He didn't have his own opinions. he was like a sponge absorving information. He always asked for a copy of all documensts that were shown. Page 99
  • In 1987 Chavez now with the rank of mayor is sent to work as an aide to Miraflores Palace (the building where the president's and his staff offices are). Page 99.
  • In 1989 during the Caracas riots, one of the four officers that founded the Bolivarian Army movement died. As Chavez was sick at the time, he didn't participate in helping put down the riots. Page 100
  • Chavez didn't participate in an strange episode of what appeared to be at the time a timid attempt at rebelion: in late 1988 while president Lusinche was travelling a group of tanks without aithroization surrounded the Ministry of the Interior and for a while didn't allow the Minister (who at the time had some of the duties today assigned to the vicepresident) to get out. The situation was resolved with some calls, but there was never a throrough investigation. page 101.
  • By late 1989 the Bolivarian Army changes its name to Movimiento Bolivariano Revolucionario, the word "movement" replacing "army" to show that civilians had joined the group. Page 101.
  • In december 6 1989 Chavez is detained in Miraflores and taken away. All the officers involved in the movement are also detained, with the exception of Francisco Arias, under suspicion of conspiring. They were too many officers and most were among the best in their respective classes. That added to lack of proofs resulted in not one being charged formally. 101-102
  • Douglas Bravo an former guerrilla fighter from the 60s and 70s meet Chavez for many years without the knowledge of the other officers. Bravo says that Chavez didn't trust civilians and for this reason what was to be a civilian and military rebelion, ended up becoming only a military one when Chavez left them cold and out of their plans a few days before Feb. 4 1992. Pages 104-105
  • In 1991 Chavez is made promoted to the rank of commander and the coup attempt plan is activated under the name Plan Zamora (after Venezuelan XIX century general Ezequiel Zamora). However he feels insulted when he is given a desk job in the small city of Cumana. Luck is on his side when another commander in charge of a paratroopers batallion in the city of Maracay (near Caracas) leaves the army and Chavez is sent to replace him. This takes place despite a detailed report about Chavez subversive activities -strangely enough, the mayor who wrote the report on Chavez was ordered to undergo psychiatric examination. page 105
  • All along the years they have been ploting, the officers have never discussed what would really be done once they are in power in terms of forming a new government. So far they have only been concerned about how to overthrow the elected government. It is only towards the very end of 1991 that they decide to start thinking about the legal framework ko their government. Page 106.
  • Several dates are considered for the coup attempt in december 1991. Some captains wanted to go ahead as soon as possible and threatened to go ahead on their own without the higher ranked commanders. Chavez told many nothing would be done without him. They would have to wait. page 107.
  • Towards the end of January 1992 Chavez knows there is not much time left. The coup has to take place before Feb. 15 as he knows afterwards he wont be able to participate as he is to be transferred to a small town near the Colombian border. They all meet in Caracas one last time and decide to be alert for Perez return from his trip to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. Page 109.
  • Perez arrived to Caracas very late on Feb 3 and went to bed. At the same time Chavez was leaving the city of Maracay with a group of just over 460 soldiers and officers in rented buses. The drivers and the 440 enlisted men had been told they were going to conduct some exercises in the state of Cojedes. The soldiers have no idea that soon the officers are going to ask of them to risk their lives on a rebelion they know nothing about. A few minutes after leaving the city Chavez orders the drivers to go to Caracas instead. When the drivers and others protest, he lies to them telling them that there has been a change of orders. That there are riots in the capital and they have been asked to go there to help quiet things down. Pages 112-113.
  • Perez is waken up just before midnight with news of a rebelion starting in several military bases. He decides to get up and go to Miraflores. A few minutes later Chavez and a few men arrive to the Military History Museum near Miraflores. Surprise is of the essence for the plan to succeed. However it is Chavez who is surprised when upon arrival he and the first 5 men going with him are greeted with automatic gun fire. He then tells the soldiers guarding the museum that they have arrived to reinforce them. He convinces them. page 114-115.
  • In the meantime the fight goes on in other places. In the presidential residence Perez's wife joins her security detail to fire back at the rebels. At Miraflores armed vehicles are trying to break down the entrance door. Perez then escapes in a single car with a few other people and decides to go to a TV station. Page 115.
  • Chavez and the other comanders in the coup are expecting that anytime soon their comrades sent to take over the government's TV station will be broadcasting the message they have recorded in a VHS tape. However, although the station has been taken over, Chavez men do not know how to air the message. Furthermore, they are told that the format of the tape is not compatible with the station equipment. They take they explanation at face value. But then to the surprise of the rebels, perez comes to the air from the studios of the private TV station he went to. It is know the loyal soldiers at the museum realize the have been tricked by Chavez, who by chance at this very moment gets reinforced and then ask the soldiers at the museum to surrender their weapons or they would be killed right there. page 116-117.
  • By 1.15am, Arias controls Maracaibo and had arrested the governor of Zulia. Other commanders are doing well in Valencia and Maracay. Another has taken over the small air force base in Caracas and taken prisoner the head of the air force. Only Chavez men have not achieved their objectives. Everywhere else things are going according to plan. 118.
  • In the meantime Perez gets support from other heads of state. Castro sends a warm telegram to Perez telling him of his concerns. Chavez mother doesn't have a clue about his son involvement in the coup. By 4am Chaves starts to feel lost. Tha assult on Miraflores failed. Chavez said at the time he felt like a "tiger in a cage, not knowing how to lead and how to tackle the situation." page 118-119.
  • By early morning Perez contemplated bombing the museum but decided against it. Instead he sends loyal officers to ask Chavez to surrender. They arrive at the museum at 7:45 am and talk to Chavez who asks for guarantees on his life. Chavez surrenders and is escorted to the offices of the Defense Ministry. page 121-122.
  • When Chavez surrenders, his comrade commanders are holding control of their positions in Maracaibo, Valencia, Maracay and the air force quarters and its airport base in the center of Caracas. By now the high command knows exactly how many people have participated in the coup: 5 lieutenant colonels, 14 mayors, 54 captains, 67 lieutenants, 65 sub-officers, 101 sargeants and 2.056 enlisted soldiers. In total 2,367 military personnel from 10 different army batallions. Still the country doesn't know who led the coup. Soon Chavez unwillingly and unkowingly would score a great publicity stunt. page 123-124
  • In order to speed up the surrender of the other rebel commanders, the high command decides to put Chavez on live TV. Contrary to Perez instructions who said to tape his announcements and edit it, they decide to go live for the sake of speed. It is then (10:30am) that Chavez comes on live TV saying that "for now" they have not achieved their goals and ask his comrades to surrender.
  • All the other commanders are furious at Chavez. But slowly they all surrender. The last one is Arias in Maracaibo -later he became elected governor of Zulia state, where Maracaibo (second largest city) is. All of Chavez comrades had achieved success. All except Chavez. Ironically, being the one to fail is what would put him on live TV and made him a famous and known figure. He becomes the face behind the rebellion. He is the face that says the country needs to change. page 127.
  • Later, Chavez has tried contrary to all other reports by government, the media and the others commanders involved, to try changing the sequence of events, claiming that when he surrendered others had done it already. All reports -with the exception of Chavez own account- state that nobody else had surrendered before Chavez out on TV.
  • The coup senior officers spent 17 days in isolation in the headquearters of the Directorate of Military Inteligence. While they could not talk to each other, except a sentence or two when they were moved around, all the others had negative comments toward Chavez and looked down on him not understanding how he had failed so badly. Commander Urdaneta -the last one to surrender- told Chavez in a very ironic tone that it was great how fast he had surrendered. To this Chavez replied "I felt lonely" and Urdaneta then said "I also was alone with my men. You had your batallion and your officers. What is it you wanted?" And Chavez answered "well, I felt lonely." Later in prison one day Arias asked him "Hugo, what happened to you?" and he said "Fuck, I was left alone, without being able to communicate ... I missed you." pages 128 - 129.
  • Chavez mentor during his childhood and adolescence (Jose Ruiz), the man in which residence Chavez read all the books about communism and socialism thinks that Feb 4. was a total disaster. He didn't went to visit him while in prison and instead sent him a message: "I told him I was not going to visit him because I was not going to forgive him, that after having arrived to Miraflores and having power at his hands, he took off. He should had gone in all the way, even if that killed him." page 129-130.
  • Ok, that is it for now. More will follow later. Let me know if you want more details on something -like a full name (I know in some cases I only gave last names). Anagnorisis 03:40, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
We have a 1992 coup article at Venezuelan coup attempt of 1992 that could use a lot of expansion, yes. -Silence 03:52, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
Thanks, Anagnorisis. I'll put these in now. Saravask 05:09, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

На правое дело он поднял народы

На труд и на подвиги нас вдохновил!

Totally. --Descendall 21:36, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

Sources for additions???

It is interesting. A while back, Anagnorisis was pushing for two additions:

  1. That Chavez's father admired Rafael Caldera, and thus his middle name "Rafael"
  2. That there are exactly 75 people in Chavez's graduating class.

I want to know *exactly* where these came from, and *what their sources are* to corroborate these. The objector has picked up on these two things, oddly enough, as currently unsourced. If no sources are provided, I will need to delete these. Thanks. ← SARAVASK — 14:44, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Just move them to the Talk page until a source is found for 'em. They're not vital details, and it's easy to re-add them anytime, easier than re-nominating for FAC. -Silence 16:05, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
    • Such well known facts .... sources are plenty. Just to mention one, the Marcano book. By the way, what could be the big deal with his class? Does this guy want more info? Like how many guys started and how many ended up graduating? The 75 figure is based on those that graduated. If he wants the figure of those who started, let me know. Bollocks! As to being and admirer of Caldera, the father went much further than just liking the guy, he even registered member in the party and got close enough that even got a sweet job in a Copei government just for being a simpatizer (ok, maybe not fair to say "just" for that ... but certainly helped). Obviously the guy doesn't know much details, or else he would be asking for more interesting info. Those are well known facts -at least here. Let me know what details you need *exactly* --Anagnorisis 23:47, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

On Foreign Policy

Last week in Venezuela (in the city of Puntofijo, Falcón State to be more accurate) an agreement was reached between Hugo Chávez and colombian president, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, for the construction of a binational gas pipeline (the cost will be around three hundred million dollars paid wholly with venezuelan resources), with which Venezuela will provide gas to Colombia in a very favorable deal for Colombia; it's apparently an attempt by Chavéz to "help a brother country". Maybe you'll like to include this on the "Foreing Policy" section of the article.Rosameliamartinez 04:01, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

True. But besides the recency effect, I do not think it is that relevant. There are always all kind of agreements with other countries. From a diplomatic standpoint, more interesting to mention could be the delegation of US congresmen that a few days ago after landing at the airport, going on an official visit to meet even Chavez, were not let out of the plane -which was in the tarmac for about 2 hours- after which time the occupants got tired and bored and left. --Anagnorisis 16:19, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

On Foreign Policy

Last week in Venezuela (in the city of Puntofijo, Falcón State to be more accurate) an agreement was reached between Hugo Chávez and colombian president, Álvaro Uribe Vélez, for the construction of a binational gas pipeline (the cost will be around three hundred million dollars paid wholly with venezuelan resources), with which Venezuela will provide gas to Colombia in a very favorable deal for Colombia; it's apparently an attempt by Chavéz to "help a brother country". Maybe you'll like to include this on the "Foreing Policy" section of the article.Rosameliamartinez 04:01, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

You can find more information about this here:

http://eltiempo.terra.com.co/economia/2005-11-25/ARTICULO-WEB-_NOTA_INTERIOR-2626010.html

It's in spanish though...Rosameliamartinez 04:07, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Criticism leveled is not well documented

I understand it may be hard to find sources in english, and that a NPOV is desired, but I fear that the zero sum game of pointing out one detraction for every claim creates a lot of imprecision. To compound it some of the accusations themselves are not well documented and the sources are non NPOV weblogs with little evidence therein. I understand accusations from politicians to be more valid (even if unsubstantiated) however a ranking of relevance is also needed (eg a deputy mayor accusing him of genocide should not be added).

For example:

The claim of political prisoners, included in the list are individuals that are not being held for the classical definition of political crimes, such as Carlos Ortega he is being held for eluding arrest and having forged documents. Just because they are politicians and they are in prison does not make them political prisoners.

Another "However, the opposition called the results fraudulent, citing documents which indicated that the true results were the complete opposite of the reported ones."

This was an early version of the fraud theory that circulated inmediately after the referendum in order to rationalize defeat to the constituents and themselves, it was very knee jerkish in nature and under close scrutiny it fell apart, a good way to disprove it is looking at district tallies if it was the "complete oposite" (ie if every SI counted as a NO and viceversa) it would imply that opposition strongholds should have voted for Chavez, the results from Baruta (one such district) show that the SI won by 80% http://www.cne.gov.ve/referendum_presidencial2004/ Today the main accusation of fraud is more arcane and thought out, should the list of accusations be added to add context? or are they not on trial ;-)

The 25% reduction of GDP per capita is also not well referenced (even if it is the CIA factbook) not to mention catastrophic if true, the gross number is not accurate but the percentage growth is if memory serves me, perhaps the figure can be extrapolated if needed.

GDP 1998 $194.5 billion -1% 1999 $182.8 billion -7.2% (first year) 2000 $146.2 billion +3.2% 2001 $146.2 billion +2.7% 2002 $132.8 billion -8.9% 2003 $117.9 billion -9.2% 2004 $145.2 billion +16.8% 2005 Expected 9% growth

http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/1999/306.htm#econ http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/2000/ve.html#Econ http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/2001/ http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/2002/ve.html http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/2003/ve.html http://www.geoplace.com/hottopics/CIAwfb/factbook/geos/ve.html http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ve.html#Econ http://yahoo.reuters.com/financeQuoteCompanyNewsArticle.jhtml?duid=mtfh31049_2005-11-18_00-49-41_n17702015_newsml

PS Sorry if badly formated SuperFlanker 04:31, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

  • Yes, thank you. No, there's no problem with the formatting. Well, for your concern about having the initial opposition fraud claim in the article, yes indeed it is suspect as per numerous Carter Center documents and studies linked in the "Notes" section. But nevertheless, that claim was made. We are not concerned with its factual accuracy as long as it is tagged as a claim. For example, if Bush were to begin to go on national television every night for two weeks and flatly claim that "the Earth is flat", why then news outlets would still report that because of the political weight and notability of the claimant. Again, whether or not Bush's claims are true would not determine whether the claims are covered. We cannot deny that the fraud claim took place, so at least that is a fact, and it must be reported here ...
  • As for your figures, you must realize one thing about percentages: if there was a 50% contraction in a nation's economy in a given year, then how much growth would it take in the subsequent year to return to previous levels of (nominal) economic output. Most people would naively claim 50% growth is needed. They are wrong; it would take 100% growth. So if lay people saw 50% contraction one year followed by 100% expansion the next, they would likely by left with he impression that that economy on average boomed over those two years, whereas the reality is that the economy just stood still (it likely even lost ground due to inflation). I suspect a similar phenomenon is at work in your figures. ← SARAVASK — 05:58, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
I understand the fact that a claim is more than enough, however not every claim should be added for some attempt at NPOV, with the example of GWB Michael Moore called him a ficticious president, but we might both agree that it should not be added as one of the 2000 election criticisms. Again that claim of fraud was uncermoniously dropped because it was knee jerkish, wikipedia should not be a sponge at the very least the updated theory should replace it.
As for GDP figures I knew that the formating was wacked, if you pay close attention the GDP dropped almost 30% from 1999-2000 despite showing on the links that it grew by 3%. Those figures are not accurate. and they all come from the factbook.SuperFlanker 11:41, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
    • The -25% Per capita GDP has to be removed ""Although recent economic activity under Chávez has been robust under these programs,[40][41] per-capita GDP in 2004 has dropped over 25% from 1998 levels.[42][43] However, as of September 2005, there have also been significant drops since 1999 in unemployment[44] and what the government historically defines as poverty[45], and there have been marked improvements in national health indicators between 1998 and 2005.[46][47]"" This whole quote looks out of place in the Misiones section, even if factual the misiones have nothing to do with GDP or unemployment.
    • ""They also point to the over 25% drop in Venezuela's per-capita GDP under Chávez. Others cite his demagoguery and personality cult as pathways to achieving power and adulation."" SuperFlanker 00:40, 2 December 2005 (UTC)


And why is it that it should be removed? You do not give any reason why you think that. You just state it has to be removed. It would be insteresting to know why you think that. but anyway, if we use Chavez's government own numbers (trying to help him here) the data from late 1998 to early 2004 shows a reduction over all that period of 15%. Anyone needs a source? :-) Anagnorisis 00:51, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
Read the first post the CIA factbook data is wrong and self-contradicting (1999 $182.8 billion -7.2% 2000 $146.2 billion +3.2%), if you can find goverment figures that might be helpfull BCV figures might be official.SuperFlanker 01:34, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • I have a table (from the Marcano book) with several government figures. Problem is the table has three different sources (not all data in the column year comes from the same source as there are different categories). Anyway, the sources are: Instituto Nacional de Estadistica (INE), Ministry of Finance and Banco Central de Venezuela. All those sources would seem very pro-Chavez. Having said this, for GDP the figures are: 1999 -6%, 2000 +3.7%, 2001 +3.4%, 2002 -8.9%, 2003 -7.6%. All those 5 combined give a figure over the whole period of -15.1%. In any economy (official figures or not) declines of 6, 9 and 8% would be considered dramatic. --Anagnorisis 02:08, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Yes those figures do look solid, however and they are similar to what the CIA factbooks says however the GDP numer itself is suspect (ie from 182.8 to 146.2 in one year alone, despite official 3% growth) GDP per capita is therefore calculated from the gross, growth for 2004-2005 was +17% and from 2005 till Sep 2005 it is officially 9% expected to finish the year around 9-10% (check the links).SuperFlanker 02:28, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Why did you revert the changes? I already outlined how that the data is not only wrong, implausible but self-contradictory in the same factbook. How can such a figure be included if it cannot be defended in the talk page logically?SuperFlanker 02:15, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
Your edit made it more misleading the other way around. I haven't looked in detail what Saravask was saying (in terms of the figures). -25% or -15%, it is still down. If you disagree with his exact figures, I suggest you change the numbers. But your change turned it around making, it sound as something positive. --Anagnorisis 05:52, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
I removed it because it was not factual and that should be enough, it was not positive because I also removed the unemployment achievement because neither have anything to do with the Misiones. If a figure is essential for whatever reason then I extrapolated using your figures and new numbers (2004,2005) from the BCV the Venezuelan economy grew 8.3% from jan1999 till Dec 2005. Meanwhile the population grew over that same time period by 9.3%. I don't think a -1% drop in GDP per capita is that relevant but to each his ownSuperFlanker 06:50, 3 December 2005 (UTC)
There I changed it to 1%, although it looks more petty that way IMHO.SuperFlanker 03:19, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
This is turning into a joke, Saravask is not even debating it here and is still proping up self-contradicting numbers. What ever happened to intellectual honesty to at least debate it? Those numbers are wrong and I am starting to question the NPOV of this assertion.SuperFlanker 20:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
They are NOT self-contradictory. It is NOT self-contradictory for GDP to drop one year and rise the next. Please stop this. Either provide authoritative evidence or else accept the figures. Saravask 21:21, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I gave the evidence already... Here is the 2000 version of the factbook http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/2000/ve.html#Econ In it GDP is 182 Billion, on the 2001 version of the factbook http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/2001/ GDP is 146.2 Billion (a 25% drop) despite it claiming on the same 2001 version of the factbook that GDP grew by 3 %. I still think it must be dropped until that claim is proven, which BTW it is the first time I have heard of it specifically.SuperFlanker 21:41, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm going to look further into the figures right now. By the way, the idea of inserting that GDP drop was given by User:TDC a long while ago. Thanks. Saravask 21:47, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

File:Vengdp.gif Here is a graph of Venezuela's GDP, which I took from here. Saravask 21:54, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

What are you a mod? ;) The 25% drop in GDP per capita was just superficial and I assume original research, that graph looks at semester GDP growth (with relation to the previous year's semester) which is harder to decipher (ie March 2003 was a serious drop, and that is why March 2004 was so high).SuperFlanker 22:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
We're playing a game of chess, and you've just checkmated me. I can't find any sources or graphs for the 1998-2005 GDP series other than the CIA World Factbook data (which SuperFlanker has just shown is self-contradictory). Does anyone else have this data (with a good source)? Thank you. Saravask 22:43, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Boys, boys, c'mon, it is so easy to find data:

  • 1996 -0.2%
  • 1997 6.4%
  • 1998 0.2%
  • 1999 -6.1% (0.1% difference with official figures already mentioned above)
  • 2000 3.2% (this one is different by 0.5% when compared to the same source mentioned above but 3.2 or 3.7 ... close enough)

All the other numbers, we already agreed on them above (2001 +3.4%, 2002 -8.9%, 2003 -7.6%) so ... I am a bit lost at what is it that is being discussed. Oh! Where did I get those figures above for 1996 to 2000? Here (it took me 2 minutes to find them using google): [5] Here is another source (actually it is so easy to find sources, I do not understand when you guys cannot find things [6] --Anagnorisis 23:02, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

That data is not disputed by me, however you are still missing 2004 and 2005 (well 3/4) or are we in a time warp? Here are those numbers from the horse's mouth. 2004 [7] 17.3% 2005 [8] "determina un crecimiento de 9,1% para el acumulado de los primeros nueve meses del año" It is expected that it will finish the year at 9-10%. I used all that data to reach a 8.3% growth in GDP with a population growth of 9.3% SuperFlanker 06:01, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

And look how good the economic indicators were in the years immediately prior to the 1992 coup (and how they changed thereafter): [9]

Per Capita GDP: http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=ve&v=67 1999-2004 TDC 02:36, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

The per capita graph uses the same data from the CIA factbook which is self-contradictory, I will try to put it in a table. (keep in mind that the 1999 factbook has 1998 numbers etc)
GDP and population from CIA Factbook
× GDP GDP Growth Population Population Growth GDP per capita
1999 [10] $194.5 billion -0.9% 23,203,466 1.71% $8,500
2000 [11] $182.8 billion -7.2% 23,542,649 1.6% $8,000
2001 [12] $146.2 billion 3.2% 23,916,810 1.56% $6,200
2002 [13] $146.2 billion 2.7% 24,287,670 1.52% $6,100
2003 [14] $132.8 billion -8.9% 24,654,694 1.48% $5,500
2004 [15] $117.9 billion -9.2% 25,017,387 1.44% $4,800
2005 [16] $145.2 billion 16.8% 25,375,281 1.4% $5,800

As you can see they use the GDP/Population to derive the GDP per capita, but the GDP figure is deeply flawed and self-contradicting. The population figure seems accurate.SuperFlanker 06:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Those figures for GDP are completely wrong. The right figures (very similar to the ones that were quoted by the national and international press) can be obtained from the Banco Central de Venezuela web page. Economic growth was positive during 1999, 2000, and 2001, very negative (around -7% and - 9%) in 2002 and 2003 (a -25% drop on the first quarter of 2003), and very positive (over 8%) in 2004 and 2005. --Juanco 18:26, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
The BCV figures growth percentages are close to what is reported in the factbook, I read and linked their reports for 2004 and 2005, officially GDP grwoth for 2005 was 9.4% SuperFlanker 19:54, 1 January 2006 (UTC)


Should I remove it again?SuperFlanker 18:36, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Other comments

  • I think we have to be as careful with the captions that go under the pics as we are with the article itself. I notice under one picture that the FTAA has been shelved. I would say that is not correct. That is what Chavez wants to believe, but if you ask other countries, they would very much say "NO, IT HASN'T BEEN SHELVED." I suggest instead of "the recently blocked" to change it to "their recently opposed." Hmmm.... I will make this change myself. Revert it if you disagree. --Anagnorisis 18:21, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
Blocked? Hmmm .... better ... but was it really blocked? Or is it that they just opposed it and managed to postpone real progress. They just didn't reach consensus (which is what many would like). 29 countries support it as it is. 4 (Mercosur countries) want changes, and 1 alone really opposes it fully (Venezuela).
  • The latest edit made by user 200.11.242.33 re. the coup attempt is not accurate. The number of people that died during the coup attempt were 14. Chavez later in order to underline how low the number was said himself "February 4 there were 14 dead. That is less dead than any weekend in Caracas (referring to vilolent deaths resulting from crime), less deaths than the children that die of hunger in Venezuela in one month. In this way I carry with my violence, it is up to the others to carry with theirs. I have neved evaded it (meaning responsibility). Do I have my hands stained with blood as somebody said? Yes, the hands and all of me is blood ..." This is in the Marcano book pages 127 and 128.
  • There is a mention that says that half the military forces were with Chavez during that coup. The first coup attempt was only carried by army forces (not navy, not air force, not national guard), and the amount of people confirmed involved one way or the other only amounted to 10% of the army. Also from Marcano. pages 123 - 124.
  • The other coup that the same user mentions was in November of the same year and that one incluuded men from other groups (air force, civilians, etc.) But I do not have hard data with me at the moment. Anyway, those details of the November coup I do not think are relevant now in this article.--Anagnorisis 16:40, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Article says in the coup section: ...large cities as Valencia, Maracaibo, Aragua, and Valencia .... Notice Valencia is mentioned twice. Aragua is not a city it is state. You may want to mention instead the capital of Aragua which is Maracay.--Anagnorisis 16:44, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Article also says: ....meanwhile Pérez, the coup's intended target, soon lost his presidency to Rafael Caldera That is incorrect in a couple of fronts. "Meanwhile makes it sound that it was soon afterwards. However it was over a year later that Perez lost the presidency. And not to Caldera. Perez lost the rpesidency as a result of being impeached on corruption charges. He was replaced by an interim president for the remaining few months of his presidency. Caldera won the next election (one that Perez would not have been able to contest anyway as Venezuela at the time didn't allow for inmediate reelection).
  • By the way, I remember reading the whole article a couple of weeks ago (since then I only read small portions at a time looking for small things). I guess some major changes have been made to text. Else I cannot explain why I didn't pick on some of these things. Or perhaps unkown to me I have Alzheimer's.--Anagnorisis 16:49, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Article says: "He was then forced to appear on national television..." Correction, he wasn't forced. He was asked to do it to help avoid any more unnecesary loss of life -after all it was evident to Chavez they had failed. One thing not mentioned often is that those that were sent to negotiate his surrender were friends and simpathetic to Chavez -to this day there are two hours of Chavez surrender that are unaccounted for - a ride from the museum (with these officers to whom he surrendered) to the Ministry of defense, instead of the usual 15 - 30 minutes, took about 2 hours 45 minutes -obviously trafic was unusually light that day.Anagnorisis
  • The article says "Chávez would issue a general call for a mass civilian uprising against Pérez." Besides that, not many details are known about the contents of the taped message that was to be broadcasted. All that is known is that there was a taped message They were not able to broadcast it due to their lack of knowdledge in opearting the equipment. The format of their VHS tape had top be converted and the staff at the station (lying) told them it was not possible. Some of the deaths of 4F took place during the taking of the TV station. The present minister of the interior (Jesse Chacon) led the assault on the TV station. There are pictures of him (which were printed in the press at the time) posing pointing to the dead very much like the pics of hunters smiling over their dead game. Totally irrelevant to the present article, but thought it could be interesting to mention. Anagnorisis 17:05, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Re.: latest edit on the 1992 coup ... I am not so sure that Francisco Arias failed in Maracaibo. He held control of the military bases there, and he had managed to arrest the governor of the state and took over his offices. In the opinion of most, he held control of Maracaibo. Only Chavez failed miserably that day; all other commanders had different degrees of success.
  • This, I find it to be an interesting fact and for ease of understanding, I will quote from Marcano's book (page 127): "A fact that has remained, casting a shadow, is that the majority of the soldiers that participated in the coup were used (that is the literal translation from Spanish, but most accurate reflecting what the author says could be "taken advantage"), they were ordered to fight under deceit." This really does cast a dark shadow on those officers that day. One may wonder how "loyal" those 10 percent of the army units may have really been if they had really known for what they were being ask to give their lives. --Anagnorisis 18:12, 1 December 2005 (UTC)
  • "Chávez is of Roman Catholic extraction, and is currently a practicing Christian." Is describing him as of 'Roman Catholic extraction' the best term? 'extraction' implies ethnicity, as opposed to religion.


Comment

Was this article written by the Venezuelan Ministry of Popular Enlightenment? "Known for his democratic socialist governance"? Puh-lease. "Known for being an authoritarian demagogue and thug" is much nearer the truth. Opposed by the middle and upper classes? What about the general strike? Were the 75% of the people who boycotted the elections all "upper class"? Does this third-rate Mussolini really deserve this vast, eulogistic article? Plus a whole separate article on his early life? And another on his foreign policy? Adam 22:34, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

Adam, if you find redundancies than remove them instead of criticizing the lenght of the article. If you think the article doesn't cover enough the general strike, the boycott, etc... than you can help. If you think the article is biased than explain that in lenght. But I am not sure you'd succeed to do so while comparing him with Mussolini. Cheers -- Svest 22:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up&#153;
I have been meaning to bring this up for quite some time. Although the article is good on an informative level, Chavez is, to put it mildly, not without his critics, and those voices seem to be silent in this article. From official blacklists of opposition members, financial irregularities at the PDVSA and Citgo, violent confrontations between "Chavistas" and opposition protestors, the judicial coup, and Chavez's warm relations to every maniacal despotic government he comes in contact with, clearly there is more to the "Fifth Estate" than is being told here. TDC 22:57, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
TDC, I tend to agree with you. However I think more of those things are mentioned in the article. If they aren't, please include them. But try writing them in NPOV style and it would be good if you can provide an outside source (which I know there are - one just has to go look for it). --Anagnorisis 03:46, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
TDC, recently, I would've agreed with you. But just about all of the criticisms you suggest are already in the text: Chavez' friendship w/Castro and his visit to Saddam Hussein during OPEC, the "judicial emergency committee" of 1999, corruption allegations, the "blacklist", clashes between pro- and anti-Chavez forces around the 2002 coup. Those stories are already being told. DanKeshet 01:59, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
Read the critiscism section, a lot of the accusations are documented there, regardless of veracity. SuperFlanker 03:23, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

This group of articles is inordinately long for a President of Venezuela - compare them with the articles on Ricardo Lagos, Nestor Kirchner and Vicente Fox. They are stuffed full of unnecessary detail, and futhermore the overall tone is far too adulatory. When I get time I will try to produce a more concise and more NPOV draft. Adam 02:20, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Adam, do you think it is a good reason to say that this article doesn't deserve this lenght because Fox's is much shorter?! -- Svest 23:32, 7 December 2005 (UTC)  Wiki me up&#153;
You may well find yourself in for a fight if you rewrite this one, Adam. People do not tend to take kindly to major changes (let alone rewrites) to featured articles, particularly ones supported by so many. Ambi 00:22, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Portions of the article as it stands now (10 Dec 11.00 BST) would not be out of place in the "Socialist Worker" or "Granma." Of course this is going to happen with people and things which are dear to one or another ideological group, and it is hard, if not impossible, to show to someone who, say, tends to agree ideologically with Chavez, that using phrases such as "democratic socialism" and "an exponent of anti-imperialism" shows clear bias from the word go. However, as much as other people have pointed this out, it bears asking once more: should an article which is always going to be disputed to the extent that this one is, be featured?

Image locations (alternating or collimated?)

User:PZFUN has made two attempts to reverse User:Silence's alternating image positionings. Shall we take a vote on the matter? Thanks. Saravask 15:23, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't see any need. Alternating is the blatantly superior model, both in general and especially in this specific page. Let's not torture our readers by arbitrary trying to put every image on one side. In paricular, putting all the images at the top of every section is colossally poor (and lazy) image/text arrangement. Keep reverting him until he justifies his change, report him to an admin if he doesn't stop or explain his reasoning. -Silence 18:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

There are in any case far too many pictures. They are all much of a muchness and I will delete some of them when I do a new draft. Adam 22:55, 7 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, 16 seem to many. I would prefer about half that amount. If we were talking about a beautiful model (man or woman), the more the better as eye candy. But Hugo is kinda ugly. --Anagnorisis 00:49, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Again, couldn't disagree more. I wouldn't delete more than 1 or 2 images from the page, and a couple of sections (like the two coup sections) could actually benefit from having another image. Images are vital for drawing the readers in and keeping them grounded on the man named Hugo Chavez. It's easy for people who are used to Chavez and have grown tired of seeing him to dismiss images, but remember that this page is for people who don't know about Chavez already, and may have never even seen how he looks before; having a large number of images not only is necessary because this is such a long page (if you remove images, I expect you to remove some chunks of text too to keep things balanced; try moving some to sub-pages if you feel size is a big issue), but is also important because so many portray Chavez in a very different light, helping capture numerous facets of him.
Also, if you do remove any images, certainly transfer them to subpages so we don't waste their potential to help break up and illustrate those pages too; but since you can move them to subpages without removing them from here, I absolutely don't see the need, and am disappointed that we're fixating on such an issue with the main page showing only a few pages away and dozens of textual issues still left unresolved. -Silence 04:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
The standard for featured articles is to have all the images at 250px and right aligned. I am updating this page to the standard, not radicalising it. This article is image heavy and the images were way over-sized. User:PZFUN/signature 05:16, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
Then cite the Wikipedia policy or guideline that says that all images are to be 250x and right-aligned. :) Until you do, I'll rely on common sense and an understanding of the basic principles of design to make the page accessible, not an arbitrary and nonsensical ruling that is, in fact, not utilized by just about any Featured Articles in existence. Look at just about any FA out there, none of them blindly follow that ridiculous "standard". And thank god for that. -Silence 08:31, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
For a change Silence makes sense again. Yes, you convinced me. Despite Hugo being so ugly. --Anagnorisis 14:09, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
You can be such a sweety-pie sometimes. :) I do understand your concerns about having too images, but I think that most readers will appreciate the effort to make the page visually appealing (even if they don't end up being as vocal as the ones who come here to complain about it). :) -Silence 00:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Gee, that's not POV

I'm 100% sure that only the middle and upper classes criticize Chavez. Poor people would never criticize a socialist leader, right? Why would they? Everyone knows socialism helps the poor. Seriously, can anyone justify that phrasing? 24.162.138.238 00:57, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Easily. A majority of the lower-class majority in Venezuela seems to support Chavez, while a majority of the upper-and-middle-class minority in Venezuela seems to oppose him. Although there are also a significant number of exceptions to this generalization (and common sense tells us that by nature statements like "the upper class X" or "the lower class does Y" must be generalizations, making stating it explicitly unnecessary), these exceptions tend to be much less outspoken than the rule does. It may not be perfectly Politically Correct (what a loss), but it's Neutral and seems to give a pretty accurate description of the social conflict and class struggle in Venezuela that people unfamiliar with Venezuelan politics vitally need in order to understand events in context. Nor does "popularity" indicate that a certain course of action is correct, or even that the poor are being helped by the policy; try reading the rest of the article, the intro paragraphs along can't possibly address every little nuance of such a complicated and controversial figure and the reactions to him. -Silence 01:13, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Oh, so I guess the poor don't criticize electoral fraud, human rights violations, and political repression. Somehow, I think that claim needs a citation. 24.162.138.238 01:19, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Oy. You rather miss the point. Chavez's supporters don't acknowledge the existence of electoral fraud, human rights violations, or political repression. And, again, I'm sure quite a few lower-class people criticize Chavez and accuse him of all those things, but those people are, overall, exceptions, since almost the entirety of Chavez's support is based in Venezuela's poor majority. And I wouldn't mind adding a citation for the claim, I recommend you contact either Mr. S or Mr. A for a nice source to link to, as they are the two chief contributors to this article. I'm just here to keep things in good condition during their absence. It's a dirty job, but... -Silence 01:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

"Everyone knows socialism helps the poor." How sure are you about this? Do you live in Venezuela? or have ever Lived under a Socialist regime? I do doubt it. Socialim dosn't help the poor, the basics of Socialism consist in making all presons have the same level, this does not mean that it makes poor people become welthier, it makes welthy people become poorer, this when confronted to the fact that poor people generally consider that their povery is others persons fault. P.S.:"I'm sure quite a few lower-class people criticize Chavez" Yet again wrong, electroal fraud was recentlly prooved when the opposition requested everyone who didn't support the governament to skip voting, and the outcome was unbelivable. There was one specific voting site in which from 7.000 voter, only 40 attended, curioulsly this was a pro Chavez Site. --MeDP 02:11, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I am implementing a common-sense solution (already outlined by me at Talk:main page) which should put the matter to rest with no sweat. It seems incredibly obvious and I can't imagine that anybody will object to it. Doops | talk 07:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Questioning this article's selection for featured article

If you look by "Impact of the presidency", you'll find this little thing

{{Cleanup-section}}

So if part of the article needs to be cleaned up, how on earth did it become a featured article?Dr. B 02:41, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Because I added that tag about 15 minutes ago? :) I could easily add the same tag to almost any other Featured Article on Wikipedia. I have quite high standards, and just about all long articles don't meet them at least in various portions. Feel free to remove the tag if you've read the text in that section and disagree with it, but the point of the tag is to draw attention to the area of the article that needs the most attention and fixing-up, not to go to such a silly length as removing the FA status of one of the most overall thorough and well-written FAs on Wikipedia. I previously attempted to create the same effect with a To-do List mentioning a few areas where the article could use improvement, but the list was hidden by Mr. S, and most of my requests to focus on improving that section of the article over the last few weeks were ignored, so I've taken that new step to highlight the article's chief weak point so that it can be dealt with quickly. Again, if you disagree, feel free to remove it, and if you agree, feel free to improve the section so that the tag won't apply anymore. The point of this entire process is to improve articles so Wikipedia will have better content for its readers, not to argue back and forth forever about something as trivial as whether the article's "Featured"; I can think of reasons to remove just about every article's FA status, but only a handful really deserve it at this point. -Silence 02:53, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Also, I'd hope that an article wouldn't have its FA status removed for problems that could probably be fixed in a half hour of work. :) -Silence 05:51, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Puppy-dog / running-dog

The following text is being repeatedly re-inserted into the article, even though it seems to be unnecessarily trivial and is poorly-formatted:

On November 10, 2005, Chávez, stated regarding Mexican President Vicente Fox in a talk before supporters in Caracas that he was saddened that "the president of a people like the Mexicans lets himself become the running-dog of the empire" for what he alleged was Fox's obsequience to U.S. trade interests in his promotion of the newly stalled FTAA. (The word Chávez used, cachorro, literally means "puppy dog", but it was the standard translation offered in Spanish Communist discourse for Mao Zedong's zougou.[17])

Please consider:

  1. Moving this information to Foreign policy of Hugo Chávez. It is fairly trivial, and makes an already-quite-large article (and an already-quite-large section) even larger. There's plenty of room on the sub-page for such details.
  2. The fact that the actual translation of text is more important than the "official translation"; if he said puppy dog, he said puppy dog, regardless of any subtle (or claimed) connotations.
  3. This article's current notational system. If you go through the article, you'll note that there is not even a single external link in the entirety of the article's text; all of them are in the "notes" and "external links" sections. If we are to link to your above website, we will have to do so in the exact same way: by using the Note system and including both the explanatory paragraph and the link below, in Notes—which will require renumbering many of the other notes to compensate, another reason to consider adding the information at the sub-page instead, where it will be much easier to fit in). -Silence 05:51, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

WARNING

Hey someone hacked the site.. It wasn't me (I swear!) but it looks like someone's not too fond of Chavez.

"Someone" ha ha ha. Actually not just someone; it is many who are not that fond of the guy. --Anagnorisis 17:31, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Always interesting though that the vandals don't seem to come from Venezuela, and seem to dislike him based on third-hand information passed to them. *shrugs* Just for two cents ;) Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:34, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, a phenomenon almost as amusing as Chávez's first-world groupies who've never actually set foot in Venezuela, let alone lived under the guy's rule.--RicardoC 00:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
i actually live in south america and believe in what Chavez is doing. Long has all of south america been he whorehouse of the U.S. (it is fairly the case of bolivia, mexico, venezuela and by the mid 50s Cuba, anyone who might think that its not the case, then i sugest a quick stop at the library). Its no secret that the united states controls most of south america, if all of sotuh america was united, as the united states was, we could be easily another world power. Venezuela is rich in oil, so is argentina, bolivia and argentina are rich in natural gasses. Its true that Chavez is a rather ambiguous figure, but he is also someone who has rised against the imperialist hegemony of the united states, the only country that in today standars, wages wars on countries that are far away from their borders (sometimes without any real excuse for it, just a number of vague excuses that dont make a good one), in todays world, the US is involved in almost everywar (Darfur, for example, the US backed the wrong side and labeled as "tribal war"), in most poor countries, the united states is involved (american corporations steal all the oil from Nigeria, and thats a damn fact). No hegemony lasts a thousand years, and as the world continues his course, more Chavez will appear for every Bush that happends to be around. The US has been involved in almost 600 attemps of assasinations of Fidel Castro (all in the Church report to the congress), not only that but it also distabilized the socialist goverment of Salvador Allende in the 70s, they helped the contras (a group that was aided by drug money, as it is vox populi) and caused a war that costed 30000 nicaraguan lives (what did they cared for the Sandinistas?, since when this false interest in lesser countries). Chavez is just a natural response to all this, as Evo Morales is in Bolivia, as Lula in Brazil, as Toledo in Peru... etc, etc, etc...

Nothing but hagiography

This is more than a little embarassing, but I have to clear it up. I had multiple pages open and I appear to have written on this Discussion page comments more appropriate to another. Since people have commented upon it, I'll leave it up. But in the interest of not looking like a fool, I felt I'd better clarify this. PainMan 07:03, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Why doesn't the author submit Chabez's name for beatification?

Some would claim the same about the George W. Bush article, it's unfortunately a necessary part of NPOV, that we not drag people through the mud, no matter who thinks they deserve it. Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This article could have been written by one of the dingdongs from the Cristic Institute or, more contemporaneously, MoveON.GeorgeSoros.org.

The "proof" of alleged US involvement in the farcical "coup" attempt* is an article in the viciously and notoriously anti-American British Observer newspaper! Accepting an article from the Observer as "proof" is like accepting an article on the "World Jewish Monetary Conspiracy" in the Nazi Party's newspaper the Volkischer Beobachter.

(an attempt so farcical any fair-minded person must be reminded of Reichstag fire Hitler used to establish his dictatorship; a fire set by his own SS!)

But the bullshit doesn't stop there.

Contra-bashing crap is dredged up--yet nowhere is the genocide perpetrated by the Sandanistas, and their other crimes--against the Miskito Indians mentioned, only the same crapola about "American-trained" "Death Squads." (I'm surprised their isn't a picture of Martin Sheen in the article!) Apparently innunendo and gossip against the US is "proof" but documented evidence of Communist atrocities isn't worthy of mention.

More directly, nowhere in does this article mention Chavez's aid for the Columbian rebels who've committed countless atrocities in their quest to replace the Columbian democracy with a Communist dictatorship." The Columbian government has repeatedly protested the actions of Chavez's gov't in support of these terrorists.

Perhaps you could write up a nice NPOV paragraph on the subject, and post it here, and assuming nobody has any valid complaints, it could be inserted into the main article? I stress that NPOV is important. Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
The democracy of a city in South Carolina is being threatened by communist guerrillas? Oh wait, you meant Colombia. Forgive me, Yanqui. --Daniel 00:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

I appreciate a good wise-ass comment as much as the next person and you had me until laughing until your last word.

"Yanqui" is going too far. That word is a slur on my nationality. By contrast, Norteamericano is merely inaccurate when applied only to Americans since both Canada, Mexico & Central America are geographically part of North America. But Yanqui is a hate word. As offensive as "greaser" to a Mexican or "kike" to an Italian Jew or "nigger" to an African-American or "redskin" is to an American Indian (I am descended,in part, from Cherokee chiefs , African-American slaves, as well Jews, so I don't want to hear any whining; my wife and daughter are of Spanish, Aztec and Mayan descent so I find all of these terms derogatory as well). There's no doubt it's a term of abuse Daniel. What if someone labelled you a "spic"? Whatever your nationality, it would be offensive, so I take serious umbrage to your using one just as vicious toward me because I am an American. But since I am an American, whatever foul epithets hurled at me seem to be ok with the powers that be at wikipedia. PainMan 05:18, 21 December 2005 (UTC)


Instead of concentrating on that, we are treated to an bogus, falsified recapitulation of the Iran-Contra affair. Nowhere does the author mention the fact that the 8 year, $80,000,000 investigation by Lawrence Walsh PRODUCED NOT A SINGLE FELONY CONVICTION! (While the seven year, $40M "Whitewater" investigation produced dozens of felony convictions including a sitting governor of Arkansas!)

The hell it didn't! Elliott Abrams, Carl R. Channell, Thomas G. Clines, Alan D. Fiers, Jr., Clair E. George, Albert Hakim, Robert C. McFarlane, Richard R. Miller, Oliver L. North, John M. Poindexter, Richard V. Secord were all convicted, and some of them served out their sentences. --Descendall 21:59, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

To repeat, for the third time (for the benefit of those of you in Rio Linda)... Not a single person was convicted of a felony for ANY act done during Iran-Contra. Elliot Abrams agreed to plead to a misdemeanor that involved NO jail time. He never even went to trial! I remember the press conference he gave after giving into Walsh's blackmail. You have NO idea what you are talking about. Furthermore, Abrams is a current official in the Bush Administration. He could hardly hold that position were he a convicted felon! Lt.Col Oliver North (ret) was convicted on illegal evidence. His conviction was overturned by the appellate court and that decision affirmed by the Supreme Court. The "investigation" was such a joke that Walsh was reduced to blackmailing innocent men with the spector of banruptcy to get them to plead to bullshit misdemeanors. Defending the rubber stamp grand jury felony indictments would have cost $2-$3M in 1988 money. Abrams' net worth was nowhere near this.

To spare them this, and protect the reputations of those who were rich enough to afford a defense,* the elder President Bush pardoned them. It ended Walsh's vicious, quixotic quest (one which was also high remunerative: to the tune of millions of dollars in salary for Walsh!). PainMan 05:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

  • e.g. Cap Weinberger, one of the greatest SecDefs in US history, a visionary who helped to create the military that destroyed the Soviet tryanny without firing a shot.
Not fully aware of the details myself, but articles tend not to place a lot of emphasis on things that didn't happen. Also, this subject is not directly related to Chavez, so doesn't really belong in an article about him. Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I mentioned that, Sheru. As I say above, in this section, I had a number of pages open and mistakenly posted this info here. I intended to remove it, but a number of people posted comments (including your badself, ;o). And some posted complete falsehoods such as the character above you. PainMan 05:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Elliot Abrams wasn't convicted of anything, let alone a felony, a FACT neither this article nor the propaganda in the Observer makes mention of. Walsh had no evidence agasint Abrams that proved he'd committed a felony; Walsh simply used the threat of the bankruptcy that Abrams' defense would have cost him to force Abrams to please guilty to a SINGLE MISDEMEANOR. (Walsh used the undemocratic grand jury to procure the indictments; the grand jury system is the most undemocratic feature in the US system; God help you if a prosecutor ever decides that destroying your life will advance his or her political ambitions.)

Abrams isn't mentioned in the article at all, in fact, so it would be very difficult to discuss his legal standing, in an article that isn't about him. THis article is about Hugo Chavez. Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

See above. PainMan 05:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Abrams, you see, isn't a wealthy man. A trial defense would have cost him his life savings. He took the course almost anyone else would have who doesn't have a huge fortune to defend himself. Knowing he had no evidence, Walsh forced Abrams to plead guilty to a single misdemenor to salvage Walsh's reputation--already beyond repair in the legal community except in the opinion of the most fanatical Reagan & conservative haters. Abrams sensibly decided that pleading guilty to a minor offense--which would in no way have barred him from further government service or taken away his civil rights. The Elder President (George H. W.) Bush pardoned an innocent man (actually, several innocent men including Caspar Weinberger one of the greatest Secretaries of Defense/War in American history who played a key-role in the destruction of the Soviet Union, his biggest crime in the eyes of Leftists, esp. Euro-trash leftists--righting an injustice perpetrated by an out-of-control prosecutor with a hatred for the great Ronald Reagan and anyone who worked for him. Walsh was nothing more than a gutless American Vyshinsky or Freisler.

Again, I suggest you create an Elliot Abrams article, Chavez's article is hardly the place to mention any of this Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

To repeat: not a single person has a felony conviction on his or her record from the Walsh farce of an investigation. Lt. Col. Oliver North (ret) was convicted on dubious evidence. So bogus was the prosecution of Col. North that the Democratically-controlled Congress passed a law returning Col. North's pension. This was before the appellate courts' threw out the baseless convictions; Walsh's attempts to retry him were rebuffed by the courts. So Walsh, this bitter, senile old troll wasted tens of millions of tax-payer dollars and came up with a tiny number of misdemeanor pleas--NOT jury convictions in his witchhut against former Reagan staffers.

Yet, in a typical example of Left-wing smear tactics, nowhere is the information mentioned in the Observer article--mentioning the pardons only in such a way as to suggest that something untoward had happened. (Yet, when Clinton left office he pardoned the biggest tax cheater in American history, Mark Rich, after Rich's ex-wife paid millions in bribes to Clinton's President library and almost certain to Clinton personally. As usual the Clinton cover-up was aided and abetted by their accomplisces in the Left-Liberal media.)

This article is nothing but shameful propaganda for Chavez--a demogogic idiot whose only interest is establishing a Cuban-style horror-show dictatorship. He's already stealing (the euphemism is "nationalization" but in plain English it's called theft) property from its rightful owners (just like his mentor Castro stole over a billion dollars--at least $20 billion adjusted for inflation--of US-owned property. (Castro is, as you read this, torturing and murdering Cubans with the temerity to demand their right to democratic government and human rights--THIS is the system that Chavez admires).

You might find people take you more seriously if you don't refer to historical characters as 'Idiot', you'll notice articles on Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini or Josef Stalin maintain NPOV, this article is no different. (Notice also that Stalin and Mussolini are on opposite ends of the political spectrum, so this is not a case of a leftist WP or authors, rather a common rule) Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

You might find people take you more seriously if you don't refer to historical characters as 'Idiot' Sheru, has political correctness gotten so bad that no even the dead are entitled to proteted class status if they were on the Left? PainMan 05:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The praise heaped upon socialism is beyond contempt. The truth is that in EVERY SOCIALIST COUNTRY THAT HAS EVER EXISTED the inevitable results has ALWAYS been: mass murder, political repression, the supression of human rights and mass poverty--except for party members and the rulers--"redistribution of wealth" is nothing more than universalization of poverty. The truth about socialism (and any purported "disnction" between socialism and communism is one without a difference; 100,000,000 human beings were murdered in the 20th century alone by Socialist regimes.

I'd be very interested in your sources for that number, since they invariably involve "millions of Soviets died during a famine" as 'murder' - whereas nobody claims that Capitalism has killed billions of Africans over its history. "They died of poverty" tends not to be considered murder, except in the eyes of people unable to otherwise fabricate statistics about communism being a great evil killing hundreds of millions. Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)


Every present and former socialist country has been turned in a gigantic graveyard yet that is ignored so that apologists, Fifth Columnists and stooges for the Soviet Union and Mao's China can whine about the deaths of few Communist traitors and collaborators with Moscow (e.g. Allende, the Ortega brothers, etc). The deaths of these traitors to humanity are the same as the death of Nazi collaborators and traitors: a good thing.

Chavez has about as much interest in helping the "poor" as Stalin did. He's nothing but a thug.

I'm not sure how you draw the comparison, since Chavez appears to rule by the consent of his electorate, and statistics seem to back up that Chavez has actually improved the living standards of the poor in his country. Do you have other statistics to back up your claim, rather than an angry tirade of ranting? Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The Nazi Party was the largest party in Germany in 1933 with the most seats in the Reichstag (the German parliament under the Weimar Republic, q.v.. He was also appointed Chancellor legally by then President Hindenburg.

  • Not so sure of "...statistics seem to back up that Chavez has actually improved the living standards ..." I tend to disagree with that. Though it is true some things have improved for some of the poor. Many others have got worse. And one thing that IMO is quite bad, is the discrimination among the poor themselves -in the very poor neighborhoods to have better access to some of the new programs for the poor, said poor person must be a known supporter of Chavez. But we are digressing. Problem with most "bad" guys is that NPOV articles tends to make them look better than they are. But the some goes for very good guys: NPOV articles makes them look less good than they are; NPOV moves people from the bad and good extremes to the center (whatever you consider the guy to be). --Anagnorisis 17:39, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Fair enough, that's the beauty of my "seem to", it allows me to keep things in "what I'm exposed to" - but I'll assume you do in fact know more about the situation than I, and bow to that. But I agree, it's just a necessary part of NPOV that Mother Teresa and Adolf Hitler are both written with the same tone (stating different facts, of course). Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 18:08, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

The fact that a former traitor could be elected president shows the political immaturity and ignorance of the Venezuelan electorate.

Excuse a slightly pov jab here, but should I look at Bush's service record in the Air Guard during the Vietnam War? ;) Sherurcij (talk) (bounties)

The President's CO when he was in the Air National Guard categorically refuted the allegations. Numerous retired officers with whom Bush served also denied the allegations. They have no basis in fact. Just the fevered imagination of Bush haters. PainMan 05:40, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

The Spanish inheritance and the obscurantism of Catholic clergy (i.e. the Church's historical hositlity to market economics) is far more responsible for the poverty of the majority of Venezuelans than the usual "conspiracy of the rich" nonsense.

Chavez has been making ridiculous charges against the US gov't and the Bush administration but has yet to produce a scintilla of real evidence. If the US gov't wanted Chavez dead, he'd be pushing up the daisies.

Yes, because look at how quickly they managed to kill Fidel Castro or Osama bin Laden, clearly the US wanting somebody dead results in their instant cessation of breathing. Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Bin Laden is dead. In 2003, the depty director of the CIA said so publicly. I wish I had the story but I can't find it. How could he be otherwise? Given how easy it is to doctor video an audio none the tapes from the Al-Qaida News Service (known to some as "Al-Jazeera") mean anything. Bin Laden before the liberation of Afghanistan from his tyranny (the Taliban, was, in fact a front for Bin Laden; he controlled the country with 12,-15,000 Arab terrorists--most of whom, surprise!, ran like cowards when real soldiers showed up) had terminal renal failure. You cannot survive on protable dialysis machines when you are in terminal renal failure. There's no way you can set up a full dialysis machine in a cave. He's dead in one of those ratholes in the Afghan mountains. Like Hitler he didn't have the balls to face the consequences of his actions. Whether he died from one of our bombs--my sincere hope--or from renal failure is irrelevant. He is dead and unlamented.PainMan 06:14, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

But why turn a joke into a martyr? Chavez's petulant rants are far more effective in discrediting him than anything the US gov't could possibly do. (And it's just so silly! The US is the largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil; without the American market, the Venezuelan economy would collapse in five seconds; to quote Shakespeare, all of Chavez's posturing is naught but "sound and fury signifying nothing.")

Generally it is considered to be the consumer dependent on the supplier, nobody says that crack dealers would die if it weren't for their customers. The US purchasing Venezuelan oil would appear to be the same as their purchases of Saudi oil, a blight on the US, not on the supplier Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

This article is a joke and a disgrace to Wikipedia. As usual Conservatives are slandered and Left-wing thugs are given a pass. Attacks insults directed at me were left up for months on one discussion page. When I replied to them, my replies were removed but the attacks against me were left in. The "sysop"'s bogus claim that the "Discussion" page was not to air the differences between ideologies rang hollow and false since the only ideology that is objectionable is the conservative one!

That my comments will be censored or removed from this page is a given. That I will put them back up everytime they are taken down is also a given. Free speech by conservatives, especially American conservatives isn't tolerated on this site. But the wildest Left-wing garbage is allowed to be posted without scrutiny. Leftist POV is encouraged whilst anything contradicting it is removed as "POV." Any attempted by conservatives to bring balance to articles is regarded as mere tendentiousness.

I could revise this apology for this wanna-be dictator, but what would be the point? It would take me a good deal of time to refute the lies and propaganda point by point. But it would be wasted time. As soon as my revisions went up, they'd be taken down. And no matter how many times I reposted them, some leftist kook would revert them. The powers at be at wikipedia aren't interested in the facts, just Left-Liberal lies and propaganda. It's nauseating to anyone with any concern for the truth.

I once had high hopes for Wikipedia. But articles like this have dissipated that hope.

Wikipedia = Conservatives need not apply.

PainMan 11:51, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Brilliant deconstruction by painman

way to go!--Capsela 05:20, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

economic criticism should mention oil boom

The brief mention of poor progress with unemployment and the economy should mention that this happened at a time when oil prices boomed which would normally have caused a burst of economic activity, revitalization, and at least temporarily low enemployment none of which has happened. -- M0llusk 15:28, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Just wanted to congratulate the people who worked to bring this article up to Featured Status. I guess the main page summarized it well as Chávez remains one of the most complex, controversial and high-profile figures in modern politics. and it's important that Wikipedia is able to recognise that and provide a great article on him. I knew bare-bones details before, but just thought I'd stop by and thank those of you who worked on it, as I've learned quite a bit, and presumably so have thousands of others. Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 16:10, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

Great Job...eventhough Chavez is my least like it person in the world....some one forgot to mention, that he thinks he is the reincarnationo of Simon Bolivar, no joke. (Raniya 16:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC))

LinkFix Dump

See User:Ambush Commander/LinkFix dump
================================================================================
LinkFix Dump
Hugo Chávez
2005-12-10.13-43-48
================================================================================
5   [[President of Venezuela]] -> [[List of Presidents of Venezuela]]
21  [[President of Venezuela]] -> [[List of Presidents of Venezuela]]
23  [[Venezuelan coup attempt of 1992]] -> [[1992 Venezuelan coup attempt of
Hugo Chávez]]
25  [[Criticisms of Hugo Chávez]] -> [[Criticism of Hugo Chávez]]
25  [[Venezuelan recall referendum, 2004]] -> [[Venezuelan recall referendum of
2004]]
25  [[Liberator]] -> DISAMBIG
45  [[Iris]] -> DISAMBIG
50  [[President of Venezuela]] -> [[List of Presidents of Venezuela]]
55  [[Social welfare]] -> DISAMBIG
67  [[OPEC]] -> [[Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries]]
78  [[Consejo Nacional Electoral]] -> DISAMBIG
112 [[Rio Grande Do Sul]] -> [[Rio Grande do Sul]]
116 [[Putative Venezuelan coup of 2004]] -> [[Putative Venezuelan coup attempt
of 2004]]
130 [[Nestor Kirchner]] -> [[Néstor Kirchner]]
166 [[PetroCaribe]] -> [[Petrocaribe]]
166 [[Telesur]] -> [[TeleSUR]]
170 [[FTAA]] -> [[Free Trade Area of the Americas]]
180 [[Telesur]] -> [[TeleSUR]]
213 [[Personality cult]] -> [[Cult of personality]]
238 [[University of Brazil]] -> [[Universidade do Brasil]]
239 [[Russian Federation]] -> [[Russia]]
240 [[Beijing University]] -> [[Peking University]]
537 [[Bronx]] -> [[The Bronx]]
661 [[President of Venezuela]] -> [[List of Presidents of Venezuela]]
661 [[Pedro Carmona Estanga]] -> [[Pedro Carmona]]
662 [[President of Venezuela]] -> [[List of Presidents of Venezuela]]
# DONE

Some weird unicode trippiness, I'll investigate when I get a chance. — Ambush Commander(Talk) 19:09, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

"anti-imperialism"

Opening up another can of worms: calling him an "anti-imperialist" is silly. It's 2005; EVERYBODY is anti-imperialist -- or at least says so. No world leader, no academic, no editorial writer would describe him- or herself as "imperialist" today, not even Chavez' bitterest foes. So to call Chavez anti-imperialist is not newsworthy. What IS newsworthy is that he views US foreign policy as being imperialist. See my point? Bush et al. wouldn't counter Chavez by saying "imperialism is good"; they'd claim "we're not imperialists." The problem, then, with calling him an "anti-imperialist" is that it is either irrelevant (if we take it at face value) or creates the impression of pov (i.e. the only way for it to be relevant is if we adopt a Chavezian POV and assume that the US is imperialist.)

Note that the above is not in any way a comment on the merits of the various arguments; I'm not making a political point -- just a nitpicking one about good writing. Doops | talk 20:04, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you answered yourself there. Being "anti-imperialist" in this context doesn't just mean "being against imperialism"; it means that you describe others' actions as imperialism and you oppose them on that basis. Similar to how being "anti-Communist" doesn't just mean you aren't for communism; it means you're actively opposed. DanKeshet 20:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Correct. This is also extremely similar to Chavez's opposition to "neoliberalism", since many of the "neoliberal" policies he opposes aren't described as neoliberal by anyone else. The reason these terms are used is because they're the terms Chavez almost invariably uses himself. -Silence 20:37, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not saying the terms shouldn't be used; it should just be done in Chavez' voice, e.g. "Chavez has strongly criticized US foreign policy as being imperialist", etc. Scare-quotes is another way to do it, but it's not very professional-looking. Doops | talk 21:15, 10 December 2005 (UTC) PS -- taking DanKeshet's example, by the way: if I read that somebody was "anti-communist" I would assume that he opposed communism itself -- this wouldn't be the label we'd use for somebody who attacked the welfare state as a creeping, insidious form of communism. Doops | talk 21:21, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
OK, a week's gone by. I'm going to try doing something about this. Hope it works. Doops | talk 06:49, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

"Abstainers"

Why do the vote count include abstainers? How do we know they were abstainers rather than people who couldn't be bothered to vote? This sounds a bit POV to me. I don't see an abstainers count for George W. Bush or Tony Blair, for instance. ? 23:15, 10 December 2005 (GMT)

What he said. I noticed the same thing myself. Ambi 01:01, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Cheeky answer: Because if they did not do something, that means they abstained from it ;)
Serious answer: Because a) there was an actual campaign in favor of abstention, including the withdrawal of all five major opposition parties b) the government went to great lenghts to get out the vote, including chavista congresswoman Iris Varela stating (during the actual election, no less) that government workers who did not vote would be fired, and c) the Chávez administration denounced the "imperialist electoral coup", implicitly acknowledging that the low voter turnout was no mere case of electoral laziness.--RicardoC 19:14, 12 December 2005 (UTC) (signed after the fact, sorry!)

Wow

So, the article's main-page stay is over, and I'm enjoying look back at how much the article's improved in such a short period of time, to an enormous extent thanks to Mr. S's edits and Mr. A's behind-the-scenes work, and also how much it improved over a long period of time thanks to dozens of other editors who have slowly built the article up over the years. Assorted moments in the article's history:

Pretty neat. (Anyway, sorry for the pointless digression. Back to work! A Wikipedia article is never done!) -Silence 02:05, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Silence, thanks for your kind words. However, I do not think I deserve so much credit. I just gave some info and made a few comments. I actually think your work in the past weeks has added a lot more to the article and you deserve more praise than I do. Cheers and thanks. --Anagnorisis 03:24, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
You're a madman, Mr. A, but that's why I loves ye. Let's do this again sometime, K? Ciao! -Silence 05:14, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

The 1992 Congress Debate after the Coup Attempt

In 1992, right after Chavez' failed coup there was televised Congress session to condem the attempt. That session is crucial to understand the events of following years.

During the debate, ex-president Caldera (a for-life senator by the 1961 constitution) condemned the coup but he also sorts of defended it asserting that he understood the reasons that had lead the group of militaries into rebelion.

Caldera's intervention lead to an intervention by Aristobulo Isturiz (then from the leftist Causa R party, if I remember correctly) in which he told that congresspeople had agreed to unanimously condemn the coup, but that he had changed his mind after listening to Caldera's intervention. Both Caldera and Isturiz took the opportunity to condemn government corruption and ineficacy, and to denounce poverty and injustice.

I can't remember if other congresspeople followed suit, but it is obvious that that Caldera's speach paved the way for the other two coup attempts, the impeachment of president Perez, Caldera's victory in the next presidential election, and more.

After the coup and the congressional debate Chavez' became a sort of "popular hero", with the green uniform and red berett becoming one of the favorite disguises worn by kids in the Carnival cellebrations of 1992. Caldera's electoral win lead to Chavez' disimprisonment, and the popularity lead to Chavez'landslide win in the presidential elections of 1998.

Another congressman, David Morales Bello, shouted "¡Muerte a los golpistas!" (Death to the rebels!) during his congressional intervention, and that meant the end of his political career.

I'm not posting this information to the main page because:

  • It's all from memory, and I think references should be used.
  • I'm still not well familiarized with the pages's content.

Juanco--201.211.96.173 00:45, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Most people I know can't wait for Caldera to croak. Not me. I hope he lives to be 150, so he can never escape the hell his political opportunism unleashed.--RicardoC 19:18, 12 December 2005 (UTC)
I think that hell was unleashed by others way before, and that it totally broke loose during the riots of 1989. There was no way for the "Pacto de Punto Fijo" (the Punto Fijo pact) to subsist after that. They tried to keep it going any way, and the result is what we have, a complete swing of the pendulum. --Juanco 22:35, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Congratulations on an excellent article

I went out with a Venezuelan expatriate for several years -- a child of the upper class that is upset with Chavez -- and also have an interest in international affairs; as such, I'm aware of how hard it is to reconcile all the conflicting opinions and information about Chavez and present both sides of the argument fairly. This is probably the best article I have seen on the man that doesn't fall overtly on one side or the other. Extremely good stuff. Wikipedia at its best.


Here's a question for the Chavez pundits

Count the number of avowed chavistas among the cited sources (some even in Chavez's payroll or recipients of his hospitality). Such exercise gives a clear picture of the article's objectivity. Indeed "Wikipedia at its best."

It would be helpful if you could actually list names yourself, which of the cited sources are on his payroll Sherurcij (talk) (bounties) 14:24, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

Gregory Wilpert, Richard Gott, Jonah Gindin, Marta Harnecker, Sarah Wagner, Alessandro Parma, Mark Weisbrot, Jeroen Kuiper, Rafael Ramirez, Jorge Martin, Cleto Sojo.

Which of those are on Chavez's payroll? DanKeshet 21:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

(some even in Chavez's payroll or recipients of his hospitality)

In Chavez payroll: Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela's illegal Minister of Energy and CEO of PDVSA. According to an admission of Dozthor Zurlent, "a Venezuelan who formerly served as international coordinator of the Circles and now serves as European coordinator" americas.org, Venezuelanalysis.com -of which Gregory Wilpert is the editor in chief and where Gindin, Wagner, Parma, Kuiper and Sojo are members of staff- is a website supported by the Venezuelan government email exchange.

First you quote out of context this is the whole quote from the first website " Contrary to some media reports, international Circles do not receive significant funding or direction from the Venezuelan government. “One thing that characterizes the Bolivarian Circles is that they’re independent,” noted Dozthor Zurlent, a Venezuelan who formerly served as international coordinator of the Circles and now serves as European coordinator. “They develop their own initiatives. No one’s telling them you have to do this, you have to do that.” While he admits being the head of the circles he claims independance and denies being part of the payrole. You later use his comment that venezuelaanalysis.com is owned by the goverment is not sufficient to establish a link, it could be very well be an outsider's (as in outside the gov) opinion, venanalisis could very well be government operated but real evidence is needed SuperFlanker 20:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Erstwhile KGB informant Richard Gott, Marxist Marta Harnecker, creator of intangible-wealth-measuring-method Mark Weisbrot and funder of Hands Off Venezuela campaign Jorge Martin have been recipients of Chavez generosity and hospitality be it airplane tickets, hotel rooms, dinning, etc.

So, there are a few issues raised by having partisan sources: disclosure, trust, and balance. Ignoring trust and balance for the minute because disclosure is easier to work on:
  • Ramirez's position is disclosed in the footnote.
  • Venezuelanalysis (including Wilpert, Parma, etc.): I agree that if it is funded by the Venezuelan government, in part or in full, that we should acknowledge that. The linked e-mail raises questions for me, but doesn't answer them. I am willing to investigate a little bit further. I will send out some e-mails to the author of that e-mail, the editors at Venezuelanalysis, and a few other relevant people. If you give me an e-mail address (you can e-mail it to me via the "e-mail this user" feature), I can cc: you on the e-mails directly.
  • Other columnists, etc: Holding off on comment for a minute.

In addition, I think it'd be a good idea to get a good level of disclosure for all our sources, pro-, anti-, both or neither. DanKeshet 17:58, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

I personally think there should be a separation between weblogs and journalistic sources, most are self defined so it should be easy in a NPOV way.

Thus, if I understand you correctly, you will send a bunch of emails to Wilpert et al and you expect them to say "yes we are funded by the Venezuelan government"? Is that your idea of investigation? Who is the "other relevant people" you'll email? My email address is s.saintonge@gmail.com. The issue of citing partisan sources without properly identifying them is that the ignorant of the Venezuelan reality is duped into beliefs that are completely disconnected with what happens in the ground.

  • Ahem*. It's a first step. If they say "yes", I'm willing to believe them. If they say no, maybe I'll probe a little further. Wikipedia isn't an investigative journalism project and it's really up to people other than WP to prove things like that. DanKeshet 22:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No original research is a fundamental rule here, SqueakBox 22:25, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Indeed Wikipedia:No original research is one of three content policies. Guess what the other two are? Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and Wikipedia:Verifiability. How can someone build an argument upon one policy (no original research) and disregard the other two when these clash with the romantic idea that Hugo Chavez is Venezuelan disenfranchised's saviour? The amount of links to people openly partisan towards the populist Bolivarian Revolution coupled with the impossibility of verifying many of the purported facts cited gives a clear idea of the credibility of this article.

NOPV is being observed, we could certainly have a philosophical debate of what constitutes neutrality but the accepted one by wikipedia is to take at face value what is commented, the exception being original research. So if venanalisys calls itself independant it is referenced as independant, if people disagree a relevant individual is quoted as saying he claims they are gov funded. Verifiability is harder to reach I made a critiscism that a singluar claim of fraud was absurd using simple logic, however it was made and apperantly it is enough SuperFlanker 20:27, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Citation needed

We need a citation for this extract, added on December 19 by Alexescalona:

However, the opposition challenged the validity of the results [of the 2004 recall], calling them fraudulent. Claims of fraud were backed by documents, reports of irregularities in polling centers and even one study that challenged the results using statistical analysis. Complaints ensued over the delay between the voting and recount process, which took place three days later, as well as footage that showed what appeared to be members of the FAN, the National Armed Forces, handling voting boxes in an undisclosed location.

If this is true it needs to be cited properly. Andrew Levine 00:16, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Actually, there were several statistical studies that aimed to prove that the election had been fraudulent. All of the studies were rebuted by qualified specialists. The OAS comissioned two revisions of the most publicized study (Rigobon&Pericci if I remember correctly) and concluded that there was no statistical basis for claiming fraud. All the information should be available at the OAS web site. --Juanco 17:40, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

The study in question was carried out by Hausmann and Rigobon. Yes they were refuted by "qualified specialists" from the Carter Center , whose conclusions were confirmed by the OAS, though it's fair to say that, independent of political bias, the original study *was* published by two qualified professionals. To be fair then, the citation should be modified to remind the reader of the contradictions between the study's findings and those of the OAS commission. Now, the footage of the FAN members was broadcast on private (opposition) media channels. I will do my best to find a clip of this footage. Finally, the delay between the voting and more complete recount process (some recounts were done at the polling centers, though these were rather limited samples of the local pool of votes) may be found in several sources, especially the well'broadcasted panel discussion headed by the youthful president of the company that supplied to electronic voting machines, held just a couple of days after the elections admist growing claims of fraud. I will be looking for sources for these citations in the coming days. One thing I´d like to say though, the referendo section of this article (as well as the full article from which the summary is extracted) is notable for its lack of any discussion or even mention of the electronic machines used to hold the elections, particularly the unprecedentedness of this technology in Venezuela, the relative inexperience of the company that produced the machines, and the financial ties between the current government of Venezuela and the company. Alexescalona 00:08, 9 January 2006

Chávez and the media

This section is full of grammatical oddities and should be rewritten by someone who has an idea what the paragraph is trying to say:

"Media gave Chavez full publicity after his coup d'etat in 1992, making him a star media, trying to use him to defeat traditional political parties. Because of Chavez's political agenda asking Venezuelans to not vote in any election, he fell in a low popularity that took off attention from him until he accepted to participate in democratic elections in 1997. Some newspapers that gave him the opportunity to express himself until 1998 are now prosecuted by his government [| La Razón Newspaper case]"Katsam 13:26, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Photographs

Why put a picture of him with his eyes closed at the head of the article?Katsam 13:26, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Purported Antijewish remarks

Chavez's Christmas speech: Jews own all the gold and water, the "good lands" and the petrol

That is an interpretation since jews were not referenced, the people he most likely references (my interpretation) capitalists, he has gone on record more than once stating that Christ was the first socialist meanwhile Judas was the first capitalist. FWIW SuperFlanker 19:00, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
The interpretation that is being implied by the article is that Chavez is refereeing to Jews, probably not a bad interpretation considering how chummy he has gotten with Ahmadinejad. DTC 22:33, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
It is a good interpretation if guilt by association is your main standard, past speeches provide a more accurate record. Besides interpretations are POV SuperFlanker 23:09, 4 January 2006 (UTC)
And POV is allowed, in fact it is encouraged if it is sourced. Seems as if it has been picked up by the Wiesenthal Center[18], and they have also made the link to Chavez's cozying up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad DTC 00:43, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
Remarks cited here refer apparently in the sense of "liberation theology", to those who persecute would-be liberators of the poor ( citing Bolivar, those repressed in Santa Marta, or Jesus Christ) as overly wealthy.
Local Jewish reaction to the accusation [19]SuperFlanker 02:31, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Requested Merge

I would like to suggest merging the politics section in Venezuela into this article for the following reasons:

  • Most of the information is redundant
  • this article is much better written and list sources
  • Long political debates shouldn't be in the main page of the country.

I think the usual 60% consensus for page moves should be sufficient

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What is going on here?

I'm interested to find out what happened here, as that bastion of accurate journalism, OfficialWire, has published an article describing a controversy. Can someone give me a breakdown of what happened here? - 203.134.166.99 02:41, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

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