At the risk of pissing off a lot of Hugo Chavez fans given his death I will take this opportunity to pay my respects to a person I did not care for ever at any point. Hugo Chavez is dead, may he rest in some sort of peace and may he abstain from pissing off the celestials like he did everyone else. Out of all Venezuelan Presidents it seems like Chavez was both the most confrontational, and the kindest in a backward ass way. I mean to say kind in the sense that he obviously wanted the poor majority in Venezuela to think that he was a soft teddy bear.
I did not really read up on Chavez or his policies too often but the fact of the matter is that Chavez was a politician just like anyone else in a position of power. Chavez knew that he needed to cater to an oppressed and impoverished majority that was being somewhat held down by an outdated classes system, an oligarchy. In appearance Chavez was the guy that was willing to take on people like Bush, and Mexican President Vicente Fox.
I will never forget Chavez declaring George W. Bush a crazy drug addict in a UN speech and threatening to take a chunk from Vicente Fox in a televised address. The bottom line is that Chavez was another power hungry individual that had to die in order to give up his power. In a way Chavez went the same way he came, with a massive impact. Through his Presidency Chavez implemented constitutional reform and his ideas were influenced by an anti imperialist agenda, a participatory democracy, self sufficiency, and zero corruption. What influenced Chavez was Bolivarianism.
The idea of no corruption and taking socialism an bring it forward is great. The only problem with trying to implement socialism in its true form is that socialism is an almost perfect mixture of government control and democracy that is not designed to withstand corruption, in fact it invites it. One thing that always impressed me about the Chavez was the fact that he caught the imagination of the "revolutionary" majority.
I saw a massive influx of Venezuelans with means leave their country in scorn. On the flip side of the equation I saw a huge number of impoverished Venezuelans really take to Chavez. In some ways Chavez was a new and improved version of Fidel Castro in that he maintained some progress while putting boots to asses. Now that Chavez is dead there will be no more threats of cage fighting, and ass kicking anywhere, at least for now.
El Chavez has left the building so let's all continue to live life as if the last 14 years had never taken place.
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