I mean in the sense that the National Assembly is firmly in his pocket and has been for a long time. That's something that doesn't generally happen in a functioning democracy.
That's because the Venezuelan opposition lead a violent coup in 2002 and massacred a lot of people, including
THEIR OWN GUYS so they could blame the socialists. All this is on video with alarming amounts of evidence. They just didn't hide their tracks because they didn't expect the lower-rank soldiers to rebel and put the
elected government back into power.
Since then, the opposition hasn't had any credibility. It's kind of hard to do when your guys shot civilians on camera.
also, look it up, the opposition deliberately boycotted the 2005 parliamentary elections because they knew they were going to lose, Chavez's party won a lot of seats, then the Bush administration who were allied with the opposition used the fact of their parliamentary dominance to claim he was a dictator / rigged elections somehow.
Plus, the 20% are the well-off whites and the 80% were the oppressed mixed-race peasant majority, who now pretty much all vote socialist because they remember the old days of police massacres and beat beaten and shot. That's one thing Chavez can boast since he got in. 100% less government-ordered massacres.
this is the most famous massacre before Chavez got in:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CaracazoIt happened the same year as the Tienamin Square massacre in China, funny the West never covered this in the news:
The Caracazo or sacudón is the name given to the wave of protests, riots and looting and ensuing massacre[1] that occurred on 27 February 1989 in the Venezuelan capital Caracas and surrounding towns. The riots — the worst in Venezuelan history — resulted in a death toll of anywhere between 275 and 3,000 deaths,[2] mostly at the hands of security forces. The main reason for the protests were the neoliberal, pro-market reforms imposed by the government of Carlos Andrés Pérez, who had recently been elected in a campaign where he promised the opposite of such reforms.[1]
The clearest consequence of the Caracazo was political instability. The following February, the army was called to contain similar riots in Puerto La Cruz and Barcelona, and again in June, when rising of transportation costs ended in riots in Maracaibo and other cities. The free-market reforms programme was modified. In 1992 there were two attempted coups d'état, in February and November. Carlos Andrés Pérez was accused of corruption and removed from the presidency. Hugo Chávez, an organiser of one of the coups, was found guilty of sedition and incarcerated. However, he was subsequently pardoned by Pérez's successor, Rafael Caldera, and went on to be elected president after him.
In 1998, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights condemned the government's action, and referred the case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. In 1999, the Court heard the case and found that the government had committed violations of human rights, including extrajudicial killings. The Venezuelan government, by then headed by Chávez, did not contest the findings of the case, and accepted full responsibility for the government's actions.[3]
276 is the "official" death toll. most accounts say ~2000. but idk about the following massacres of the next few years.
Now, you might have heard Chavez himself led a coup in 1992. But consider that he lead a coup against a psychotic regime that had a bazillion massacres of civilians over the preceding 3 years ... and consider that the party which conducted those massacres is still one of the biggest opposition parties.
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Topic: Calm and Cool Progressive Discussion Thread (Read 1274324 times)