Ce n’est pas seulement les politiques économiques de Chavez qu’il faut questionner, mais aussi sa santé mentale…

Les gens qui pensent que la conférence de Copenhague est une rencontre ayant pour thème l’environnement et non pas le socialisme devront réviser leur position.

De passage à Copenhague, Hugo Chavez a profité de l’occasion pour s’adresser aux délégués présents pour cette conférence.  Dans son allocution, le président vénézuélien a déclaré que le capitalisme menait en enfer et, en s’appuyant sur des citations de Karl Marx et Jésus Christ, Chavez a conclu son discours en affirmant que seul le socialisme pouvait sauver le monde.

Réaction des délégués venus entendre le discours ?  Une ovation debout !

Quand une assemblée de réchauffistes ovationne le leader maximo d’une pétro-économie détenant les plus importantes réserves mondiales de sable bitumineux simplement parce qu’il a affirmé que le socialisme devrait remplacer le capitalisme, il ne fait plus de doute que l’enjeu de cette conférence n’est pas le réchauffement de la planète, mais la destruction du capitalisme.

Fait intéressant, pour produire 1000$ de PIB, le Canada dégage 0,73 tonne de CO₂. Pour la même production, le Venezuela dégage 1,04 tonne de CO₂.  La Corée du Nord, un autre paradis socialiste, fait osciller la balance à 4,61 tonnes de CO₂ par tranche de 1000$ de PIB.

Parions que les chercheurs de l’Université d’East Anglia ont entre les mains une étude qui démontre que le CO₂ socialiste est moins dommageable que le CO₂ capitaliste…

Et pour ceux qui doutent encore du véritable objectif des écologistes réunis à Copenhague, voici à quoi ressemblent les manifestations en marge du sommet:

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Venezuela to fine networks that air ‘Family Guy’ The Anchorage Daily News Venezuelan authorities plan to impose fines on cable television companies that refuse to stop airing the animated television series « Family Guy. » Justice Minister Tareck El Aissami says the program should be pulled from the airwaves because it promotes the use of marijuana. El Aissami was outraged by a recent episode in which the show’s characters started a campaign to legalize marijuana. He said Thursday that cable networks that broadcast « Family Guy » would be fined by Venezuela’s telecommunications regulator if they refuse to dump the program. The government of President Hugo Chavez is preparing to impose new regulations on cable television. Among other rules, cable providers could be forced to carry Chavez’s frequent speeches.

N.B. Dans l’Alaska de Sarah Palin, la possession de petites quantités de marijuana est légale.

Imaginez qu'on nomme à un poste clé du CRTC un type qui considère le concept de liberté d'expression est une distraction.  Imaginez que ce type affirme du même souffle qu'il admire le gouvernement Chavez et sa gestion des médias.

Heureusement pour nous, ce type n'est pas à l'emploi du CRTC, mais malheureusement pour les Américains, il est à l'emploi du FCC (l'équivalent américain du CRTC).

Something is not right…

Voici comment Hugo Chavez a mis son pays sur la la route de la servitude:

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« In 2004, the Chávez regime in Venezuela distributed the list of several million voters whom had attempted to remove him from office throughout the government bureaucracy, allegedly to identify and punish these voters. We match the list of petition signers distributed by the government to household survey respondents to measure the economic effects of being identified as a Chavez political opponent. We find that voters who were identified as Chavez opponents experienced a 5 percent drop in earnings and a 1.5 percentage point drop in employment rates after the voter list was released. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the loss aggregate TFP [Total Factor Productivity] from the misallocation of workers across jobs was substantial, on the order of 3 percent of GDP. »

Leon Trotsky a déjà dit : « In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: Who does not work does not eat, has been replaced by a new one: Who does not obey shall not eat. »

Avec la crise économique qui a fait plonger le prix du baril de pétrole, Hugo Chavez cherche à se faire de nouveaux amis pour éviter que l'économie de son pays ne s'effondre.

Ainsi, après avoir nationalisé son industrie pétrolière, le leader vénézuélien tente de convaincre les pétrolières Chevron, Royal Dutch/Shell et Total de revenir s'installer dans son paradis socialiste en leur promettant un accès exclusif à ses champs pétroliers les plus prolifiques.  Chavez n'a plus le choix: le Venezuela n'a plus les moyens de ses ambitions et son gouvernement a besoin de capitaux étrangers.

Voilà qui est paradoxal.  Alors que dans les économies capitalistes la crise a provoqué une vague de nationalisation, dans les économies socialistes la crise semble plutôt favoriser les privatisations.

Selon Léo-Paul Lauzon, le Canada doit nationaliser son industrie pétrolière.

L'économiste chouchou des gauchistes a fait valoir que: "Tous les pays producteurs et exportateurs qui ont nationalisé leurs ressources pétrolières et gazières l'ont fait avec un immense succès, il n'y a pas d'échec!"

Voyons si cette affirmation tient la route en comparant la production de pétrole du Venezuela à celle du Canada.

Le modèle vénézuélien, non merci… Il semble que le modèle canadien soit plus efficace.

If it aint broken, dont fix it.

Sources:

Country Energy Profiles

Une nouvelle journée et une nouvelle gaffe pour Barack Obama…

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Dans un premier temps, Barack Obama a reconnu que le Venezuela entretenait des liens avec les FARC et qu’il désirait parler de la chose avec Hugo Chavez: « One of the obvious high priorities in my talks with President Hugo Chavez would be the fermentation of anti-American sentiment in Latin America, his support of FARC in Colombia and other issues he would want to talk about. »

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Le lendemain, Barack Obama déclare que tous les pays ayant des relations avec les FARC doivent être isolés: « We will shine a light on any support for the FARC that comes from neighboring governments. This behavior must be exposed to international condemnation, regional isolation, and – if need be – strong sanctions. It must not stand. »

Une journée Obama désire négocier avec Chavez et le lendemain il parle d’isoler le régime et de le soumettre à des sanctions. Obama ou l’art du flip-flop !

Mais ça, Richard Hétu n’en parlera jamais…

Pour le mois de décembre, en moyenne 18 Irakiens ont perdu la vie chaque jour, principalement dans des attentats perpétrés par Al-Qaeda.

Dans le paradis socialiste vénézuélien, on compte en moyenne 34 meurtres par jour.

Maintenant, dites-moi où se trouve la véritable zone de guerre…

Les rues de Caracas sont plus dangereuses que celles de Bagdad. Si personne n'en parle, c'est probablement parce qu'il est impossible de blâmer les Américains pour la situation au Venezuela.

Les pleureuses professionnelles de la gogauche devraient garder leurs larmes pour les Vénézuéliens, ils en ont plus besoins que les Irakiens.

(H/T: Dissident)

"Chávez’s grab for socialist-emperor status is grotesque and dangerous — as Fascism was — a terrible example for a region that has been consolidating democracy"

Shutting Up Venezuela’s Chávez

It was a fascist general in 1930s Spain who coined the phrase “Viva la muerte!” or “Long live death!” Essentially meaningless, the words captured the cult of soil, blood and savagery that coursed through European Fascism, in its Francoist and other forms.

President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela hates fascists; they are central to his repertoire of insults. But he has not hesitated to deploy the imagery of death to bolster his leftist brand of petro-authoritarianism, now operating under the ludicrous banner of “Fatherland, Socialism or Death!”

The slogan looks almost quaint in its anachronism. Chávez would no doubt claim Cuban revolutionary, rather than Spanish fascist, roots for it (Fidel Castro also invoked fatherland and finality). The bottom line is this: Latin America’s oil-gilded caudillo is getting serious about ruling for life, just like Franco and Castro.

I might add Vladimir Putin to that list. Like the Russian leader, Chávez has already used gushing oil revenue, a pliant judiciary, subservient institutions and the galvanizing appeal of vitriolic anti-Americanism to concoct a 21st-century, gulag-free authoritarianism. But even Putin has not contemplated going as far as Chávez now intends to take his “Bolivarian revolution.”

Venezuelans will vote Sunday in a referendum that would remove all limits on presidential re-election, grant Chávez direct control over foreign currency reserves, allow him to censor the media under a state of emergency declarable at his discretion, expand his powers to expropriate private property and create the second formally socialist nation in the Americas alongside Fidel’s.

“The measures amount to a constitutional coup,” said Teodoro Petkoff, who edits an opposition newspaper. Certainly, they would prod Venezuela from an oppressive rule comparable to Mexico’s under its once impregnable Institutional Revolutionary Party toward the dictatorial absolutism of Cuba.

Unlike other votes during Chávez’s nine-year presidency, and unlike the assured victory of Putin’s United Russia Party in voting the same day, the referendum is not a foregone conclusion.

Overcoming inertia, opponents led by students have energized a “No” campaign. A general once close to Chávez has denounced a looming coup d’état. Polls suggest a close outcome.

But awash in petrodollars — oil accounts for about 90 percent of Venezuelan exports — Chávez commands formidable resources. They are centered in the armed forces; a huge nomenklatura scattered across the bureaucracy and newly nationalized industries; the so-called Boliburgesía (Bolivarian bourgeoisie) of traders grown rich working the angles of a corrupt system; and the poor whom Chávez has helped and manipulated.

Certainly, the oil money Chávez has plowed into poor neighborhoods (at the expense of an oil industry suffering chronic underinvestment) has reduced poverty. The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America said last year that the extreme poverty rate had fallen to 9.9 percent from 15.9 percent.

But more than spreading socialist ideals, Chávez has spread a form of crony capitalism, dedicated to his greater glory, that has imbued the economy with all the resilience of a house of cards.

Foreign investment has plunged, scared off by nationalizations. A huge disparity between the official and black-market exchange rates has encouraged get-rich-quick schemes for favored “Chávistas” while erecting endless barriers to trade. Price controls on staples have made eggs unavailable. This week, you can’t find chickens. Chávez’s socialism delivers subsidized gasoline and glittering malls but no milk.

Latin America has been here before, with the disastrous import-substitution and highly regulated models of the 1960s and ’70s. Most of the region has moved on, but not Chávez, who trumpets “growth from within,” whatever that is. The World Bank’s recently released “Doing Business 2008,” a ranking of the ease of conducting commerce, places Venezuela 172nd out of 178 countries.

Despite this, the country does huge business with the United States, as its fourth-largest crude oil supplier and a big importer. Chávez’s “socialism” and his chumminess with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad do not extend to cutting off the “imperialist empire.” Chávez is too shrewd to sever his lifeline.

A possible conclusion would be that he’s harmless — a wily barracks-bred buffoon whose leftist rhetoric is just a veneer for a petrodollar power play. Perhaps that’s why the United States — and Latin American nations — have been so muted, or silent, before Chávez’s attempted “constitutional coup.” Oil speaks.

But Chávez’s grab for socialist-emperor status is grotesque and dangerous — as Fascism was — a terrible example for a region that has been consolidating democracy. King Juan Carlos of Spain got it right when he recently interrupted Chávez’s trademark verbal diarrhea with a brusque: “Why don’t you just shut up?”

Venezuelans should watch that regal routine on YouTube — it’s even been set to music — and follow suit on Sunday.