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The ugly face of socialism II


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Here's the last couple of months time line

http://www.coxandforkum.com/archives/000661.html

September 07, 2005

Hugo Chavez

From the The Washington Post: Socialism a Hard Sell for Some Venezuelans.

The shopping mall is a blur of Guess jeans, Louis Vuitton purses and Motorola cell phones, a temple of consumerism in a country that is supposed to be on a path toward socialism. So popular is the Sambil Mall that "Sambil society" has become a derogatory term in the Venezuelan socialist vocabulary. Reject it and build a fairer Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez urges his nation of 25 million people.

"We're capitalists, consumers by nature," said 26-year-old Marbelys Gonzalez, strolling through the mall with two friends, carrying a shopping bag filled with five pairs of designer jeans. ...

Chavez says capitalism created Venezuela's poverty, and a "new socialism of the 21st century" can end it.

"It's the search for social justice, for equality," Chavez said recently. "The capitalist model is perverse. It favors a minority and expropriates from the majority."

In his nearly seven years in power, Chavez has presided over a society increasingly divided by his politics and sometimes shaken by spasms of street violence pitting his supporters against his enemies.

It remains unclear what sort of socialism Chavez may achieve, but his latest moves provide hints _ raising taxes on foreign companies pumping oil, setting up stores to sell cheap food to the needy, subsidizing farming and industrial cooperatives, and handing over some wealthy ranchers' lands to poor farmers. ...

"Every day it looks more like the communism of Fidel Castro," says Jesus Garrido Perez, an opposition congressman. "The economic disaster has begun." ...

Some opponents accuse Chavez, a former army officer elected in 1998, of planning an assault on private property, pointing to his land reform program as a starter. But Chavez has insisted private property will be respected and business encouraged. So far, his sharpest attacks on the wealthy have been verbal.

"It's bad to be rich," Chavez said in one speech. "Those who have a lot of money should donate it." ...

"You have to strip yourself of individualism," he urged listeners in one televised address. "You have to strip yourself of the yearnings for personal wealth. You have to strip yourself of egotism. You need to be, simply, useful."

See the writings of Ayn Rand for a refutation of such collectivism.

In other Chavez-related news: Heinz Calls on Venezuela to Give Back Seized Ketchup Plant.

Posted by Forkum at September 7, 2005 04:44 PM

-----How his verbal attack progressed

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1362159/posts

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela plans this week to take land from four private farms, including a British-owned cattle ranch and an eco-tourism reserve, as part of President Hugo Chavez's agrarian reforms for the poor, authorities said on Sunday.

National Land Institute director Eliezer Otaiza told Reuters the government would take parts of El Charcote farm, run by British meat producer Vestey, and the Hato Pinero reserve to develop state-sponsored agriculture projects.

"The land is going to pass over to us now," Otaiza said in an interview. "Tomorrow starts the rescue process."

Chavez says the agrarian reform campaign will respect private property rights, but his aggressive call for land redistribution has stirred fears that authorities will ignore due process and carry out illegal land grabs.

Otaiza said the state would take control of the land, because the four farms had failed to prove ownership, but they had 60 days to appeal to the courts.

Agroflora, the local Vestey representatives, were unavailable for comment, and the owners of Hato Pinero could not be contacted.

The 2001 land law allows the government to take land ruled as belonging to the state and expropriate private farmland judged idle or unproductive.

The land law was one of several reforms that triggered three years of conflict between the populist Chavez and his opponents, who say he wants to copy Cuba's Communist model.

The decision on the four farms follows weeks of land inspections, begun at the start of this year when Chavez ordered regional authorities to speed up the agrarian reform after he won an August referendum.

Otaiza said the state would take around 12,350 acres of the 32,000-acre (13,000-hectare) El Charcote farm and "80 to 90 percent" of the 198,123-acre (80,212-hectare) Hato Pinero farm reserve.

But he said the measures were not expropriations because the land was public. The government must pay compensation at market price for any land it expropriates, but not if the land is judged to belong to the state.

Chavez, a former army officer elected in 1998 promising to use the country's oil revenues to fight poverty, has said he wants to redistribute hundreds of acres of idle farmland nationwide to farm cooperatives.

-----That was the SCUM BAGS looting land, here's an article about the scum bags looting industry

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1605

Caracas, Venezuela, April 28, 2005ÔÇöVenezuela's President Hugo Ch├ívez announced the expropriation of the Constructora Nacional de Valvulas (CNV) in a ceremony at the Presidential Palace in the capital Caracas, yesterday. CNV makes valves used in the oil industry and was a long-time associate of the state oil company PDVSA until it closed in 2003. Labor minister Maria Christina Iglesias and a group of former-CNV workers were also present at the announcement, where Ch├ívez signed a decree expropriating CNV. The National Assembly had previously declared it to be of ÔÇÿpublic utility,ÔÇÖ a legal prerequisite to expropriation.

CNV is only the second company to be expropriated by the Venezuelan government and is to be run under a system of shared worker-state co-management. VenezuelaÔÇÖs first expropriation, last January,ÔÇöof the paper factory VenepalÔÇöwas announced as part of a nation-wide endogenous development campaign called ÔÇ£made in Venezuela.ÔÇØ The campaign seeks to promote national industrial and agricultural development in an attempt at diversifying VenezuelaÔÇÖs oil-dominated exports, and reducing dependency on imports.

In December 2002, the then main labor federation, the Confederation of Venezuelan Workers (CTV) and chamber of commerce federation Fedecamaras jointly declared a nation-wide ÔÇ£general strikeÔÇØ aimed at ousting President Ch├ívez. The most destructive aspect was the near-total shutdown of the oil industry, accompanied by sabotage resulting in billions of dollars in damage and losses. In many cases, including both Venepal and CNV, employers locked workers out and shut down production for the entire 2 month strike.

As reported by Jorge Martin, writing for the Hands Off Venezuela campaign, the closure of CNV for the duration of the strike left over 100 workers without income. With the end of the strike/lock-out CNV owner Andr├®s Sosa Pietri refused pay promised back-wages to workers, provoking a group of workers to begin agitating for radical change at the factory. In May 2003 workers decided to occupy the entrance to the factory in an attempt to prevent Pietri from moving machinery out and closing down the factory. The occupation was declared illegal by the Venezuelan courts, and workers were eventually convinced to abandon the occupation.

But the expropriation of VenepalÔÇönow the Endogenous Paper Industry of Venezuela (Invepal)ÔÇöearlier this year inspired workers around the country to renew their efforts at their own factories in the hope that they would be the next Invepal. On February 17, 2005, 63 former-CNV workers re-occupied CNV, this time taking over the entire factory, rather than just the entrance.

Back in January, at the signing of the decree to expropriate Venepal, Ch├ívez sent a warning to the Venezuelan land-owning class: ÔÇ£TodayÔÇÖs expropriation of Venezuela is an exception, not a political measure. We arenÔÇÖt going to steal your land; if itÔÇÖs yours, itÔÇÖs yours. But to the factories that are closed, and abandonedÔÇöweÔÇÖre coming for you. For all of you. For the rescue of the industrial fabric.ÔÇØ

Speaking to workers at yesterdayÔÇÖs expropriation of CNVÔÇönow the Endogenous Valve Industry of Venezuela (Inveval)ÔÇöCh├ívez reiterated this statement, warning that other companies that abandon their factories should be taken over and turned into ÔÇ£Inve-no-se-que-cosaÔÇØ (Inve-whatever).

Pioneering Venezuelan Co-Management

The expropriation of Venepal and CNV, and the advancement of co-management in state run enterprises such as the electrical company Cadafe and the Aluminum factory Alcasa are not only a product of the governmentÔÇÖs ÔÇÿMade in VenezuelaÔÇÖ strategyÔÇöthey also represent hard-fought battles by workers all over the country. But the business of worker-management is complex, and as a Venezuelan trailblazer, the pressure on Invepal to feed the hopes of workers at factories throughout the country is high. While it remains unclear exactly what is going on at Invepal, recent developments suggest a deviation from workersÔÇÖ earlier goals.

At a recent forum on co-management, a former member of the executive of VenepalÔÇÖs now defunct union and current member of the directorate of Invepal, Alexix Ornevo, noted that since they no longer had any bosses, they longer needed a union, as workers were now grouped into a cooperative (Covimpa) to run the company. And as a cooperative, Ornevo was quick to point out, they got several benefits including Constitutional relief from paying taxes. Also thanks to the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution, CovimpaÔÇöcurrently owners of a 49 percent share in InvepalÔÇöwere legally entitled to increase that share up to 95 percent.

OrnevoÔÇÖs presentation caused serious concern among many in the audience, who worried that the model of co-management and worker agency in the country was setting the stage to become a model for capitalist cooperatives. ÔÇ£As we saw in [the] presentation on Invepal,ÔÇØ said Federation of Electrical Workers (Fetraelec) president Angel Navas in an interview, ÔÇ£they are having some serious problems, they seem to be thinking as managers.ÔÇØ ÔÇ£Eight-hundred workers will be sole owners of the company. And if it becomes profitable, are these workers are going to get rich? This is a company that is supposed to belong to the entire country; my company canÔÇÖt only belong to the workers, if we make profits they belong to the entire population. This is a responsibility that we all have,ÔÇØ said Navas.

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LOL< notice how even the expropriation of that factory turned around and bit them in the ***. The workers used the government to loot the factory and forcefully take it from the RIGHFULL owner, and then used a loophole in their constitution to appropriate the factory from the society. ROFL.

Socialism is a mental disorder. They are nothing but criminals, living off of the labors of others, looting others, and using others as slaves.

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