I love Hugo Chavez!

FOX News acts like he's the devil incarnate, but everything I've heard about him makes him sound like a saint. His people love him. What's the deal?

• You sound like a fucking loon.

• Aside from the fact that he was a megalomaniac and friends with the likes of Ghadafi and Ahmedinejad, nothing.

• OP, you know kids from abused families who still love their father even though he beats and mistreats them? It's like that. Given its oil riches, Venezula could be a paradise for all of its people instead of a bonanza for the rich and hellhole for the poor. Yes, he shuffled around some basics for the poor so they weren't completely starving, but he killed off any hope of a middle class, as well scaring away foreign investment. Venezuela could easily have been on par with Argentina, Brazil or Chile by now instead of wallowing around with Cuba. And it's entirely his fault.

• He was a good Marxist. He imprisoned anyone who disagreed with him. He shut down dissent in the media. He prevented people from traveling outside of Venezuela. He wrecked the Venezuelan middle class. He built a personality cult around himself. He secretly amassed a personal fortune estimated at something like $2bn. He squandered billions of dollars in oil money on showy projects that did nothing but feed his ego.

• an enlightened despote at best. he did lower unemployment though.

• What's the deal with mayo?! Somebody tell me!

• All I knew of Chavez were his snarky comments about Bush, and his deal with one of the Kennedys to provide low cot heating oil to the poor. I was surprised at the cool tone in the usually liberal LA Times that greeted his death, but then I found out Chavez was no fan of Jews, and this may be behind some of the less complimentary stories we see posted here and in the other Chavez threads.

• Yeah, he also called his opponent a Jewish Fag. He was no fan of gays either. And no fan of Jews but then again most people that hate Jews also hate gays so...

• Funny that your story wasn't the first one posted to a gay group instead of one posted after Chavez's dislike of Jews was mentioned.

• Funny that you're so determined to push a Jewish angle to dislike of Chavez.

• Love that a Socialist amassed a $2B fortune

• R3, sounds just like Louisiana.

  Huey%20P.%20Long%20troll

• Don't cry for me, Venezuelaaaaa! Someone needs to write this musical, stat

  Mandy%20%28I%20need%20a%20job%29%20Patinkin

• He did a great job of making himself a socialist dictator that's for sure.

• OP= Sean Penn

• I LOVE him!!!

  R.%20Mugabe

• His comment at the UN when Bush left that it still smelled of sulfur was pretty funny, actually. I'll give him two things....he had the balls to stand up to the US and he did more for Katrina victims than Bush did.

• He cut poverty in half.

• The media has villified him similar to what they did with Castro. People continue to drink the Kool-Aid.

• Chavez is sizzling right now!!!

• R20.....That's assuming there is a heaven and hell, a concept based on fairy tales and propagated by the media and the general uncritically thinking culture.

• Chavez is not what he was thought of by some on the American left. And, OP, you may see that a great many Venezuelans love Chavez. But a great many do not. And if you think those who don't are merely right wing oligarchs, you are sorely mistaken. Among them are many who supported him at the beginning - most Venezuelans of all walks of life did - and came to realize that he was all rhetoric, and did far too little for real progress and a great deal to foment hatred and violence. We in the U.S. love what he did to stand up to Bush and to help bring fuel assistance to those in need. And indeed he should be remembered for these and other good things he did. But that is not the entire story. The entire story is complicated and shows him to have been a huge disappointment to his country.