Hugo Chavez – Roger Ingalls
At 58, Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, is dead. How am I supposed to feel about this man? As a citizen of the USA, I’m expected to hate him because of his extreme socialism, reforms that nationalized many industries including foreign-owned businesses and railings against, what he called, US imperialism.
When Chavez became Venezuela’s president in 1998, close to 60% of his nation’s people lived in poverty and 25% of them lived in extreme poverty. Now, 15 years later, only a little over a quarter of the country’s people are below the poverty line with less than 7% falling into the extreme range. In addition, he established free public education for citizens of all social status, providing grade school through doctorial level studies. To further improve quality of life, Chavez created a national health care system free to everyone. Increasing the standard of living for so many, in such a short period of time, is an amazing achievement.
Venezuela is blessed with having a valuable natural resource, oil. However, the vast majority of its people never benefited from this treasured commodity. The riches went to foreigners from other countries. To heal his impoverished nation, Chavez seized the oil industry within Venezuela’s borders and used the wealth for the good of the people. His nationalization of industry angered the US because we lost control of oil in this region.
In the US, we are taught to believe people like Hugo Chavez are bad because their political and economic agenda differs from ours. However, I’m finding it difficult to hate or think badly of a man – a politician – that fought so hard for the good of his people. I hope to someday witness a US politician that fights this hard for his constituency.
Left Coast Voices 
This is 100% grade-A bullshit. He redistributed wealth from oil, but real average wages declined 40% since his first election. This system is unsustainable and will cause a slip back into extreme poverty for most people if a viable solution to oil is found or oil commodity prices dip (which after the discovery of more in North Dakota they are expected too). It’s funny how you hippy liberals hate oil unless of course it is pumped by leftist dictators, then it’s a god-send.
http://www.foreignaffairs.com/interactive-the-twisted-economics-of-twenty-first-century-socialism-chavez-venezuela?cid=soc-tumblr-in-twisted_economics-030613
Not only that but inflation is the highest in Latin America and the homicide rate has tripled since he began ruling. In fact they are facing an even greater devaluation, and shortages.
“Now, by any objective measure, Venezuela’s economy is touch-and-go. It lives and dies by oil prices, which in the first nine years under Chávez went from the low double digits to as high as $140 a barrel. At 22 percent, inflation burns, with food shortages common. Finance Minister Jorge Giordani this week lamented that Venezuela needs from $30 billion to $40 billion of foreign currency annually just to slake its import needs”
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-02-15/venezuelas-double-edged-bolivar-devaluation
As for infrastructure and hospitals “In 14 years you built less public housing than any president before you did in their 5 year periods. Hospitals today have no resources, and if you go there in an emergency you must bring with you everything from medicines to surgical gloves and masks.”
He manipulated elections, shut down 30 private news stations that disagreed with him, and manipulated the election results in 2010 to make sure the opposition didn’t get more than 1/3 of the seats, despite getting 51% of the vote. He also fired judges that didn’t agree with him.
http://ireport.cnn.com/blogs/ireport-blog/2013/03/06/fact-check-10-reasons-i-won-t-miss-chavez
Basically you cherry-picked the nicest things you could find about him, and wrote a love letter about a thug. I find it hard to take you seriously nearly ever, but this is truly the biggest load of left-wing crap I have ever read. Will you be doing a dedication to Stalin or Mao next? Or perhaps you can inform us-propaganda filled Americans how misunderstood Kim Jong-Un is.