The Venezuelan state-run oil company has seized some more oil rigs owned by a US company (see story HERE). Apparently, Chavez & Co. don't want to pay these companies for their services, and when the owners stop production, the rigs get "nationalized." How much longer, until no company from any nation will operate in Venezuela?
 There's a lesson here for more than just oil companies. All the US corporations that own "carbon credits" in Brazil, and other countries in that region, are at risk. Chavez is becoming an influencial force, with several other nations in the region following his lead. Don't be surprised if all those billions of dollars worth of "carbon credits" simply evaporate, if the political winds change. There is already a "grass roots" political movement to "take back" the rain forests in Brazil. The situation could escalate, as Chavez keeps getting away with this treatment of foreign investors.
PS: On a personal note, I've finally replaced my old, infected PC! I'm looking forward to getting back to writing on Gather much more often! I really missed it, over the last few months, though I was able to do some posting. SEE YOU SOON!
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Comments: 73
If our infrastructure was worth two cents, it could not happen that easily to America. As it is, our infrastructure invites zany attacks, from victory starved sorts, so they can watch the dominos fall in childish delight.
Dominos we precariously prop up as if they were strong American structures, for a few green backs. Basically we have sold our security for a few pieces of paper.
So although we can always go and bomb away someone that does not do what may or may not be right or wrong. It may prove a bad long term plan.
If Chevez is in fact keeping his country isolated, from the rest of the world, when it comes to staple products, his country needs. Then he is following the book by George Washington.
America right now is in total disregard for what made America. We are denying everything good about America. Just like loyalists in America, were afraid of revolution. Theydenied their British rights, to avoid a confrontation.
British rights made what was happening to American colonists wrong. Yet they were to afraid to stand up for their rights. When George Washington and 21 other men, pulled every God given right from the old English constitution. The English themselves did not recognizing their own rights, and declared the declaration of American colonists rights "A declaration of independence". That is when George Washington declared that England was finished as a nation under her constitution.
George Washington frowned upon trust between nations, totally. He would not allow a Canadian to stand in NORAD, wearing a uniform and having a say in anything. If Canada trusts us as a friend they can trust what we tell them is happening by phone or radio. They do not need an un-trusting sort standing their to confirm our deceitful actions.
But right now we are not really Americans.
Sincerely,
William McCormick
ICBM's can deliver a nuke in the same, or even less time, it takes a pizza to get to your house. We needed and still need, those countries to base a radar system in. In the early Cold War days, we had the DEWline, Mid Canada Line and Pine Tree Line system of radars on watch for a massive Soviet launch of bombers and missiles. Today, we have the BMEWS and PAVE PAWS radar systems based in Alaska (part of US of course), Greenland and Flyingdales in the UK. We have satellites too, of course. If we did not do that during the early Cold War, warning times would be much shorter, at least until satellites came on the scene.
I do still see the concern over a Canadian officer on U.S. soil but I guess that is what we have now.
F Y L I N G D A L E S
some people talk like they actually know something when they probably just MISread it in a Tom Clancy novel.
Some people never learn.
Some people will never learn, but some will, and they will be successful.
>> plan, for American counter-revolutionaries. You should look into it.
Children who live in shacks, and who used to have to beg in the street, with no hope, can now go to school and get some food. Pretty subversive ... better nuke them so they don't get any funny ideas like participating in the politics or development of their country. You folks are really something.
Not anything you said about nukes, just what you provoked in others with the article. I think I was referring to ol' Tom Clancy up there.
>> I've been wondering for years and years why our American
>> Companies continue to set up business in foreign countries
>> that hate us
This statement ... also not by Christopher ... is the kind of thing
that amazes me. The people in South America hate America
because we do not even do so much as "do business" with them,
we move into their country, kick them off the land, then make
them work to survival at below subsistance wages, while we pay
the biggest and meanest of them to kill off anyone who objects
while we take their natural resources.
Wonder no more, Nora.
It would NEVER have crossed his mind to do this with a Reagan in office. We would have blown him to bits. Now we just watch and then get pictures taken with him in a few months.
~M
Some might say Chavez is a reaction to Reagan's policies in the region, Texas. Heck, Daniel Ortega is back in power, in Nicaragua! The trend in the region is disturbing, and it's no stretch to say that things would be different if Reagan were president now. It's a hypothetical, so no-one knows...
Thanks for commenting, because I agree with your POV!
Oh, yes, anyone who participated in any sort of democratic movement and their families would be disappearing. God, Christopher ... you are truly amazing.
The same thing happening in Venezuela, is happening in our capitol, or our diplomats would kill Chavez with a whisper of truth. Words alone would rip off Chavez's head off.
We have no truth to say to Chevez. No where to lead Chevez. Because our leaders are more corrupt.
Sincerely,
William McCormick
Venezuela is a stumbling corpse and its been running on its capital so long that the fall will likely be a collapse then a by violence. Its Iran writ small on a political rather than religious mandate. Declining oil revenues are forcing Chavez to get more creative and to tamp down harder on emigration, currency controls (especially inward), and dissent of any kind.
When he tried to bluff Colombia, it was the classic move to focus attention anywhere but on the miserable home front. Even that failed when his armed forces realized the cost they'd pay for starting any such dust up. Bluster aside, the Venezuelan military is a force capable only now of internal repression, not external defense or offense.
Nationalizing is another name for government theft and as Argentina has found out, that kind of act is not forgotten quickly.
In Bolivia the World Bank forced the country to privatize the water infrastructure and give the franchise to Bechtel, and actually taxed peasants to collect rainwater.
It's really clear you folks here care nothing for facts, or justice, you just want to wave the flag for the worst aspects of America that have brought the problems we have on ourselves.
So because some companies/nations in the past got resources at what now is considered theft, present governments can break their own word to get payback from other companies?
This kind of act causes major future problems. Ask Argentina about that. Even her own citizens will not invest in their country because of the confiscation laws and they can't get much foreign investment because of the realization the government's word is worthless. Venezuela is in the same boat.
The World Bank isn't a US firm and I'm no fan of it either.
Waving the flag? No, I'm talking about the rule of law. Nationalization remains another word for theft that's why it is so unpopular except among nations in dire economic straits.
I know damn well, and so does anyone else who has done any reading at all that Hugo Chavez has no control over his image or Venezuela's story in the US media. The US financed yet another coup attempt to topple him a while back even though he was democratically elected, and has popular support.
You know, no government or person is perfect, and Chavez came up from being virtually nothing. He does not have the benefit of a lot of education and the people around him he never knows if he can trust ... a lot like what happened to Castro, or a whole long list of the enemies of America, or for that matter even our dictator friends. He is doing his best for his country, and he has not only the support of his people, but the support of most of the non-US run countries in the region too.
The movie link that I posted a while back in one of my articles to a documentary called "The End Of Poverty" is full of documentation of how, why and when South America has been taken advantage of, and the writer John Perkins wrote two big books about being what he called "an economic hit man".
http://www.theendofpoverty.com/
If anyone is interested in challenging their preconceived notions you can find this movie on YouTube I think, or Hulu.Com and watch it for free.
Now there are millions of people who have no way to make a living.
it is really easy for Americans who don't know or care anything about this to call land reform communists, socialists and terrorists, but all it really is, is giving some land back to the people of the country to which it belonged and was appropriated by force a long time ago so they have some means of making a livelihood.
the alternative is to compete in the labor market where their labor is so cheap because of the masses of desperate people ... and then that comes right back to us and devalues our labor as well in the US.
You have to look and care to look at the whole cycle, otherwise you are just a
accessory criminal, and probably a low paid one at that.
One of the great things about our nation is that so far I can look at myriads of news sources. Latin America has many of them and some are in English if I don't quite catch the nuances of some articles. Funny thing is that Venezuela's reputation is pretty poor across the much of the region.
>> pretty poor across the much of the region.
Only with the installed client states of the US.
When arguments are reduced to such simplicity, there is no more reason to bother with debate on the subject
and Chuck it just so happens to be true, I'm not making
that up. Go see Oliver Stone's movie when it comes out,
he has video of the Brazil and Argentiina's leaders as well
as Bolivia and others talking about Chavez.
Wealthy forces in the US have been trying to get rid of Chavez since he arose to power and stays in power democractically.
Forces have just been sent into Costa Rica this week ... so it may be that the US is planning something, but the trend in South America is anti-American because we have done and used about every dirty trick in the book to rip them off and murder people down there.
One of the first CIA actions was to remove the democratically elected leader of Guatemala for wanting to do something so the Guatemalans who were displaced from the land they lived on by American industry and then forced to work for slave wages or die in the cities.
You ugly Americans up there talking about bombing people do not have a clue.
Facts ... I dare you ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hwhau48LUAA