Venezuela's Chavez says cancer has returned

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I can't say I feel bad about this. Sounds like good news.

You're disgusting.

Cheering the news that a dictator has fallen ill and might not longer be in power is horrible now?

Chavez is a democratically elected president in a country where the opposition controls most of the media. His governing style may be authoritarian, but he is not a dictator.

Thanks.  I needed a good laugh.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

TV is what matters in Venezuelan and its dominated by very Conservative capital interests and are highly critical towards Chavez.

About the TV market situation:

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/who-dominates-the-media-in-venezuela  

So you think the yanking of RCTV's broadcast license by Chavez for opposing him means that there is a dominant opposition media that is free from the threat of similar reprisals?  Thanks for giving me another laugh.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

TV is what matters in Venezuelan and its dominated by very Conservative capital interests and are highly critical towards Chavez.

About the TV market situation:

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/publications/reports/who-dominates-the-media-in-venezuela  

So you think the yanking of RCTV's broadcast license by Chavez for opposing him means that there is a dominant opposition media that is free from the threat of similar reprisals?  Thanks for giving me another laugh.

If you knew how the Venezuelan opposition press actually operates you wouldn't ask that question. It is very anti-Government. Compares Chavez to Hitler etc.
The refusal to renew RCTVs license made a couple of other TV-stations tone it down a notch, but they are still highly critical of the regime.
Its a fact that the vast majority of the country's media outlets are owned by Chavez opponents.

They'd already toned down, as you so charmingly put it, before RCTV got its license pulled and its broadcast assets seized.  That RCTV didn't kowtow to Chavez is why it got the shaft.  They may still be owned by his opponents, but they don't dare make too many waves lest they too get their assets nationalized for céntimos on the bolivar.  Chavez likes to pretend that he's a democrat, but he isn't.  Granted, he's not a Kim, Castro, or Mugabe.  Probably the world leader whose style is closest to what his is Putin, except he hasn't been as successful at it as Putin has been. Tho it hasn't been for lack of trying.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

What I said was that he is democratically elected (in elections that international observers consider free) and that his opponents control most of the press. This was the allegation that you chose to ridicule apparently only based on one single case (that is more complex than you portray it since they were probably guilty of supporting the 2002 coup, which makes the governments actions somewhat legitimate).

They were far from the only media outlet for which the charge of supporting the 2002 coup could be leveled, but they were the only one that didn't try to kiss and makeup to some degree with Chavez after the coup failed.  RCTV is the most glaring example of what Chavez has done to muzzle the opposition using government power, which is why I made it the centerpiece.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

After reading Nicolás Maduro's biography in the "Standard" recently, it seems that he's the Will Riker of Venezuela politics ...

While that's better than being the Troi, I don't see Chavez as the Picard.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

On VP Maduro, from Wikipedia:

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lol

For quite a few politicians being compared to a lump of firewood is a generous assessment of their abilities.   Yes I know what was meant, but I decided to have fun with it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

FTR, the stripy bit of Guyana is even on the election results map of the Venezuelan government's election results page

But this territory is effectively administered by Guyana, right?

Yes, because it is part of Guyana.  The boundary dispute was taken to international arbitration in the 1890s and largely decided in favor of the British.  It's also very lightly populated.  Despite being about three-fifths of Guyana, the territory only has about one-fifth of Guyana's population.

One reason the Guyana government welcomed Jim Jones and Jonestown was to help settle the area and forestall possible Venezuelan squatters from crossing the border.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Chavez would have liked to have been the Putin of Venezuela, but despite his best efforts, he didn't quite reach that level of autocracy.