novenator replied to your link: Venezuelan bonds surge as Chavez heads into surgery
Publications owned and operated by the corporate right will continue to attack Chavez because his policies are successfully helping Venezuela and curbing corporate power.
Well, I’m not going to argue for a moment that the Globe and Mail is not owned and operated by the corporate right!
However - unemployment and underemployment in Venezuela are pretty much endemic, the cost of staple foods and fuel are rising way faster than wages, and political discourse is actively suppressed. And other Latin American countries with democratic socialist governments are legitimately improving living conditions for the poor, even without the good fortune of having a bunch of oil at a time when oil prices are really high.
So really the only people Chavez is helping are the leftist North American college students who are willing to overlook the decline in living standards throughout the income distribution (but especially at the bottom) and the ongoing attempts to stifle democratic liberties because his vigourous anti-capitalist rhetoric makes them feel good.
