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Chavez Will Take Farms By Force
Captain's Quarters ^ | Jan. 22, 2008 | Ed Morrissey

Posted on 01/22/2008 8:23:37 AM PST by jdm

Hugo Chavez leveled a threat against Venezuelan farmers over the weekend, another step in creating his socialist paradise. He called farmers who sell abroad to gain a better price for their goods "traitors", and told his ministers to identify them so that he could send the Army to confiscate their property:

President Hugo Chavez threatened on Sunday to take over farms or milk plants if owners refuse to sell their milk for domestic consumption and instead seek higher profits abroad or from cheese-makers.

With the country recently facing milk shortages, Chavez said "it's treason" if farmers deny milk to Venezuelans while selling it across the border in Colombia or for gourmet cheeses.

"In that case the farm must be expropriated," Chavez said, adding that the government could also take over milk plants and properties of beef producers.

"I'm putting you on alert," Chavez said. "If there's a producer that refuses to sell the product ... and sells it at a higher price abroad ... ministers, find me the proof so it can be expropriated."

Addressing his Cabinet, he said: "If the army must be brought in, you bring in the army."

On Saturday, he made similar threats against bankers. He wants them to set aside a third of their loans as low-cost agricultural, residential, and small-business loans. If they fail to do so, Chavez will nationalize them as well, continuing his confiscatory practices and intimidation.

In the end for all Socialists, the Army takes property away from the people. Everyone who opposes them are traitors. The state must run all to achieve ultimate "fairness".

Chavez needs this more than most because his status as president-for-life could not get secured in last year's flop of a referendum. Food and milk shortages that have predictably arisen from state control of the markets have created anger and opposition to his socialist plan for Venezuela. He cannot afford now to allow for the proper solution, which is to reduce state interference in the markets and allow prices to normalize on their own.

Chavez has chosen the Mugabe way of state confiscation of farms, and will eventually get the Mugabe result -- taking his nation into poverty and starvation on land that should produce enough for export.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: chavez; farms; force
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1 posted on 01/22/2008 8:23:39 AM PST by jdm
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To: jdm

Cindy Sheehan’s favorite dictator.


2 posted on 01/22/2008 8:24:45 AM PST by samtheman
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To: jdm

I know! Because it worked so fabulously in Zimbabwe!


3 posted on 01/22/2008 8:26:18 AM PST by Sarah
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To: jdm

Prediction - Starvation in Venezuela in 2009 - it will come faster if oil prices come down...


4 posted on 01/22/2008 8:26:38 AM PST by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: jdm

So, is Sean Penn gonna show up in Caracas with his kegger cup, vest and “unloaded” shotgun to stand up for these poor farmers?


5 posted on 01/22/2008 8:26:40 AM PST by SJSAMPLE
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To: jdm

The people of Venezuela will starve. Those who understand this have a moral obligation to get their families out of their by any means possible.

There will be NO food, except for those in power.

This is how communism works, and yes, SOCIALISM always ends up as communism. Seizure of assets by government force, and shortages of everything. Things that remain are distributed as those in power see fit, to themselves first, of course.


6 posted on 01/22/2008 8:27:17 AM PST by MrB (You can't reason people out of a position that they didn't use reason to get into in the first place)
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To: jdm

What these nationalist-socialist kleptocrats never seem to get is that when the central government attempts to divvy up the pie, the pie gets smaller. Or maybe they do get it but just don’t care.


7 posted on 01/22/2008 8:28:27 AM PST by swain_forkbeard (Rationality may not be sufficient, but it is necessary.)
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To: Sarah
I know! Because it worked so fabulously in Zimbabwe!

And in The Ukraine.

8 posted on 01/22/2008 8:29:32 AM PST by dfwgator (11+7+15=3 Heismans)
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To: jdm

And Joe Kennedy can run ads thanking the ‘People’ of Venezuela for the cheap food to the ‘poor’ of Massachusetts.


9 posted on 01/22/2008 8:30:59 AM PST by AU72
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To: dfwgator

Hugo’s just Dizzy with Success.


10 posted on 01/22/2008 8:31:02 AM PST by Tijeras_Slim
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To: jdm
Well, if your farms aren't producing enough food, I guess shooting your farmers is one way to try to solve the problem ..
11 posted on 01/22/2008 8:32:12 AM PST by ClearCase_guy (The broken wall, the burning roof and tower. And Agamemnon dead.)
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To: jdm
This Shiite head dictator must have read the Mugabe book on how to run a profitable first world country into a lower tier third world stinking hell hole known as Zimbabwe.

I suspect that Col Hugo will soon feel the affects of his heavy handedness.

This could happen in America if Hillary is elected.

She has already stated that she will deal heavy handed with company's who make a profit.

Lets see with Hillary I see in my crystal ball, gasoline rationing, high taxes, high interest rates, inane socialization, high debt and the list marches on.

12 posted on 01/22/2008 8:32:20 AM PST by OKIEDOC (Kalifornia, a red state wannabe. I don't take Ex Lax I just read the New York Times.)
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To: dfwgator

ok...now I think i’ll just skip lunch today


13 posted on 01/22/2008 8:32:36 AM PST by woollyone (entropy extirpates evolution and conservation confirms the Creator blessed forever.)
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To: jdm

Hugo the weasel (look at his eyes) just seems to keep getting smarter and smarter doesn’t he.

How long before someone gives him a dirt nap? A bullet or a bomb?

What a maroon. He’s right up there with Mugabe.


14 posted on 01/22/2008 8:32:43 AM PST by garyhope (It's World War IV, right here, right now, courtesy of Islam.)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

Good thing he lost the last election/sarc


15 posted on 01/22/2008 8:32:51 AM PST by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

Hugo’s dizzy all right- but I think it’s on coca paste.
A communist AND a drug user- what a combo!


16 posted on 01/22/2008 8:35:16 AM PST by 13Sisters76 ("It is amazing how many people mistake a certain hip snideness for sophistication. " Thos. Sowell)
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To: jdm

Hillary will take firearms by force


17 posted on 01/22/2008 8:36:37 AM PST by woollyone (entropy extirpates evolution and conservation confirms the Creator blessed forever.)
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To: jdm

If EVER there was a reason to start developing our own supply, this brain dead moron is IT.

Drill the AMWR and the Gulf (tell FEE-del to move over), build refineries and nuclear plants. WHY, oh WHY do we allow the enviroloons to hurt us so much!?


18 posted on 01/22/2008 8:37:07 AM PST by 13Sisters76 ("It is amazing how many people mistake a certain hip snideness for sophistication. " Thos. Sowell)
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To: jdm

What’s the Vegas over & under on Chavez? LOL
I give him a year...at best!


19 posted on 01/22/2008 8:38:22 AM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: samtheman

Sean Pencilhead’s and Jimmuh Carter’s best buddy.


20 posted on 01/22/2008 8:40:57 AM PST by Bobkk47
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To: jdm

It looks like global warming is just about to cause a drought in Venezuela.


21 posted on 01/22/2008 8:41:22 AM PST by Bob Buchholz
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To: OKIEDOC

The Dems first proposal is to create ‘central planning’. Your health care, your infrastructure, and your economy....


22 posted on 01/22/2008 8:46:08 AM PST by griswold3 (Al queda is guilty of hirabah (war against society) Penalty is death.)
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To: 13Sisters76
WHY do we allow the enviroloons to hurt us so much!?

Because Government is loaded with mentally ill politicians and genuinely certified insane wacko enviroloons run them. (I like enviroloons to describe them)

23 posted on 01/22/2008 8:46:51 AM PST by Logical me (Oh, well!!!)
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To: Bob Buchholz

I have a relative who is a buyer for a major cheese producer. The venezuelans recently flooded the market with milk protein, due to rapidly rising global prices. The farmers there knew they could get much more for their product by exporting it, than they could by selling locally at Hugo’s state ordered cutrate prices. The farmers did what any good business person would do, they exported and took the extra cash and probably sent it out of the country to a safe haven bank. Hugo found out and is pissed off because the poor people who support him and not getting any milk. So much like Mugabe, he blames the greedy farmers and threatens to confiscate their farms. Of course, just like in his failing oil sector, replacing experienced farmers with peasants will only result in milk production plummeting, thus exacerbating the problems. Classic socialist market control, with classic consequences.


24 posted on 01/22/2008 8:48:04 AM PST by milwguy (........)
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To: jdm
Mugabe's twin brother. Expect similar results.
25 posted on 01/22/2008 8:50:11 AM PST by Myrddin
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To: SJSAMPLE

Kegger cup? Coke spoon and scales, more likely. Oogo recently announced he like eating coca paste in the mornings, courtesy of the Bolivian pres.


26 posted on 01/22/2008 8:51:29 AM PST by cweese (Hook 'em Horns!!!)
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To: jdm
I predict that El Commandante Pocito will give the keynote speech at this summer’s DNC convention.
27 posted on 01/22/2008 8:51:39 AM PST by Gay State Conservative (Wanna see how bad it can get? Elect Hillary and find out.)
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To: jdm

Just like the USA if the government wants your property for a lets say a park they take it,so much for the hige courts and bribes.


28 posted on 01/22/2008 8:52:18 AM PST by Vaduz (and just think how clean the cities would become again.)
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To: jdm

I think Chavez is about to reach the end of his rope. The only question in my mind is who will be dead first: Chavez or Castro?


29 posted on 01/22/2008 8:52:46 AM PST by Brilliant
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To: jdm

Its telling Hollywood loves this guy. To them, he’s just your typical executive Producer.

In other words a megalomaniac.


30 posted on 01/22/2008 8:53:12 AM PST by Badeye (No thanks, Huck, I'm not whitewashing the fence for you this election cycle)
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To: jdm
Chavez has chosen the Mugabe way of state confiscation of farms, and will eventually get the Mugabe result -- taking his nation into poverty and starvation on land that should produce enough for export.

Precisely.

31 posted on 01/22/2008 8:53:46 AM PST by sauropod (Fred Reed: "Without men, civilization would last until the oil needed changing.")
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To: Tijeras_Slim

“Hugo’s just Dizzy with Success.”

If Success makes him Dizzy, what will failure do to him?


32 posted on 01/22/2008 8:54:29 AM PST by wmileo (I miss Ronald Wilson Reagan. POTUS #40)
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To: Bobkk47

I forgot that Penhead and Peanutbrain love this guy too.


33 posted on 01/22/2008 8:54:37 AM PST by samtheman
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To: jdm

What a moron. This type of delusional idiot will bring nothing but misery to the people of Venezuela. The whole notion of government control of markets has been tried...repeatedly...it has never worked. I don’t see anything in Hugo’s plan that looks different or new.
Somebody needs to make a bloody example of this socialist pig. Quickly.

We need to vocally encourage the opposition in Venezuela, and financially support them. And, we need to do it openly, above board. Same for the other despots and dictators around the world.

It’s time to reassert the vision of success that is this grand experiment, and let the world know about it.


34 posted on 01/22/2008 8:56:35 AM PST by PubliusMM (RKBA; a matter of fact, not opinion...)
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To: samtheman

This is the future of the US if Hillary is elected.


35 posted on 01/22/2008 8:57:39 AM PST by whitedog57
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To: jdm

Socialist market intervention. Not a lot different than Hillary’s threat to confiscate the profits of oil companies if they don’t lower the price of gasoline.


36 posted on 01/22/2008 9:04:06 AM PST by HardStarboard (Take No Prisoners - We're Out Of Qurans)
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To: jdm

Venezuela is the new Zimbabwe.


37 posted on 01/22/2008 9:04:54 AM PST by Maceman
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To: jdm

Sounds like a passage from an Ann Ryand book


38 posted on 01/22/2008 9:10:24 AM PST by rockthecasbah (He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat.)
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To: kellynla
I give him a year...at best!

Constitutionally, I think he's got 'til 2012. You may recall that his recent referendum to try and remove term limits for the president failed. No doubt he's presently scheming on another way to stay in power for life. Maybe when that day comes, he'll just refuse to step down.

39 posted on 01/22/2008 9:12:38 AM PST by squidly
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To: whitedog57

Hiroshima, summer of ‘45, is the future of the US if Hillary or Obama is elected.


40 posted on 01/22/2008 9:16:26 AM PST by samtheman
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To: squidly

“I think he’s got ‘til 2012?”

I wasn’t thinking of “constitutionally.” LOL


41 posted on 01/22/2008 9:17:10 AM PST by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: jdm
Huey should just order prosperity to happen. Problem solved.

Thing is, under capitalism if you screw up consistently you go broke, so the system tends to cull the stupid. In socialism you get to relearn the same lessons over and over. At least as long as the loot holds out.

Part of that loot pays the subsidies that Huey has to provide so the milk farmers don't go broke selling at a price that keeps the discontent down. That's how he can keep this little game in play, at least until that source goes broke as well, and being oil that might take awhile. Fear not - socialism can wreck even an extraction economy given sufficient time.

In the meantime, forcing farmers not to sell on the foreign market drives those prices up as well. And so, heaven help us, we are about to see milk smuggling rings and a black market. If that sounds stupid consider that they're smuggling gasoline into Iran.

Socialism means that it's always somebody else's fault - international sanctions, rapacious foreign capitalists, mysterious cabals filled with Jewish conspirators. Never the fact that socialists are incompetent. And absolutely never the hint that just perhaps socialism doesn't work.

42 posted on 01/22/2008 9:18:39 AM PST by Billthedrill
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To: woollyone
"Hillary will take firearms by force"

She can have my firearms when she pries them from my cold, dead fingers...

43 posted on 01/22/2008 9:22:06 AM PST by EnigmaticAnomaly (Grassroots Conservatism at its finest...VOTE DUNCAN HUNTER 2008)
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To: wmileo
If Success makes him Dizzy, what will failure do to him?

Cause him to dance at the end of a rope, hopefully.

44 posted on 01/22/2008 9:29:40 AM PST by Charles Martel (The Tree of Liberty thirsts.)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

Probably not the success.


45 posted on 01/22/2008 9:42:07 AM PST by Jaded ("I have a mustard- seed; and I am not afraid to use it."- Joseph Ratzinger)
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To: jdm

And just like Mugabe, Chavez was practically ‘installed’ by one Jimmy Carter...who never met a dictator he didn’t fawn over.


46 posted on 01/22/2008 9:58:22 AM PST by bamahead (Few men desire liberty; The majority are satisfied with a just master. -- Sallust)
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To: jdm
Why dosen’t the Venezuelan Army just tell Hugo “we are not going to do this!”
47 posted on 01/22/2008 10:01:48 AM PST by 4yearlurker (Thanks Vets!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
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To: jdm
In the end socialism/communism always, always comes down to the gun.

Up against the wall, MF!

48 posted on 01/22/2008 10:06:00 AM PST by metesky ("Brethren, leave us go amongst them." Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton - Ward Bond- The Searchers)
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To: jdm

This guy is a carbon copy of the nitwit dictator, Mugabe, of Zimbabwe. His foray into socialism will destroy Venezuela like Mugabe has destroyed the former self-sufficient Rhodesia—thanks to Jimmie Carter.


49 posted on 01/22/2008 10:09:28 AM PST by RightWingConspirator (Redefeat Communism by defeating Hitlary in 2008)
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To: OKIEDOC
Lets see with Hillary I see in my crystal ball, gasoline rationing, high taxes, high interest rates, inane socialization, high debt and the list marches on.

Nah, I see her being impeached and removed from office the moment she attempts to do anything remotely close to what Chavez is doing in Venezuela.

50 posted on 01/22/2008 10:41:45 AM PST by Captain Rhino ( If we have the WILL to do it, there is nothing built in China that we cannot do without.)
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