In Venezuela, Chavez's Oil Revolution Pumps Money Into Programs for Poor

[NNN0LHI]

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB0W245G8E.html

SABANETA, Venezuela (AP) - Workers are cutting sugar cane on fields that once lay fallow, stitching together T-shirts at state-funded cooperatives and building thousands of homes to replace shantytowns.

Venezuela's booming oil wealth is bankrolling its most ambitious effort in decades to help the poor, an integral part of President Hugo Chavez's "social revolution" that is drawing both praise and skepticism while he strengthens ties with Cuba and increasingly clashes with the United States.

Critics say Chavez is ruining Venezuela's oil industry and squandering the proceeds of high oil prices on programs that won't do away with poverty in the long run.

But his supporters are cheering him on, arguing that no president in Venezuela's modern history has given so much to the poor.

[Vincardog]

1. No wonder the radical right is going after Chavez nothing the NeoCons

hate worse than ambitious efforts to help the poor. Their agenda is clear Billions for Corporate welfare paid for by taxes on the poor and working. :think:

[w4rma]

2. "A two-month opposition-led strike …" Lockouts are not the same as strikes

And, in general, the fired employees were managers and executives, not rank and file.

[jpgray]

3. Yes, giving that money to the rich helped the poor so much before

:eyes:

Good for Chavez.

[Trillo]

4. Who are the critics?

"Corporatists" by chance?

[TroubleMan]

5. Best news story I've heard in a while

nominated for greatest

[electricray]

20. The Nation has a great story on this.

It seems that Chavez fought fire with fire in order to get power, but then rather than abusing his power and giving to the rich he actually shared the wealth with the people who put him in power. The only thing I worry about is the huge smile on the wealthy faces there. I think the government is actually borrowing money based on expected oil returns and using that money to feed the poor. It seems like there could be a future problem if the oil is the only plan on the table. I believe in Chavez, but I fear for him. There is a powerful opposition in more than just his own country. If they are powerful enough, Venezuela could just end up a neo-con anti-socialist example - I don't mean that it would actually be what they say, but I fear that they are powerful enough to make it seem that way - of why socialism doesn't work. The truth is socialism does work, until the rich, powerful, corruptable products of successful society are able to derail it. Whatever we can do to protect Chavez and the dreams of people like him and Che Guverra, I am there.

[murray hill farm]

24. Yes, I am there too...

we should all offer and give our support and are belief and our help behind this great man.

[IndianaGreen]

6. It is time for us to have our own version of the Bolivarian revolution i

The American people don't own this country. The raw capitalism of Bush will lead to the disintegration of the social fabric and, together with our military adventure in Iraq and elsewhere, lead to the collapse of the American empire.

[JAbuchan08]

7. Ugggh, cave-man freeper gun nut say "helping poor bad"

public ownership of resources equals communism. It make sense that oil executives control social policy through monetary leverage gained through control over natural resources. Economic colonialism not constitute paternalistic refusal to grant poor natives self-deterrmination. Only pointy-head liberal think so! GOP SMASH pointy head liberal.

[adubadee]

8. Critics?

Critics? Where are these critics from? They should be busy criticizing a lot worse than someone who is at least trying to help his fellow man.

[IndianaGreen]

9. Most of Chavez critics are in Miami cavorting with their Cuban friends

It should not come to a surprise that John Bolton counts himself among Chavez's critics.

[ninkasi]

23. Of course Bolton is a critic

Chavez is proving that helping the poor, and raising them up from lives of misery, is the correct way to use a country's resources. This concept goes against everything the neocons believe in.

They are trying to squeeze the last penny from this country's poor to give even more to the rich. They have pretty much wrecked our once thriving middle class.

No words of condemnation are too strong for what Bush and his greedy friends have done to this country, and the world. They will not be satisfied until they control everything.

[IndianaGreen]

40. Chavez is trying to educate the masses, the literacy campaign for one

in which the poor and the peasants are taught to read and write. Compare that with the efforts by the rightwing in the USA to destroy public education. The stark contrast between the choices we face between barbarism and socialism is nowhere more evident than in the divergent paths that Chavez's Venezuela and Bush's America are following.

[KlatooBNikto]

11. It didn't occur to these Press shills to ask the poor who are most

directly affected by Chavez's programs.How come their opinions count for so little?

[TahitiNut]

10. Infrastructure, education, and domestic enterprise should be priorities.

Such investments can lead to an egalitarian economy that can support national health care. Strong and focused regulation along with a progressive tax structure can sustain it.

Infrastucture investments should focus on water, sewage, power, public transit, and communications. Domestic enterprise should focus on agriculture, housing, and distribution, imho. Oil profits should 'incubate' these endeavors.

[SoCalDem]

13. People with jobs & a decent standard of living do not become "insurgents"

Pay attention *²

[TahitiNut]

14. People with a vested interest in one another's welfare ...

... don't engage in antisocial activities. When we view our neighbors as mere "marks" for some get-rich-myth, we're on the way to moral and material impoverishment.

[bluestateguy]

12. WE MUST STOP THE DICTATOR OF VENEZUELA NOW

That is an actual quote from a caller on Michael Savage's show.

[GirlinContempt]

47. You know what I HATE?!

When those lousy dictators get over 60% of the vote, and then have over 7 elections, and always win, and are then taken out in a coup, and the people of the country take to the streets, and get him back into power.
Fuck those dictators.
The poor guy that declared himself President of Venezuela, threw out the constitution written by the people, and had hundreds of politicians arrested without so much as a FAKE election, let alone a real one, man I feel bad for him. He really needs to get his shit together and fight this horrible dictator Chavez again.
:eyes:

[cliss]

15. Maybe Chavez is doing this so

he can't be accused of being a "strongman", or a "dictator", or a "firebrand". **Jeez, they've got a lot of adjectives for this man!!

I'm not saying Chavez is an opportunist. I think he genuinely does care for his people. And the fact that he's providing for them is what all leaders should be doing.

But it's awfully hard to call someone a Dictator when people's lives are improving. I think Chavez knows this. I think Washington knows this, as well.

[bvar22]

19. It is also hard to call someone a dictator....

...when he has been democratically elected in a fair election by wide margins, and won a fair recall election by the same wide margins.

[peacetalksforall]

16. Isn't this the way it is supposed to be...the wealth of the earth-planet

under the feet of the people goes in part to the people.

What a role model.

Guess who wants to assassinate-depose-overthrow-bomb them?

Your choice of verb.

[IndianaGreen]

41. WWJD?

I don't hear the American Religious Right preach what Jesus said against the rich and powerful. WWJD? Chavez is doing what Jesus would have done.

[dkofos]

17. Keep it up El Presidente

Educate the people, provide the economy with petro dollars and watch your country grow.

If we leave them alone this may be paradise on earth.

[Robbien]

18. We won't be leaving them alone though

I wonder if the refinery sabotage in Venezuela is part of our push for democracy. It has NED written all over it.

[bvar22]

21. What a concept !

Using a percentage of the WEALTH to help the poor, feed the hungry, heal the sick, and provide Education.
Something like this could catch on.


Who would Jesus help?

[wiggs]

22. This is a dangerous deviation from standard operating procedure

Read Confessions of Economic Hit Man. You're supposed to talk huge loans from the world bank, use american corporations to build infrastructure at inflated prices that benefit the wealthy in both countries, keep the poor downtrodden, default on the loan, owe the United States large political favors, give american corporations free reign in your country to pollute and use cheap labor, etc..

This will not stand.

[Rex]

25. And the capitalist pigs scream, "MY GOD HE'S STEALING OUR OIL".

"and giving the money to the poor"!

:scared: <--- uber-rich oilman

[Charles19]

28. How dare someone help people who need it instead of the

rich who don't. Everyone knows democracy only works when the rich get richer, the poor get poorer and the rich blame the poor for not working hard enough because they are poor.

<end sarcasm>

[AP]

26. FAIR's Counterspin did a great little piece on US media's coverage/spin

on this story:

http://www.fair.org/audio/counterspin/050605.mp3

They pointed out how the media is acting like it's Chavez who's creating the tension without acknowledging that (1) nobody needs Chavez or anyone else to point out how awful US involvement in South and Central America has been for regualr people, and (2) the US actually assisted with the coup and supports RW'ers fighting agains the arc of human history bending towards justice.

[liberalcenter]

27. vs the Saudi Model

That spawns OBL.

[bennywhale]

29. Feeding the poor

and replacing shanty towns with proper housing with the county's oil wealth

He really is a democratically elected tyrant bastard

[Zorra]

30. Chavez sounds like the FDR of Venezuela.

Can we borrow him for awhile?

[brainshrub]

38. Chavez for President! (Of the USA)

I'll bet he can speak better engligh than our own president.

[Toucano]

31. Squandering?

No, "critics", squandering is what W did to the surplus in the United States.

[Geo55]

32. Oh yeh,

"The state oil company is paying to build medical clinics and support government "missions," ranging from adult education programs to state-run markets. The government says oil money helped build 15,000 homes for the poor in 2004, and this year 120,000 more are planned."

I can see clearly how this wouldn't help in the long run.



"In the long run, the question the country will have to grapple with is its dependence on oil."

Hmmm....sounds vaguely familiar.

[Rainscents]

34. LOL... very funny!!!

[sweetheart]

33. Good for the people of venezuela

That Chavez is doing the dharma. I've gotta hand it to him, he's done
great work... keep it up, mate.

[TexasChief]

35. How dare he

Damn him, How dare he spend state money on the poor people, when its supposed to be going to moneyed educated connected class. This kind of thing makes many in the US very nervous, we should try to over throw him, oh wait we already did. Forget Fidel, Hugo's a dangerous liberal populist, and his country has lots of oil.

[NAO]

36. Can we turn drilling in ANWR into a populist movement for nationalization?

I recently read an article by Robert Reich in "The American Prospect" that dealt with the Schiavo case. Reich suggested that the people who played up the Schiavo case never actually interned to prevail over the courts or keep Schiavo alive. Rather, they used the debacle to rally the troops of the Religious Right, to give them a sense of persecution, and to whip them into a frenzy of political activism.

Now it occurs to me that we might have just such an opportunity to energize a populist movement that would transcend traditional left/right issue politics and even if it did not succeed, it could bring nationalization into the mainstream discourse.

Suppose progressives said something like,

"It's too bad we have to give up the pristine wilderness, but it is for the greater good. The only problem I have is that that pristine wilderness belongs to the people of the United States, it belongs to our children and their children. and so does the oil that lies beneath that pristine wilderness."

"It's very sad to have to drill there, but it would be an outrage for private oil companies like Texaco/Mobil/Shell to sell our oil back to us. Why should we let them do that? Why not let all the profits from our oil go into our national treasury?"

"Why, we could use the proceeds from selling our oil to build schools, to buy armor for the troops, to reduce the deficit, to sustain social security, to reduce taxes. Whatever revenue was generated by the sale of our oil would be that much less that would have to be levied in taxes."

***

Now it's still conceivable that there will never be drilling in ANWR. And monkeys will fly out of my butt before the plutocratic oligarchic powers that be would allow nationalization of a major natural resource in the United States.

...But, those plutocrats would be exposed, the scam of giving away public wealth to private companies would be exposed, and alot of people, even those who think of themselves as conservative would be very excited at the prospect of more money in the treasury to buy bombs and lower defects and less taxes all at the same time. It's a 'have your cake and eat it too dream' for the people; it's been that sort of a dream for the corporations.

People do NOT like the idea that they are being screwed - it builds popular resentment and policital action like nothing else.

Conceivably, this type of populist rallying around an issue that would be more strongly opposed by Republicans than by Democrats, could become a wedge issue that would play a part in aligning the electorate with the Democratic Party and drving a populist movement againt the plutocratic corporatist powers.

[NAO]

48. Chavez coup, Venezuelan Oil, cause of Iraq war, and how to save ANWR

Nationalization. The answer to all of the above is nationalization.

Chavez has nationalized Venezuelan Oil and used the money to benefit the poor. The US has already tried one coup to topple him because this notion is utter heresy to the state capitalist system.

We did not go to war with Iraq because of WMD, democracy, or even oil per Se. We went to war with Iraq because they had nationalized their oil, and they had laws forbidding foreign investment in Iraq. This was utterly intolerable heresy to the state capitalist system.

Under public land in Alaska, their are large deposits of oil. The land is NOT owned by stockholders of Chevron/Texaco. It IS owned by the People of the United States of America. My Social Security card, not any stock certificate, is what entitles me to the profits derived from any oil extracted from ANWR.

This is an idea that could easily become a populist fever that would transcend left/right distinctions. And it is utter heresy and would be intolerable to the powers that be.

If talk of nationalization of the oil in ANWR got on the national agenda, I guarantee that Republican leaders would be chaining themselves to bulldozers and hugging trees and pleading that we MUST save ANWR.

[brainshrub]

37. Helping the poor lift themselves up from poverty is "squandering"?

[Robworld]

39. This makes a certain Texas oil man crap his draws.

God forbid Venezuela's main export would be used to benefit its own people, and not just the upper class. I give it at least 1 more year until Chavez is taken out by his opposition or by the, well you know who...

http://www.dumdumgoestothecircus.com/

[Judi Lynn]

42. One reason DU gets visited by completely disoriented anti-Chavez posters

You may find this interesting:

Fair and Balanced or US Govt. Propaganda?
Fox News vs. Hugo Chavez
By NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

Washington, DC

Given recent friction between Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and the White House it inevitably was only a matter of time before Rupert Murdoch's Fox News would start to ratchet up its shrill ideological pressure. Since taking office in 1998, Chávez has had a stormy relationship with his powerful northern neighbor. Chávez, who established close ties with Washington's anathema, Cuban President Fidel Castro, criticized U.S.-led efforts for a free trade zone in the Americas, which he insisted would primarily benefit the U.S., while opposing the war in Iraq, resulting in no mystery as to why he has long been so reviled by the Bush administration. Tensions have been bristling between the two nations particularly since April 2002 when Chávez, the democratically elected president, was briefly removed from power in a coup which involved U.S. funding.
(snip)

In a series of recent television reports Fox News has derided the firebrand leftist leader, presenting the current Venezuelan political habitat entirely from the perspective of the country's conservative middle-class opposition as well as the Bush administration.

In siding with the opposition, Fox News joins the ranks of almost all of the Venezuelan television stations including Radio Caracas TV and Venevision (see Nikolas Kozloff's Thursday report, "Chávez Launches Hemispheric, "Anti-Hegemonic" Media Campaign in Response to Local TV Networks Anti-Government Bias) which have launched a vitriolic and highly personalized savaging of Chávez over the past few years. In his reports, Fox reporter Steve Harrigan speaks solely with members of the Venezuelan opposition and shows Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice critical of Chávez. Of course, Fox News has the right to present the news as distortedly as it sees fit. However, its exclusive adherence to anti-Chávez sources completely caricatures the station's claim to be "fair and balanced." In fact, when it comes to Venezuela, it strives to be a propaganda mill.

Fox Source #1: Leopoldo Lopez

In short bits scarcely lasting longer than a television commercial, Harrigan, a former CNN Moscow correspondent, intones that Chávez is "moving towards totalitarian rule." To support this view he turns to such redoubtable Venezuelan political figures as Leopoldo Lopez. "The danger we are facing as Venezuelans," says Lopez, "is the possibility of one day waking up and all of the sudden not having any of our liberties." What Harrigan failed to disclose however is that Lopez, as the municipal mayor of the Caracas district of Chacao, has worked closely with the Primero Justicia party. According to Venezuelan human rights lawyer Eva Golinger, Primero Justicia is the "most extreme opposition party to Chávez." What is more, Golinger has written that after the April 2002 coup against Chávez, Lopez signed the "Carmona Decree" which dissolved all democratic institutions including the National Assembly, the Supreme Court, the Attorney General and Public Defender. Additionally, the Carmona Decree did away with "an overwhelming number of laws and constitutional rights implemented during the Chávez administration." At the time, this action was denounced by almost all of Latin America's leaders.
(snip)

Fox Source #2: Capriles Radonski

Harrigan continued his assault against accuracy by once again indulging in over simplification when he interviewed the mayor of the Caracas municipality of Baruta (bordering Leopoldo Lopez's Chacao district), Henrique Capriles Radonski. Capriles remarks, "I spent 20 days without looking at the sun, without looking at the sky, without having open air." While it is true that Capriles was imprisoned in a highly controversial, politically-charged case, Harrigan omits important information that would help American viewers to better comprehend Venezuela's volatile politics and give some rare perspective to the course of events there. For example, in his report, Harrigan doesn't mention that Capriles was head of the U.S.-partly funded Primero Justicia party. This is not an insignificant point. Indeed, one can only imagine the reaction from Fox were the Democratic Party to accept money from a foreign government which was interested in getting rid of the Bush administration.
(snip/...)

http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff04302005.html

[ausiedownunderground]

43. He's also buying "heaps" of weapons! Why?

Venezuela has lots of oil, both sour and sweet! Oil is very expensive and as a consequence a country like Russia or Venezuela, which has been blessed with lots of oil, are using there good luck to help their citizens have a better life! No Way!! Most of their oil reserves are being spent on military weapon systems and training their population in how to fight a Guerrilla war against America!!! America still thinks it spends more money than the Rest of the World, put to together, on weapons! But since September 2001 it might be in for a "shock"! Had America taken another "tact" then maybe people outside of America could have had a good life spending their "oil" money on luxuries for themselves rather than "gearing" up for American attack!

[Stuckinthebush]

46. Of course they are buying weapons

Look at what happens to countries that have lots of oil, and fall out of favor with the US. We either do our best to support opposition groups that will take down the government, or we just go in and take it ourselves.

I guess they could call the arms purchases "National Security".

[radwriter0555]

44. Wow, a president who acts FOR THE PEOPLE? Gee, American presidents

could take a cue!

[entanglement]

45. The more I read about Chavez, the more I admire him

I'm afraid the Neocons are plotting some mischief in their scheming, evil minds. Some of the whore media coverage of Chavez has been quite negative.

[oasis]

49. And what does Sec. of State Condasleasy have to say about that?

:shrug: