Venezuala comes to rescue US poor

[rocketman]

The Venezuelan government said Sunday that it will provide assistance for at least 7 million poor people in the United States,

President Hugo Chavez said Venezuela would "offer fuel for heating that is 40 per cent cheaper" than market prices.

The low-cost heating fuel will be made available through Citgo, a US branch of Venezuela's state-run petroleum company PDVSA.

Chavez said the fuel would be distributed to the poor through organizations headed by veteran defender of civil rights in the United States, Jesse Jackson, actor Danny Glover and other personalities.

Venezuelan assistance plan will also include more than 150,000 eye surgeries a year for US people and 242,000 for people from other Latin American and Caribbean countries.

Read all about it

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Wasn't Castro also offering to send good Cuban doctors to help the US poor?

 

[DrRingDing]

nice

 

[rocketman]

A new structure of World Trade can be constructed for equality and fairness
VHeadline.com's special Far East correspondent Yap Chongyee writes: The United States of America must pay for what they "buy" from the Third World ... but we want "goods for goods" ... we do not want goods or oil payments in US printed paper dollars.*

Read what Venezuela's national press thinks of the Yankee dollar

 

[JoePolitix]

There was a good letter in the Grauniad today;

Richard Gott's article on Hugo Chávez (Inside story, August 25) is timely because the Bolivarian revolution and the contribution of Chávez have been either ignored or vilified in the British press.

Gott gives two reasons for the inability of the US to take direct action to halt the revolution: the fact that the US has already stretched its resources; and the effect of such an intervention on the supply of oil to the US. But there is an important third factor - the participation of millions of the poor, the dispossessed and the landless in the political process.

This is not a one-man show. When the coup against Chávez took place in 2002 it was not only sympathetic sections of the armed forces that obtained his release: it was also the millions of ordinary people who poured on to the streets, which showed that the plotters had no social base for their action.
Darrall Cozens
Stoke, Coventry

I feel the same way about Gott. All journalistic defence of the Bolivarian Revolution against its rightwing opponents is to be welcomed, but Gott does have a tendency to portray the process in his own often elitist image.

 

[magneze]

Good for them. That's a little embarrassing for the US government.

 

[peppery]

How long I wonder would Chavez and his regime last if the price of oil comes crashing down from its current high?

He strikes me as being just another crackpot loony, but not particularly violent or oppressive....yet.

 

[rocketman]

True. He will last a lot longer if the price of oil goes up, and up, and up.
and the dollar goes down

How long I wonder would Chavez and his regime last if the price of oil comes crashing down from its current high?

He strikes me as being just another crackpot loony, but not particularly violent or oppressive....yet.

 

[peppery]

True. He will last a lot longer if the price of oil goes up, and up, and up.
and the dollar goes down

I suspect the US have already got a plan in mind for the 'Chavez' problem. But I think he's fairly safe as he's go the backing of the rest of South America.

 

[rocketman]

I suspect the US have already got a plan in mind for the 'Chavez' problem. But I think he's fairly safe as he's go the backing of the rest of South America.

yep. traditionally that's how teh US has handled the most popular leaders of its South American 'trading partners'. cf. Contras.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I think he should offer cheap gas to Canadians while he's at it.

 

[peppery]

I think he should offer cheap gas to Canadians while he's at it.

You've got your tar sands, you don't need it. Infact you should be offering us free fuel!

 

[Ryazan]

Where's the catch?

 

[fishfingerer]

He strikes me as being just another crackpot loony, but not particularly violent or oppressive....yet.

If any other country in the world had experienced a failed coup by the opposition, such as the one that happened in venezuela, there would have been mass arrests and perhaps a bloodbath. It's the corrupt venal fuckers Chavez is up against that are the loonies.

 

[ska invita]

I thought it interesting that the US refused aid from the UN and other aid agencies.

I dont think this is a question of pride as much as a determination to uphold an isolationist position - one that entrenches the US outside of globaly binding institutions.

Chavez loaded gesture works on many levels, but is particularly funny in respect to the US' shunning of aid, despite failing to provide for its own citizens (which isnt funny at all)

Yes Chavez is using oil money to buy influence, if you want to look at it that way, however, another way of looking at it is that he is in charge of a non-first-world-westernised-country that isnt having its assets of natural wealth stolen from under its feet. What would Africa look like as a continent, if the money from its natrual resources was given to its people and their neighbours.

Chavez' oil influence is nowhere near as suspect as the insider trading that buys influence for western countries, an example ofthe top of my head being the arms trade, but there are countless others.

If his power rests on expensive petrol prices then his sphere of influence will only grow - the oil future is only going to get more volatile - despite the US snatch and grab attempt in the gulf, which ironically has only made things worse.

I agree that "they" have a plan for Chavez, and contras is likely, however I would suggest that times have changed since the seventies and eighties, and just maybe they couldnt get away with it like they did back then. I know some feel as if STW and other protest movements aren't getting anywhere, but I think they have done enough to put the US foreign policy under sufficient scrutiny to halt the excesses of the past. I think they have less and less room to manouvere, at least on the visible world stage.

 

[silentNate]

Chavez is just rubbing salt on the wounds of Bush's latest popularity rating- which leftie wouldn't do the same considering that Bush has done little to help his own people in a time of dire emergency. Images of people in New Orleans will come back to haunt the Neo-Cons whilst this act will further cement his support with the lower classes in Venezuela

 

[ska invita]

Where's the catch?

There's no catch, its win-win.
Chavez still sells for a profit, though his margins are different to that of big business. Plus he scores big with the poor of the US, undermining Washington, and spreading his influence at grassroots level, right into the heart of the US. And if you trust his heart, he genuinly believes in alleviating conditions of suffering from the poor. Using Jesse Jackson as a counterpoint to Bush is ingenious - he is bypassing the federal state and thereby weakening their authority. It is fine strategy.

...I wouldnt like to play him at Risk!

If Bush and co. block the move, which Im sure they will try to, then they will be seen as cruel and vindictive - however I doubt the US media will report it that way, if at all - but thats speculation...have to wait and see wha appen.

 

[rocketman]

Chavez still sells for a profit, though his margins are different to that of big business.<snip>

Yes. Chavez can easily undercut free market fuel firms because he runs a state concern. This means the people who live in the country are all stakeholders in the firm's success, and also means he doesn't have to worry about making big payouts to fat shareholders.
It's yet another example of the inherent weakness of capitalism.
Viva! Viva! Chavez.

 

[petee]

How long I wonder would Chavez and his regime last if the price of oil comes crashing down from its current high?

well, now we know.

 

[JHE]

well, now we know.

Do we? I don't.

I wish we knew that the stubborn idiot Maduro were going to stand down or be overthrown, since I can't see the situation getting better without a change of government. Unfortunately, he and his gang of military crooks and thugs show no sign of giving up and while the army, police and other armed bodies remain loyal to the government, it is difficult to see how the bastard can be ousted. He knows he cannot win any free elections so he has announced the cancellation of regional elections and the next presidential election. Instead, there is to be a constituent assembly, with its members chosen not by boring old bourgeois democracy, but by the remnants of the Chavista movement. Maburro, as my 14-year-old Venezuelan stepson calls him, is willing to allow Venezuelans to continue to starve, die in agony for lack of medicines (foreign aid agencies are forbidden to bring medicines since this would be privatisation of the health system, he claims) and be murdered on the streets.

This hell on earth, in the country with the world's largest known oil reserves, will end at some point. Of course it will. Everything ends sooner or later. But fuck knows when...

 

[JHE]

Here is a short BBC report on malnutrition among children in Venezuela. It is mentioned in the film that, according to a study conducted by the NGO Cáritas in four regions of the country, 25% of the children assessed were suffering from acute malnutrition. In plain English, they are starving to death.



Probably some people here remember that just a few years ago the Chavistas liked to call their opponents los escuálidos and I guess a lot of English-speakers made the same mistake as me at that time, supposing that escuálido meant squalid. It doesn't. It's a false friend. Escuálido means skinny. The point that Hugo Chávez and his chums were making was that their opponents were weak, feeble and would have sand kicked in their face by the big, strong, muscular Bolivarian revolutionary movement, which had popular support and all the guns.

Now Venezuelans really are escuálidos and of course the great majority of them are against their callous, stupid, corrupt (yes, very squalid) and repressive government.

 

[Casually Red]

Do you think trump should do the decent thing and help this regime change dream of yours, regardless of the the Venezuelan people elected Maduro ?

Any changes he makes to the constitution have to be ratified by popular referendum . Wheres your proof the great majority of Venezuelans want Maduro out ? the demos in support of him are pretty massive .

 

[Casually Red]

Have to say I was much more impressed by this North Korean tv exposé on poverty in the US . and by the efforts of the North korean tv people to help the homeless .

 

[Idris2002]

Here is a short BBC report on malnutrition among children in Venezuela. It is mentioned in the film that, according to a study conducted by the NGO Cáritas in four regions of the country, 25% of the children assessed were suffering from acute malnutrition. In plain English, they are starving to death.



Probably some people here remember that just a few years ago the Chavistas liked to call their opponents los escuálidos and I guess a lot of English-speakers made the same mistake as me at that time, supposing that escuálido meant squalid. It doesn't. It's a false friend. Escuálido means skinny. The point that Hugo Chávez and his chums were making was that their opponents were weak, feeble and would have sand kicked in their face by the big, strong, muscular Bolivarian revolutionary movement, which had popular support and all the guns.

Now Venezuelans really are escuálidos and of course the great majority of them are against their callous, stupid, corrupt (yes, very squalid) and repressive government.

English language link here:

Children face hunger crisis in Venezuela as malnutrition soars

Caritas are, as the name suggests, a Catholic NGO. So there's that. But their concerns, as expressed in that link, seem well-founded to me.