Wow! Someone from Colombia, of Lebanese descent, commented on the blog. Thanks, Bit!
This person doesn't agree with my analysis of Chavez. It's like a Bush thing, about half the country is with Chavez, the other half isn't.
When I went to Venezuela in 2004, I tried to keep an open mind in evaluating him. My family, all those people who come from money, all hate him. So I talked to other people. One man lives in government housing, 23 de enero en Caracas. I went to his place. He showed me that each building now has a clinic that is always staffed by Cuban doctors. Before, these people couldn't get access to medical care. Chavez also set up free public universitites for anyone. The rich people say that they are just Chavez-propaganda, teaching his versions of socialism and Communism. But so what? People are getting access to health care and education.
And Chavez is a very kind of, down-to-earth guy. He's personable and charismatic. When people see him on TV, they can identify with him.
I like the idea of Social Revolutions as much as the next guy. Taking power out of the entrenched, corrupt elites. And like most of Latin America (and even the US--Cheney & his gang), Venezuela was controlled by these elites. Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution has thrown them out of power. If they had passports before, many of them left.
But I'm not with Chavez, because his stick-your-finger-up to the rest of the world attitude and policies has ruined the economy and successfully driven away foreign investment. As the economy plummets, jobs are gone, crime increases. The place becomes a veritable hell for everybody. Chavez gets on TV and blames the US and the IMF and everybody else. But it's his policies that have plunged his country in the quasi-anarchy that it is in now. He should be ashamed of himself, instead of lying and puffing himself up on TV all the time.
And like I said in the last post, Chavez is looking to seize this moment as his opportunity to jump onto the world stage, to be in the limelight for 2 minutes, and get himself international press coverage, and end up in some history textbooks. He'll be interesting to watch.
2 comments:
hello, I am Colombian and indeed the war in the Middle East spoke yesterday with my Pope on chavez and we agree totally in which chavez this with the poor men and what it happens in Lebanon is the demonstration of which American imperialism is deciding to destroy the countries that oppose them to maintein is power, and control (like a our precidente puppet). luckyly the freedom of exprecion that gives Internet us is an advantage against the distorted information that they offer western means to us. I hope that this massacre finishes soon and that but people as your they describe the other side of the coin.
bye.
hi , I have put your blog link on my blog.I am Iranian and my blog is in farsi.can u put my link in yours?
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