Chavez's social programs are gaining ground in Venezuelan polls

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Sun, Dec. 07, 2003

Chavez's social programs are gaining ground in Venezuelan polls
BY FRANCES ROBLES
Knight Ridder Newspapers

CARACAS - (KRT) - It drizzled slightly as Ana Arcia stood in line for the low-priced chicken doled out by Venezuelan soldiers under one of President Hugo Chavez's most popular social assistance programs. But she was patient.

``Chavez keeps his word,'' Arcia said. ``We have a humble president who is from the people and for the people. We have these programs now because of him.''

As opponents push closer to a recall referendum against the president, Chavez's popularity has been rising on the wings of several new government programs - estimated at up to $2 billion - that teach adults to read and provide cheap food and free primary healthcare.

While Arcia views the new programs as the work of a president who keeps his promises to carry out a ``revolution'' on behalf of Venezuela's poor majority, cynics say he's trying to buy the votes of the needy. (snip/...)

http://www.macon.com/mld/macon/news/world/7436502.htm

[DuctapeFatwa]

1. Only from the bottom 88% income tier

sure the poor love things that give them food and schools. Chavez even said the wealthy have to PAY peasants for their work.

Imagine! No wonder so many of the nice upscale Venezuelans left years ago, patriotically taking much of the nation's money with them for safekeeping in their personal bank accounts.

[goforit]

13. LOL!!!(88% but true stat)...I wonder if Miami has room for Ven. immigrants

Should be interesting if Ven. can duke off the
petition drive given what happenned in our western banana republic,
California.

[Judi Lynn]

14. A South Florida D.U. reader has told a few of us

he knows from another forum that there's a very sizeable wealthy community of Venezuelans living in Miami.

You're right on target!

They connect politically and literally with the right-wing extremists of the Cuban "exiles" there. They combined in a giant parade one day the rest of the world was protesting _Bush's coming war on Iraq earlier this year, only THEIR protest was against the deomocratically elected President of Venezuela.

The President they support, Carlos Andres Perez, was actually impeached for massive corruption, and is despised for the many civilian murders his government committed during his odd, dirty Presidency.

[DoctorMyEyes]

2. I worry

about Chavez every day, and hope that he can continue to stay one step ahead of Washington.

[markses]

3. Savages!

Imagine, using oil revenues to fund social programs, rather than a fourth mansion for the hard-working executive directors of the oil company, and their cronies in the news media! Don't these animals know that giving starving people chickens makes them lazy? And that only by holding out dreams of swimming pools and flashy movie stars will they ever learn the value of work? ;-)

(Also, I love the notion of "buying votes." First, Bush attempts to "buy the votes" of OH, WV, and PA with his illegal steel tariffs, then he realizes that it is much more important to buy the votes of CA, FL, NC, SC, OR, WA and MI, so he lifts those tariffs...but providing food, healthcare and literacy for the poorest folks in the world - ah, that's corruption!)

[lcordero]

6. he showed that he had absolutely no intention of

helping the working man or woman EVER
the overtime rules that he tried to impose or perhaps imposed in a backdoor way proved that(HR 2660).
The only people that he is trying to help are the parasites on the top end.

[brainshrub]

9. You're talking about Bu$h right? (nt)

[brainshrub]

4. Feeding the poor? Helping the sick? Teaching kids how to read?

Using oil revenues to help the people better themselves? My God, Chavez is worse than we thought!

Quick Robin...to the preemptive strike-mobile!

[Terwilliger]

7. I used this picture

[brainshrub]

8. That's great!

If that * as batman? I can't make out the faces to well. Who is Robin?
Did you make this?

[Judi Lynn]

10. You're right, it's terrific!

I'll betcha it's Dennis Kucinich and and Howard Dean.

[brainshrub]

11. Yeah, it does look like Kucinich & Dean.

I still like the pic.
If it is Kucinich & Dean the caption could be: "Quick Robin, to the Democracy-mobile!"

[Terwilliger]

12. no, I did Dean and Kucinich

a much more appropriate pair for Batman and Robin...the alternative wqas to put up Cheney and Bush, but I don't want to sully the superheroes like that ;-)

[SpiralHawk]

5. "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised"

I saw this film last night at the Santa Fe Film Festival. It is just stunning - a documentary telling of what is happening in Venezuela. One gets a very direct sense of who Hugo Chavez is by watching this film -- and also of who Colin Powell, Condi, and the other Bush Henchpeople are. Chilling.

I highly recommend this award-winning independent film. When it was over, everyone milling about in the lobby was talking of how it seemed to be an ominous preview of how the Dark Forces are working out in the US of A.

But in the end, the film conveys a sense of hope that an aroused citizenry can maintain a democracy.

Hecha-ta Ho ! Meegwich ! - Spiral Hawk

[Say_What]

15. Up close and personal sense of Hugo was my impression too. I hope you

were also able to see Hidden in Plain Sight and Plan Colombia equally as good and also award winners.

[Say_What]

16. Programs that p*ss off the oligarchs and Bushistas

The biggest threat to LatAm oligarchs is that Chavez is empowering the people who have for centuries been used and abused by the oligarchy. The biggest threat to the Bushistas is that Chavez firmly opposes FTAA and also floated the idea recently that PDVSA and Brazil's state oil combine. History proves that when other democratic leaders went to bat for their people they were promptly overthrown by a CIA coup.

From the article:

Among the new programs the government has announced:

_Mission Robinson, a $34 million project to teach 1 million people to read.

_Mission Rivas, aimed at getting high school dropouts to earn equivalency degrees.

_Mission Sucre - a new university and $100 in monthly stipends for 30,000 high school graduates shunned by pricier schools. The location: former PDVSA offices.

_Barrio Adentro, 1,000 Cuban doctors who offer primary healthcare in urban slums.

_An increase in the minimum wage and a three-month Christmas bonus for government employees.