Chavez - Frontlline
rosskolnikov
location: Far end of the Group W bench
listening to: The Tony Rice Unit
registered: 2005.05.24
posts: 1822
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http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hugochavez/view/#moreThis was a pretty well-balanced program. There's also an excellent summary on the web-page. These are the last three paragraphs:"
Cracks are also showing in Chávez's much-vaunted revolutionary programs. In The Hugo Chávez Show, FRONTLINE speaks with workers in various socialized cooperatives who say Chávez's government has failed to provide needed resources, or even to pay them for the work they have done."I am among the poorest people in Venezuela," says cooperative worker Maria Rengifo. "The president has to know, in order to form a cooperative, we have to have income. ... He has to know what's going on. Why aren't they functioning? Why aren't they producing? Why isn't there anything to produce?"With frustration building and food shortages common, Venezuela's crime rate has soared, with murders, robberies and kidnappings for ransom occurring frequently. "It's shocking to come nearly a decade on and see that most of what Hugo Chávez was railing in anger about being left with—a failed society, misery, insecurity, unequal distribution of wealth—is still here," Anderson tells FRONTLINE. "That despite these surely thousands of hours of speeches and many billions of dollars of oil wealth pumped into the economy, we don't see huge changes. We see, in fact, that most of Hugo Chávez's revolutionary programs, his inventions to ameliorate and alleviate the social ills at home simply have not worked."
"-----------And that's the bottom line. It was not a surprise when an opposition leader beat Chavez's candidate for mayor of Maracaibo last Sunday. Now Venezuelas richest and biggest state have rejected Communism (not Socialism, Chavez is peddling something Communism under another name now). More surprising were opposition Governor wins in the states of Carabobo and Tachira. Carabobo is the manufacturing center of the country. Tachira is a border state with Colombia, where people can see first hand how much better Colombia has become (better being a relative term). Even more shocking was a non-Chavista winning the mayor's post in Caracas, where Chavez has the Miraflores palace. Anyone who has visited Caracas in the last five years can easily see the rampant decay that has taken root in what was already a city with infrastructure issues. It's a real shame, especially given the high oil prices of the last 3-5 years.If one can state that the intensely deregulated capitalism of the US since 1980 or so has been a bad thing based on the evidence then one must also conclude that full state control of the commanding heights of the economy a la Venezuela has been even worse. The rest of the world had better start charting some sort of middle ground course.
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R
rosskolnikov
(view)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/hugochavez/view/#moreThis was a pretty well-balanced program. There's also an excellent summary on the web-page. These are the last three paragraphs:"
Cracks are also showing in Chávez's much-vaunted revolutionary programs. In The Hugo Chávez Show, FRONTLINE speaks with workers in various socialized cooperatives who say Chávez's government has failed to provide needed resources, or even to pay them for the work they have done."I am among the poorest people in Venezuela," says cooperative worker Maria Rengifo. "The president has to know, in order to form a cooperative, we have to have income. ... He has to know what's going on. Why aren't they functioning? Why aren't they producing? Why isn't there anything to produce?"With frustration building and food shortages common, Venezuela's crime rate has soared, with murders, robberies and kidnappings for ransom occurring frequently. "It's shocking to come nearly a decade on and see that most of what Hugo Chávez was railing in anger about being left with—a failed society, misery, insecurity, unequal distribution of wealth—is still here," Anderson tells FRONTLINE. "That despite these surely thousands of hours of speeches and many billions of dollars of oil wealth pumped into the economy, we don't see huge changes. We see, in fact, that most of Hugo Chávez's revolutionary programs, his inventions to ameliorate and alleviate the social ills at home simply have not worked."
"-----------And that's the bottom line. It was not a surprise when an opposition leader beat Chavez's candidate for mayor of Maracaibo last Sunday. Now Venezuelas richest and biggest state have rejected Communism (not Socialism, Chavez is peddling something Communism under another name now). More surprising were opposition Governor wins in the states of Carabobo and Tachira. Carabobo is the manufacturing center of the country. Tachira is a border state with Colombia, where people can see first hand how much better Colombia has become (better being a relative term). Even more shocking was a non-Chavista winning the mayor's post in Caracas, where Chavez has the Miraflores palace. Anyone who has visited Caracas in the last five years can easily see the rampant decay that has taken root in what was already a city with infrastructure issues. It's a real shame, especially given the high oil prices of the last 3-5 years.If one can state that the intensely deregulated capitalism of the US since 1980 or so has been a bad thing based on the evidence then one must also conclude that full state control of the commanding heights of the economy a la Venezuela has been even worse. The rest of the world had better start charting some sort of middle ground course.
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