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...although the corpo-fascist press might well ignore it, even if it was Obama/White House, since the corpo-fascist press serves our multinational corporate/war profiteer rulers, and their Wall Street animals, and those powers DON'T WANT government to serve the poor majority, and DON'T WANT anyone to get THE IDEA that it SHOULD--"greed is good," remember, and the poor cause their own poverty--and they furthermore have a thing against Obama, part of their narrative that "liberals" caused the Bushwhack Depression, preliminary to Diebolding another Bushwhack asshole team into the White House in 2012, so they really and truly might ignore it, even if Obama invited the homeless into the White House, or would at least start portraying him as a little crazy and unstable and on meds.
The thing is that presidents have a lot of power as symbols. It's kind of the old monarchy syndrome but it can't be avoided, even by socialists. It seems to be in human DNA to be inspired by leaders, to be open to suggestions as to behavior, from the powerful, so it is important what presidents and other kinds of leaders do. We humans have a malleable, imprintable aspect to our natures. We can sometimes be led into evil, and, of course, we can sometimes be led into good, by those with power or with leadership qualities. Our presidency has become so fetishistic and monarchical that literally everything those inhabiting the White House do--the dishes they use, what they eat, the entertainment they choose, whom they invite, Laura Bush's dumpy clothes, Michele's flair, Michele's veggie garden, Bush Jr and his "ranch"--ripple through society as examples of what others should do or aspire to. Thomas Jefferson used to play on the floor with his children and random guests would just freely drop in on these family antics in the White House, with no ceremony and no security. Can you imagine that happening today? We have lost so much of what made us a revolutionary country and an inspiration to the world!
Anyway, even democrats with a small d, like Jefferson, and socialists like Hugo Chavez, are aware of and use their symbolic value. Horrible leaders like Bush Jr make torturing prisoners okay and slaughtering a hundred thousand innocent people to steal their oil. Good leaders try to set good example--for instance, encouraging civility and openness and lawfulness.
Probably most Americans don't know this, but Chavez has not violated a single provision of the Venezuelan constitution, has broken not a single law and has done absolutely nothing that is not within his rights and his mandate as president. He is a super-scrupulously lawful president! For instance, when the leftist mayor of Caracas wanted to confiscate some downtown golf courses/country clubs, to build housing for the poor, the Chavez government nixed the idea BECAUSE THE CONSTITUTION PROTECTS PRIVATE PROPERTY. Some scofflaw businesses have been confiscated--for instance, banks that were endangering their depositors with illegal practices, or food hoarders/price manipulators--but, well, that's the law! If you want to do business in Venezuela, you have to obey the laws written by legislators, and implemented by a president, all of whom have been elected in honest, aboveboard, transparent elections. The Chavistas don't have a lot of respect for multinational monsters like Exxon Mobil that try to bully them and rob Venezuela. But that's a wholenother story. We should all be de-chartering and dismantling these godawful, transglobal corporate powermongers. They have no rights other than what we, as a sovereign people, give them.
To get back to Chavez inviting the flood victims into Miraflores Palace (Venezuela's White House), frankly it surprises me that Rotters even reported it. They have been very bad on Chavez and the Latin American Left--as have all of our corpo-fascist 'news' organizations, bar none. (Even the BBC has been shockingly bad--blatantly biased, propagandistic, pushing rightwing "think tank" talking points, etc.) And I will be floored if anybody picks up this little item from Rotters. They would not only slander Obama as "crazy" and "unstable" if he did it, and suppress it, if they could get away with it, they don't want any other presidents setting this kind of example, anywhere. But Rotters probably reported it in order to emphasize the housing problem in Caracas and set up the rightwing "talking point" that barrio housing still slides off the hills around Caracas in heavy rains, and, hey, the socialists "haven't done anything about it!"
It's kind of interesting that one of our rightwing, anti-Chavez DUers, above, says just that--describes this gesture as "nice" then blames Chavez for not solving the housing problem in Caracas. Imagine the screams of the rightwing nutballs in Venezuela, echoing throughout our corpo-fascist press, if the Chavez government HAD started confiscating private property to house the poor! Can't you just hear it?
And of course it was rightwing/"free trade" governments, who lived off the oil, and inflicted horrendously bad policy on Venezuela, who caused this problem in the first place, by allowing rich landowners to kick the poor peasant farmers off their farms, often brutally, creating the migration of millions of poor people into urban squalor, where they couldn't feed their families, let alone their communities, and where they faced joblessness with no education and no training. The slums of Caracas were created by the rich and the fascist. They meanwhile encouraged the creation of a rich urban elite, also living off the oil, and addicted to imported goods. The problems facing the Chavez government have been consequently enormous--including grave poverty, illiteracy, lack of access to education and training, poor nutrition, no health care, shanty housing, loss of farming knowledge and skills, the rich owning most of the land and letting it lie fallow, Exxon Mobil grabbing 90% of the oil profits with only 10% going to Venezuela and most of that raked off by the rich, and on and on and on.
And, of course, the moment the Chavez government began trying to DO SOMETHING about these massive problems, the rightwing perpetrated a coup d'etat and suspended the Constitution, the courts, the National Assembly and all civil rights. The people themselves peacefully defeated this coup--by pouring out of their hovels and surrounding Miraflores Palace--but it nevertheless rocked the country, making planning and progress more difficult. Then came the oil bosses' lockout, whereby the multinational oil giants tried to cripple and destroy Venezuela's economy. Then the USAID-funded recall election of 2004 (which Chavez won, hands down)--draining yet more time, energy and resources that would have gone into governing and solving problems. And the non-stop plotting and enmity of the United States government, in cahoots with the rightwing, who wanted their oil cash cow back. Every kind of obstacle to progress, to planning, to housing, feeding and educating the poor was placed in the Chavez government's path, by the very people who now lambast the Chavez government for not solving every problem yesterday.
And all this time--through all of these obstacles--the Chavez government was nevertheless cutting poverty IN HALF and extreme poverty by over 70%, wiping out illiteracy, providing health care to millions of people who never had it before, vastly increasing educational opportunity, reorganizing food distribution and food costs to the poor, building many news schools, community health clinics and other infrastructure, creating and implementing a well thought out land reform program, providing jobs, supporting small businesses and co-ops, renegotiating the oil contracts to give Venezuelan and its social programs a much better deal and generating an astonishing economic growth rate of 10%, over a five year period (2003 to 2008), with the most growth in the private sector, not including oil!
Venezuela just earned designation as "the most equal country in Latin America," on income distribution, from the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.
They also have a housing program--building low cost housing for the poor. But they have had to deal with some uncooperative construction and materials companies, finding and acquiring land without violating the Constitution, and other such problems, as well as the fact that the barrios are now established communities, and you don't just bulldoze communities and move people elsewhere. You have to get their consent. You have to arrange transportation, access to jobs and schools and so on. And do you just neglect them in the meantime? If you are a good government, you have to provide schools, health care, street lighting, jobs, incomes, adult re-training, access to food and other goods, etc., where they live. I've seen photos and documentaries on the Chavez government's low cost housing projects. I don't know the stats on this, but they ARE, IN FACT, addressing this problem, and all the other problems that prior governments neglected out of greed and malfeasance.
The Bushwhack-induced Depression slowed things down (mainly because the price of oil plummeted), but Venezuela is now crawling back into a growth mode. They headed into the Bushwhack-induced Depression with high cash reserves, low unemployment and other good conditions. They will be all right. And if they are not, and if Venezuelans blame Chavez for it, they have a remedy that we can no longer count on: voting. (Venezuela's election system is far, FAR more transparent than our own--another accomplishment of the Chavez government that you will never hear about in our corpo-fascist press.)
Meanwhile, if you yourself are well-off, well-fed and have a roof over your head, think about sharing some of your comfort with those who have nothing. Even if you think "greed is good" and the poor cause their own poverty, a little kindness might mean that there will be a little kindness for YOU, if you ever "fall between the cracks." And do try to give Chavez a little credit for making this point. That's what leaders should be doing.
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