Venezuela's Chavez maintains lead over rival Capriles: poll
Source: Reuters
Venezuela's Chavez maintains lead over rival Capriles: poll
Reuters – 2 hours 3 minutes ago.
CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez maintains a 15 percentage-point lead over opposition challenger Henrique Capriles in the run-up to the October 7 election, pollster Datanalisis said on Monday.
Datanalisis' June poll showed 46.1 percent of voters backing Chavez and 30.8 percent supporting Capriles, while 23.1 percent were undecided or did not respond.
The lead was slightly narrower than the 15.9 percent advantage for Chavez in Datanalisis' May poll, but still within the margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.
Chavez, 57, remains popular in his 14th year in power due to his oil-financed welfare spending and his enduring emotional connection with the country's poor majority.
Read more: http://in.news.yahoo.com/venezuelas-chavez-maintains-lead-over-rival-capriles-poll-144329615.html
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Vidar
(18,335 posts)Response to Judi Lynn (Original post)
devilgrrl This message was self-deleted by its author.
nxylas
(6,440 posts)Thus only allowing Venezuelans to get a diet of Washington-approved anti-Chavez propaganda from, um, pretty much every other TV station in Venezuela. Yes, that's it.
teddy51
(3,491 posts)
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)
and thanks for posting. Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Where is says this and it struck me as illogical and I am trying to work this out in my head, hopefully with the help of some kindred spirits here at DU:
...oil-financed welfare spending and his enduring emotional connection with the country's poor majority...
14 years of socialist or communist rule, and yet the majority are still poor? Who is keeping them poor now? And by what standards, or is this coming from the perspective of a overly consumer consumptive American version of what poverty and wealth is?
The GNP is not a good measure for the quality of life or even wealth or poverty although Americans believe in it or at least the media does. RFK explained it thus, and it may dispel the media calling the majority of Venezuelans poor. Perhaps they are not poor:
Robert F. Kennedy on what GNP means.
Below is a quote from Bobby Kennedy on what the Gross National Product means and more importantly what it does not mean. He would have a made a fine economist...
"Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."
Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, March 18, 1968.
We've not seen a drastic drop our GNP but income inequality, the growth of the uber rich and the number of people in poverty has increased. not to mention other things that drive us nuts here, are not addressed by GNP or 'wealth creation' as it does not address equality, the environment or quality of life, obviously.
Even after all of that oil-financed welfare spending has been in place for years, there should be a lot of money, as the Kuwaitis finance health care, university education and a high standard of living through their government spending. This should be measurable, and the influence of Venezuela should be noticeable to someone. What are we missing here?
I recognize Hugo has been fighting off the patricians and foreign interests all this time. Also expanding his connection to other countries, which may or may not help his people.
And that they may not have had the level of industrial, educational and business diversity to create income equality as America had in its heyday of growth as many of us have lived in most of our lives. But they also have not been saddled with being caught in a never ending state of military spending as the USA since the Cold War and borrowing from the entire planet to keep that machine going.
Or if we look at this in some Americans' terms, welfare is a temporary relief for a temporary set back and the goal is economic security for individuals that gives more independence and allows them more security in the long term and less need of welfare. There are arguments that may not appeal to the people who love Hugo down there.
And before anyone may assume differently, I am not in any way a conservative, but a realist about surviving in any social system. My goal, which seems at times to be too far off to be achieved in my lifetime, despite some tantalizing signs at times, is a governmental system such as Norway has had.
In my opinion, virtually every single economic force should be nationalized to give greater transparency and democratic control by an enlightened electorate. Or at least an understanding reached that the profit driven system is inefficient and blind about the destruction of life occurring here on planet Earth.
Any thoughts, guys?
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)long for a much more socialistic system here in the US, one where resources were distributed more equally and the State provided more of the staples of life - housing, food, healthcare, education, etc.
While I agree that our system is severely broken, I'm very apprehensive about a system where the government simply doles out life's necessities. I'd prefer a system where anyone can educate themselves to the limits of their ability without having to endure abject poverty while doing so, and where those who've been lucky or smart enough to amass great wealth give back in proportion to what they've received. I think we can achieve these things while retaining the things that we're good at - letting people start their own enterprises and develop products and services that others want to purchase.
I usually look to Denmark, since surveys show they're the happiest people in the world, for guidance on the right balance between a welfare state and a market economy. They're shrewd business people and have formidable engineering and product development skills, but they also have universal health care and higher education, so they're living proof that high taxes and an excellent standard of living can coexist with a robust safety net.
Perhaps, even likely, I'm just misinformed or under informed about Venezuelan society under Chavez, but when I hear about things like free housing and free food, I shudder at what life would be like to just be handed these things. Someone has to produce goods and services to pay for these things, and it seems to me that other than their oil wealth, Venezuela doesn't have the skills to produce much else. When that oil wealth is gone, or alternative energy sources slowly eliminate the need for fossil fuels, will Venezuelans be able to maintain their welfare state? What has Chavez done to create a self-sufficient workforce that can compete in the global economy? How many engineers and scientists are they producing? Can they compete with Europe and the US in the free market? (I don't count China here, since no one can compete with their slave labor pool).
OK, Chavistas, lay in with a will.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Our picture of Latin America has been distorted by media = corporate interests, almost as badly as the native people of that region were brutally colonized. I don't approve of the government handing out food and stuff in lieu of ownership. The idea of people being fed from welfare or needing everything supplied by the government, is also problematic and keeps people in a childish state of dependence. although most sane folk recognize we have people among us who will always need help. Always.
Welfare to alleviate poverty without addressing the root cause, social imbalance, shows that the basics of life are not in the control of the majority. And despite welfare here, we're nothing like Denmark. Here it is seen as a moral failing, not a disadvantage that there is no shame in making use of as in the commonwealth countries at one time. Venezuela has a good climate and a valuable resource to sell the world to raise its population out of poverty which would elminate most forms of welfare.
The eventual goal of socialist or communist utopia that will likely never happen, was a societal evolving into commumism = commualism. Which goes to what you say is best, and which is closer to what some native societies had, until faced with the more aggressive and more technologically advanced invaders, who were looking for profit through conquest. What better profit margin is there than going somewhere to take that which you did not even own, didn't work to create... Like picking fruit off a tree in the garden of Eden, just never mind that blood on the ground.
This appears to be an inevitable, if not a happy thing, but capitalism as it has been for a long time is not even sustainable nor does the concept of private ownership promote equality now, any more than it did then. For some reason, and I am likely not only uninformed but misinformed, as I am not fluent in Spanish. My latino friends despise Chavez, but they are conservatives.
I don't understand how they are poor if Chavez is the socialist solution. I dnn't understand that they would be on welfare. Perhaps the definitions fail, but things seem to be rather chaotic there, not the kind of thing where people are lining up pitifully in a soup line, regimented by the state, which is what I think you were finding to be objectionable. I don't like that either, but it is now occuring here, and it has happened before.
It was a bit strange after the invasion of Iraq to have government there giving out health care and checks to people as it said Saddam did. We simply don't know what the context was. Conservatives refer to welfare as nanny state government, not teaching people how to fend for themselves, holding them back. I reject their boot strap philosophy as it doesn't work on an uneven playing field. For some reason, either a lack of land reform to remedy the coloonial system down there, or some other cause, they are not living as well off as one might imagine they would be.
Thanks very much for your thoughtful reply.
Igel
(35,300 posts)Venezuelan papers. Not always opposition.
Then again, in the '70s and '80s I also read Izvestiya and Pravda, and in the '90s added Literaturka to the mix.
You see, after a while you stop paying so much attention to the damning things that the opposition says about you and focus on the damning things you say about yourself. Not that you say them explicitly, but it's what's not said, the implications of the grand and glorious achievements, what's important. If it's really, really big news that this year harvest is big enough to feed your population, well, in most countries it's background noise. That it's a big deal means, well, that you haven't been able to. The constant "Gee, our leader is great!" is a crock, just like the "we're surrounded on all sides that hate us." In the case of the USSR, really, they were surrounded on pretty much all sides by people indifferent to them but who considered them a threat to be contained, not eliminated.
The bits in the opposition press that you really notice are those that are what's being silently reported in the government-backed or government-owned press. (Hmmm ... "government-backed press." Doesn't that just have a Jeffersonian, 1st-amendment right glow about it?)
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)to eliminate poverty than the previous RW governments, and I certainly take no issue with that statement. Obviously there are still poor folk, and there always will be, everywhere.
However, the vigor with which some posters defend his every move is tiresome.
I dislike authoritarians, even ones that help the poor. The idea that any one personality is absolutely necessary to a functioning society is just anathema to me.
And thanks right back at ya for a civil, thoughtful post.
Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts)If they want more luxury, then they can work for it.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)temperment or genetics, and there are insufficient numbers of people to support their existence by working to produce the necessities?
It seems to me that under such a system the benefits would continue to increase, and the number of people working to pay for them would continue to decrease.
>>>"Can you envision a scenario where a critical mass of people are non-productive..."
No, I can't. People are productive by nature, regardless of the myths loved by Republicans and DINOs. I can, however, envision a scenario where the majority toil productively for long hours doing work that keeps the society functioning for the opulent benefit of corrupt elites while being paid insufficiently to provide medical or decent food or education for their children. I can envision it because it's right there for anyone to see in too many places.
Venezuela was locked in that paradigm 12 years ago and the US is racing towards it now. Twelve years after the US freed themselves from their Colonial overlord, we where just getting a good start on genociding the natives. Twelve years after the Bolivarians overthrew their Colonial overlord (US), they've made great strides extending liberty and a fair shake for their natives, and everyone else in Venezuela who has a real concern for such concepts. Of course, all this fails to please those who where riding on the high side with kickbacks for selling their country and fellow citizen to the Empire. It would be nice if Venezuela could overcome the problems created by a couple hundred years of corrupt Satrap rule in twelve years, but it's not very realistic.
Here's something that is real; Even if they do have a long way to go, Venezuela is rising from a bad past and moving in a positive direction while the US is sinking economically and socially, and you'd have to look to places like Saudi Arabia to find a more authoritarian country than the US. The reason for all the ridiculous anti Venezuela - anti Chavez propaganda in this country is that the corrupt elites bringing this country down for their own benefit are terrified of a good example taking root down south.
Judi Lynn
(160,524 posts)Clearly you've cared enough to learn beyond our force-fed propaganda.
Thank you, so much.
Flatulo
(5,005 posts)The US is certainly sliding in the authoritarian direction with its draconian drug laws, foreign intervention, endless surveillance and the police acting more and more like animals. And Americans are toiling harder and harder for the benefit of fewer and fewer people.
But to your point about people being productive by nature; Venezuelan's dont seem to be particularly so. The American worker is the most productive in the world, as measured by GDP per hour worked. Venezuela doesn't even make the top 20 list.
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500395_162-3228735.html
What I wonder is, when Venezuela's oil resources become irrelevant at some point in the future, how will they create the wealth that's currently being spread so equitably? I think that all the major oil producing states have a built in clock that will eventually time out and unmask their otherwise lackluster ability to generate income. What else does Venezuela produce? Or am I missing some bigger picture here?
I'll acknowledge the usual rant about US colonialism and corporate exploitation causing great harm to the indigenous people of LA. I'll also thank you for your civility. I know that Hugo is a polarizing figure and the debate can get heated as to whether he is a saint or a devil.
roody
(10,849 posts)as editorial, not news.
Mika
(17,751 posts)
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Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)Ter
(4,281 posts)n/t
bitchkitty
(7,349 posts)Viva Chavez! I'd like to see the real numbers - they probably reflect why this man keeps getting elected over and over.
