Hugo Chavez Oil For Poor

"On the weekend, Mr. [Hugo] Chavez . . . toured the heavily black and Latino-populated Bronx and was treated like a rock star." Bet you didn't expect that, huh? I'm posting in response to brd's post on pirate-socialism (no, that's not a real term), which addressed Yusaf Hamied's decision to manufacture low-cost AIDS drugs against the strong pressure of Western power.

I must be honest and say I really know very little about the program, other than that Chavez is actually making good on his promise and is providing oil to poor citizens of Chicago, Boston, and now DC. But I'll post a couple links.


Who knows what is motivating this -- is it more benevolence, or the opportunity to stick it to Bush and other Washington "haters" (as the kids say)? Here's a quote from one of the articles, though: "[Bradford scholar Julia] Buxton said Mr. Chavez's pledge to help poor Americans may have been ad hoc but follows a recent pattern to provide subsidized oil to 13 Caribbean countries -- including Cuba, in exchange for the long-term loan of about 20,000 Cuban health workers.
'He does have an interest in providing oil to the poorest in the Americas, including North America,' she said." Interesting.


Stephen Colbert has, in a jab at Nagin and Washington, called DC the "Chocolate city with the marshmallow center." My guess is, the marshmallow center is never gonna like Chavez, but the rest of the city is getting a whole lot warmer (in more ways than one).

A couple links, and then I'm done:
The post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/21/AR2006092101115.html

These two are maybe a little too Chavez-friendly, but hey, it's my blog:
http://www.hispanicbusiness.com/news/newsbyid.asp?id=50177&cat=Politics+News&more=%2Fpolitics%2F

http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1568