Go for it Hugo...the same way Fidel overcame poverty in Cuba.
http://www.therealcuba.com/index.htm
Posted on 03/21/2005 2:31:10 PM PST by hedgetrimmer
CARACAS, Mar 3 (IPS) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez called for the creation of a debtor nations' club, the adoption of a Social Charter by the Organisation of American States (OAS), and the forging of a new socialist model for the 21st century during the 4th Social Debt Summit in Caracas.
”We must abandon the capitalist model of development, because it is incapable of serving as a framework to overcome the drama of poverty and inequality,” said Chávez, a former lieutenant-colonel now heading a ”Bolivarian Revolution” of peaceful political and social transformations (named for Simon Bolívar, the founding father of South American independence).
Since 1992, when he led a military uprising in Venezuela, Chávez has been a staunch critic of ”savage neoliberalism”, and after being elected president in 1999, he has tirelessly called for Latin America to establish its own model for development.
In 2001, he proposed the establishment of a Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), in opposition to ”ALCA”, the Spanish acronym for the FTAA or Free Trade Area of the Americas promoted by the United States.
At the Social Debt Summit, held Feb. 24-26, Chávez posed the question, ”If capitalism doesn't serve the purposes of democracy, then what does?” He continued, ”I have no doubts. For me, it is socialism, not the old models of socialism, but rather a new one we will invent for the 21st century.”
While former socialist leaders in Venezuela criticised the president for ”reverting to stages and models of the past,” analyst Alberto Garrido told IPS that Chávez's comments clearly confirm ”the system of ideas he adheres to.”
Chávez also revived the proposal to create a club of debtor countries, since currently ”each country deals with this problem on an individual basis, instead of all of us reaching an agreement.” He additionally proposed that at least 50 percent of the 270 billion dollars that the South currently spends on servicing its foreign debt annually be devoted instead to a special fund for development.
Chávez's initiative was endorsed by Spanish activist David Llistar of the Debt and Globalisation Observatory, who said the external debt ”is a mechanism for the soft domination of the countries of the South, which over the last 20 years have paid out seven times more than the original debts they contracted, and continue to owe much more than what they were loaned in the first place.”
Llistar and Jorge Marchini of the University of Buenos Aires recommended the establishment of a debtors' club that would evaluate the foreign debt, to distinguish between legitimate debt (contracted for development projects) and illegitimate debt, resulting from money borrowed and then diverted to military spending, the privileged elites, or projects never carried out.
In the ”lost decade” of the 1980s, when the foreign debt crisis in Latin America was accompanied by a fall in revenues and exports, the idea of a debtors' club was discussed at length in forums like the Latin American Economic System (SELA).
The initiative never took root, however, and was eventually pushed aside by negotiations under the Brady Plan, a U.S. proposal for restructuring the foreign debt.
Development and integration were other themes discussed at the recent conference in Caracas. José Deniz of the University of Andalusia, Spain, stressed that ”the distribution of income in Latin America is highly unequal, and without economic and cultural integration within countries, there can be no integration among countries.”
The Venezuelan president advocated ”endogenous development”, while Oswaldo Sunkel of Chile stated that ”development is either endogenous or it isn't development at all, because the only way out of underdevelopment is for countries to acquire the capacity to develop themselves.”
In countries like those of Latin America, Sunkel added, ”there is a socio-centralist phase emerging, in which society must impose upon the state a series of policies that are needed for society to satisfy its needs.”
Shafik Handal, leader of El Salvador's leftist Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), noted that ”a new kind of integration is being built in Latin America, taking into account the economic and social components of countries.”
However, Chávez's ALBA proposal ”is still very much in the making, and will require considerable work on integrating ideas, approaches and efforts to make it a reality,” Handal added.
In order to provide its proposals with an institutional backing in the hemisphere, Venezuela is also striving to promote the adoption by the OAS of a Social Charter, as a complement to the Inter-American Democratic Charter adopted in Lima in 2001.
”The question of a Social Charter that takes into account the United Nations Millennium Development Goals is changing the ideological outlook of the OAS,” said Venezuelan OAS ambassador Jorge Valero.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 2000, encompass specific targets to be reached in the areas of development, health care, education, gender equality and the environment, including the goal of halving the proportion of the world's population suffering from extreme poverty and hunger by the year 2015.
Venezuela has formulated a draft Social Charter with 129 points, establishing commitments on the part of the hemisphere's governments with regard to the right to a decent living, above the poverty line, along with the rights to health care, education, employment, social protection, housing and land ownership.
The draft Charter also contemplates environmental rights, indigenous and family rights, as well as the rights to territorial and cultural identity, public participation, information, and sports and entertainment.
The 4th Social Debt Summit, organised by the Venezuelan delegation of the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino), adopted a final declaration called the Caracas Commitment.
The document stressed the will to continue working towards the creation of a Social Charter, the establishment of a regional parliamentary forum to defend national economies, and the promotion of the idea of participative democracy alongside representative democracy. (END/2005)
Sooner or later, we're going to have to deal with this guy, Chavez.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!
We should invoke the Monroe Doctrine (remember that one?) wage a short war and sieze the Venezuelan oil fields in the name of our national security.
As the Clintons were fond of saying, "Sooner rather than later."
"Sooner or later, we're going to have to deal with this guy, Chavez."
This guy is worse than Castro...he is young and has alot of oil cash.
Go for it Hugo...the same way Fidel overcame poverty in Cuba.
http://www.therealcuba.com/index.htm
Nothing there Hillary Clinton & Ted Kennedy wouldn't agree with.
And the American people are going to have to wake up to the fact that they are getting railroaded into a "hemispheric vision" by our elected officials. Our government is fully on board the OAS. Should the OAS elect to implement the Millenium summit goals, it will become a directive for the United States to fulfill. UN goals have a way of killing off individual rights and collectivising society--- which may be why Chavez wants them adopted one way or the other.
so this is what my English professor thinks is utopia...
The United States Marine Corps, coming to a national capitol near you....
With Chavez's social charter implemented by the OAS, the US will soon be paying much much more to alleviate Venezuela's poverty and prop up Chavez's marxist government.
Longtime FReeper IronJack called for the creation of a creditor nations' club, the adoption of the US Constitution by the OAS, and the forging of a new capitalist model for the 21st century during the 1st annual Social Responsibility Summit in his back yard.
Hugo Chavez is dangerous. Mark my words.
Socialism is responsible for more deaths in the 20th century than any non-natural cause. Just between Stalin and Mao we are talking millions of deaths. Technically, the NAZI party was a socialist party also.
In order to defeat the "drama of poverity", one must first kill and steal from those who have worked for it. The redistribution of another's belongings require violence. In other words, if i want your money, odds are you are not going to give it away. Socialists rationalize killing in order for utilitarian principles to suceed. IMO, Chavez needs to be dispatched very quickly.
bttt
Hey, give ol' Hugo a chance. He's got new ideas to try out.
Chavez: "For me, it is socialism, not the old models of socialism, but rather a new one we will invent for the 21st century."
Oh, I can hardly wait for the new plans to be unveiled!
This is what bothers me about this article:
He additionally proposed that at least 50 percent of the 270 billion dollars that the South currently spends on servicing its foreign debt annually be devoted instead to a special fund for development.
Uh hello? And what will happen to the debt you should be paying that 50% on? Will it just go away?? This business of defaulting w/o consequence (see Argentina) has got to stop.
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