Let us see what the numbers say about Hugo Chavez's Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela.
Economy
The Venezuelan economy shrank in 2002 by 8.9%, because of the strike, and 2003 by 7.7%, but in 2004, the economy grew by 17.3% in gross domestic product, 17.8% in the non-oil sector, 18.6% in the private sector, and 11% public sector growth.
Poverty
42% in 1999
47% in 2004
38.5% in the first half of 2005
Extreme poverty went from 18% in 2004, to 10% in the first part of 2005.
Education and Health Care
1998 3% of GDP invested in education.
2005 7% of GDP invested in education.
1998 57% of children enrolled in schools.
2005 70% of children enrolled in schools, now offer free lunches,all day classes,
and uniforms.
20,000 Cuban doctors and dentists, staff free clinics.
25% discount for groceries, at state run stores.
See: Resource Center of the Americas in Minneapolis, MN
18 comments:
Gosh--impressive.
Oh, I wonder why his people love him and supporters of George W Bush want him assassinated?
Talking about Bush - is it my imagination or did I really read a quote recently in which he questions whether atheists should be considered citizens?
I found this URL about Bush and atheism.
http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/bush.htm
Bush atleast was not at church Sunday.
"After all, religion has been around a lot longer than Darwinism."
Superb thinking there from your glorioius leader!
Edog makes sense.
I hope they don't take my leftist, socialist membership card away.
While I do agree that the thinking behind religion had been around a lot longer than the thinking behind Darwinism, I'm absolutely certain that that is not what your glorious leader meant by his statement.
On that score, Edog makes sense. But, to equate evolution with religious fundamentalism, well, he talk big stupid nonsense words from his big stupid nonsense dog-face.
Oh, and he doesn't make the trains run on time, that's the track workers, the signallers, the train drivers and all the other rail industry workers who do that!
I was only agreeing, that religious people can stay religious, and believe in evolution.
You know what has been around longer than Darwinism? Leprosy.
Chavez does more than watch train scheduling. He has helped create a qualitative better life for most in his country.
It's never dull when Edog posts.
I thought Edog, with his mention of the trains, was referring to Bush,.... d'oh!!
And why does unsane always, with one small little sentence, always say more than the rest of us wordy tossers? Leprosy - that's fuckin funny!
Unsane is one of the people who come on this blog, and make my brain feel like mush.
She has a story to tell.
Nice!
Yeah, can't Darwinism and Religion go together? - I have a feeling they can!
*takes a few steps back and runs away*
"Accepted science" is disproven daily, yet with holes the size of Noah's arc being blown through Darwinism hourly, its adherents cling to it with Pat Robertson-like zeal after the head of your Bolivarian protagonist...speaking of which... is 50% poverty like being half-dead? China's economy is exploding too, yet the under-reported story is that mass protests have grown faster than their economy. It seems as they gain wealth, they are less content with the strong central government. Protests have gone from an already astounding average of 10,000 per year to 74,000 per year last year. We'll see how comrade Chavez does on that score!
I don't know if I did it properly, but I used your article and your commenters postings to discuss the rise of left wing governments.
I haven't had an original idea ever anyways.
There are three problems with your post about Chavez:
1. You fail to mention that with the price of oil in stratosphere, Venezuela's economy should have grown much faster than it did. Going from 42% of poverty in 1999 to 38.5% today is a pathetic accomplishment considering that the oil revenues has tripled if not quatrupled.
2. Chavez's way of fighting poverty - by spending money on education, health care and subsidizing food and other consumer products, will lead nowhere if it's not accompanied by a robust investment in job-creation (and so far it isn't). You can have a population of PhDs and MBAs with perfect teeth and in perfect health buying milk that cost 1 cent a gallon, but if they are all unemployed, Venezuelan economy will go bankrupt as soon as the oil runs out.
3. As long as Chavez is selling oil to the Americans, they will probably leave him alone. But if he starts making REAL trouble for Washington, he will be gone faster than Allende... It might be emotionally satisfying to stick it to the Damn Yankees, but is it worth it to laer suffer under a dictator (the one that will overthrow Chavez) that will probably make Pinochet look like Eastern Bunny ? And unless Chavez starts to act more like Lula and less like Castro, that day may come soon...
Rover, I concur with your admonition to Sonia! However, while you have a refined aesthetic appreciation, you blew over the equally impressive eloquence of her expostulation!
My analogy too, was on point. Whether or not you subscribe to ID (most people have never bothered to look at the premise), Darwinism has been unable to answer too many of the challenges against it to hold together as a cogent theory.
Apart from ID, Dr. Michael Behe, a biochemistry professor at Lehigh, studied evolution theory at the molecular level and found that it does not work. He found that life on earth has "irreducible complexity." In other words, life is too complex to have evolved.
The analogy I drew (which I thought was pretty good - if I must say so myself) was regarding the furvor with which adherents of this fatally flawed theory defend it. It is akin to the most ardent Christian apologist.
Defending evolution is not about defending or opposing atheism. The fight is about introducing ideas of faith, into the science classroom. After evolution what next, psychology, anthropology, biology etc.
According to The National Center for Science Education, "this argument is over 200 years old; it has been thoroughly and consistently discredited by many thousands of scientific observations and experiments and, on this basis, is firmly rejected by scientists. "Irreducible complexity" is a term employed by Behe to argue that evolutionary processes cannot account for at least some of the observed complexity in living things. However, Behe's insistence that complex structures must always retain the same function and must be built step-by-step overlooks many well-known evolutionary processes. While it is true that there are complex biologic features and processes that would not operate at 100% effectiveness or even at all if one part were removed or altered today, legitimate scientists understand that these features and processes were formed by a natural process (that is, evolution by natural selection). Underneath the scientific jargon, it's the Creationist argument.
A good source for the study of the arguments on evolution are at this site. www.ncseweb.org . They have had forums including with Dr. Michael Behe involved in debates. They provide the science needed for credible discussion. Gaps in evolution theory don't prove or disprove anything. Unlike ID, it is open to change, even to be disproven.
Craig's blog has been complimented, for all the leftys who visit it, and have civil discussion.
I guess Sonia will have traffic at her blog.
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