President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is taking hateful comments from right-wing elites in the US in stride. Despite inflammatory comments by the Bush administration and the barely coherent ravings of Christian Coalition founder and former Republican presidential candidate Pat Robertson about assassinating the elected Venezuelan president, Chávez continues to express his solidarity with the people of the US who struggle for peace, democracy and social justice.
At the recent opening ceremony of the World Festival of Youth and Students, which over 700 youth from the US attended, President Chávez expressed his country’s support for US youth in the struggle for peace and democracy by personally greeting the leaders of the US delegation.
And just weeks after the Republican dominated US Congress congratulated itself and gloated in the US media for passing an Energy Bill that gives billions in tax breaks to wealthy oil companies, blocks serious development of alternative forms of energy, and promotes higher gas prices, President Chávez offered to sell gasoline in poor and working class communities in the US at lower prices.
Chávez’s announcement comes just as US government estimates indicate fuel prices rising by as much as 80 cents per gallon by next year. Despite Bush’s public relations stunt on Wednesday to give the appearance of doing something about rising costs of gas and oil, critics are skeptical that his proposed tiny fuel economy standards changes will have any impact.
"Americans should buckle up for continued pain at the pump," said David Friedman, research director for the Clean Vehicles Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "At best, the administration's approach does nothing. At worst, it creates new loopholes that increase our oil dependence."
Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA owns Citgo, which has 14,000 gas stations in the United States. Venezuelans currently pay about 75 cents less per gallon of gas than do US car owners.
According to CNN, President Chávez told reporters in Havana, Cuba, "We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States." Chávez was attending a graduation ceremony for medical students at Cuba’s internationally renowned Latin American Medical School, which graduated students from 28 countries, including from Venezuela.
Both Chávez and Cuban President Fidel Castro have also offered to give poor Americans free health care and train doctors free of charge. Currently 45 million people in the US do not have access to health insurance, and nearly 30 million more are believed to have inadequate coverage. Recent estimates published in the Washington Post show that as many as half of all bankruptcies in the US occur as a result of debt burdens related to health care costs.
In a speech delivered just weeks ago from a newly built free people’s medical clinic located in one of Caracas’ working class barrios, President Hugo Chávez extended the benefits of the Venezuelan government's health care objectives to the poor people of the US.
Meanwhile, Bush is planning more tax cuts for the rich, has no policy on health care, and has done nothing to create jobs, rebuild our public schools, or limit the movement of jobs overseas.
To top it off, President Chávez has been elected, re-elected, and sustained in office by large popular majorities that President Bush, whose ability to win a popular election fairly remains in doubt, can only dream about.
President Chávez’s approval rating is about 70 percent in his country. President Bush’s approval rating has sunk to 36 percent here.
--Joel Wendland is managing editor of Political Affairs and may be reached at jwendland@politicalaffairs.net.
