#venezuela

Out in the field, any connection with home just makes you weaker. It reminds you that you were once civilized, soft; and that can get you killed faster than a bullet through the head. ↗

— Henry Mosquera

#black-ops #conspiracy #espionage #global #hackers

In Venezuela Chavez has made the co-ops a top political priority, giving them first refusal on government contracts and offering them economic incentives to trade with one another. By 2006, there were roughly 100,000 co-operatives in the country, employing more than 700,000 workers. Many are pieces of state infrastructure – toll booths, highway maintenance, health clinics – handed over to the communities to run. It’s a reverse of the logic of government outsourcing – rather than auctioning off pieces of the state to large corporations and losing democratic control, the people who use the resources are given the power to manage them, creating, at least in theory, both jobs and more responsive public services. Chavez’s many critics have derided these initiatives as handouts and unfair subsidies, of course. Yet in an era when Halliburton treats the U.S. government as its personal ATM for six years, withdraws upward of $20 billion in Iraq contracts alone, refuses to hire local workers either on the Gulf coast or in Iraq, then expresses its gratitude to U.S. taxpayers by moving its corporate headquarters to Dubai (with all the attendant tax and legal benefits), Chavez’s direct subsidies to regular people look significantly less radical. ↗

— Naomi Klein

#leftism #political #subsidies #taxes #usa

Globalization and the neoliberal economic model have already been rejected in Latin America; it simply hasn't been a solution for our people. At the same time, Latin countries like Venezuela and Argentina are anti-imperialist and anti-globalization, and yet their economies are growing again. ↗

— Evo Morales

#already #america #argentina #been #countries

Can you imagine what Bush would say if someone like Hugo Chavez asked him for a little piece of land to install a military base, and he only wanted to plant a Venezuelan flag there? ↗

— Jose Saramago

#base #bush #chavez #flag #him

En el aspecto social, la inclusión es el principio básico. Nuestro lema son los pobres primero y para los pobres los mejores instrumentos, los mejores maestros, las mejores infraestructuras. La cultura para los pobres no puede ser una pobre cultura. Debe ser grande, ambiciosa, refinada, avanzada, nada de sobras. Además, ellos multiplican su efecto, porque son enormemente agradecidos ante el esfuerzo. No es práctico incorporar a su vida esa faceta como si fuera un florero. ↗

— José Antonio Abreu

#inspirational #national-system-of-orchestra #orchestra #poverty #venezuela

Chavez made a compete fool of himself in front of the entire world while giving the U.N. a black eye. But the real losers are the Venezuelan people who have to put up with this unstable character every day. ↗

— J. D. Hayworth

#character #chavez #compete #day #entire

The fact that I am a writer comes from the experience of being cut away from my roots and living in Venezuela, where I couldn't find a place for myself, for years and years. ↗

— Isabel Allende

#away #being #comes #cut #experience

We host some trips all over the world. We go to Alaska. We go to Mexico. We're going to Venezuela in December. We've been to Russia, all in conjunction with the radio show. ↗

— Martin Milner

#been #conjunction #december #go #going

But I went down to Venezuela and spend a few weeks going through jungles. It's fantastic looking. ↗

— Vincente Minnelli

#fantastic #few #going #i #jungles

The spirit of Ubuntu, that once led Haiti to emerge as the first independent black nation in 1804, helped Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador attain liberty, and inspired our forefathers to shed their blood for the United States' independence, cannot die. Today, this spirit of solidarity must and will empower all of us to rebuild Haiti. ↗

— Jean-Bertrand Aristide

#black #blood #cannot #colombia #die