Copa de Bias

A rather strange post on the otherwise brilliant 101 Great Goals blog comparing Hugo Chavez to Hitler:

In 1936 Hitler and the Nazis used the Olympic dream to fool the world. The Los Angeles Times reports that Chavez is doing exactly the same thing:

“As tournament host, Chavez has built or remodeled no fewer than nine major soccer stadiums across the country, including the new $80-million Cachamay arena in this town close to the banks of the mighty Orinoco River. Granted, the stadiums probably won’t have a long-term economic effect; they probably will be more of a ‘bread and circuses’ offering to the masses and a way to impress out-of-towners attending the tournament…”

I'm not going to go too much into the ridiculousness of the comparison and the whole Chavez is a Demagogue side of the post Though I will say since when has anyone hosting a major tournament NOT built and renovated stadiums? Has everyone who has ever held a major tournament been out to "fool the world"? And the quote itself is misleading, as another article linked to from the post points out. Nine stadiums have been built OR Remodelled, but that amounts to two being built and seven being remodelled, which makes a difference, especially when we add “and renovate airports and surrounding areas for the Copa America.”

I mainly wanted to remark on the way the actual LA Times story which is linked to has been used. I clicked on it expecting the usual rubbish about Chavez but found a pretty balanced article. So i'm just going to post some of the words from the article and leave them under the title “Socialism Works” to redress the balance.

Socialism Works

President Hugo Chavez seems to be lavishing all his oil wealth on ... social programs for the poor ... and aid to socialist brethren in Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

But the fiery critic of the U.S. is also investing mountains of cash on bricks-and-mortar mega-projects to further his socialist agenda and bring economic development to remote areas such as the southeastern state of Bolivar.

Flush with cash, Chavez has been more prudent in taking on debt and has paid off Venezuela's World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans.

Last year, public spending leapt to one-third of Venezuela's economic output of about $180 billion, up from the average of one-quarter of output in the 1990s, said Jose Manuel Puente, an economist with the Institute for Advanced Administrative Studies in Caracas

In no area of Venezuela is the spending push more evident than here in Bolivar state, where Chavez recently completed a billion-dollar bridge over the Orinoco, and the $400-million first phase of a new "Steel City."

The fifth phase of a sprawling hydroelectric project that provides the country with 70% of its electricity is under construction on the nearby Caroni River, which feeds into the Orinoco.

"This will all become an industrial zone," said Radwan Sabbagh, president of Ferromineros Orinoco, the state-owned enterprise in charge of Steel City. The project is going up in Ciudad Piar, an isolated municipality 65 miles south of here that has about 8,000 residents, most of whom work in low-paying mining and cattle jobs.

Steel City's first phase, which employs 300, is a system that concentrates iron ore to make Venezuelan steel more competitive in domestic and foreign markets. In 10 years, Sabbagh said, the area will be a heavy industry nexus that will include smelters and steel factories and be home to 10,000 steel industry workers.

"The iron factories will bring light industry and then urban growth," Sabbagh said. "It's part of our territorial development policy to generate economic and social development where now there is low population density."

Chavez plans several other industrial cities around state-owned lumber and aluminum factories and gold mines here in the four-state region called Guayana. The region has 52% of Venezuela's land mass and a preponderance of the country's nonpetroleum natural resources but only 8% of its population.

The magnificent $1.2-billion Orinico River bridge inaugurated just west of here in November is meant to spur development of Anzoategui and Monagas states to the north and increase commercial links with Brazil to the south.