UN study says wealth gap in Latin America increases
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19339636
The UN warns that the expansion of cities in an "unsustainable pattern" is increasing inequality
A study by the United Nations suggests the gap between the rich and the poor in much of Latin America is widening.
The report by the UN Agency for Human Settlements says that the richest 20% of the population on average earn 20 times more than the poorest 20%.
According to the study, Guatemala is the country with the widest disparity, and Venezuela the most equitable one.
The survey says the region is the world's most urbanised, with eight out of 10 people living in cities.
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We who seek out objective information know that Venezuela has the most effective, efficient, successful poverty reduction program on earth (50% poverty reduction and 70% extreme poverty reduction over the last decade). Most corporate news consumers don't know this because it is NEVER reported in the Corporate Press. NEVER! Not one word!
The Corporate Press completely ignored the report last year of the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean, which designated Venezuela "THE most equal country in Latin America." They have completely ignored all the reports and all the information that supports that half-sentence in this BBC news article.
We also know that Venezuela has maintained its high levels of social spending throughout this Bushwhack-induced worldwide depression, and that it had sufficient cash reserves to do this--ride out the worst year (2009) while maintaining full social spending and very low unemployment--due to responsible money management. We know that it not only cushioned its people against the Bushwhack depression but also ended up with good credit (unlike the sufferers of "austerity" programs in Europe and here), an economic growth rate that has climbed back up (to over 5%), a 15% reduction in the inflation rate this year (inflation was too high) and continued low unemployment (not shit jobs either--good wages, good benefits, good labor protections, universal free medical care), with Venezuelans rating their personal welfare and prospects for the future among the highest in the world (5th).
WHY does the Corporate Press not report ANY of this, not even a little bit of it, not even the slightest gestures toward objectivity and balance in their coverage? Why does it not report anything else that is positive about Venezuela (honest, transparent elections, high voter turnouts, high levels of public participation, expansions of human and civil rights, increased public access to broadcast media, well thought out land reform program, pensions for street vendors and other informal economy workers improved tax collection system (anti-scofflaws), fair access to capital and credit, strongly regulated banks, and other reforms and benefits)?
Not. One. Word.
Anything goes wrong in Venezuela, or can be construed as going wrong--drought/hydroelectric power outage, high street crime/murder rate, petty criminals trashing a Jewish temple (and leaving graffiti to point to anti-semites--the latter, of course, not reported in follow-up), Chavez (very FDR-like) wielding power a bit too much on behalf of the poor majority (depending on how you look at what government is for, or, rather, who it is for), high inflation (rate now going down due to government action), efforts at "Fairness Doctrine"-type regulation of corporate media construed as "anti-free speech," and so on-- corporate news consumers hear about it immediately, in headlines round the world, often--often!--before the full story unfolds, and never ever with follow up info, contextual info and info about Chavez government measures to address the problem.
We see Corporate news stories that portray Chavez as dictatorial or incompetent. We see stories that highlight the rightwing minority's "talking points" about Chavez, to the exclusion of all others, and NEVER any that accurately portray opinion in Venezuela (pro-Chavez, satisfied with their government). As to Chavez's election wins (by big majorities), the Corporate press treats it all as if Chavez had elected himself. They give no credit at all to the Venezuelan people, neither to their judgement of Chavez's leadership nor to their rather awesome grass roots organization and civic participation.
Well, the rightwing press did the same thing to FDR throughout his presidency. They even called him a "dictator." When FDR got a bit high-handed with the Supreme Court, which was trashing every "New Deal" program, and proposed the perfectly legal and constitutional expansion of the number of justices (to get new blood onto the court), they went into frenzied "dictator" mode and got his proposal killed in Congress. (The end of the story is that FDR's pressure got one justice to change his mind. Thus, Social Security was saved!)
From everything I can see--having followed Chavez's career for over a decade--he is Venezuela's FDR. Their policies are not exactly the same (FDR not so much into nationalization of major industry and the banksters--more into strongly regulating them), but their uses of power are very similar, and their goals of economic and social justice, in a mixed socialist/capitalist economy--spreading the wealth of the country fairly, creating decent basic conditions for the poor (including the elderly, the sick or disabled, the young) and expanded opportunity--and also creation of public infrastructure and creation and protection of "the commons" (public control of expanded public spaces) are hard to distinguish. They are virtually identical on goals.
Truth be known, the Corporate Press would like to extinguish the memory of FDR and the "New Deal" here, and they don't want us to know of this stunning example of fairness that has arisen in the southern part of the western hemisphere, in Venezuela, which has pioneered and inspired a leftist democracy revolution throughout the region. They are frantic to suppress this information and are, without doubt, in cahoots with the corporate/war profiteer forces here that want to do more than suppress information; they want to crush this political revolution, one way or another, in combination with the particular entities that want to regain control of South America's oil, one way or another.
Intense propaganda campaigns like this can lead to--and have recently led to--grossly unjust war and the horrors of mass murder, U.S. soldier deaths (for what?), fascism and militarism here, and a bankrupt government that takes its bankruptcy out only on the poor while the super-rich get ever richer.
By "one way or another," I mean that war is being contemplated, in addition to other corporate/war profiteer strategies for crushing this fairness movement (coup d'etats, economic punishment, "divide and conquer" techniques, disinformation, "dirty tricks," use of the "war on drugs" to murder labor organizers and other advocates of the poor (Colombia, Honduras), and to destroy society itself and make civic life impossible (Colombia, Honduras, Mexico), rigged elections (Honduras, Haiti, for sure, probably Mexico), USAID funding of rightwing causes and candidates (all over), U.S. funding, training and infiltration of client state militaries and police forces, and so on).
The Corporate press supports and colludes on--and propagandizes for--all of the above. And there are no exceptions. Even the Guardian and the BBC have contributed to this extraordinary propaganda campaign against the Latin America Left. In fact, the BBC has been so bad, I'm wondering how this half-sentence got into a BBC news report ("...and Venezuela the most equitable"
. (Blair & Co. were very destructive of BBC independence. I don't know what's happened at the Guardian.)
I don't want "Chavez worshiping" coverage. I would find that harmful, even sickening. Every politician and every government needs to be watched. What I want is fairness and balance. Our own democracy is in wretched condition. It's in a death spiral, in truth. Can we reverse this? Is it possible? How to do it? Our own people desperately need objective information on various kinds of economic and political systems, in order to analyze and repair our own.
To mention one example: I've done research in particular on "open source" code voting machines (Venezuela) vs. 'TRADE SECRET' code voting machines (here) and other aspects of comparative vote counting systems. This is a very important matter, in my opinion, and is never covered by the Corporate Press. Our people need this information but all they get is bogeyman Chavez, dictator and incompetent, who somehow elects himself. Venezuelans have worked hard on their system to guarantee its honesty and transparency. That is why they were able to vote themselves their own "New Deal."
Now they are throwing the "dictator" thing at Rafael Correa--and have tried it out on Evo Morales in Bolivia and Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua--ignoring (not reporting, black-holing) all the progressive economic and civic achievements of the people in these countries as well. Are any of these leaders perfect? Of course not. Are any of these countries and societies perfect democracies? Of course not. But they do not deserve to be blackguarded as tyrannical and as supporting tyrants, and in fact are making great and historic efforts to become better, more equitable, fairer and more democratic countries and societies.
It is just sand in our eyes--this anti-Left propaganda campaign. Misdirection. Usable by quite evil forces of greed and domination.
And, to those who are just beginning to flush the sand out of their eyes, think about this half-sentence in the above BBC report*. How come you never heard of this before? How come it isn't the headline of the BBC article?
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"According to the study, Guatemala is the country with the widest disparity, and Venezuela the most equitable one." --from the OP (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19339636)
