[T]hugo's Largesse

[T]hugo Chavez, the thuggish leader of Venezuela, has seen fit to spend millions of his country's currency on projects in inner city areas of the United States, hoping to curry favor among the down and out in the US to change US opinions of his thuggish and socialist views. He wants to spend millions of dollars on places like the South Bronx and selling cheap home heating oil through his nation's oil company Citgo, in order to curry favor.

That man, Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, began his love affair with the Bronx during a visit in 2005. Since then, he and his socialist government have funneled millions of dollars of aid to the South Bronx, home to New York’s poorest Congressional district, through Citgo Petroleum, the American subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company.

It is an unlikely flow of largess, from an oil-rich South American country where much of the population lives in poverty to one of the neediest pockets in the seat of American capitalism.

Citgo started its outreach in 2005 with a 40 percent discount on heating oil for poor households and expanded it in August to finance social and economic development. The company has committed to donating $3.6 million over the next three years to nine Bronx initiatives that would use the money to create jobs, foster community empowerment and clean up the urban environment.

The program has made Mr. Chávez the talk of the South Bronx.

“He came in here and took over — like a Spanish Napoleon!” Lucy Martinez said.

Ms. Martinez, 57, said Mr. Chávez has helped the needy residents she meets while working the front desk at Nos Quedamos, a nonprofit community development corporation. But she knows, too, that his philanthropy has chafed some American politicians.

That's not sitting well with many Venezuelans, including the mayor of Caracas, where the poor and wretched are ignored by the Venezuelan government.

How about spending all that money on Venezuelans, who desperately need that kind of money to improve their living conditions, which might include, among other things - running water, electricity, sanitation, and sewage systems.

Who supports the likes of Chavez? Leftists, socialists, and dictators around the world. He's a demogogue who's slouching towards dictatorship by taking more power a little bit at a time, and his economic policies are running Venezuela into the ground. Inflation and price controls are combining to cause food shortages and a lack of capital infusion because companies don't want to see their assets seized by the thug in another wave of nationalization of industry.

Yet, he's spending tons of money on the South Bronx and other inner city areas in the US.

Chavez has grandiose plans and sees himself as the man to take up the mantle of Cuba's Castro in opposition of the US, and has linked up with Ahmadinejad of Iran to oppose US actions around the world. I suspect that he's hoping to spur a class war between the have-nots in places like the South Bronx and elsewhere in the country, which might alter the US policy towards Venezuela and other socialist/thuggish regimes in Latin America and elsewhere.