[News] Disease and illiteracy - what Bush and Rice want for Venezuela

[News at freedomarchives.org]

http://vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=25320
Published: Thursday, February 03, 2005
Bylined to: <mailto:belial4444 at aol.com>Arthur Shaw

Arthur Shaw: Disease and illiteracy is exactly what Bush and Rice want for 
Venezuela

VHeadline.com guest commentarist Arthur Shaw writes: Evidently, next to US 
imperialism, the Cuba believes that illiteracy and disease are its greatest 
enemies. And, evidently, next to American military aggression against other 
countries, US imperialism believes that illiteracy and disease are its 
greatest friends.

The relationship between Cuba and Venezuela is a case in point.

Venezuela ... for decades a close US ally ... has long been a country of 
fabulous oil wealth, but in the last few years, Venezuela, led by President 
Hugo Chavez ... a patriot of his country ... has hired Cuba to help it 
teach 1.2 million of illiterate people to read and write.
    * The astounding success of the Venezuelan literacy campaign is an 
important reason for Pres. Hugo Chavez' popularity with his own people and 
unpopularity with US imperialism and the GOPs who fanatically support it.

Cuban and Venezuela haven't stopped with merely spreading basic literacy in 
Venezuela ... every year Cuba offers grants to 2,000 young Venezuelans to 
study in any field of their choosing at Cuban universities.

And Venezuelan students eagerly and prudently snatch these grants.
    * This is on top of Cuba's preexisting commitment to educate 20,000 
Venezuelan doctors who will take over from thousands of Cuban doctors 
currently practicing in Venezuela.

UNICEF -- a division of the United Nations -- estimates 860 million adults 
are submerged in illiteracy and 120 million children never even get a 
chance to go to school. Although its only a drop of help in an ocean of 
need, Cuba has sent over 15,000 teachers to countries around the world to 
combat illiteracy.

Still it's a lot more than the United States has done.

In almost every case of a country, accepting Cuban educational and medical 
assistance, the degenerate GOPs who now run the United States have strongly 
and publicly opposed the acceptance of Cuban assistance by these countries.

Why?

The GOPs, led (poorly) by the dictator George W. Bush -- who pretends to be 
the US president after rigging the 2000 and 2004 elections -- seem to 
believe that the illiteracy of the people of foreign lands helps the 
American imperialists to steal the resources -- oil, minerals, labor or 
whatever there is of value -- from these peoples and impedes their true 
understanding of the political culture in which they live.

Thus, the imperialist rulers of the United States -- now, the GOPs -- 
vehemently oppose most efforts to eradicate illiteracy in the foreign lands 
on truly nationwide and multi-class basis.

The American imperialists, who steal resources from these lands, may 
however tolerate or even demand education for the members of the parasitic 
elite and for the middle classes of these countries. Indeed, these powerful 
American imperialists -- Bush and his crowd -- may even expect or demand 
that individuals who belong to the upper strata of the working class, which 
are closely connected to US industrial interests, be able to read, write, 
count, and compute.

The best and the brightest minds of these privileged strata ... the 
parasitic elite, the middle classes, and the upper strata of the working 
class ... are sometimes shipped to the United States for superb training in 
their technical fields. The best minds later are expected either to forget 
about their home countries (if they to the slightest degree dislike or 
reservations about imperialism) or return to their countries and eventually 
serve as a "leader" who is subservient to the interests of US imperialism.

But outside of these privileged sectors of the populations of foreign lands 
which the US gleefully plunders, the imperialists who rule the United 
States and exercise hegemony over many third world countries will tend to 
oppose most attempts to educate the population at large on a truly 
multi-class basis.

For the last 30 years or so, the US imperialists have especially used the 
"Fund," (International Monetary Fund) among other agencies, to coerce or to 
jawbone one third world country after another third world country to slash 
or, sometimes, eliminate all educational opportunities for millions of 
non-privileged children and other individuals.

Protagonists and antagonists of "neo-liberal" ideology often believe that 
it's all only a matter of taking money from the kids, the old, the sick, 
and other dependents to pay the interest on bonds and notes held by the 
imperialists or other investors and issued by a third world state or by 
private companies in third world but guaranteed by a third world state.
    * To be sure, the interest payments and the payment of principal are 
matters of extreme importance.

But I submit that the aim of the so-called "neo-liberal" measures imposed 
everywhere on the third world is not primarily the discharge of debtor 
obligations with regard to interest principal, but the deliberate and 
malicious destruction of the potentialities of a generation of young people 
in third world countries by means of disease and illiteracy.

This is exactly what Bush and Rice -- two of the most degenerate proponents 
of US imperialism -- want for Venezuela.

But Cuba's ethical values are the exact opposite of those of the US 
imperialists ... Cuba urges everywhere nationwide and multi-class education 
for the countries of the third world. What's more, Venezuela and Cuba are 
at this moment looking into the possibility of a continental ... not just 
nationwide ... assault on illiteracy in Latin America and the Caribbean.

These Cubans have somehow turned literacy campaigns into a fine art or, 
perhaps, even a science. Nobody exaggerates or dramatizes if he concedes 
that the Cubans are good at it.

So, it's no wonder that Luiz Ignacio Gomez ... the indefatigable Cuban 
minister of education, at a conference of 5000 teachers from 46 countries 
this week in Havana declares emphatically "Cuba can confirm that in 12 
years it is possible to teach 1.5 billion illiterate and semi-illiterate 
people of the world to read and write to the 6th grade level."

Now, UNICEF believes and warns that it will take a 100 years to do this,,,.

Luiz Ignacio Gomez adds that this feat will require about $10 billion...

That's $1.6 billion less than what US imperialism spends every TWO MONTHS 
to exterminate the Iraqi people.

Arthur Shaw
<mailto:belial4444 at aol.com>belial4444 at aol.com


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