Terry Glavin at the Transmontanus blog is linking to a Foreign Affairs article on Hugo Chavez and his failure to improve the lives of the poor:
That story line may be compelling to many who are rightly outraged by Latin America’s deep social and economic inequalities. Unfortunately, it is wrong. Neither official statistics nor independent estimates show any evidence that Chávez has reoriented state priorities to benefit the poor. Most health and human development indicators have shown no significant improvement beyond that which is normal in the midst of an oil boom. . .
You certainly know the expression - “At least he makes the trains run on time”. It means that in spite of whichever evil your preferred tyrant is perpetrating, they do a few things that you like - so you know, they’re ok. Variants of this are used to prop up Castro (sure they don’t have freedom, but look at their health care! ), and Chavez (ok, he’s becoming a dictator and threatening war, but he’s also helped the poor).
For the record, the trains did NOT run on time, Cuba has a cruel two-tier health care system in which the common person is shut out while the apparatchiks get modern care, and as you see above, Chavez has not helped the poor one bit.
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