Report from the Bronx:
We showed up at The Point at like 9am......and waited for Chavez to show up. The Point is a small spot and there was about 15 community organizations there. I went there with no idea what exactly was going down. All I knew was that we had to set up a table or display of the organizing work we do at Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice. So here we are, like everyone else in the courtyard of The Point, feeling a little tense because of all the FBI that was around and all the press. There was more press than community folks, there was local, national and international up in there. The atmosphere got a bit more relaxed when my brothers the Welfare Poets started playing some music. So Chavez and Congressman Jose Serrano come in and theyre mobbed by the Press. He then took like 10 minutes with each community group. I was impressed that he took the time to talk to every group there. He asked everyone their names and seemed genuinely interested in each organization. When he came to our table, I was real relaxed. The first thing he did was ask me about my MIR shirt. MIR stands for Leftist Revolutionary Movement, which was a militant/guerilla group my father was a member
of in Chile in the 70s. I think right off top cuz of the shirt, Chavez knew he was dealing with someone that had their life dedicated to this. He said Viva Chile and Viva Allende! I had lots of flyers of events we do, and he asked about some of the Hip Hop work we do, I told him Hip Hop started in the area he was visiting and he seemed to be surprised as if perhaps he learned something new. He was mad open off of our Environmental Justice campaign that we do around cleaning up the Bronx River. He then brought over Felix Rodriguez, the President and CEO of Citgo and promised to fly us out to Venezuela to meet with him and figure out how he can help in strategizing the clean up of the Bronx River. He said Citgo would fund us. Citgo is Venezuelan owned and the third largest oil company in the world. I think it has to be capitalist to survive in the markets, but having the third largest oil comapny on your side cant be a bad thing. He spent mad time at our table, I would say about 25 minutes. We all then went to see him speak at L.P.A.C. in the Bronx...He started off his speech by saying it was an honor to be in The Bronx, the home of the Yankees and the place where he had learned that Hip Hop started. He then said" Hugo Chavez is Hip Hop. Yo soy hip hop." The crowd laughed and then he said.."im serious, i had a big ole afro when I was younger and my close frends called my Goofy, cuz i was skinny and i got big feet." His speech was not mainstream or middle ground at all. He made open calls for socialism, he openly blasted the war and touched on Katrina, and spoke of how Cuba evacuated 2.1 million people and the U.S. couldnt do the same for its people., he said "capitalism is the root of all evil" Which is the truth!!!!
He did say sumthin about George Washington, but this was on almost his third hr. of talking and I suffer from severe A.D.D. and by this time i wasnt as attentive a listener as i was in the beginning. He touched on the Bronx River work we do like 6 times, so I guess he might be serious. He said he has a dream to come back here and bathe in the river. I thought the speech was real dope....nuthin bout no JFK and nuthin at all conservative.....matter fact quite the opposite, he was talking bout bringing oil to the Bronx without a middleman....straight to the masses....Hope its not just talk...
i think people were really happy to have him here cuz of what he means to Latin America and even the rest of the world......
He openly defys the US government.....
he has oil, which is power...
he has built a strong alliance with Cuba...
he has brought hope back to a region that has been severly attacked and defeated throughout history...
Latin America may very well be the new middle east...in the sense that the US is very scared of the "turmoil" Chavez is creating...
they say he is a threat to the region.....and i think theyre right...a threat to poverty, to unemployment, to injustice.....
viva chavez!!!
long live the bolivarian revolution!!!
sorry so long....
just thoughts...
respect...
rodstarz