The Hunger

“Legitimacy is something that is conferred not by just the majority of voters.”

Bush II White House spokesman after failed Venezuelan coup of ‘02

Hugo Chavez is dead. His 58 years were well spent and those who rejoice at his demise, whose mindset hastened it, must do so through the lens of their own loss: The oil giants who demanded a pound of his flesh for reducing their 84% take of Venezuelan oil to a pittance of 70% - that 14% now provides for the people who live where it is extracted from, but buys no new houses for the oily slicksters at Exxon or BP or Shell or Chevron who have never even been there.

The owners of millions of acres of untilled land sold to the people of Venezuela to farm and live upon now only have their money (and less land) to comfort them in their privation. The Heinz company who rejected Hugo’s JFK inspired “Alliance of Progress” land redistribution program and closed their Maturin plant, firing the workers, only to have Hugo reopen it and rehire all the fired, still must have their kornchup produced by poorly paid workers elsewhere.

Such loss.

Investigative journalist Greg Palast spent some time with Hugo and his Bolivarian Revolution; got to know the man and observe his efforts in his native Venezuela. In his documentary The Assassination of Hugo Chavez, he describes Hugo’s distress at the power of the USA directed toward his demise, as well the efforts taken by the land of the free against the democratically elected leader of yet another nation who decided to use his nation’s resources to assist the indigenous population, not merely further enrich very select foreign ones.

Because of Hugo some very rich white folks must do with less; some very rich Venezuelan folks and other South American business types must do with less so that some very poor negro e indio natives can live in cinderblock houses instead of tin shacks; so they can have education and medical assistance and jobs – so they can have food.

Food politics is the most disgusting of human tortures. Food exists in abundance and can be cultivated and grown in such a manner that no one need starve to death. It is for abstract notions of wealth that so many suffer. In the West it is easy to dismiss starvation because even our poor in many cases are so damned fat. Hell, even our vegans and vegetarians are fat (where not wasting away electively) which is an indication of surfeit of comestibles in a world of so much want. So we find it easy to ignore that for which we do not have a cultural context.

We shouldn’t. Our dismissal of so much suffering around us only hastens said suffering unto us as there is never a want of that sad commodity, and history teaches that it is readily shared with any and all who ignore its peril. Allow me to offer some intellectual context: understand that if you find it difficult to merely imagine this, then it is definitely a reality we should not allow to befall those around us if only because we are those around us.

You wake up tomorrow, there’s nothing to eat. Anywhere. You look around and see that all the people you know everywhere you go are faced with the same dilemma: no food. Adding to this is a hot climate, very few safe drinking water sources and a lot of hungry people using those. What do you do? You know there is food around-- hell, there are billions of people on all three sides of you and they wouldn’t have made it there with nothing to eat.

But now, where you are, where you can get to, and with everyone around, you must face a terrifying reality: there is nothing to eat. Anywhere. No breakfast; no point in going to work to earn money if there is no food to buy with it; you set about trying to find something to eat.

You’ve been up for six hours, there’s a line for water. A long line. You have nothing to carry any in so what you drink is what you get. People are getting surly. You finally get a drink, a long draw out of a communal trough, not particularly sanitary, but it is the first thing you put into your body all day so you shudder and suck it up. Then you are pushed away by the growing line behind you and take your place among the others, thousands, looking in the same places for something, anything to eat.

12 hours (when was the last time you went without food for 12 hours?) and your growling stomach aches, your head aches and you’re back in line for water, which is murky and diminishing. The crowd is increasingly disagreeable and a little on edge. Some violence, but a lot of weeping and moaning. Babies are crying and children are whining and begging. But there is nothing to beg and the whining is becoming intolerable. You find a bed and curl up: your mouth is dry, your head is throbbing and your stomach is cramping – you’ve endured your first 14 hour day with no food.

Wake up. 24 hours and you feel pretty fucking awful. Your mouth is like vacuum cleaner dust and your stomach throbs as if you are being gut-punched by an unseen antagonist. Your head swims as you make your feet, but now you are again faced with the same dilemma: no food. Anywhere. And a lot of hungry people around you. The line for water is massive and the supply is dwindling. Every place else you go it’s the same, huge crowds of starving people struggling to at least get a drink of water. A drink of water.

People are moaning and wailing, begging each other for sustenance but there is nothing. You finally get a drink at around noon; the water is akin to what you’d expect from a spittoon but you make no bones about it, your stomach is empty and anything is looking good. The problem is that there is nothing. And everywhere you look, everywhere you go it is the same: hungry people stumbling around in a daze wondering what to do. Prospects are becoming grim and it’s only been one day.

If you had seeds, you would eat them because you’d never survive to harvest. You’d never survive planting as the desperate and crazed would steal them from the earth itself to stave the hunger. In fact, around you those very desperate and crazed are eating things they dig out of the ground and as your stomach turns in horrid knots, the punching now a kicking, your head pounding, mouth like sandpaper, a dirt clod or a weed doesn’t sound too bad.

But what to wash it down with?

Two days. That’s what I've described, very limited on gory detail while very close to the reality on the ground for millions of humans as you read these words. In the time you take to read this article perhaps fifty people will die in a manner quite close to the above description, perhaps on day 9 or 10. Two days. Many last for two weeks.

According to Wikipedia, in 2012 total food consumption in Venezuela was over 26 million metric tons, which represented a 94.8% increase from 2003 when Hugo introduced his controversial price fixing for staple foods. This caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth among food producers who, interestingly, were themselves eating all right. But for a little more context let us consider this in terms we can relate to.

In the USA many of us get three meals a day. Let’s ponder a good one: breakfast, a three egg omelet with cheese and veggies, maybe some ground sausage, a couple strips of bacon, a piece of toast with butter and a cuppa coffee. A good sized omelet, let’s give it 60 mouthfuls, bacon another 20 and toast (we’ll take little bites), 20 more. That is a very generous 100 mouthfuls of breakfast. A decade ago, in the 21^st century, an average Venezuelan would have gotten 5 bites of that breakfast and a sip of coffee. Realistically they would have gotten 5 bites of something far less inspiring. At 100 bites per USA meal they would enjoy 15 Venezuelan bites a day.

But of course not everyone gets 100 bites per meal and in this scenario we are regarding people who were looking at portions which would likely equate to 10 bites of food a day of our hearty consumption in the USA. I wonder how many of those Hugo deprived of their profits had to reduce their meals to less than 100, 150 bites per, so that those who elected him President could maybe have a 100 bites of food a day?  

In less than a decade the hungry in Venezuela got to eat. Between 1998 (Hugo’s first term) and 2006, malnutrition-related deaths fell by 50% and by 2009 malnutrition had fallen to 6% from 21% when Hugo took office. He took imaginary money from people who had more than sufficient to their needs and wants and used it to put real food into real people’s bellies, giving them something they never knew before: help. A chance. He gave poor people bread and bricks and they elected him as their leader. For this populist generosity he was portrayed by the rich there and elsewhere as a commie pariah and steps were taken to rectify his perfidies. For his efforts to keep his citizens upright he was rewarded the grave.

While I have no doubt many Venezuelans are pleased that Hugo is denied the ability to interfere further in their monetary schemes, I feel certain many more are saddened that he will no longer be able to join them for dinner.

Hugo Chavez - Requiescat in pace.  

© 2013 Prezbyter 3/6/13