[R-G] Why is Chaves doing business with CSL?

[aaron at istop.com]

   Everybody heard about the drugs that were found on one of martin's csl 
ship here in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, but nobody outside of Cape 
Breton seems to know why CSL ships frequent our shores. 
    Not long ago, less then 10 years, we in Cape Breton had Both a government 
owned steel plant and government owned mining operations. Our mines employed 
many with $30,000 + a year jobs. many famillies had 2 workers with the 
government owned coperation, one above ground involved with administration 
and one below ground taking up the coal.Things were relativaly good until 
they shut down the steel plant and the mines. They shut down the mines at 
around the same time the privitized Nova Scotia power. The reasons they gave 
for shutting the plant and the mines down were that they did not make money, 
an argument they cannot make for NSP seeing that the povincally owned energy 
company made money the year before it was privitized. I believe the company 
made around 200 million the year before they privitised it. Now  we have ex 
miners either unemployed or making 8.50 / hour at call centers while Martins 
CSL is shiping in coal from venezuala.
    Yes I am a supporter of Chavez, he has done alot for his people but if 
Chavez was so against privitisation and neo-liberal capitalism, why did he 
make a deal with CSL to ship his coal to the shores of cape breton. Why did 
he make a deal with a large private company,which now owns Nova scotia power, 
to burn venezualan coal in our generating plants. I may not be Gregory 
Palast, but I believe if you go through the paper work from these deals, all 
you will find is coruption!!! You will find a conflict of interest by our 
current prime Minister,who by all his corrupt dealing should be in jail, and 
you will find Chavez guilty of being a full paticipant in a neo-liberal 
experiment. Many say he is anti-neoliberal, but this whole coal deal has got 
me thinking. I would like to think that it was a deal done without Chavez's 
knowledge, but it doesn't look that way. So the winners in this situation are 
Martin with his CSL contract to bring in coal and venezuala who gets to use 
profits to help the poor of their contry and the losers are us in Cape 
Breton. Here in Cape breton we continue to have an out migration of our 
greatest resorce,our people. there is now,thanks to replacment jobs in the 
call centers which I consider vultures who feed off the demoralization of 
communities who have lost their mainstay industries,out migration of capital. 
and when I say out migration, I mean out of the province not just out of Cape 
Breton.
    When the mines and steel plant were here, the people had  good paying 
union jobs, that expendable income in workers pockets created many spin off 
jobs Which help our local economy and the profits if any of the government 
owned mining corperation, went to the province for road repair schooling,ect 
or atleast thats where they should of gone. The call centres depend on 
massive subsidies from the Nova sctia government to set up shop here in CB 
and the profits they make go down to the U.S.
   We in Cape Breton have seen a rise in drug abuse with over 20 deths in the 
last 2 years from abuse of oxycoten. We have roads in our municipality that 
even the regonal police won't go down and our once tight knit comunites are 
becoming less tight knit. The community solidarity that resulted from a stong 
presence of strong unions has all but disapeared.
   So in conclution when people claim that Chavez is the greatest thing since 
slice bread and a hero for the poor, I ask you to look at Cape breton, look 
at our poor, go to the schools and see how many children we have who are 
going to school with empty stomachs. Is this Chavez's answr to poverty. There 
is one thing that people like chavez tend to forget about our capitalist 
system and that is that the gap between the rich and the poor of this world  
in not just between countries but also within countries. If I could have 
Chavez's ear just for one minute, I would tell him that What he is doing to 
us in Cape Breton is only futhering the cause of the Capitalist sysyem and if 
you want to take money back from the rich countries and take it to yours to 
redistribute in a more equitapl manner, don't robb peter to pay paul.go after 
the ones on Bay street with lots of money, don't go after the money of the 
poor on down and out street Cape Breton.
                    Aaron Doncaster