Different Speaker – Same Message

Those darn political events sure are unpredictable. A few days ago in the immediate aftermath of Hugo Chavez insulting America at the UN, I found the UW Madison invitation to one of his key cronies to serve as a keynote speaker a bit distasteful. Apparently plans have changed at the last minute.

Schedule: KEYNOTE: Gar Alperovitz, Author of America Beyond Capitalism.(We are sorry to say that Caracas mayor Juan Barreto is unable to attend the convention due to recent political events.)

Hard to pinpoint the exact events forcing the change in plans, but Chavez didn’t make any new friends with his defiant and condescending rhetoric last week. On the other hand the Venezuelan media and bloggers are saying Juan Barreto went over the top with his actions and outbursts on the local scene. For whatever reason then, the change in speakers will not allow the audience to hear the socialist Mayor of Caracas say things like this:

Juan Barreto: “I have no problem signing a decree to regulate housing prices. … If someone in Caracas has five homes and refuses to sell at the regulated price, we'll implement an expropriation decree for the public good and pay the owner what the apartment is really worth.”

Speech of Metropolitan Mayor Juan Barreto: “We did not come to fight. But we will not let verbal criminality, media irresponsibility, and the glassy eyes of a putrid middle class coarsened by money to cash in on the people consent. … People know their tiny faces, the new face of the old politics covering the old face like the mask of Pharaohs, of buried mummies. We will rule them. People are the ones who govern; not the putrid elite, not the same old rotten people, not the neo-liberalism with its old and new faces.”

Instead they have the chance to hear a University Professor say things like this:

The Wealth of Neighborhoods: “Ultimately, however, Bush’s promise of an ownership society is an empty one. In exchange for ownership, we receive increased risk while the wealthy and corporate interests benefit, as in his Social Security privatization plan. In Bush’s world, everyone gets a little piece of the pie, but at the cost of giving the wealthy extremely large helpings”.

The New Ownership Society: "Just beneath the surface of conventional media concern, the groundwork is quietly being laid for a powerful new strategic initiative: a progressive "ownership society." … The basic principle at work in municipally owned real estate development is that appreciation of land should be turned to public advantage."

The speakers and their styles are very different, but the message the UW Madison Havens Center is selling is exactly the same. The right to individual private property is much less important than the right of communal authority to determine the public good.