Kepada Pemimpin-pemimpin yang menaikkan, yang setuju atau yang pura-pura setuju kenaikan 20 sen harga minyak kenderaan.
kalaulah tuan-tuan ambil tauladan dan buat ikutan sebahagian daripada gaya hidup sederhana presiden termiskin ini, saya percaya pasti rakyat marhean akan menarik balik bantahan kenaikan 20 sen itu.
Uruguay’s President José Mujica
by MEDEA BENJAMIN
President José Mujica of Uruguay, a
78-year-old former Marxist guerrilla who spent 14 years in prison, mostly in
solitary confinement, recently visited the United States to meet with President
Obama and speak at a variety of venues. He told Obama that Americans should
smoke less and learn more languages. He lectured a roomful of businessmen at
the US Chamber of Commerce about the benefits of redistributing wealth and
raising workers’ salaries. He told students at American University that there
are no “just wars.” Whatever the audience, he spoke extemporaneously and with
such brutal honesty that it was hard not to love the guy.
He lives simply and rejects the
perks of the presidency. Mujica has refused to live at the Presidential Palace
or have a motorcade. He lives in a one-bedroom house on his wife’s farm and
drives a 1987 Volkswagen. “There have been years when I would have been happy
just to have a mattress,” said Mujica, referring to his time in prison. He
donates over 90% of his $12,000/month salary to charity so he makes the same as
the average citizen in Uruguay.
When called “the poorest president in the world,” Mujica says he is not poor. “A poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more. I don’t live in poverty, I live in simplicity. There’s very little that I need to live.”
When called “the poorest president in the world,” Mujica says he is not poor. “A poor person is not someone who has little but one who needs infinitely more, and more and more. I don’t live in poverty, I live in simplicity. There’s very little that I need to live.”
He’s an environmentalist trying
to limit needless consumption. At the Rio+20 Summit in 2012, he criticized the
model of development pushed by affluent societies. “We can almost recycle
everything now. If we lived within our means – by being prudent – the 7 billion
people in the world could have everything they needed. Global politics should
be moving in that direction,” he said. He also
recently rejected a joint energy project with Brazil that would have provided
his country with cheap coal energy because of his concern for the environment.
He has focusing on redistributing
his nation’s wealth, claiming that his administration has reduced poverty from
37% to 11%. “Businesses just want to increase their profits; it’s up to the
government to make sure they distribute enough of those profits so workers have
the money to buy the goods they produce,” he told businessmen at the US Chamber
of Commerce. “It’s no mystery–the less poverty, the more commerce. The most
important investment we can make is in human resources.” His government’s
redistributive policies include setting prices for essential commodities such
as milk and providing free computers and education for every child.
He has offered to take detainees cleared
for release from Guantanamo. Mujica has called the detention center at
Guantanamo Bay a “disgrace” and insisted that Uruguay take responsibility to
help close the facility. The proposal is unpopular in Uruguay, but Mujica, who
was a political prisoner for 14 years, said he is “doing this for humanity.”
He is opposed to war and
militarism. “The world spends $2 billion a minute on military spending,” he
exclaimed in horror to the students at American University. “I used to think
there were just, noble wars, but I don’t think that anymore,” said the former
armed guerrilla. “Now I think the only solution is negotiations. The worst
negotiation is better than the best war, and the only way to insure peace is to
cultivate tolerance.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/05/15/10-reasons-to-love-uruguays-president-jose-mujica/
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