Many of us know and love the group Rebel Diaz which features brothers RodStarz and G1 along with Lah Tere. All of them met in Chicago which was their homebase before relocating to the Bronx.. Rod and G1 are from Chile.
The group was in Chile one week before the devastating 8.8 earthquake. I caught up with Rod the day after the quake to see how his family was doing.. At that time he was concerned about his 90 year old grandfather and a number of other relatives who were still MIA..
Three days later we got Rod on the phone to do this interview and he was in slightly better spirits. His grandfather was found, but sadly several others are still unheard from. We spoke with Rod who explained the politics of Chile and why the economics of that country would lead to people ‘looting’.
Rodstarz
He noted that Chile has long been called the Tiger of Latin America because of it’s economic policies which has long been desireable by conservatives here in the US. They want the US to be like Chile where everything from water to social security is all privatized.
Rod described Chile’s economic situation as a failed experiment where you have a few wealthy people on top and lots of poor people on the bottom who are constantly struggling. During last week’s earthquake not only was there loss of life but many were left with no water, housing and other basic needs. He talked about the devastation that existed in some communities where shabby work was done because the people there were poor and being exploited by the rich..
In this interview Rod breaks a lot of things down that mainstream news outlets have all but ignored..We also talked with Rod’s brother G1 who offered up similar insights and concerns.
thanks to Rebel Diaz for their work… thanks to you Davey for helping keep light on it.
Check out this article by Naomi Klein for a little more on the Chilean economy, and even why there wasn’t MORE damage from the earthquake.
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/03/03-11