When a president becomes certifiable: Maduro pre-loony-bin?

The Mardo thing is having deeper effects inside chavismo than inside the opposition.  After all, the apparent unity of the opposition, that no one, not even chavistas seem to buy the corruption charges against Mardo is having an unexpected tail spin. So I am pasting below the most recent tweets of @nicolasmaduro with a translation. [almost] No further comments will be needed for the reader to understand what I mean.

I am translating from bottom to top, of course, trying to keep the bad Spanish into bad English

I am asking for to the country to stand firm in the fight against corruption, it is disgusting the socity of accomplices that the opposition becomes to protect itself.

When it is evident the violation of multiple laws and the vulgarity in the handling of millions of Bs. that country we left behind [amen that I had to read it three times to make sure it meant anything before translating, Maduro forgets the billion dollars added up in chavista corruption, from PUDREVAL to X, Y and Z]

This country of the elite bourgeoisie making a mockery of laws and citizens cannot come back, let's get to the bottom with all. Let's be implacable.

The bourgeois media was responsible for the monsters of the [pre Chavez era], they protected them the saem way they are protecting the right today.

Corruption sunk the Bourgeois Republic [sic] [pre Chavez], today rot its decadent remains [ah! the revolutionary poetry!], that is what the whole world says. Corrupt right. [Let's observe that as a president of the republic he needs to justify his words on what the world is supposedly saying. The guy has no self esteem whatsoever]

Let's keep together defeating the vices of the Corrupt Bourgeoisie, with the inspiration of the Giant who showed the Way [sic] [with link to Chavez picture under the rain closing his campaign 2012]

Conclusion: either Maduro is certifiable or he needs to change the handler of his tweeter account..... Because the way the thing is written I wonder if Maduro even knows he has a twitter account.....

The dictatorship post Mardo view in Caracas

So, what are we to do with the new aggression against parliamentary democracy yesterday in Caracas?

Nothing much, unfortunately.

I am in the obligation, to start this post, of reminding the reader that as far as this blogger is concerned we are in a de facto dictatorship since the Fall of 2010 (read the posts of December 2010). Then the regime used the votes of an outgoing assembly, elected with 80+% abstention to castrate the ALREADY elected new assembly. That this came to pass and that for all practical purposes nothing came of it, that the opposition in the end meekly took their seat, is one of the reasons of all that came later. And what came later is not pretty: fraud around Chavez disease, refusal to follow the constitutional path to renew the bodies of state, electoral fraud for the reelection of Chavez in 2012, judicial coup at the death of Chavez to ensure that Maduro reached power, naked electoral fraud in April 2013 to seat Maduro, plus an assortment of other disgraceful moments such as the beating up of representatives in the national assembly, the further silencing of free media, waves of expropriation followed by waves of corruption, etc, etc..... Again, just the collection of December 2010 is enough to document the whole disaster.

And some people still try to pretend that we are in a "special" type of authoritarian democracy, missing completely how the nature of power has shifted in the XXI century and how the parameters of democracy defining have also shifted. But let's not digress...

The opposition then decided to put all of its eggs in the 2012 election basket, betting that either Chavez will die before the election or that they could actually beat him, even though it was patently clear that the 2012 election was going to be even less democratic than the 2006 vote, if possible. We all know how that went. Certainly, the treachery of the regime was not able to hid the progress of the opposition and this pushed the regime to steal outright the election in April 2013, tolerated by Latin America for reasons that they will regret someday.

A regime that has forfeited the pseudo democratic way that Chavez maintained until his referendum defeat of 2007 and that has crossed the red line of presidential election steal, is not going to stop anymore. That means, among its other obligations to keep power, that the National Assembly has to be neutered completely, recovering by all means a solid 66% majority by expelling the opposition representatives that are not willing to bend over, take bribes, switch sides or at least shut up. The regime has too much to lose, too many of its stars will find their way to jail the day the regime falls.

That serious pollsters are unanimous in saying that the opposition is ahead in polls today, not by much but by a significant number, not only gives further credence to the fraud accusation of last April, but sends the regime into panic. Hence the current increase in repression where the Mardo thing yesterday is just one of its manifestation, though of the gravest nature since it means the regime is about to expel from the National Assembly as many representatives as it wishes to do.

It is not the time to bemoan the errors that the opposition made, of which I could put dozens of links from this blog. What is done is done and the opposition politicians are paying the price themselves finally, not only us on foot. The question is what to do.

I think that waiting for the municipal elections of December is futile: the regime will simply not recognize those results, already promoting the "comunas" which went dormant last December when the shocked country allowed an undeserved Governor election victory for the regime.  With the reactivation of the comunas law it will not matter if the opposition has a landslide victory ion December 8: within months the "comunas" will have chopped off the opposition districts.

No, the time has come to a more confrontational approach, preferably one that makes UNASUR and the OAS assume their responsibilities.  Next Saturday finally the opposition has called for its first large scale protest since April 14. We shall see.

Mardicidio

¿Lo que ayude?

Me van a disculpar pero hay ciertas cosas que me impiden ponerme todo emotivo por la barbaridad que le van a hacer a Richard Mardo en la Asamblea Nacional en pocas horas. Si es que se atreven; eso está por verse. El problema es que si el chavismo está a punto de poder salirse con la suya hoy, también es culpa de los errores de la oposición.

Empecemos con los cuentos de que allanar la inmunidad parlamentaria a un diputado de la república bajo condiciones ilegales y fraudulentas como lo están planificando el corrupto de Carreño y el asesino de Cabello (¿O es al revés?, me confundo a veces) significan el fin de la democracia. Desde que el CNE diseño el fraude electoral del 2010, agravado por el auto-golpe parlamentario que hizo la asamblea saliente para anular mucho de los poderes de la nueva asamblea y meter una habilitante, se murió la democracia en Venezuela. Yo lo escribí en aquel entonces y me cansé de repetirlo. Pero parece que no, que la clase política aúlla "dictadura" pero cobra su cheque parlamentario. Todo, desde la nariz rota de Maria Corina hasta la barbaridad de hoy, es posible porque no se hicieron las diligencias necesarias para denunciar en donde sea el fraude a la Asamblea en 2010.


¿Por que por ejemplo no se declaró que la oposición se reservaba el derecho de reconocer lo que decida esa nueva asamblea en caso de llegar algún día al poder? ¿Que nos iban a hacer de mas que no nos hicieron por callarnos y sentarnos en esa Asamblea mientras esperábamos yo no se que talanquera....? No pongo mas ejemplos porque me da pena ajena.

El asunto es que la oposición nunca resolvió el enredo de hacer oposición con principios y la verdad o como habladera y seducción progresiva del chavista chulo. Llegar al poder era mas importante que decir la verdad al país y decirlo en la cara de Chávez. Pues allí lo tienen, todavía en la oposición y prepárense porque por ahora me parece que van a perder en diciembre por mas que yo vote y le diga a la gente que vaya a votar. Mientras más crisis haya más asustados y más borregos estarán los chulos del chavismo. Anótenlo.

Lo que me lleva al otro asunto electoral. Dicen por ahí que el régimen está fregando a Mardo porque no quiere que se presente a la alcaldía de Maracay. Discúlpenme pero para mi eso es culpa de Mardo y de Primero Justicia. Yo no tengo nada contra Richard Mardo. Es muy posible que él sea un dirigente fabuloso, respetado por su comunidad, un hombre de bien. Pero el tipo se lanzó a la alcaldía de Maracay y la perdió. Después se lanzo a la asamblea y ganó. Pero desde la asamblea se la pasó tratando de ganar la gobernación de Aragua que perdió. ¿Y ahora se espera que yo me emocione porque Mardo quiere ganarse Maracay otra vez? ¿Que vaina es eso? ¿Que quiere Mardo en verdad? Nota: Mardo no es el único que no se toma el trabajo de diputado en serio, sino como un trampolín a otro cambur.

Si, es verdad, lo de Mardo hoy es una abominación. Pero si les escribo esto es para que entiendan porque poca gente se preocupa por el asunto. Si un blogguero con la trayectoria mía está desencantado, que esperanza en los demas....

Vagabunderias y permanente subdesarrollo chavista en Venezuela

Este fin de semana vimos dos cosas que deberían dejar pensativo a muchos en Venezuela. De un lado nos decretan un tal Instituto de Altos Estudios del Pensamiento de Hugo Chávez y por el otro leemos que analistas piensan que Mexico es el mejor candidato para ser un líder en tecnología, un Silicon Valley Latinoamericano. Empecemos por el segundo que es mas prometedor de futuro.

Para crear un valle de la silicona (y no de la usada por la estética que para eso Venezuela si está posicionada) se necesita talante humano, una masa critica de creadores, estabilidad y garantías jurídicas y preferiblemente cercanía al principal inversionista en la materia, sea Europa o EE.UU. México gana según el artículo. ¿Porque pierden los otros?

Chile, a pesar de su desarrollo, pierde por su poca población y su distancia. Perú y Colombia porque arrancaron la carrera tecnológica tarde. Argentina, que se supone hubiese sido un excelente candidato, tiene una economía y sociedad en franco deterioro mientras que los otros están en franca expansión. Los otros países son demasiado pequeños, obviamente. ¿Pero porque pierde Brasil frente a México? Porque México tiene un ambiente mas favorable a la creación intelectual, porque es mas fácil crear empresas que en Brasil, porque hay protección contra piratería. Y agregaría yo porque Brasil todavía se satisface mucho con ser exportador de materias primas semi transformadas mientras México entendió que ya no le es posible.

¿Y Venezuela? El articulo no la menciona a pesar de tener población superior a Chile, a pesar de tener recursos mas accesibles que Perú, a pesar de no tener (todavía) guerrilla mortal como en Colombia. Este artículo sencillamente nos recuerda otra vez mas que Venezuela se ha vuelto irrelevante en la economía mundial, a pesar de sus ventajas petroleras y de su cercanía a los mercados desarrollados.

Lo mas triste en este asunto es que Venezuela no tiene perspectivas de mejoría, ni siquiera en el largo plazo. Mas que nunca somos una economía basada en la exportación de una única materia prima. Estamos hoy en un sistema que cierra el paso a la innovación y la tecnología porque la corrupción y la ignorancia nos carcomen. Nuestra base educativa crea graduados de un sistema de gobierno cuyos títulos no valen nada mientras que los centros donde todavía si se puede estudiar careras productivas están asfixiados porque no se quieren rendir ante una ideología ya descompuesta.

Ante este desolador panorama para nuestro país, ayer nos dieron otro golpe. El Instituto decretado por Maduro va a estudiar el pensamiento de un tipo cuya violencia dividió a nuestro país, que creó una corrupción material inaudita para sustentar una corrupción peor, la política y moral.  El tipo ha pasado sus 14 años de poder en cortar la cabeza a cualquier innovador que despunte, que le cree la mas mínima sombra. Hugo Chávez a pasado su vida entera en retrotraer Venezuela al caudillismo del siglo XIX, y por si fuera poco, la convirtió al final en colonia del país más atrasado de América Latina: Cuba. Ahora se pretende que la cháchara que Chávez eructó durante 14 años se destile en un "pensamiento" preciso que, imaginamos, servirá de excusa para mantenernos en la esclavitud de la ignorancia.

¿Cual esperanza?

The IAEPHC is born. We may finally start understanding something of the twisted mind of Chavez

Hefty, hefty.....

In the "you cannot make up such shit" section, today Maduro signed the decree to open the Instituto de Altos Estudios del Pensamiento de Hugo Chávez, or for you Spanish speaking impaired people, The Institute for Higher Studies of the Thoughts of Hugo Chavez. And no one else but his older brother could be fit enough to direct it.

Let's start by saying that the work is going to be epic. Not because Hugo Chavez left a body of work worth analyzing but because he did not leave anything written except for a few newspaper columns and some letters. What Chavez is leaving are hours and hours and yet more hours of rants. Though "rant" is not a good description of Chavez speeches, the French "déblatérer" would be better, describing abundant and violent speech against something. But I digress.

Yet, the thousand of hours of Chavez speeches are not necessarily the main hurdle for the august work of such a novel institute. First, the profound thinkers that are to study Chavez opus will have to sift through insults, vulgarity and parables to find some substance. And yet, it is not going to be all. Across his entire career Chavez has contradicted himself constantly though admittedly after 2006 he took a more steady course towards a communist approach more in accordance with the way he gave up the country to the Cuban overlords.

And last but not least, it is important to note that Chavez's personal lifestyle, as well as the one of his family, most of the time did not agree with his official positions. So, where is the real Hugo Chavez?

IAEPHC poster bimbo?

I do not know who is going to be working in the IAEPHC. Candidates are numerous, and the battle is going to be harsh because Venezuela does not have grant money for hangers on as it used to do.  Not to mention that if Chavez had no problem financing sycophants, Maduro and and Cabello are probably going to be more tightfisted about financing people that, after all, are not going to directly praise them.  Still, we can be quite certain that the likes of Monedero, Ramonet and Harnecker are going to position themselves as fast as possible to get at least a few talking fees coming their way.

Still, let's be optimistic and hope that such an advanced institute may finally shine some light on the tortuous and vile mind of Chavez.

And you thought we could not go any lower.....

15 years of triumphant chavista Bolibanana Revolution and I only got that rancho

When I moved to San Felipe, Rafael Caldera had managed to do about half the the highway between San Felipe and Moron, with a bankrupt country. After 14 years of chavismo flush with cash, only a couple more exits have been added in what is perhaps the second most used road of Venezuela. Thus the last stretch between Moron and the highway is still about 12 Km of the two way original road, clogged with jalopy buses, trucks of all sorts carrying all the goods from Puerto Cabello to Barquisimeto and the Andes. And to enter the highway, you need to go through about half a mile of what is a dirt road, or rather of original country side lane turned into dirt by the big traffic.

The natives have gotten into the habit of selling crap to the passing truckers who of course stop to talk to the tightly to scantily clad girls selling them little cups of coffee from a thermos. Meanwhile you wait patiently for the transaction and small talk to be over.  But these points that develop rather fast each time a a new exit is incorporated in the highway, are also the nuclei of some new, shall we call it, settlement.

The one I picture here has caught my fancy. Finally using my powerful zoom I managed to take that picture the other day, ever so slightly blurred in the second image which is a cut out of the original one that opens this post (already quite reduced). After all, I could not stop my car, and I had to take the picture while climbing up the dirt road access to the highway.

The first shot is, of course, an "invasion" at the side of the road, which has not stopped the new owner to surround it with a fence. "Invasores" are born landowners, you know... Click to enlarge.

You may note on the bottom right the edge of my rear side window, a shaded stand that is probably put to some use on week ends, and a DIRECT TV SATELLITE DISH!!!!!  The house may be built on mud and straw but electricity is stolen from somewhere and they got a Direct TV decoder. Not for them to satisfy themselves with VTV and RNV that run for free in that area, the only thing the locals can get there.

The second pic shows more details of this native "mision vivienda", where the guys have even planted palm trees and some flowering bush.  If this were one of the few unique folksy expressions of Venezuela we could be amused. Unfortunately, after 14 years of chavismo and now almost 3 of Mision Vivienda, such scenes are closer to the norm than the exception.

What a beautiful revolution......

NOTE: if that last bit of highway had been done, not only it would save me at the very least 15 minutes from my trip to Caracas, but it would improve greatly the living conditions of the Moron inhabitants who still voted 70% for Maduro. How ironic!  Amen that sometimes crossing Moron can take 30 minutes or more.... depending what time of the day you attempt that crossing.  But see if I care, they deserve what they got, if you ask me.

The Post Chavez era of propaganda

Having an arepa at my occasional hangout in San Felipe I was forced to read Ultimas Noticias as the last "national" paper still available. And I fell on this so telling regime propaganda that I could not resist to take a picture of the full page advertisement and deconstruct here for your pleasure. Click to enlarge.

Let's start by the obvious: PDVSA, the state oil company is paying for that advertisement to glorify Chavez by attaching it tot he memory of Simon Bolivar, on the week of the anniversary.  Of course, if Chavez was born late July it could nto be possibly for any other reason but to his link to Bolivar. Take that you other Leo babies! At any rate, PDVSA breaks the law but who cares at this point....

The message is simple: "In July dignity was born for ever". Of course, it means nothing, not even historically since Bolivar had nothing to do during the events of 1810 and 1811, the years when the idea of an independent Venezuela came to pass. But the message is elsewhere: it is the glorious army of Venezuela that made our independence, even if that is also historically false as Carabobo was won by "La Gran Colombia" forces in Venezuela. The point is to remind always that the army is top, very appropriate in our current corrupt military regime, where the new logo on the bottom left shows a red Bolivar with sword next to a brown shirted Chavez (the mistake in the scheme?). A Chavez which of seems more important than Bolivar if you ask me.  But they are a "single heart", who cares?

But this is not all in the post Chavez propaganda concept. Now that Capriles and the opposition hover at 50% it is important to rally and radicalize the bases. As such the two people in the picture are not brown skinned, they are African America outright. Reverse racism for you, sir!

The regime also preys on the weakest link, the single mother who finally is getting a home. This is what is supposedly depicted in the back, with posters of Chavez duly plastered with "mision vivienda", the massive building program that bankrupted the country but got Chavez reelected last year even though it is still so far in solving the housing problem. Thus we have the "dignification" of the single mother who for all practical purpose is now wed to the memory of Chavez, the only man that cared for her ever.

I am sure I can come up with yet more subliminal stuff but that is enough for now, you get the point. From Chavez ghost floating all above us to such crass propaganda, it is only going to get worse as the regime has nothing to show for.

Nelson Bocaranda confirms what this blog wrote in November 2012

In his Runrunes of today Nelson Bocaranada, regime prosecuted journalist, writes about an "incident" in Calabozo, Guarico State. Apparently the Colombian guerrilla FARC has set camp there and has started even shooting down security CICPC Venezuelan personnel that are investigating local crime. Meaning of course that the FARC in Guarico is already part of the local crime scene. Bocaranda also hints that when they discovered it was not local crime but guerrilla the agents may have been pulled back....

Last November, writing about the upcoming governor election I made a map as to how the importance of the result meshed with the interests of the FARC and chavismo to create a safe heaven for the guerrilla once the negotiations in Havana finish, if they ever. That is why the regime promoted Rodriguez Chacin, nothing short of a terrorist, to become governor of Guarico state. I have put the map again below and you can see that Calabozo, where Bocaranda describes the latest guerrilla activity is almost smack in the middle of my "refuge area".

See, it pays to read blogs, even for journalists like @NelsonBocaranda ...... :-)

PS: for details on the map and its why you need to go back to the original post.

Good Morning Molecular Biologists

Google greeted me this morning with a doodle on Rosalind Franklin, the unsung hero of the Molecular Biology Revolution that Watson and Crick "officially" started. I relate on so many levels :-)

The ghost of Chavez over the Venezuelan fleet

Today is the birthday of Bolivar, and as a happy coincidence for some parties, the victory of Maracaibo lake which was the last "battle" fought against Spain for independence. Thus it is also the navy's day. We got a never ending cadena for idiot political speech and an even more idiotic naval parade. Among other things we could verify that indeed we have more admirals, vice admirals and counter admirals than serviceable battle ships. The naval parade had to include peñeros to bulk up some...

Normally I would not watch it but I was lazy in my hammock enjoying the fee afternoon and waited to turn off TV. When suddenly I saw Chavez ghost...  Thus I grabbed my camera and made this 30sec clip for you....




Yes, they use the soundtrack of Chavez singing the national anthem to lead the navy officers and the public along. For the TV audience, mostly chavista lumpen at this stage and idiot bloggers with too much time on their hands, they appropriately fade in and out a ghost of Chavez, all well calculated. Observe also that they all wear the now standard fascist arm band of the regime.

I did not record it for you but later own they had the staging on a truck float of the alleged soldiers discussion at the Maracaibo battle, totally out of military context, totally out of historical record, pathetically silly.

And of course, besides rewriting history and using historical symbols for political partiality, the occasion was used to attack the opposition.

Fascism always evolve towards ridicule. It cannot be helped. But what is very dangerous is how the navy allows itself to be so politically manipulated, permeated......

Comparing Venezuela and Egypt. NOT! Musings on youth protest...

Even though this blog likes historical coincidences readers will have noticed that I have stayed clear from the latest Egyptian revolution cum coup. For one thing, my allergy to anything military, reinforced by the utter corruption and amorality of the military in charge of the Venezuelan regime. Nothing good comes from military and for a single de Gaulle or Eisenhower you have scores of creeps like Chavez or Velasco Alvarado. But apparently some are not so coy and reach the pages of the NYT OpEd.


I do not want to criticize Daniel Lansberg, a polished writer in English or Spanish, with interesting ideas. But his entry in the NYT "We had our Tamarrod, and failed", fails. And it is not the good recommendation of Moises Naim that will save it.

Good article comparing Egypt &Venezuela's youth movmts by the great Daniel Lansberg: We Had Our Tamarrod, and Failed http://t.co/gqp90REllD
— Moisés Naím (@MoisesNaim) July 23, 2013

In his article my tocayo compares the successes of the youth movement in Egypt and in Venezuela, assuming that it is prospering in Egypt and failing in Venezuela. I will just quote his misguided wistful ending:

Seen from this position, Tamarrod’s successes to date are inspiring. The movement has already accomplished far more in Egypt than we ever did or, frankly, ever dreamed of in Venezuela: Twice now, Egypt’s youth has played a critical role in stripping power from governments it thought were keeping the future from it.

Our youth revolution fell short; may yours be realized.

I truly do not understand why Lansberg thinks that the youth movement in Egypt is winning and the one in Venezuela is failing. I suppose that in parts it is the wish of so many to compare situations that cannot be comparable in any way, outside of the generalities that Morsi and Chavez acted more like intolerant religious leaders than democrats. And that is far from satisfying, even to start a line of thoughts.

The youth movement in Egypt (or rather Cairo?) is indeed a youth movement in that it spilled over from campus to working districts, a youth that felt it had no future. From the start the youth of Egypt showed a unity of purpose across social groups that was never present in Venezuela. As such in Egypt it was a powerful motor for political change, at a grass root level, and better comparisons could be found in Paris in 1830 or Vienna 1848. In all cases, sooner than later, the old regimes came back in "gattopardian" ways, just as it seems to be coming back in Egypt.

In Venezuela the youth movement was rather, at first, a Caracas intellectual elite campus, as Lansberg himself admits. I write intellectual elite because it was not a social elite even if those do overlap greatly in Venezuela. The campuses that started the anti Chavez movement were those campus from the private or autonomous universities where the best and brightest, those that actually like to think and hold personal thoughts, want to go. The parallel system of higher education that chavismo has tried to established attracts those that are unwilling or not able to join these campuses and satisfy themselves by going to campuses where ideology is rampant, where party cadres are formed and where a degree is earned more by steady attendance and accommodation rather than technical or scholarly work. As such the university youth movement was handicapped from the start, with a a group of students seeking a true future and freedom on one side while those following the national temperament after decades of handouts were only too willing to play by the regime rules to land a dead end job in some obscure public administration, their skills being mostly useless in the real world.

As such I beg to differ from the pessimistic tone and ending of Daniel Lansberg piece. I think that the Venezuelan youth movement has accomplished a lot, besides being the main motor for the defeat of Chavez in 2007. That its leaders are managing slowly but surely to infiltrate the political parties is actually a victory, it is the seeds of political renewal in Venezuela. Those things take time, perhaps annoying those that want a quick fixes to our political and economic woes.

If anything, the "failure" of the Venezuelan student youth movement comes from the failure of a society who since the times of Gomez is used to the notion that a few banknotes are enough to paper over any difficulty.  As such too many prefer to bitch at Chavez's regime from Twitter than actually do something about it. This, of course, as from another window of the same lap top they negotiate subsidized dollars to go on vacation or import what they cannot produce anymore.

I do not mean to belittle Daniel Lansberg for his rather unfair conclusion. I congratulate him greatly for reaching the pages of the New York Times and make aware people of the situation in Venezuela which, no matters how you write about it, is always depressing. What I wish for him next time he has such an opportunity is to think things through a little bit better, a little bit deeper.

----------------------------------------------------
PS: sorry, this post had a part eaten up while I did a minor editing and I had to rewrite a paragraph which maybe different from the previous version but the cache was cached....  This is the fault of chronic internet faults inside Venezuela and blogger simply cuts communication or saves wrongly.

Oh Dear! Capriles uses the F word

But can you blame him?

El Gobierno fascista toma represalias contra la aerolínea LAN pq viajamos en ella a Chile y el regreso,así actúan los fascistas!
— Henrique Capriles R. (@hcapriles) July 21, 2013

The fascist government takes revenge actions against the airline we traveled to Chile, LAN and on return, this is how fascist act!
In short, LAN, the Chile airline, has been banished to an auxiliary runway of Maiquetia airport because it took Capriles as its passenger this week to Chile. As if Capriles had other choices to fly direct to Santiago....

The comie cliche call to arms

And apparently the airport had a welcome committee to receive Capriles with aggressions this afternoon. Just as Maduro hired the communist party of Chile to harass Capriles in Santiago as if this one was a nice NGO...

Still, I must object to Capriles use of the F word. If indeed totalitarianisms resemble themselves more and more, the actions in Caracas airport are more like the ones that the Cuba variety would take.  Those are the type of actions of "repudio" that Yoani Sanchez writes so much about. I know, I know, it is more and more difficult in the XXI century to differentiate fascism from communism (at least what was called Communism in the 80ies) but we should try.

At any rate, what they did in Maiquetia this week is once again proof that the regime is running out of options and that its creativity resides in using Cuban repressive techniques.

Now, will Piñera or Bachelet protest the treatment of LAN in Caracas?  Is it this not a direct evidence that ignoring human rights doe snot protect your commercial interests?

PS: Juan Cristobal sent me this lovely poster of the Communist Party of Chile pretending to call a movement of the people against Capriles.  You know, with spontaneous enthusiasm. They did manage about 100..... click to enlarge and read if you dig Spanish. Worth the effort.

Towards "le dernier carré", or Maduro circling the wagons

SICAD at Waterloo

"Le dernier carré" is a known military term, particularly put in vogue at Waterloo when the last battalion of the Garde Impériale was called at the end of the battle, as much as a last ditch effort as to protect the retreat of the army. The Garde supposedly was standing in squares and the last holding square was, well, kind of like circling the wagons while knowing full well that your scalp was about to free itself from its hold no matter what.

This being said, before I digress further, I am not implying whatsoever that the regime theoretically held by Maduro is about to collapse and they are circling the wagons in a square (though they would be stupid enough to try that if you ask me). No, the regime may still have a while ahead but it is behaving as if the hour had come. But before we go into these nervous defenses of the regime, let's review why it is justified for them to feel cornered.

First, social protest is not ebbing. The regime there benefits of the congenital selfishness of the Venezuelan that makes an interest group unable to take seriously the concerns of other interest groups, starting with the opposition MUD unable to support energetically the university protest, to name the most recent major case. But that does not stop the myriad of protests going on because X was not paid, Y was due such amount, Z were laid off without reason and W was promised this by Chavez himself.

Second, no matter how hard Maduro tries he cannot establish once and for all his legitimacy. Every body, EVERYBODY, knows he won through electoral fraud. That, at home or abroad, they decide to pretend otherwise or prefer not to do anything about it is another matter. One reason may be simply that foreign countries manage basic arithmetic and know the regime of Maduro to be nonviable. Thus why not wait it out? Which is a crass error because it assumes that the regime is more than an assembly of thugs and that at some point it will yield power more or less pacifically. It will not, the regime is a group of military corrupt thugs and their civilian enablers, all working for the colonial master in Havana.  At any rate, that is why Piñera had so much trouble in receiving Capriles in Santiago this week and why Humala escaped Lima for the provinces so as not to be put in the same uncomfortable position. But it is also the reason why Santos did receive Capriles in Bogota because Colombia knows very well that the collapse of chavismo is trouble for them and thus Colombia cannot wait for it to happen, preferring a more controlled end.

But that avoidance in fact plays in the hand of Capriles who, for the first time that I know of, put UNASUR on notice. Humala may have skipped town but the political class in Lima has been served notice and has been asked "it is not possible that what matters most are economic interests over human rights and constitution".  This in Peru, the country that with Chile has probably been helped the most by Venezuelan democracy before 1998. People with principles and intelligence are confirmed in their notions that UNASUR, OAS, CELAC, MERCOSUR are mere fronts for immorality.

Third, of course, is the intractable economic situation. Intractable mostly because the regime refuses to take the measures that need to be taken, refuse to accept that the Chavez years are over, seems to believe that if Chavez were still alive there would not be an "economic problem" today. I am certainly one who wishes Chavez would be alive to enjoy the show of him finally drowning in his mess. But I digress again. The point is that this last week much vaunted solution, SICAD, to offer cash to the private sector to reactivate the economy has proven to be a mere lottery, to have no direction, to have no transparency, to look more like an excuse to give scarce dollars to cronies of the regime than actually solving problems. The second installment of the SICAD disappoints more than the first one and its failing is not even on what I listed before, it is that it is not enough. Depending on the experts, the SICAD is not able to satisfy the demand of dollars of the economy, offering at best, if it continues, if it becomes more fluid, a mere 10% of the needs that CADIVI does not provide. Amen that CADIVI itself is not providing half of what it is supposed to provide. El Universal explains it today, again: the Venezuelan government, instead of priming the private sector to grow again, is reducing its access to dollars while the regime prefers to use the few dollars to pay for debts and import electoral goods  directly. Looks like a Merkel austerity plan if it were not that the regime keeps buying weapons and financing lost causes.

The regime is obviously trapped in a catch 22 situation. This would not be so bad if at least it seemed that they were aware of it and trying to find a way out. But no, they are forging ahead, trying to find the new regulation that will finally allow all the old regulations to work.

For example Diosdado Cabello went to China to find inspiration. But even if he found it, it would not work because after 14 years of entitlements the Venezuela worker is no mood to work like a Chinese worker, the major source of China economic growth.

For example Maduro once again breaks with the US because its new appointee to the UN embassy , Samantha Powers, said publicly that Venezuela is a repressive regime. Maduro gets upset easily these days that things are not going his way and the weak "overture" to the US, with Jaua beaming to Kerry, is over. As if breaking with the US was the solution. We have been now a few years with ambassadors, I am sure Foggy Bottom is shaking.....

Of course, the escalation against the opposition is going on. Several opposition representatives are now prosecuted for a variety of reasons, using even evidence that is obviously forged but that the states attorney takes as valid without bothering to investigate the charges. Reports on pressing the media to stop talking about election fraud are apparently now routine.  As well as pressure against anyone fool enough to write a check for next December election.  And let's pass on tall tales of imminent invasion whose sole object is to justify future repression from the regime .

All in all the scenario is quite clear, at least for this blogger. The regime continues in its downward nihilistic spiral, reaching eventually a "dernier carré" at which point it will either implode into a red dwarf and leave room for a new sun to emerge or go supernova and take down all of us.

Carta abierta a Michele Bachelet, ex presidenta y candidata a la presidencia de Chile

Estimada (ex)-presidenta Bachelet

Me permito escribirle por que me parece que usted manejo mal el asunto de la visita intempestiva de Henrique Capriles a Chile. Entiendo muy bien que para usted él llega como pelo en la sopa, sin haber preparado debidamente su viaje. No se extrañe, desde el pasado mes de abril el ha cometido varios errores de “timing” como dicen los norteamericanos. Pero eso no la exime a usted de no comportarse como una estadista. Usted será la candidata presidencial a la reelección, pero también usted es una ex presidente y se espera que en ciertos asuntos se comporte como una estadista y no como una mera política buscando votos.

Entiendo que usted necesitará los votos de gente como el triste senador Alejandro Navarro, pero sin embargo usted no se puede rebajar a los intereses anti democráticos de gente como el dicho senador. Le toca a usted asumir posiciones históricas y recordarles a los chilenos el rol que tuvo Venezuela en los tiempos de Allende y de Pinochet, de la cual usted ha sufrido pero ha superado a su gran honor. Lo que yo creo es que mucha gente en Chile, empezando por el propio presidente Piñera que también ha manejado mal el asunto, no entiende el momento histórico de Venezuela. Venezuela no está en 1973, mas bien en 1972 donde todavía se hubiese podido evitar la tragedia que empezó en su país el 11 de septiembre de 1973. Claro, no se trata de una comparación, algo que sería ridiculo a 40 años de distancia, lejos de la Guerra Fría. Me refiero mas bien al ambiente.

Cuando Salvador Allende llego al poder yo era niño en la escuela. Me acuerdo que a las pocas semanas de su elección empezaron a llegar exiliados chilenos a Venezuela. En mi salón llego uno. Me consta porque fui amigo de él hasta que regreso a Chile tres años después. Si, la gente se olvida de eso, pero hubo dos oleadas del exilio chileno, la primera al llegar Allende a La Moneda, y la segunda después de que Pinochet bombardee La Moneda.

No viene al caso saber porque le Papá de mi amigo tuvo que salir de Chile a penas ganó Allende. Me imagino que algo tenía que reprocharse, uno entiende esas cosas de adulto. Me contaba mi amigo que todavía en Chile, siendo el mayor de sus hermanos su Papá le había dicho donde el guardaba la pistola cuando tenía que salir de noche con su Mamá. Por algo era. A los pocos meses empezaron a llegar más y más chilenos, huyendo de la terrible deterioración económica que sufrió Chile bajo el gobierno de Allende. Los exiliados de entonces tienen su equivalente en los centenares de miles de exilados económicos, y políticos, que ha tenido Venezuela desde 1999. En Chile hay muchos, usted lo sabe.

Después del 11 de septiembre llego la segunda oleada de exiliados chilenos, y Venezuela los recibió con los mismos brazos abiertos con los cuales había recibido los refugiados de Allende. Y con gran valor porque el gobierno de Allende no se había preocupado de sus exiliados mientras que se daba por descontado que la Junta en Chile si iba a preocuparse por lo que hacían sus exiliados.

En fin, el asunto es que el ambiente polarizado de Venezuela hoy en día tiene más relación con el ambiente polarizado de Chile de principios de 1973 cuando las elecciones parlamentarias fallaron en resolver la crisis política, como las elecciones del pasado abril en Venezuela fallaron en resolver la nuestra. Es allí donde tengo que hacer reproches a los gobiernos de Sur América, en particular el de Chile como a su oposición. Si hay un país que debe de entender como la polarización excesiva de un país lo llevará al desastre, es Chile.

Usted, como el presidente Piñera, sabe muy bien que hubo fraude en las elecciones de abril en Venezuela. No sabemos si la magnitud del fraude puede en verdad cambiar el resultado, pero fraude hubo y de que no se investigue crea un gobierno ilegitimo que nos lleva al desastre tarde o temprano. Usted tiene, estoy seguro, que entender esto aunque pretenda no hacerlo.

Sin embargo, sabiendo las consecuencias de ese fraude, ustedes dos se distanciaron del asunto, usando posiciones diplomáticas, y ahora toreando la vista de Henrique Capriles, que si bien desorganizada y a destiempo representa una realidad política para nuestro continente. En realidad es Chile quien hubiese debido de invitar a Capriles a visitar Santiago el mismo día que el gobierno de Chile reconoció al de Maduro por formalismo.

Me despido de usted, esperando que si usted no lee esta carta habrá alguien en su entorno que tenga la historia en mente y que por su cuenta sepa explicarle el craso error que tanto usted como el presidente Piñera están haciendo, abandonando al país que tal vez mas ayudó a Chile en el siglo XX. El gobierno de Venezuela hoy en día es un desgobierno de forajidos y por más que ustedes traten de aislarse de este hecho no van a poder evitar las consecuencias de lo que viene encima para Venezuela, algo que de alguna manera afectará a Chile también. Todavía hay tiempo para no abandonar a Venezuela, pero poco.

How my week started at work....

Monday AM early. Funeral for the mother of an employee that died of A1H1N1.

Monday afternoon. A company driver on a delivery was attacked at a street light. they stole his papers and his money. Luckily nothing happened to him nor the truck or the delivery. Just some malandro in urgent need of some cash for a joint or something...

Tuesday morning. I was spending my morning, standing in line in diverse offices, inquiring about a property that the local chief had decided to expropriate. Note: we were up to date on all taxes etc, but no one bothered checking who was the owner of that vacant lot (that we held for future expansion) and it was "expropiese".  Just like that, because someone liked the site.

And then they expect me to be creative, to increase production, to hire people, to pay taxes.......

Tour-de-Francing

It is the 100th tour this year and it is all inside France. And ESPN has decided to show the live feed from France though with English speakers that stumble badly on words like Céüze. Never mind that they have little clue about the lovely landscape and chateaux that the live feed shows but that they are unable to translate (or understand?). Still, the scenery is there, the bikers are hot (mostly because of the weather) and the experience of the cameras from the scooters to the helicopters and drones is now so good that you can clearly see and understand the team strategies to protect their leaders and bring them to victory. Truly griping!

That macho feel of victory for Rui Costa today

So I have it taped in the morning (In Caracas I can watch it live in French) and since no one discusses the Tour here, at night I can easily do my elliptical, have a drink, dinner while watching the Tour with all the suspense (the more so that there is rerun season...).  And tonight when it was over and I erased it I fell on the All Star game and let me tell you that the contrast was staggering between sports. Sorry, but there is no way I can ever watch more than an inning of baseball...  And only if the Red Sox play the pseudo world series. The aesthetic difference between a fat chewing dirty looking player on the backdrop of a brand new stadium simply does not compare with lean active bikers over the Provence country side as a backdrop.....

Because forgive me for what comes next but France is the most beautiful country. At least to stage a road event. Watching the Tour is also about fantasizing about that old stone house you suddenly need to buy to retire (provided the plumbing allows for Venezuelan style bathrooms). In that same fantasy you also envision yourself going for a week end hike to that old watch tower on top of that tall hill; or perhaps walking through the streets of that old village; or maybe organize a sumptuous food basket to have lunch on some remote field above the valley; or maybe just hang around the streets of Gap, today's stage finish line, before the Tour arrives,  looking for that tasty little restaurant or that antique shop.

Of course, no matter how good the cameras are you catch on occasion a junk yard, or an abandoned work shop. But 95% of what you see is developed land at the human scale where nature has been blended with life. Not preserved as a museum, a nature where you can actually live. OK, it was already the Provencal Alps which are more sparsely settled, but indulge me :-)

That is France. And they can be arrogant 

Are the radicals winning the regime's infighting?

Chavismo has been torn apart, in secret, since Chavez death. The battle implies several factions, from rich corrupt bolibourgeois to radical idiotism pushing forward ideas that have always failed in history. It seems that the radical point of view may be getting the upper hand. That does not mean it is winning as some of the factions may have decided to cool it for a while and wait for better times. But in harsh economic climate and a legitimacy problem, they may all agree that a short stint in the radicalism parlance may do them some good. Some evidences.

The first one of the list comes from Maduro himself who having avoided expropriations, a favorite Chavez tool, has decided to start his own ones this week end. Granted, it is a rather small plot of land to build subsidized housing, but at a time when Venezuela's regime is trying to lure back investors, this is not the smartest of moves and only betrays political nervousness, a hankering for Chavez coattail signature...

Tweeter gives us the next two examples.

Let's start with Diosdado Cabello, the president of the Nazional Assembly, that he has silenced by assaulting the opposition members.  He says in this tweet:

El asesino fascista capriles quiere lucha contra la corrupción y su papá es el principal matraquero en las obras de la gobernación
— Diosdado Cabello R (@dcabellor) July 14, 2013

The fascist criminal capriles [no capital letter] wants to fight corruption and his daddy is the main collector [of bribes] for the state works

Besides the violence of these words emitted without any proof offered [fascist violence?] we must remind readers that Capriles has sent to the nation's attorney's office a complete dossier of all the corruption acts of Diosdado Cabello when he was governor of Miranda. Not a single one of them, that I know of at this time, has been investigated. Almost 5 years and running. There are other tweets along those lines from the person that should be the most democratic politician in Venezuela considering he occupies the presidency of the dialogue chamber of the country.

The next tweet is from the ineffable Jaua, who also lost against Capriles last December and who seems more obsessed about his vendetta against Capriles than directing the foreign policy of Venezuela (then again, this one is, well, irrelevant these days).

El rostro de odio de Capriles R. Del 15 A,es el de la burguesía desnuda, el fascismo, con toda su carga de intolerancia y culto a la muerte!
— Elias Jaua (@JauaMiranda) July 15, 2013

The face of hatred of Capriles R. [capital letters this time around] of April 15is the one of the naked bourgeoisie, of fascism, with all its charge of intolerance and cult to death!

We can at least praise Jaua on having a vague idea about what fascism is compared to his other colleagues who use fascist for an all purpose insult. Still, he is fascist alright in his expressions as can be seen from other tweets of his making. However, let's not be mistaken, the attack on Capriles is just a pretext to weaken the opposition. Replace tomorrow Capriles by someone as mild mannered as Guillermo Aveledo and within days the vituperation will the the same. That is the fascist method, opponents are all indistinguishable, all equally bad, something that communism was more careful at, differentiating its type of opponents (even though the only real difference in the end between the systems was the exact date of departure for the concentration-camp/Gulag).

I note also that we should not underestimate the ignorance of Jaua who combined with his hatred is indeed a dangerous mix, and also a very fascist one. His incendiary words above were pronounced and tweeted while he was inaugurating a chocolate processing plant that supposedly will save Venezuelans from sweeping the floors of multinational companies. I suppose that in revolutionary plants robots sweep the floors.....

Hoy inauguramos la fábrica de Bombones Cimarron en Los Teques.Empleos dignos, chocolate para el pueblo, con calidad para exportar a MERCOSUR
— Elias Jaua (@JauaMiranda) July 15, 2013

Today we open the plant Bombones Cimarron [Marron-slave Bonbons, such things cannot be made up] in Los Teques. Dignified jobs, chocolate for el pueblo, with the quality to export to MERCOSUR.

Unfortunately nobody has told Jaua about all the chocolate that is already coming from Brazil and that will compete efficiently against that Bombones Cimarron......

And to this you must add the latest incantations of Eduardo Saman, a most radical back into the government and in days making major waves of radicalism. He is these days closing butcher shops that refuse to sell meat at a loss, while promising that his fight against speculation [note: for him any earnings is of a speculative nature, so ideological is his formation] will decrease prices. And revert inflation I suppose? For him no one should make more than 8%, in a country that suffers 40% inflation....

And thus why I suspect that radical chavismo is carrying the day, for the time being. It may be only to ensure a favorable result in December vote, which I doubt it will. But one thing is certain, if the regime is so willing to gamble the remains of the economy and prosecute without reason or need the opposition as it does, their putative victory in December will be bought at an un-affordable price for  the country. A hollow victory, but a pregnant one, with hunger and violence.

The December 2013 electoral post, or lack thereof in the future

I have no intention to cover in deep the mayoral elections of December 2013. First, prediction is extremely hazardous because chavismo and opposition are, write it down, going to make major mistakes upon unexplained errors. Second, it is unbelievable that we are forgetting so easily the electoral fraud of last April. And third, that the opposition is planing on making an election with a traditional high abstention as a plebiscite on Maduro blows my mind.

Yet, since it is going to be in the news, I will try to help the reader in understanding what is at stake. Let's go by parts, starting with the last one, the easiest one to deal with.

A plebiscite? You must be kidding....

The idea is that a definitive result against the regime in December would finish this one off. There is so much wrong with that idea that I could write a treatise on it.

First, it is a traditional high abstention vote so even a major success from the opposition will translate in less votes than in April. Right there, the regime can dampen any excitation arising from an opposition victory.

Second, a regime that so far has survived major inflation, major devaluation, major scarcity and obscene electoral fraud while neutralizing the national assembly and the judicial power is able to do anything it takes to stay in office. Adverse municipalities will be quickly neutralized by reviving the "communal power" to break up opposition municipal councils.

Third, calling it a plebiscite can only motivate more the chavista core base who in time of crisis, of bankruptcy, might be even more sensitive to the regime argument that "whatever little you get depends on me remaining in office".

Fourth, if the "plebiscite" fails, if the regime survives, then we will lose bigger than what the numbers may actually say.

And so on. The opposition leadership faction promoting this are, well, idiots.

An electoral fraud always hides another one

It is becoming clear that the regime will play with the same trump cards it played in October 2012 and April 2013. That is, same CNE, same voter rolls, same voting center personnel, while ignoring all the claims made by the opposition. This one is patiently "waiting" for a high court decision on the fraud claims that now it is almost certain will not come until after the municipal elections.  This leaves us with two sets of considerations.

On the positive side, since we must always try to find a silver lining, a supposedly incensed opposition voter will be more active. Also, the high number of candidates for municipal councils will create a large population of monitors coming from these candidates friends and families. We can expect indeed that there will be more difficulties for the regime to do such fraud like "assisted voting" or "the night of the living dead voter".

Yet, gerrymandering and other stuff will help the regime who in turn will also have the families and friends of its candidates at the doors of the voting centers, promoting unrest and scare tactics for opposition abstention. I think the regime is clear in its mind that it will lose those elections, something that may have happened even if Chavez were alive today. The objective is to minimize losses, which explains why these elections have been shamelessly postponed since 2005 when the term is 4 years!!!!  And do not be surprised if the regime once again uses some delaying tactic to postpone these elections for 2014.... why should they risk the comfortable majority in municipal districts they enjoy today with some silly election?

Perturbing stakes

Which brings us to the very start of this post: what can we predict? Nothing because the stakes are so high from each side that once again there cannot be clear cut results.

The stakes of that December vote are very high for both sides.

It is certain that beyond a putative victory the opposition needs to shore up its municipal presence if it wants to oust the regime in a near future.  However that Capriles has chosen a low key approach to claim for his victory of April saying things that "we cannot send people to the slaughter house" and doing nothing but law suits that we all know will never been won outright inside Venezuela has a powerful unmotivating effect for the opposition voter.  Also, it is so clear that politics is a business as any other for politicians more worried about their paycheck than the fate of the country that the radical voter will be tempted to punish those that want a job in any town hall by withholding the votes for winning that one. Remember that some of these races will be won on a few dozen votes and there the "radical vote" will have an enormous importance. And to add more trouble for the opposition, that the primaries were held almost two years tot he day of the election has changed a lot the local electoral situation. Some winners then look like losers today. I already complained about that then but no one listens to this blogger.... :)

The stakes for chavismo are even higher because they speak to the basic survival of the regime. See, beyond a possible defeat, the point is that municipal councils are a major source of patronage for chavismo. Losing a mere 25% of those held currently would create quite a lot of trouble for chavismo which will have as lone solution the creation of yet another layer of parallel administration at a time where coffers are looking rather empty for such waste. Expect thus yet another dirty campaign with massive intimidation as Maduro himself started yesterday by claiming once again, without proof, that he knows who did not vote for him last April. If four moths before the vote we are under such blackmail, expect outright violence.

Thus we can predict one thing for certain: mean elections.

Miscellaneous

To conclude this post, we can attempt not a prediction but what would be the reading of the results.

For chavismo the task is to preserve as much as possible the advantage they have. They can actually gain a few town halls (+/- 6) to compensate the dozens that they expect to lose. According to Wikipedia (!) the regime holds 267 town-halls against 68 for the opposition. This apparent majority should be tempered by noting that a majority of the large districts are held by the opposition (4 in Caracas, Maracaibo, etc...) and thus about 40% of the country lives under an opposition mayor. We can say that if chavismo manages to retain more than 200 districts it can still milk that result as a victory of sorts even though it would most certainly mean that now more than 50% of the country has voted for an opposition mayor. The only "psychological" victory the regime may expect is if it were to take Maracaibo and retain Valencia. We should note that chavismo deciding not to hold primaries for its candidates will likely constitute a handicap as many an activists of the PSUV will stay home, dissatisfied by being ignored once again and this time by Chavez cheap underlings. It is thus very possible that the PSUV may not reach that magical 200 that would allow it to claim victory even if it gets less votes than the opposition.

The opposition starts with several advantages. A majority of its candidates are primary winners who had time to forge a consensus around their name.  Also, the opposition has been steadily increasing its share and there is no reason to see it become otherwise. If indeed December 2012 was a bad surprise when it managed to retain only 3 states, the numbers of that same December would have already reflected a gain in town halls! We can thus expect that no matter what the regime throws in electoral fraud the opposition should be able to reach this time around 100 mayor seats. I think their goal of 134 is at this time overly optimistic.

But the opposition victory should be measured elsewhere, in the quality of its gains. For example, recovering the town hall of Valencia is almost a must for the opposition. In Miranda, winning Los Teques and, why not, Guatire, would go a long way in shoring up Capriles and demanding a recall election against the state assembly that sabotages any of his activities. Another couple of wins that would strike the spirits is for the opposition to pick up Barquisimeto and Cabudare in Lara. Barquisimeto in particular would be one of the harshest defeats that chavismo could suffer. And should. Some other less certain but possible victories could be Maracay, Puerto Ordaz and maybe, just maybe, Barinas. Even if chavismo retains its 200+ majority, if this list of 8 cities goes to the opposition, any claim of victory will sound deeply hollow, even for the chavista core. Amen of the big enchilada which is Caracas/Libertador.....

Conclusions

There is really one single conclusion: these elections are going to be particularly complex as national interest will be dramatically juxtaposed to local ones in a bigger way than ever since Chavez was elected first in 1998.  Nothing will visibly decant until, say, late September.

I simply have no time nor any desire to track down such an ethereal situation, the more so that from the start I am in disagreement with the way the campaign is starting, with a boring Capriles at his helm. I know that some of you appreciate these analysis but this time I find them futile. It is not that I will not cover the election but I have the feeling that I will write no more than 2 or 3 posts on that subject, maybe one of them commenting on why the elections have been once again postponed.......

"según el" y otras formas de minimizar la cruda realidad venezolana

Esta semana leí y oí cosas que me preocuparon mucho, cosas que indican una cierta resignación hacia el chantaje chavista de la sociedad, el "tatequieto" que se nos aplicó desde el 2003. Empezó con en el noticiero de Globovision cuando la periodista comento declaraciones de Capriles que "según el" las cosas no nadaban bien en Venezuela.

Ese según el me preocupa mucho porque se parece a la objetividad y imparcialidad que aplican algunos como Venevision, canal cuya ultima vez que sintonicé fue durante el pseudo debate de la primaria que me convenció una vez mas de la falta absoluta de seriedad del elenco de ese canal. ¿Como es posible que un periodista que vive en Venezuela pueda decir que según algún dirigente de la oposición las cosas no andan bien en Venezuela? ¿Será que ese periodista no padece de la inflación? ¿Será que ese periodista no sufre del toque de queda? ¿Será que ese periodista tiene un super carro que evita los huecos en las calles? ¿Será que ni el ni su familia se enferman?

Cualquier periodista que use "según el" en una apreciación de los comentarios de dirigente opuesto al régimen o está censurado o es chavista. Aunque cabe la opcion de que sea un pobre periodista, sin acceso a frases elementales de objetividad como "el ..... comentaba que ....." "el..... reiteraba que....."

Parecería que algunos opinadores piensan que le toca a la oposición bajar el tono. Me parece, como principio sano de toda democracia, que efectivamente se baje el tono de la polémica. Pero eso no puede ser a cambio de nada. Por ejemplo, la semana pasada estaba Manuel Felipe Sierra hablando con el Ciudadano. Los dos comentaban que el país había cambiado, que, según ellos, había signos de voluntad de cambio en el gobierno y que había que reconocer eso. Voy a aceptar la posibilidad que ellos vean algo que yo no veo, pero sin embargo están errados. ¿Por que? Vean por ejemplo la entrevista que Roberto Giusti tuvo que calarse con Ernesto Villegas. Escribo calarse porque dudo mucho que Roberto Giusti haya disfrutado el momento con el Goebbels de turno de la revolución.

Pues bien, ¿Como negociar con un gobierno cuya condición sine qua non es un reconocimiento automático por la oposición de Maduro como presidente legitimo?  Es menester subrayar que Ernesto Villegas lo dice amparado por la indecisión crónica que afecta el TSJ cuando una decisión no puede ser favorable al gobierno.

Personalmente me parece sumamente peligroso tratar de apaciguar a un régimen que tiene lobos como Diosdado Cabello o la mismísima Cilia Flores que por no hablar en público estos días no le impide repartir con fuerza. Lo que el régimen esta buscando desesperadamente es compartir, y hasta atribuir lo mas posible del desastre que vivimos a la oposición; y que esta lo aceptase por un puñado de alcaldías seria fatal. Si hay una hora donde la reciedumbre es necesaria es esta. Se puede ser cortes con el régimen, se puede ofrecer dialogo para sacar el país de la crisis pero se tiene que ser firme y pedir algo preciso a cambio. No se puede bajo ningún pretexto dejar de decir que todo lo que padecemos hoy es culpa de Hugo, de todo lo que hizo desde el revocatorio.

Y esto se aplica desde El Ciudadano hasta Henrique Capriles.

The 1000 years Reich, chavista version by Maduro

Today Maduro, believing that his trip to Mercosur was a glowing success, went to Apure where he said this:

"Qué nadie se equivoque aquí somos chavistas hasta la médula. Yo soy el primer presidente chavista de mil presidentes chavistas que habrá en la historia de Venezuela"Nobody be mistaken, here we are chavista through our bone marrow. I am the first chavista president of a thousand chavista presidents that there will be in the history of Venezuela.

I will spare you the abject history lesson, of course. I am just going to say that with almost a century between the first fascist in Italy and the current crop in Venezuela, fascist is/says as fascist does.

A piece of Venezuelan ridicule where Snowden actually played a part.

In the series "It is a good thing that people do not die from ridicule" Iris Varela gives us new evidence today. The minister for prisons, who a few days ago was proven useless once again as the "pran" of a Ciudad Bolivar prison let the world know that he was the one in charge inside, has blasted two tweets based on Snowden spying revealtions.

Compatriotas: cancelen sus cuentas en facebook ya que sin saberlo han trabajado gratis como informantes de la CIA! Revisen caso Snowden!
— maria iris varela (@irisvarela) July 10, 2013

Brothers in the fatherland, close down your Facebook accounts because unknowingly you have worked as CIA informants! Check out the Snowden case!

Países y personas victimas del espionaje Gringo deben demandar a EEUU justa indemnización por ese hecho! Vamos, a quebrar economía de USA!
— maria iris varela (@irisvarela) July 10, 2013

People and countries victim of gringo spying should sue the USA for a just indemnification for that deed! Let's bankrupt the USA economy! Note: she uses the Spanish acronym and the english one in the SAME tweet!!!!

You cannot make up such stuff! She is an idiot....

A Snowden free item: Globovision is forgiven by the TSJ

Imagine that!  Globovision, the mush harassed news channel, finally won one! The chavismo controlled high court decided that a fine imposed on Globovision was too high and decided to halve it.

The catch?

Globovision owners since last April happen to be close to the regime.......

Be nice, play by the regime guidelines and you will get legal discounts....  then again I understand that Globovision ratings are nose diving.

In Snowden less news: murder of a fireman and nationalization of Venezuelan medicine

As if the regime hadn't enough fronts open, it has decided to control the prices of the medical services offered by private clinics. And the insurance companies promptly approved saying that they will only honor the nominal prices. And yet this only hides the deep failure of the health system that the regime started to improvise for electoral purposes since 2003. The public system being such a failure, everyone tries desperately to get a private insurance so as to go to private clinics that work much better than the public sector even though much is to be criticized with them. The regime is upset and shoots the messenger, by bankrupting this one. It is that simple.

Controlling prices of private clinics in Venezuela at this point is an absurd. They are overworked. They are underpaid. Insurances companies, in particular the ones associated with the government public employees delay their considerable payments, if they even honor them (which has pushed many clinics on the verge of bankruptcy to suspend certain insurers and their patients, until the bill is paid). The result is that now private sector clinics look more and more like public hospitals used to look a few years ago, before Chavez was elected first.

In addition a high inflation and a scarcity of imports have hampered the daily operations. For example among the restricted imports there are plenty of medical kits and medicines. We learned, to pick one, that analytic labs, upon which most diagnostics depend, are working at half speed. Even basics, such as needles and the specific test tubes to collect blood samples for the different analysis are hard to come by.

The public sector is even worse. Hospitals are full of people in line because, simply put, they are waiting for hours, days and even weeks, for a doctor to show up or for an O.R. to open, or a machine to be fixed for a diagnostic. If the private clinics are overcrowded with people that are willing to bankrupt themselves it is because these people know quite well that if they wait for a putative turn at some hospital they probably die in the wait or reach the doctor much sicker than when they arrived.

Such a situation has broken down any ethic in the medical sector, from private clinics refusing to attend emergencies of the uninsured, to public hospitals with absentee personnel, when they are not satisfying themselves by sitting down with the patients because they do not even have what is needed for attending the most basic emergencies.

The latest scandal was the death this week of Caracas Firemen chief who had an accident on his motor bike, and was then taken to a private clinic but whose insurance did not approve entry!  Yes, the Caracas public fireman was on a private insurance. When that happened his relatives and friends had no other choice but to take him to a state hospital. They had the poor guy wait for several hours until they finally an O.R. was available. But it was too little and too late and the guy died in the elevator on the way to the O.R.

Reading the full account of the story can only bring tears to your eyes. Caracas firemen who should be heroes like it happens in other country are without "ambulances, nor insurance or paychecks".

The clinic, not to excuse them at all, rejected the victim. The reason was that the insurance did not clear because the government did a bad paper work job at switching the insurance companies, when putting the firemen of Caracas under a new insurance that covered them less, a ridiculous amount I would dare to say considering how dangerous is the firemen work. Not only that, but we read that the new insurance would be allowed to use some of the workers benefit to pay extensive bills, something that is illegal in the labor law of Venezuela so proudly dictated by Chavez for his reelection. But in a fascist regime such subtleties are simply ignored.

The victim could not be taken speedily to any health center because 54 out of 60 of the fire station ambulances are out of order. 54!

Of course, the regime has started "investigating" the clinic that refused service while Caracas mayor office went to close it finding a whole bunch of irregularities that his office should have detected years ago!!!!! And suddenly a long sleeping law on firemen service has been dusted off and sent in rush to the Nazional Assembly floor. No word on whether the public hospital delay of 6 hours to attend the victim will be investigated.

Can you expect anything good from that?

The hypocrisy of the regime on the health system debacle is simply staggering. The new health minister, Isabel Iturria, is a mere hack, maybe a true criminal, spending her time attacking the private sector of medicine to hide the colossal failure of the public sector that she inherited two months ago from another criminal, Eugenia Sader. While at the same time fudging statistics to hide the real number of AH1N1 cases and deaths in the country. After all official statistics in Venezuela, reported merrily by international organizations that cannot be bothered in checking them, aim to make the world believe that this hell is paradise. Paradise lost, indeed!

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Added later: I realize that a casual reader may not know how the Venezuelan health care system works.

The public sector, the one where supposedly health care is free, includes two systems. The old one composed of public hospitals and "dispensarios" created before Chavez and never probably taken care of under Chavez, unless it is a hospital that his administration built or rebuilt, a tiny minority in spite of all the propaganda. And the parallel health system, created starting 2003 under Cuban directives. This one includes the famous to now infamous Barrio Adentro and the CDI which are mini hospitals of sorts. Corruption ridden this parallel system is simply unmanageable, contradicts too often the hospital system and is for all practical purposes working at half speed these days with maybe as much as half of the small Barrio Adentro modules closed. The public hospital system is so neglected that patients are routinely asked to bring even the bed sheets for the patients, and to have a relative spend the night so that the patient is not robbed of his medicine, food and health items (the fireman of the tale above was stolen of his belongings while he was laying on the pavement in the wait for an ambulance). Often surgeries are performed only after the patient ha provided a certain numbers of items from gauze to medication.

The private health sector in Venezuela range from small hospitals to major facilities but are all called "clinicas" or some related term, as the word hospital is reserved for the public sector.  It benefited of a steady grow and the best doctors until Chavez came to office. Since then many, too many of the brightest have emigrated. Meanwhile the developing insurance sector, propelled by by the willingness of people to fork big money to access proper heath care denied to them at public facilities has made the private sector which has stopped building major facilities, go from a resort like atmosphere in the 90ies to a crowded, noisy, even dirty public hospital feel of the same 90ies. Yet, the care dispensed there is sought, willing paid and still manages a decent quality considering all the impediments experienced. Refusal of care at emergency is still rather an exception than the rule though in smaller centers like the one the fireman was taken too it seems that such experiences are not unusual for the simple reason that they have no means, that all their emergency beds are taken all the time.

In non Snowden news: Venezuelan inflation for June is 4.7%

That is right, good news!!!!  After a 6% in May now we are down to 4.7% inflation for June!  Expect the regime to gloat on that, they is enough stupid around for some of them to say it so.

That gives us for 2013 a 25% inflation total for the first semester and an expected +/- 40% for year's end. Keep in mind that those are "official" numbers but that in the private sector we work with an expected inflation for the year of at least 50%. Note that the food inflation alone was 5.8%, the number that matters the most for el pueblo. But they keep voting for chavismo, they must be happy. "Viva Chavez! Carajo! Ahora si tenemos patria!" They will get the expected 55% inflation for food...... for the year. Let's see what happens then when even the potential 40%  minimum wage is indeed granted as promised.

Snowden renders media idiotic

And CNN is among the top in their obsession with headlines, driving them to draw a map of Snowden options.

At least that map illustrates quite well the idiocy that Snowden committed. In green the states that accepted him, and are, interestingly, among the top freedom violators of the world.  Venezuela is a major offender as private conversations are routinely taped by the regime and played on state TV, including enough manipulation of the material to perpetrate character assassination. Such playing being also illegal, of course. And there is no way to get a court to accept and process your complaint. And let's not get in all sorts of human rights violations  that take place daily here.  And Assange and the combo that manipulate Snowden from the start, do they think that going to Venezuela will improve their international standing?

No. What it is all about is a bunch of anti US guys willing to do anything, ANYTHING, to screw America as if this would arrange their own problems in life. Pathetic, from Maduro offering asylum in a country without toilet paper to Snowden looking more idiotic by the minute.

I have a question: do these creeps understand that their show is actually diminishing the US and other countries spying on our private lives? That their antics are totally counterproductive among the people that they seek to convince?

Chavez golden-red boys: Temir Porras as a poster case

Porras and pals

Perhaps the most interesting read this Sunday was El Nacional investigation on Temir Porras, the man Maduro seems to trust the most these days. The importance of this article is not actually in the information it gets about Temir Porras, a member of a regime becoming everyday more secretive. What makes this article important is that it describes how chavismo is creating its set of cadres, and thus this blog entry. El Nacional says that this is the first in a series of articles on this new generation formed into politics through these 14 years of chavismo. Something to look forward to.


Temir Porras is a nobody that made it big. He is smart enough to have benefited from the educational policies of the reviled ancien regime who sent him to study in Paris. Which does not stop him from criticizing anything that happened before Chavez.  While in France he joined that decaying left from the commie sympathies to the trotskyst one, a left that would become the "Front de Gauche" later, led by one of Chavez biggest admirers, Mélanchon, one of the most cynical and destructive of French politicians today. That left pseudo intelligentsia (with people like Ramonet) welcomed Chavez as a savior for their outdated ideology. That did help him a lot to burnish his credentials inside chavismo as a true lefty with contacts in France at a time where Chavez needed as much favorable propaganda as possible, around the years 2002-2004. From then on his career was on the rise even though his uncle is the bishop of Merida and one of the main opponents of Chavez in his earlier years.

Now Temir Porras who accompanied Maduro while he was foreign minister by becoming slowly but surely the real power at the ministry (the article gives him the power of being the one liquidating the old forms of diplomacy to make the ministry a mere propaganda agency and a Cuban ministry executive branch of sorts). With Maduro now at the presidency he has been entrusted the management of the funds that Maduro can control away of Giordani, Ramirez or Cabello grasp. Where real power resides in Venezuela. And Temir is now starting to put his own people in charge such as a French guy who remembered that he also had a Venezuelan passport, Maximilien Sanchez Arvelaiz, former writer for Narco News among others.

A product of the French system, nothing less but ENA

Now for the part that truly concerns this post: what is the profile of these golden-red boys that chavismo is forming (golden because in addition of their red ideas they do not seem to be allergic to money, including Temir who quickly dismisses financial accusations against him and his wife as right wing conspiracy).

They need to come from leftist background either through social resentment (resentimiento), their family, or actual Cuban education. I suspect that Temir is a resentido. His physique is what we would call in Venezuela a "bachaco" a very pejorative term who represents people light skinned, almost Caucasian looking, but with clear African ancestry. I am willing to bet anything that he has suffered from that and that his extensive education in France has not cured him from his social resentment. Even more if he associated with leftist groups who love exoticism.

We can get more hints of his condition through his Facebook page, his blog and a comment from El Nacional article as to him loving to speak in French in front of Venezuelan nationals that do not understand the language. Clearly, based on the pictures shown (of which I lifted these two), the guy has an active ego and is trying to compensate for something. This would go a long way into explaining why he put his skills at the service of a regime that has evolved into the most corrupt of our history but that allows him plenty of figuration. Heck, he was even the official representative to the IberoAmerican summit last year when Chavez was in death throes and Maduro too busy to cash in the inheritance to be bothered by the said summit.

And yet we suspect a lack of personality. His Tweeter account consists mostly of retweets, and when he tweets himself it is a mere rehash of the usual chavista attacks.  Has chavismo filled a void in his existence?

Is he any good?  By normal standards of ethics no. Besides what I El Nacional tells us, I happen to know someone that worked next to him for a while. I reserve the details to protect that person. Temir had an important supervising position that he never exercised. He spent his days behind closed doors, either in his office or the one of his boss, receiving people that had no business to do there. In short, his official job was an excuse to get a paid check while he was doing political activities elsewhere for his boss of the time. I have been told that his departure from that position was greeted with relief because his continuous absence from his job was creating many problems for the activities of other people in the office whose work depended on his absentee decisions.

But for the regime he must have been a very good operator in ways that we, from the civilized side of society, simply cannot fathom, and less understand. Now his arrival to an outright ministry is a matter of time, depending on when will Maduro be able to finally appoint the people he wants to appoint.

It is interesting to see how someone who had access to French culture and education has been able to sell himself so well to an undemocratic system, espousing closely its intolerance, discrimination, corruption and vulgarity, as El Nacional piece also hints at with comments such as what he makes from the protesting students. But I suppose that this is what the regime does to you when you subject to its wishes for your personal gains and/or revenge.  Temir Porras seems to have become the type of person that will be able to destroy other people if needs arise, following orders.  We are left to wonder how far he has transitioned into fascism, and I am afraid that we are going to find very similar stories in the next installments of El Nacional series.  What we also need to be concerned with is that this class of non democratic bureaucrats are the seedling for tomorrow chavista politicians, those that the democratic opposition will have to confront if it makes it to power some day. A class of people that are at least as devoid of scruples as Temir Porras seems to have become.