I have been the victim of a robbery. I am physically fine but morally deeply wounded. Not from the material loss, although my wedding band was stolen as my partner faces deadly cancer, which by itself is enough to send me to a dark place.
What truly did me in was the way it happened.
I was driving, exiting the Carcas main highway at the El Recreo level. To avoid a pot hole as I slowed down I swerved somewhat and I scared a motorbike that was passing me at full speed on the left. The guy honked pissed off and I had the misfortune to raise my hand (no flip) in a "what have you me do?" gesture. That was too much for him. He blocked me and forced me to pull on the side in an area which unfortunately has no pedestrian traffic.
He acted very much like a police officer and I thought that I was going to get a fine, or would have to bribe him. But something was different. The guy was dressed all in black, including gloves, kevlar like coat, with the thickness that bullet proof gives you. A helmet that looked particularly sturdy. And no badges on him nor plates on his bike. So the thought that this was something else crept fast.
He made me open the passengers window and the conversation that followed was all about terror. I just cannot remember exactly such was the impression but this is the content.
First he said that he was "un funcionario" which in the context means that he was some kind of guy working in state security. Then he said that he could shoot me if he wanted and asked me if I knew that, if I was truly aware of that..........
Three times during the conversation, for lack of a better word, he would remind me that he could shoot me at will, implying clearly that this would not affect him in anyway.
He tried to figure out who I was and what I did but I choked on words so afraid that he could kidnap me of threaten my loved ones.
Then he said, "you know what, give me your ring". All always with a monotone cool voice, with a good choice of words. The guy had some education, he was not just a "malandro" or a "colectivo". In fact, as I thought later, part of his terror tactic was actually to speak to me with respect as he threatened me.
He could have asked for my cell phone, a major source of robbery these days. Or taken the three packs of dearly bought powder milk that I had on the seat and was taking to my SO. Or he could have called a pal to steal my car.
No, he was thinking about a way to hurt me and when he asked for my ring he knew he had me as IMMEDIATELY I thought about my SO. I tried to mumble something, to negotiate something else as instinctively I realized that this was not about robbery. He just became sterner, more icy cold. I had to hand him the ring and then he extended his hand forcing me to shake it as if we were good friends.
Then he left. And my car would not start... Finally it did, I made my way to the SO place where the nervous breakdown took place as you may expect. Me first apologizing in tears about losing the ring, until I realized that was exactly what that criminal wanted me to do, to feel guilty. Which made me recover fast.
Now, this was what we can call a clear fascist act, of the most abject totalitarian nature. A brutal show of force, for the sake of it, through crafted psychological torture. I use deliberately fascist over communist because if in the end the terror and the pain are the same, in a commie torture there is always a hint of legality, a hint of speaking in the name of someone else. For example when the guy started to talk he could have said that I should be more careful about annoying a Representative of "el pueblo" and then do the same threats and steal the ring. Or add a plain "you do not deserve that ring, you escualido". No, this was just a "I am pissed at you and I could do things to you just because I can and nothing will happen to me even if you were to be able to report me. You are mine, kneel. And be thankful that I will only do this to you today".
I will go one step further. Since Hannah Arendt the concept of totalitarianism has somewhat evolved in an era of mass communication which makes psychological manipulation easier. What I saw was how communism has morphed into a special type of fascism, perhaps the truest form of totalitarianism. This comes from the Cuban training, I have no doubt. This is what happens in Cuba for those that are willing to see it as it is, a fascist country where terror is the glue. It is also what happens in Burma, or in some African states through a dose of tribalism. This, I am willing to bet, is not how things were managed in Chile or Argentina. Again, the end result is the same, the victim is fucked up. My point I guess is that more than killing, the real terror is in the idea of the possibility of killing at will and no one will care.
No one.
Having people like me walk around, or luminaries like Yoani Sanchez able to talk a little bit only reinforces the point: we are there at their suffering.
Showing posts with label fascism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fascism. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 March 2016
Saturday, 11 May 2013
Will the Venezuelan regime dare to put Polar on the scaffold? (or gallows, depending you local lingo)
I was on the road today and only tonight did I get the latest idiocies of the regime. This one must feel quite a lot of heat to consider taking over Polar, the largest private company in Venezuela, which today may represent about 4% of the GNP of Venezuela, a high number not because of any monopolistic intentions from Polar but because in a sea of bankruptcies and expropriations the Polar ship is somehow still afloat.
But first a little bit of background.
Last Wednesday as evidence of food shortages increased I wrote a template for people to understand what is going on (it is my line of work, you know, and in all modesty I think I know better than Maduro). Not wanting to be repetitive, in a nutshell, the regime controls the distribution of food in Venezuela, and the supply of raw materials to food manufacturers, either through access to currency, or by simply authorizing who gets what of each crop, or deciding what raw material can be imported regardless of the country rel needs. To this you had disastrous expropriations of productive lands, labor laws that make it very difficult to get a stable working schedule, the poor state of infrastructure from terrible roads to frequent power outages and you can guess why is it that the country needs to import straight half of its food at least.
All of this is not news but since the disease of Chavez the only care of the regime has been to survive and thus economic matters have simply not been dealt with. Period. As a consequence in the last two months the scarcity crisis has started to take a dangerous turn and the difficulty to get the basic corn flour for the "arepa" is becoming fast a political problem for the regime, as if it needed yet one more.
Anticipating an attack from the regime, Polar has already being preparing itself. After all, Polar is tired of all the attacks that Chavez himself did, but always balking once at the edge. After all, Chavez had the required intelligence to understand that his expropriations were a failure and that he simply could not afford to starve the country if he dared to take Polar. I am afraid his heirs have no such notion and may be willing to take that chance, in particular the idiot serving as Vice President, Arreaza, just because he nailed one of Chavez daughters, el bragetazo, the zipper flash, you know what for....
The market share for corn flour by Polar, Harina P.A.N., is roughly half of it. Certainly if the regime would let it be so, Polar has the technical expertise to grow all the required corn and produce 100% of corn flour required in Venezuela. I am willing to wager that in half a decade Polar could reach that goal if it wanted to and were allowed to do so, and we would all be the better for. But Chavez has hated Polar always because Polar is the symbol of what is good in Venezuelans that we can be successful and productive and honest and creative when chavismo is neither of those, plus a few tares of its own. I apologize for the chauvinistic tone of this paragraph but sometimes things need to be spelled out for the idiot chavista that still visit this blog. Thus Chavez has tried to counter Polar by taking over or pretending to build the competition of Polar, going as far as taking away grain producers from Polar so that it would not have access to corn. Polar let it be, knowing full well that the inherent chavismo incompetence would show sooner or later.
Sure enough, we got that show this week.
Thus, perhaps unwisely but knowing that the regime would attack anyway, Polar in its official tweet states that the problem is not Harina PAN which is working full speed but the other brands that are not produced anymore. I pick a couple of the tweets for your information.
I am not concerned about Polar whatsoever: I know that they have ALL the paper trail from the regime itself that can prove that not only they cannot hoard shit, but that they produce as much as they are able to do. It is possible that Polar has "decreased" its production artificially because its corn supply is not enough and on their own they have started a mild form of rationing by becoming on purpose and provisionally less productive. But even if this were to be true, can we blame Polar? Would it be a good idea to pull it all out of the silos in a couple of weeks and then wait for the next harvest starting at best in July?
What I am concerned with is the regime, that it is clearly losing its senses, if it had any left. In Maduro demands against Polar today we even learned that the regime had already sustained meetings with Polar, so we wonder why is it they want Lorenzo Mendoza Tuesday in Arreaza's office. But one of these meetings was with the dense Rafael Ramirez, the one that has ruined PDVSA, the biggest enabler of corruption himself in Venezuela. So we learn that he met "cordially" with Polar's Mendoza himself, that he told him collaboration was possible but that they would never sign a pact with the bourgeoisie. Huh? I wonder if really Ramirez is that stupid, though I can believe that he has become that stupid, that he now believes that threats against the last person able to help him out in Venezuela are going to stimulate Mendoza.....
I am telling you, this show today worries me because the regime feels cornered and it is thus becoming mental. In their pathological need to prove that they won in April, that they are able to rule and do as they please, they are willing to put the country in starvation......
But first a little bit of background.
Last Wednesday as evidence of food shortages increased I wrote a template for people to understand what is going on (it is my line of work, you know, and in all modesty I think I know better than Maduro). Not wanting to be repetitive, in a nutshell, the regime controls the distribution of food in Venezuela, and the supply of raw materials to food manufacturers, either through access to currency, or by simply authorizing who gets what of each crop, or deciding what raw material can be imported regardless of the country rel needs. To this you had disastrous expropriations of productive lands, labor laws that make it very difficult to get a stable working schedule, the poor state of infrastructure from terrible roads to frequent power outages and you can guess why is it that the country needs to import straight half of its food at least.
All of this is not news but since the disease of Chavez the only care of the regime has been to survive and thus economic matters have simply not been dealt with. Period. As a consequence in the last two months the scarcity crisis has started to take a dangerous turn and the difficulty to get the basic corn flour for the "arepa" is becoming fast a political problem for the regime, as if it needed yet one more.
Anticipating an attack from the regime, Polar has already being preparing itself. After all, Polar is tired of all the attacks that Chavez himself did, but always balking once at the edge. After all, Chavez had the required intelligence to understand that his expropriations were a failure and that he simply could not afford to starve the country if he dared to take Polar. I am afraid his heirs have no such notion and may be willing to take that chance, in particular the idiot serving as Vice President, Arreaza, just because he nailed one of Chavez daughters, el bragetazo, the zipper flash, you know what for....
The market share for corn flour by Polar, Harina P.A.N., is roughly half of it. Certainly if the regime would let it be so, Polar has the technical expertise to grow all the required corn and produce 100% of corn flour required in Venezuela. I am willing to wager that in half a decade Polar could reach that goal if it wanted to and were allowed to do so, and we would all be the better for. But Chavez has hated Polar always because Polar is the symbol of what is good in Venezuelans that we can be successful and productive and honest and creative when chavismo is neither of those, plus a few tares of its own. I apologize for the chauvinistic tone of this paragraph but sometimes things need to be spelled out for the idiot chavista that still visit this blog. Thus Chavez has tried to counter Polar by taking over or pretending to build the competition of Polar, going as far as taking away grain producers from Polar so that it would not have access to corn. Polar let it be, knowing full well that the inherent chavismo incompetence would show sooner or later.
Sure enough, we got that show this week.
Thus, perhaps unwisely but knowing that the regime would attack anyway, Polar in its official tweet states that the problem is not Harina PAN which is working full speed but the other brands that are not produced anymore. I pick a couple of the tweets for your information.
Harina PAN atiende el 48% del mercado y se está produciendo al 100% de capacidad. ¿Dónde están las demás marcas?
— Empresas Polar (@EmpresasPolar) May 9, 2013
Harina PAN se produce al 100% de su capacidad, pero no alcanza para todos por la insuficiente oferta de otras marcasMaduro coming back from a not very successful foreign tour finds this mess and decides to take the offensive. In the video below you see the moment in today's cadena when he grotesquely demands that Lorenzo Mendoza, CEO/owner of Polar, comes next Tuesday to the office of Arreaza to account on why is Polar not producing as much as "it is supposed", why it is dropping production and all sorts of other stuff which the readers by now know are not the fault of Polar but of the regime which controls are simply suffocating all. Polar has accepted the challenge. And Arreaza is an idiot for suggesting such a scene (I am sure he did, he is mean and idiot enough for that mistake, for giving Polar a platform to criticize visibly the regime policies if it wishes so).
— Empresas Polar (@EmpresasPolar) May 9, 2013
I am not concerned about Polar whatsoever: I know that they have ALL the paper trail from the regime itself that can prove that not only they cannot hoard shit, but that they produce as much as they are able to do. It is possible that Polar has "decreased" its production artificially because its corn supply is not enough and on their own they have started a mild form of rationing by becoming on purpose and provisionally less productive. But even if this were to be true, can we blame Polar? Would it be a good idea to pull it all out of the silos in a couple of weeks and then wait for the next harvest starting at best in July?
What I am concerned with is the regime, that it is clearly losing its senses, if it had any left. In Maduro demands against Polar today we even learned that the regime had already sustained meetings with Polar, so we wonder why is it they want Lorenzo Mendoza Tuesday in Arreaza's office. But one of these meetings was with the dense Rafael Ramirez, the one that has ruined PDVSA, the biggest enabler of corruption himself in Venezuela. So we learn that he met "cordially" with Polar's Mendoza himself, that he told him collaboration was possible but that they would never sign a pact with the bourgeoisie. Huh? I wonder if really Ramirez is that stupid, though I can believe that he has become that stupid, that he now believes that threats against the last person able to help him out in Venezuela are going to stimulate Mendoza.....
I am telling you, this show today worries me because the regime feels cornered and it is thus becoming mental. In their pathological need to prove that they won in April, that they are able to rule and do as they please, they are willing to put the country in starvation......
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Taking the gloves off: Capriles tells explicitly that Maduro stole the election
I did not know how to title this entry but scanning for background before typing it I thought that an adaption of Spain' El Pais would do. Because this is exactly what Capriles has done tonight: he has officially claimed that the election has been stolen from him. I am putting the portion of the video at the end of the post.
Far from me at this point to tell you that he is right or not, no matter how much evidence is already available. I am too far from the centers of opposition power and too ignored by them to be able to defend them, not that they need it much these days.
HOWEVER......
There is a few signs that show quite clearly that chavismo has something to hide. They are coming back on their word given at the UNASUR meeting of last Friday. The electoral board, CNE, goes all around saying that the results are irreversible no matter what the audit will say. They refuse to answer the written request of Capriles commando. And they are not even offering a serious audit methodology.
To this you add the ruthless campaign going on against Capriles in the state media and you do not need much to start agreeing with me: the regime has something to hide and is trying desperately to avoid an audit. When that has happened in historical situations, I would bet anything that at least 90% of the time the people on power lost the election and were trying to retain office through cheating.
We must thus recast the battle in proper terms: this is not anymore about whether Capriles got a vote more or a vote less: this is about democracy, accounting, ethics, and the rule of law. And this is exactly what Capriles did tonight, stupidly proven right by yet another governmental abuse during his press conference.
This week has brought an increased attack against Capriles: personal, fascist in the best tradition of Goebbels and his Cuban distinguished students. The worse was yesterday's noon cadena where edited videos of last week wanted to prove that Capriles had been the single organizer of all the violence that happened last week. This came along the equally fascist threats from Iris Varela as to her having a cell bunk ready for Capriles, without mentioning the wave of repression that has fallen over the country since April 14, from tortured student protesting to firing public employees who were at the water cooler at the wrong time, because someone hear them pronounce the word Capriles.
Capriles took his time and replied tonight, not wanting to perturb what mattered more, that the CNE fess up to its promise of last Friday. But as this one was not coming he went to a press conference tonight to speak his truth.
Of course, only Globovision was showing him, the other "independent" networks having been duly brow beaten by the regime last week with direct threats from Maduro (well, he threatened Televen, the only one that still shows on occasion real news). And yet the regime knows that when Capriles speaks people tune in to Globovision and maybe half of the country on TV is watching him. So the regime did the only thing they know to do: silence him. They suddenly played again the cadena of yesterday, cutting sharp Capriles press conference (reminder: a cadena is the forced commandeering by the state of ALL TV AND RADIO STATIONS for a simultaneous broadcast, with no right to reply for anyone, of course not even on state TV late at night).
That way I could see that infamous cadena that I had missed for being at work. It certainly was infamous and show all the power of the state magnifying incidents that happen in any national election in Venezuela to the status of coup mongering and terrorism, all under the order of Capriles. Editing does wonders, you know.
Once the cadena was over (I am sparing you the details, in particular of the Peopl'e Ombudsman who clearly thinks that non chavistas are not people) Globovision went back to where Capriles left and this one, certainly expecting such a clumsy move, had already at hand all the material to discredit the cadena, while showing pictures of the tortured students and wondering whether the Venezuelan state prosecutor was also going to investigate these victims.
All of Capriles presentation was this forceful, tearing down one by one the mask of the CNE and Maduro, announcing that the elections had been stolen from him, that he did not care about the threats, that they should dare put him in jail, giving the CNE an ultimatum, while reminding that the new regime had still to do anything positive for the people in spite of being in office since last December 8. He even found a way to totally humiliate Madruo while he replied to a journalist question about Maduro overreacting by putting to jail the heckler at his inauguration. "Ridiculo! No seas Bolsa" he said, which loosely translate as "you are ridiculous, do not be a nincompoop". That heckler, by the way, having also crashed in the past a Chavez event and a Capriles one and even a Miss Venezuela. Needless to say that
became instant Twitter trends in Venezuela.
I cannot remember when a just elected president was ridiculed so fast, and given zero honey moon......
Of course this means that the ante are going up. But the regime is the one forcing the issue, overpalying its hands with lies and manipulations, unable to explain why ballots should not be audited properly even though the law allows for that.. Capriles ended up with an unassailable ploy: he called everyone to go to church next Sunday and pray for the country. But I doubt that this will slow down the inexorable march of the regime towards open violence.
Far from me at this point to tell you that he is right or not, no matter how much evidence is already available. I am too far from the centers of opposition power and too ignored by them to be able to defend them, not that they need it much these days.
HOWEVER......
There is a few signs that show quite clearly that chavismo has something to hide. They are coming back on their word given at the UNASUR meeting of last Friday. The electoral board, CNE, goes all around saying that the results are irreversible no matter what the audit will say. They refuse to answer the written request of Capriles commando. And they are not even offering a serious audit methodology.
To this you add the ruthless campaign going on against Capriles in the state media and you do not need much to start agreeing with me: the regime has something to hide and is trying desperately to avoid an audit. When that has happened in historical situations, I would bet anything that at least 90% of the time the people on power lost the election and were trying to retain office through cheating.
We must thus recast the battle in proper terms: this is not anymore about whether Capriles got a vote more or a vote less: this is about democracy, accounting, ethics, and the rule of law. And this is exactly what Capriles did tonight, stupidly proven right by yet another governmental abuse during his press conference.
This week has brought an increased attack against Capriles: personal, fascist in the best tradition of Goebbels and his Cuban distinguished students. The worse was yesterday's noon cadena where edited videos of last week wanted to prove that Capriles had been the single organizer of all the violence that happened last week. This came along the equally fascist threats from Iris Varela as to her having a cell bunk ready for Capriles, without mentioning the wave of repression that has fallen over the country since April 14, from tortured student protesting to firing public employees who were at the water cooler at the wrong time, because someone hear them pronounce the word Capriles.
Capriles took his time and replied tonight, not wanting to perturb what mattered more, that the CNE fess up to its promise of last Friday. But as this one was not coming he went to a press conference tonight to speak his truth.
Of course, only Globovision was showing him, the other "independent" networks having been duly brow beaten by the regime last week with direct threats from Maduro (well, he threatened Televen, the only one that still shows on occasion real news). And yet the regime knows that when Capriles speaks people tune in to Globovision and maybe half of the country on TV is watching him. So the regime did the only thing they know to do: silence him. They suddenly played again the cadena of yesterday, cutting sharp Capriles press conference (reminder: a cadena is the forced commandeering by the state of ALL TV AND RADIO STATIONS for a simultaneous broadcast, with no right to reply for anyone, of course not even on state TV late at night).
That way I could see that infamous cadena that I had missed for being at work. It certainly was infamous and show all the power of the state magnifying incidents that happen in any national election in Venezuela to the status of coup mongering and terrorism, all under the order of Capriles. Editing does wonders, you know.
Once the cadena was over (I am sparing you the details, in particular of the Peopl'e Ombudsman who clearly thinks that non chavistas are not people) Globovision went back to where Capriles left and this one, certainly expecting such a clumsy move, had already at hand all the material to discredit the cadena, while showing pictures of the tortured students and wondering whether the Venezuelan state prosecutor was also going to investigate these victims.
All of Capriles presentation was this forceful, tearing down one by one the mask of the CNE and Maduro, announcing that the elections had been stolen from him, that he did not care about the threats, that they should dare put him in jail, giving the CNE an ultimatum, while reminding that the new regime had still to do anything positive for the people in spite of being in office since last December 8. He even found a way to totally humiliate Madruo while he replied to a journalist question about Maduro overreacting by putting to jail the heckler at his inauguration. "Ridiculo! No seas Bolsa" he said, which loosely translate as "you are ridiculous, do not be a nincompoop". That heckler, by the way, having also crashed in the past a Chavez event and a Capriles one and even a Miss Venezuela. Needless to say that
#elpropiobolsa and #SeRobaronLasElecciones
became instant Twitter trends in Venezuela.
I cannot remember when a just elected president was ridiculed so fast, and given zero honey moon......
Of course this means that the ante are going up. But the regime is the one forcing the issue, overpalying its hands with lies and manipulations, unable to explain why ballots should not be audited properly even though the law allows for that.. Capriles ended up with an unassailable ploy: he called everyone to go to church next Sunday and pray for the country. But I doubt that this will slow down the inexorable march of the regime towards open violence.
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Chavismo has lost any democratic character, if it ever had one
One nice thing about Chavez was that we could measure the democratic content of chavismo by looking at him. Since on very rare instances Chavez had a democratic word, we could assume that perhaps inside chavismo there were people more democratic in nature than he was, that they were just repressed, closeted democrats, and that someday they would prevail.
We have been proven wrong: there is no democratic bone inside chavismo, and for all that I know, whatever democrats co existed inside may have been purged by 2007 at the latest.
A few days ago I reported on already two videos showing how public employees were prosecuted just under any suspicion that they may not be ardent supporters of Maduro. Things have been getting worse this week as reports come from all around the country of massive purges inside the public sector (1). I am not going to go into the many details, limiting myself to what is becoming viral, the video from Ricardo Molina saying that in his "habitat and housing" ministry he will personally fire whoever does not resign because of their support of Capriles. Nothing new really, you may say, but in the video, besides wearing the new fascist arm band of Venezuela, Molina says that he does not give a shit about Venezuelan labor laws. He will proceed as he wants, period.
This, my friends, even if you cannot understand Spanish, is the portrait of fascism in Venezuela; the look, the manners, the violence. It is all there, he just needs to get started. And he surely will get his chance because even after this speech Maduro CONFIRMED in in his ministerial job......
And yet that is not all. Iris Varela, the crazed minster for Venezuela jail system, at which she has dismally failed but to which she was ratified by Maduro this week end, decided today that she had a cell space for Capriles. In an official capacity she extended herself lengthily on how she was going to put Capriles in jail, on how she was preparing one adequate for him, where noting would happen to him. Amazingly implying that she did not control jails but she could control parts of them. The woman was putting herself as accuser, judge, jury and warden. Fascism again, let's not be shy with words here.
And yet, Maduro having already two minsters who should be fired without any contemplation dares to call for "dialogue". But you should see the quality of that dialogue. First, he names a commission of three to talk. They are Diosdado Cabello who slammed down the microphones at the National Assembly, Jorge Arreaza, the Chavez son in law reputed as the leader of the pro Castro radical left and Cilia Flores, his "wife in waiting", who has had a distinguished career in making life miserable to anyone that disagreed with them. Really, Nicolas......
And yet it is not all: Maduro will not talk with Capriles, only those inside the opposition that do not agree with the ultra neoliberal right wing model or some similar adjectives. He will talk to them individually, not even as a dissident group. So there goes the strategy: Capriles is the head honcho so we need to weaken him by prying a few away, buying them as needed I suppose, until propaganda can work out some form of claim that he is not the leader of the opposition. The final objective is clear: to liquidate politically Capriles the way they did with Rosales in 2007. But times have changed and this time erasing Capriles is not going to be enough.
I wonder what else is needed among some of those supporters of chavismo that still persist in trying to make us believe that Venezuela is a healthy democracy (here and here for the latest inanities that were sent to me today alone).
-----------------------------------
1- One thing also needs to be mentioned: not only the private sector is cutting down on its work force because of the crisis, but the public sector is also doing it. See, there is just no money anymore, and economic activity is expected to take a major hit this year. I suppose that it is also part of the calculation of the regime, to fire as many people as they can under political excuses so as not to admit lay off for economic policy failure. It sounds crazy, it is very clumsy, but these people are losing it fast.....
We have been proven wrong: there is no democratic bone inside chavismo, and for all that I know, whatever democrats co existed inside may have been purged by 2007 at the latest.
A few days ago I reported on already two videos showing how public employees were prosecuted just under any suspicion that they may not be ardent supporters of Maduro. Things have been getting worse this week as reports come from all around the country of massive purges inside the public sector (1). I am not going to go into the many details, limiting myself to what is becoming viral, the video from Ricardo Molina saying that in his "habitat and housing" ministry he will personally fire whoever does not resign because of their support of Capriles. Nothing new really, you may say, but in the video, besides wearing the new fascist arm band of Venezuela, Molina says that he does not give a shit about Venezuelan labor laws. He will proceed as he wants, period.
This, my friends, even if you cannot understand Spanish, is the portrait of fascism in Venezuela; the look, the manners, the violence. It is all there, he just needs to get started. And he surely will get his chance because even after this speech Maduro CONFIRMED in in his ministerial job......
And yet that is not all. Iris Varela, the crazed minster for Venezuela jail system, at which she has dismally failed but to which she was ratified by Maduro this week end, decided today that she had a cell space for Capriles. In an official capacity she extended herself lengthily on how she was going to put Capriles in jail, on how she was preparing one adequate for him, where noting would happen to him. Amazingly implying that she did not control jails but she could control parts of them. The woman was putting herself as accuser, judge, jury and warden. Fascism again, let's not be shy with words here.
And yet, Maduro having already two minsters who should be fired without any contemplation dares to call for "dialogue". But you should see the quality of that dialogue. First, he names a commission of three to talk. They are Diosdado Cabello who slammed down the microphones at the National Assembly, Jorge Arreaza, the Chavez son in law reputed as the leader of the pro Castro radical left and Cilia Flores, his "wife in waiting", who has had a distinguished career in making life miserable to anyone that disagreed with them. Really, Nicolas......
And yet it is not all: Maduro will not talk with Capriles, only those inside the opposition that do not agree with the ultra neoliberal right wing model or some similar adjectives. He will talk to them individually, not even as a dissident group. So there goes the strategy: Capriles is the head honcho so we need to weaken him by prying a few away, buying them as needed I suppose, until propaganda can work out some form of claim that he is not the leader of the opposition. The final objective is clear: to liquidate politically Capriles the way they did with Rosales in 2007. But times have changed and this time erasing Capriles is not going to be enough.
I wonder what else is needed among some of those supporters of chavismo that still persist in trying to make us believe that Venezuela is a healthy democracy (here and here for the latest inanities that were sent to me today alone).
-----------------------------------
1- One thing also needs to be mentioned: not only the private sector is cutting down on its work force because of the crisis, but the public sector is also doing it. See, there is just no money anymore, and economic activity is expected to take a major hit this year. I suppose that it is also part of the calculation of the regime, to fire as many people as they can under political excuses so as not to admit lay off for economic policy failure. It sounds crazy, it is very clumsy, but these people are losing it fast.....
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