Venezuela News And ViewsVenezuela News And Views: Great moments in nationalist histrionics
Venezuela News And Views
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Great moments in nationalist histrionics
The Venezuela, or rather Chavez, debacle at the UN gives us great occasions to observe some variety of chavista fauna go into fits. Last I reported on how the vice president of the republic, J.V. Rangel accused the opposition of being “cipayos” (sepoys) not realizing himself that he is no better than a cipayo of Castro, as much as his boss is. Well, one could argue that his boss is even worse than a sepoy in his adoration of Castro since he does not even seem to require some of payments that a sepoy usually asks for. But I digress.
As I am on the road I am catching the news late but there were two items that I did catch and are worth sharing.
La Hojilla as an angst exercise
La Hojilla is a particularly disgusting state TV show, VTV, where some guy using a bust of Che on ther front of his desk spends up to two hours trying to discredit any news reported by private media (1). All of this at tax payer expense. In vulgarity, truth twisting, anxiety and vileness, it is difficult to find something that could match the infamy of some of the Hojillla occurrences.
I turned on last night late because, well, after the dramatic week at the UN I was morbidly curious. I was not disappointed. The speaker was trying to make a point that at the UN it was a Venezuelan position, not a Chavez position. Something of course that even some semi enlightened chavista would disagree with. But pretty much it was in the line of the VP “cipayo” comment. What was particularly interesting was his particular use of obnoxious and meaningless props, including historical examples of long ago as this would justify today’s abuses at the UN. I will spare you the details: they were not even as meaningful as the shifting eye of the guy who was at once trying to hide his anger against the opposition and trying to hide that, well, he was lying and he knew it. That is, just like a small kid that has been caught and is trying to make up some story. It would be amusing except that it was done at tax payer expense. And all of this is not accounted by CNE as pro Chaevz pro electoral proganda, by the way.
Mari Pili goes hysteric
Long ago I reported that one of the token chavista columnist of El Nacional, Mari Pili Hernandez, was a lousy columnist who spent her time trying to sugar coat as unpalatable a Chavez utterance as she could deal with (here and here). Her “new agesy” approach, while she is only one to two pages away of the substantial Milagros Soccoro, is particularly pathetic when she tries to give advice to the opposition.
Thursday she just went over the edge and the last paragraph is worth translating (the article is a worthless piece of hagiography that does not deserve more than a cursory glance). I put it in Spanish below and then my own translation, to make sure that the reader gets the full effect (sorry, El Nacional is only by subscription)
Orgullo de ser venezolanos Frente a esta situación, ¡qué orgullo da ser venezolana! ¡Qué alegría estar viviendo este momento histórico, en el que la patria le pertenece a los venezolanos y no al gobierno de turno de Estados Unidos! ¡Qué orgullo da sentirse dignos herederos de Bolívar! ¡Qué orgullo saber que nuestro país es libre, independiente y soberano! ¡Qué orgullo tener un presidente que no se arrodilla y que tiene como único jefe al pueblo venezolano!
Proud of being a Venezuelan In front of this situation [the miserable 70-80 to 100-110 UNSC vote result], what a pride of being Venezuelan! What a joy of being living such an historical moment, where the fatherland belongs to Venezuelans and not to whomever is in charge in the US! What pride in feeling like a deserving heir of Bolivar! What a pride in knowing that our country is free, independent and sovereign [“soberano” has become a meaning loaded word in Venezuela that defies any real translation]! What pride to have a president who does not kneel and who has as his only boss the people of Venezuela!
The easy explanation is of course that Mari Pili does not live in the same country as I do. But that would be too easy and would hide the real importance of these words: the bimbo (sorry, not other word comes to mind to this ardent feminist as Mari Pili seems to be the negation of feminism in spite of her revolutionnary inclinations) that wrote that indecent sycophancy is (was?) the vice foreign minister in charge of North America relations. And with those words she comes dangerously close to support war for Venezuela: the tile of the article is “Rodilla en tierra”, which means knee on ground, ready to shoot. So much for the love campaign of Chavez.
Meanwhile for those who worry about what is Chavez foreign policy all about, well, now with such an assistant you know better.
--- --- --- --- --- 1) There is a link to a rather lousy web page but at the beginning you can download the pic of the host who floats in his left hand the logos of the private media shown above. Apparently he thinks that he really hurts them. Quite telling even before you read a single word of the page.
posted by Daniel Permalink 3:43 PM
Written from the Venezuelan provinces, this blog started as private letters to my friends overseas, letters narrating the difficult days of the 2002/2003 strike in Venezuela. These letters became this mix of news, comments, pictures of the Venezuelan situation. Unknowingly, I have written the diary of Venezuela slow descent into authoritarianism, the slow erosion of our liberties, the takeover of the country by a military caste, the surrendering of our soul to our inner demons.
Click logo above to go directly to the English language blog. Click here to go to the Spanish language mirror.
Estamos en Venezuela, nunca se sabe. In spite of its Spanish title, an irregular blog about a French student observing Venezuela. Interesting pictures.
General info and discontinued blogs but with good archives
Venezuela Crisis has a visual and textual record "hors pair" of the recent electoral campaign in Venezuela, the first blogger to have covered live a Venezuelan campaign. Seems to be on a resting phase for a few weeks.
Digital papers with Venezuela and LatAm in mind (in Spanish)
There are two major digital papers with forums and all, for a permanent clash between factions. Noticiero Digital is the oldest one and Noticias 24 is giving it a run for tis money.
And a new comer:Venezuela es noticia.
Ciudadania Activa has a large selection of articles on Venezuelan politics and civil rights issues.
Relevant info to expose some of the regime's propaganda and human rights violations
The lies of April
The famous "infamous" video "The revolution will not be televised" has been duly analyzed and shown to be in large measure a crass manipulation. Counter-video in Spanish here, and summary of main points here.
There is a documentary that follows the April 2002 events from the perspective on what Chavez did that April 11, "La Cadena". It is about the forced broadcast made by Chavez to hide the massacre of the pacific march on Miraflores.
The infamous apartheid like system of the Tascon and Maisanta lists
The compilation of various documents from Miguel.
The video "La Lista" and my reviews in English and Spanish by invitation at Hispalibertas.
The El Nacional review of Perez Oramas.
The original video itself can be seen here.
Diverse Human Rights pages
Of course, from Amnesty International to the Human Rights Watch page, without forgetting local organizations such as prestigious COFAVIC, the Venezuelan government comes only too often lacking in its Human Rights record.
OTHER FOLKS WITH VENEZUELA MORE OR LESS IN THEIR MIND (Please send links that should be added here)
And of course to be fair there must be links to pro-Chavez sites. I do pride myself of having been the first opposition blog to have listed pro Chavez links; a situation that has now changed. However extremely rare is the pro Chavez page or blog that links to any of the sites listed above. The readers might draw their own conclusion
Aporrea (Beat up, bruise! as in the imperative mode of the verb; the only interesting one if you can read Spanish. Predicts the future)
And of course the full time propaganda agencies, ALL at tax payer expenses, the National Radio coverage, RNV, and the rather deficient official news agency, ABN (both in Spanish).
Without forgetting the "official" newsletter in English.
Some blogs, more or less sycophantic.
Yosmary, campaigning for Mario Silva, quite something.
Less sycophantic, even critical on occasion Terreno baldio.
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Map of Venezuela to help you locate the different locales mentioned through the blog (click here for a more detailed map)
For the memories. The picture below dates from the epic days of the December 2002/January 2003 "El Paro", when the opposition was strong and decided, and when Chavez was low in polls.
Then came the "misiones" and the worst populist episode of our history. Through pacific protests and strikes we tried to preserve democracy.
History proved us right even if we lost that battle.
Marching toward Hotel Melia, 01/31/03, 5 PM.
Small yellow square under the Pepsi ball is the big stage.
A special thanks to JoAnne Schmitz for the suggestions and help in setting this blog up.
expense. In vulgarity, truth twisting, anxiety and vileness, it is difficult to find something that could match the infamy of some of the Hojillla occurrences.
