Chavez regime permanent propaganda machine, insults included

It is still amazing that to this day people outside of Venezuela still cannot comprehend the extent of the Chavez propaganda machinery at home, for the simple reason that such amount of propaganda is now inconceivable in democratic countries.  Thus people cannot believe what is happening in Venezuela.  That is, until they spend a week in a hotel room of Caracas...  To give you a sense of the degree of propaganda that we are subjected to I am posting this little video that I filmed myself from my TV set (explaining the poor quality).  Fret not, it is barely 45 second long.  This video is a report of a cell phone assembly plant in Venezuela, a "socialist enterprise", and it ends up insulting those who do not think such an endeavor is the latest cat's meow.



There is no need really to translate the video, I will just point out the salient moments.

The intro from Globovision

The first thing you need to know is that since 2004 the government took the right to pass a certain amount of "institutional messages" for free on EVERY TV network and EVERY radio station, free of charge, without any possibility of the network or radio station to object to its content.  To give you an idea, imagine that the US government were allowed such a privilege and were to force on Christian radios an advertisement for a scientific international event featuring among its main topics the latest findings on the age of earth.  Or if PBS were forced to broadcast a favorable message on the Defense of Marriage Act under discussion in Congress as an "informative institutional" clip.  All things considered this is what chavismo is doing now.

Globovision cannot refuse to pass such messages but it is the only network that has the courage to remind its audience every time that it passes the chavista propaganda under duress.  If you were watching the sold out Venevision network you would think it is a normal paid for advertisement.....  That reminder is the read aloud text that opens the ad.

The ad

It starts with that guy explaining to us that not only this manufacturing plant is making cellular phones but it is also forming the new man and the new woman, the good fatherland ( 'hombre nuevo', s. 12 to 16).  Notice the "energetic" little music in the background.

Then until sec. 26 a woman with popular speech ways tells us that they are making good devices at a good price.  Notice how all of the workers are rather suntanned, are they not, except for the political agent that talks at the start and at the end.  That subliminal racial card is played relentlessly in all of this type of ads, you will rarely see someone really white or really black.  And of course, most of the speakers in these type of ads have a very folksy speech, proletarian should we say, subliminal class war to boot.

At sec 26 the first speaker comes back and "reflects" on why the pitiyankis and the burgueses speak ill of socialism.  His theory is because they never visited a socialist enterprise and may the good lord forgive them (perdonalos señor at s. 35).  Pitiyanki means now traitor, anti Venezuelan.  Burgueses of course you know what it means.  Obviously if you were a true Venezuelan, you would be socialist and ooohh! and aaahh! at this manufacturing process.  The condescending tone also adds to the idea that if you are not socialist with Chavez then, well, you are dumb.

If you understand Spanish you will notice that he has a hard time finishing his sentences, reflecting further the limited popular education that the regime wants to turn into virtue rather than educate the masses.  It also adds to the "spontaneity feel" to make us believe that nothing was rehearsed and that indeed all the workers shown there are fully happy and manufacture thousands of cell phones everyday of which there is no trace in the stores, except maybe at those from state owned Movilnet.  By the way, if you have seen manufacturing process at Nokia you will wonder about what you see in that video, drawing the implication that what they are making are definitely not smart phones, probably phones of an already aging technology that does not require the aseptic conditions around fancy microchips.  But I digress....

The implication

Of course this is brain washing propaganda because if it passes in still limited but constant amount in the independent networks left it is constantly rehashed in the state network.  What is worthy to notice is the new scaling up when the regime now insults outright people that do not agree with them through an official institutional message.  That pitiyanki and burguesito are not accidental, they are deliberate, to heat up the moment as elections near.  This is naked electoral propaganda to divide the country further, paid at tax payer expense and WITHOUT any right of reply in the state networks.

For you to understand this you need to imagine what the US would be today if Bush or Obama could have done what Chavez did.  PBS, ABC and NBC would be state owned and would pass only messages for the president in office.  There would be no FOX anymore (or you can exchange PBS for FOX under a Bush administration), CBS would be neutered and CNN would be under constant threat of being closed.  In addition the White House would be allowed to force CBS and CNN and a bevy of local stations to pass a couple of dozens ads a day on whatever it seems fit.  People that do not agree with the message have no right of reply, are not allowed to pay for ads at ABC or NBC now under the White House control.  And I am not even getting on the cadena topic.....

Comparison to Europe is not as easy since there is there a long tradition of TV as a public service.  But imagine the BBC under Cameron now shooting constant insults at Labour without Labour allowed a reply, not even to appear in the nightly news except when they say or do something stupid....

So there you have, the official campaign has not started in Venezuela but for weeks already we have been subjected to this political ads at tax payer expense.... The CNE is of course totally silent on the matter no matter how many times the opposition complains.