Friday, April 05, 2013

Our "47%"

I may be away and busy but news come crashing about what an awful country we have become (never mind that my Latino American colleagues at the meeting I am attending feel bad and pitiful towards me and Venezuela...).

Two events marked most than any because they tell us more about how chavismo manages to retain control than anything else we heard recently. And I am not talking vote buying or corruption or repression: I am talking using Venezuelan "culture" to show that chavismo is the way to go .


I am going to start with the easy one: candidate Maduro video where he states that Chavez reincarnated as a little bird, or sent a message to Maduro through a little bird. I am not going to go into how unfit for high office is a professed atheist that finds himself suddenly praying alone in a wooden church. I am not even going into him hearing little bird messages.


I am putting the video because you do not need to understand a word of what Maduro says, I want you to watch the people around him, the hieratic semi circle position of the followers, watching and approving any nonsense from the newly appointed high priest of the revolution.

This of course has also its roots in popular old customs where the guest sat a home sit in a semi circle around the host in deference. One of the many cultural "parameters" that Chavez used so well in his TV appearances, making it a personal reach to each and everyone.

The second is the looting of a broken down beer truck at El Palito highway exchange through which I go at least a couple of times a month in my way to of from Caracas.  An account of the story is here.

The first picture is a general scenery from El Carabobeño. The second one is from Notitarde, a close up of El Pueblo.


What can we say from these?

First, there is no security, even in a major highway, even near a very settled location where people should know better.

The fact of the matter is that it is now perfectly OK to loot trucks that break down in Venezuela. They should not break down, period. El Pueblo has the right to loot.  Probably the police, if available, prefers to stay away and wait for the end of the looting, the more so if it is a beer truck.  Needless to tell you that traffic stopped and drivers preferred to wait for the end of the looting least they would be looted too.

As for the close up, besides showing a red chavista t-shirt (others in the above picture), you can see what the lumpen chavismo looks like....  even poking holes in the shirt for ventilation  But you also see in the background people, shall we say better dressed, that you would not think would participate as easily in a looting scene.

And this is where I go to the tile of this post. Chavismo has deliberately created a state of anarchy and dependence so as to secure a chunk of the electorate  I do not know whether these people above represent a 47%, or a 10%, or indeed an October 55%, what it is certain from these pictures and the video above is that chavismo has created a mind frame in a sector of the country that acts like that video, loots like this truck.

Romney was wrong with his 47% comment that may have cost him the election  After all, even in the US a chunk of that 47% are expected to work, and do so, people that cannot vote for the Republican party as long as it keeps its positions on gay rights, abortion, creationism and what not. But people that work hard nevertheless, pay taxes, etc.... but are "granted" for the democratic party as long as the GOP does not do its aggiornamento.

It seems unfortunately that politicians are finding it easier to create division, to establish beholden sectors of the population so as to ensure a reliable, unshakable base of votes. And in its extreme from we see what we see in Venezuela where moral corruption is at the essence of the system under establishment, be it the corrupt officials that nod at any inanity of Maduro instead of walking out in disgust, be it the the guy looting a truck knowing full well that no Nazional Guard is going to interfere in this sacred chavista right to loot, to steal, to abuse.

This is our true social inheritance from Chavez.

Fascism.

23 comments:

  1. Anonymous7:55 PM

    Anyone who wouldn't take beer from a flipped over truck has never worried about money in their life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And your point is?

      A good chavista would write what you wrote. Watch out: el rancho está en la cabeza.

      Delete
  2. Anonymous8:36 PM

    Can these members of society be domesticated / sterelized? I do not see solution here my friends. Esta vaina llegó al llegadero.... Pio pio

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous8:47 PM

    The central tenet of Chavism is that the constitution gives a right to take from others. Whether stealing a car, or appropriating a business, or whatever, the government does it so the citizens do it. Hugo Chavez took over $2 billion in 14 years and is a national hero. Then why can't an average Jose take a case of beer and be a neighborhood hero?

    Venezuela has gone into the sewer and is going deeper into the waste.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Anonymous9:19 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous9:21 PM

    To Anonymous 1:25 - The truck is not flipped over, it is simply stalled alongside the road. And, people with values and the right cultural education would not steal the beer unless there were no longer a state of law that prevailed, which is clearly Don Daniel's point.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous11:11 PM

    My guess is that some of the beer thieves probably had their beer stolen by some other thief before they got it home.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous11:16 PM

    Stealing from a broken down vehicle has been common place in Venezuela throughout the recent period of democracy, ever since the overthrow of the last dictator. Chavismo precedes Chavez by several decades: it didn't just happen in '98. I remember a newspaper picture of people looting a broken down truck carrying big sacks of wheat flour, under the watchful eyes of the National Guard (this was in the 1970s, I think). It was presented at the time as an example of a common occurrence, not an isolated incident. We didn't react to this at the time. Too late now?
    JoseLuis

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The thing is that at least before Chavez there was some grief, some soul searching. Under Chavez it has become a right. There is a BIG difference.

      Delete
  8. I agree and second the comments by Sr. JoseLuis. The roadside "Cargo Cult" in Venezuela has been around for a long time. Including the GN getting their share.When I was there I heard horror stories from middle class people who had the bad luck to crash their car in the interior which is like one kilometer from Miraflores!
    It also is not restricted to Venezuela or Latin America. Nigeria and some parts of Mexico (including other countries) are even proactive with roadblocks and in some cases running cars off the road and/or opening up with machine guns make them stop.
    What countries have improve I don't know but, my benchmark Brasil , even if they are agressive on crime, they don't report it. Also, they are one of the worst countries regarding violence that is un-procecuted toward LGBT people!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Anonymous2:30 AM

    Venezuela- also welcoming something for nothing

    ReplyDelete
  10. Roberto Carlos2:51 PM

    Daniel, I did not get the cheap shot at the Republicans. What does your post have to do with american politics? Besides, who do you think the guys looting the beer truck would vote for if they were in the US, the Democratic Party of course! The party you would also vote for if you could just because they "say the right things" just like Chavez did. Yet somehow you detested Chavez but love those Democrats.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Boludo Tejano11:38 PM

      So I wasn't the only one who noticed.

      Delete
    2. And I am surprised you were not the first one to complain.

      ;)

      Delete
  11. Anonymous4:08 PM

    Daniel, I agree with Roberto. Those looters would be perfect Democrat voters here in the US. These are the type of potential voters the Democrat party is looking to legalize so that they can create a permanent voting majority in the US. A permanent government dependent class that is only interested in their daily ration of free government cheese. A permanent government dependent class that would help fulfill the dream of the statists here in the US. What I see in Venezuela is the future here in the US if the Democrats are successful in creating that majority dependent permanent voting class that is only interested in free government cheese. Get Mark Levin's Liberty & Tyranny and Ameritopia to see what I mean.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Anonymous4:21 PM

    One more thing I want to add. We already see the fruits of a Venetopia. We are about to experience the fruits (if not already) of Ameritopia as well, very sadly.

    ReplyDelete
  13. If Nicolas recognizes Hugo as a little bird,who would Cilia recognize Lina Ron as ?? or who now is channeling Lara, Che, or the rest of them?

    Well, obviously Lina is now a Guacharaca, Lara is 'El Pajaro Guarandol', Cilia is 'La Pajara Pinta' , and Che and the rest are Vultures from the movie" Mowgli, Jungle Book"

    firepigette

    ReplyDelete
  14. To the three above that do not vet my comments on the GOP.

    They are not a cheap shot, they are a statement of fact. There are plenty of hard working, tax paying North Americans that are bound to the Democratic party because there are too many positions they cannot accept, nor even compromise. Examples: knee jerk anti abortion, defense of "creation science" and similar garbage, gay rights, immigrants treatment, gun ownership, and more. Keep excluding all of these guys and see the Democrats grow and prosper.

    As for democrats assimilated to looters. In the US looters are prosecuted, even by democrat judges. If you fail to see the difference between what happens in Venezuela and what you think is happening in the US then you need to check your lenses formula.

    And never mind that my post is titled OUR 47%. Not Romney's 47. Read again the entry, thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Carlos Alberto2:53 AM

      Spoken like a true affluent-gay-french-intellectual.

      Delete
    2. And yet, besides making a homophobic comment, you are not proving me wrong, you are not rebating any of my arguments above.

      I rest my case.

      Delete
    3. Anonymous2:37 AM

      Immigrant treatment? You mean illegal immigrant treatment. Tell me Daniel, how does Venezuela deal with illegals? Can I just invite myself in to Venezuela without permission and start making demands? I can tell you that is what they do here and even march in the thousands proclaiming they are illegals and nothing much happens to them. I wonder what would happen if any such thing ever happened in Venezuela. Forget Venezuela, how about illegals in other countries around the world? I bet they would be gathered up in such a march and deported immediately.

      Delete
    4. "immigrants treatment" should be considered exactly as I intended in the list. Since there is an intense debate that is driving the Hispanic vote to the Democrats, it is clear that Republicans are not managing the issue successfully. That their position is right or wrong is not what I am discussing.

      Delete
  15. Anonymous1:53 AM

    The first I thought was that in communism all people are the owner of everything. Maybe that therefore these people believe that they have a right to steal beer, because it's anywhere theirs.
    To be clear I don't agree if people are stealing only because they think that it is so easy and they don't have do expect any interruption ore are stopped from police or the driver. HF

    ReplyDelete

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