Thursday, June 27, 2013

Maria Corina Machado victim of a Cuban character assassination technique (counts as XXI century fascism too)

Today the fascisto-communist regime of Venezuela (your pick!) has crossed a new line.  Maria Corina Machado, noted Venezuelan National Assembly representative, former primary candidate, one of the main members of the opposition international outreach, and the one of the broken nose during her line of duty at the Nazional Assembly has had her private conversations taped, edited and passed as if it were a conspiracy phone call. Cuban G2 modus operandi.

The regime presented earlier today the "phone taping" as a proof that MCM was into some form of dark conspiracy, just another one of the fantastic ones presented daily in Venezuela, without a shred of evidence even when they claim to involve the purchase of a dozen and a half of war planes.  Brouhaha for a while but the reply came back smashing tonight as MCM told us that in fact, the words in that conversation (which would have been badly wiretapped to begin with) were a illegal recording of a 2 hours conversation that she had in the library of German Carrera Damas, a noted historian.

That is right, the regime managed to bug the library of an elderly intellectual, something not too difficult to do, and took that private conversation, took words out of context and built up an alleged 2 minutes phone conversation that never occurred.

Why the regime would take such a risk today? To begin with, after such a fiasco no future "conspiracy conversation" will benefit of much credit now that we know what the regime is willing to lower itself. On this respect, outside of the idiotic chavista fringe, nobody will believe at face value any future recording. Also, the ones presenting that "conversation" not only probably discredited themselves utterly but may lose big in politics. One is harshly criticized Caracas-Libertador mayor, Jorge Rodriguez, who may have killed his reelection dreams (which I personally do not think he had as he was forced by Chavez to a job he did not want). The other is formerly appreciated journalist, Ernesto Villegas who has turned into the totally discredited information/propaganda minister from whom you may not even trust his watch for time of the day.

No, the point is elsewhere.

Now chavista officials, in the middle of a never ending succession war now that even their at home private conversations are not safe anymore (cell phone conversations are gone of the repertoire for conspiracy of any type). The more so that mayoral candidacies must be decided inside chavismo and the regime tries to avoid desperately primaries.

All the rest is inconsequential. MCM will come out the bigger person for her spirited defense and counter attack. Capriles has been enough attacked but is enough of the consensus leader that this will not scratch him (she supposedly complained about the lack of response on late April which not only she is not alone for that but that she voiced already). Guillermo Aveledo by now has a Teflon coat. And all appreciate the hard work she does in her role to blame her of a personal opinion. After all, contrary to chavismo, inside the opposition the debate is lively and primaries held when pertinent.

The home lesson is dramatic: from now on we ALL know that even our bedroom conversations are fair game for a regime that has lost any respect for individual rights.

Notes.

Jorge Rodriguez and Villegas can be sued. I hope MCM does follow through. When the regime changes she can have them fined heavily even though they are not corrupt rich.

Snowden is an idiot: bringing up Venezuela (among Ecuador, Russia and Cuba) as countries to protect him and favor his trips only shows that he is an ignorant, no matter how justified his crusade may be. To protect his right of free speech he uses countries where freedom of speech in under attack or nonexistent. thus, once again, Wikileakes et all are not about freedom, they are about finding ways to attack the US.

10 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:05 PM

    The only thing Wikileaks has managed to do is make public what all the governments already knew. Now they have to react to the spying and opinions that they all share. This upsets a lot of political apple carts and wastes a lot of political work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous4:36 PM

    To the degree Wikileaks did not confirm the wackier claims of the political extremes is a good thing. To reveal the sources of information was to put innocent people at risk.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I'm in the minority, while I play Monday morning quarterback to say this: In an autocratic government with strong undertones of dictatorship and already revealed tapes of subversive recordings, MCM's visit to the elderly professor without a recorder of her own (as a journalist would do), or a videotape, during discussions of political issues, presented imprudent political behaviour.
    My dad who was jailed during the Gómez years, near the cell of Rómulo Betancourt and others, for having voiced in a private party his wish for democracy, was forever marked. Until the end of his life, whenever he discussed Vz politics, in private, he automatically went into sotto voce mode. He was not a politician.
    MCM should have known better, and taken precautions.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am not in full agreement with you. Granted, I think that by know some people should be more careful. I even know of people who when they have a private political meeting have everyone remove their cel phone batteries because apparently with some phones you can activate them from remote to use them as bugging system. I do not know whether this is true, my point here is that some are careful all the time, some still think that they are not living yet in an authoritarian state. I personally say whatever I want to say over the phone but I am still a very little fish compared to those around the MUD. But also because I have noticed that many chavistas I cross path with in my daly life are amazed at my boldness in criticizing what it is. They simply have lost the notion of what it is to live in a free society as long as you do not insult folks unnecessarily. I suppose that I preach by example even though some day I am sure I will get into trouble.

      Delete
    2. Island Canuck6:45 PM

      "...have everyone remove their cel phone batteries because apparently with some phones you can activate them from remote to use them as bugging system."

      If you watch "Person of Interest" on TV they do that all the time. Don't know if it's fiction though.
      http://www.cbs.com/shows/person_of_interest/

      Delete
  4. If I were MCM I would be very suspicious of what happened. How can she know it was the governement and not her enemies inside the MUD, or both? This is particular becuase it was inside a private library. Someone that had visited that library and that knew MCM was visiting is the most likely person to have put the bug.

    In any case Jorge Rodriguez was despicable. The guy has no shame.





    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bruni

      Apparently these days you do not need to bug. If the surroundings are propitious you have microphones that can focus from afar and get conversations.

      I suppose that from now on we will need to pipe down and put some adequate music (chostakovitch could be a good choice) before we start conspiring.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous12:30 AM

    Someone needs to put together a ridiculous Maduro recording set to some cartoon character just to show how misleading this recording really is. Then get it released by anonymously (& safely)from another country.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Diego E. Arria ‏@Diego_Arria
    NO hay misterio en grabar una conversación.Basta q un celular esté encendido para q pueda ser interceptada a la distancia x SEBIN o DIM

    Why is MCM clueless about this? She's a politician, after all, in the middle of the cauldron-once-removed (the NA).

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous3:50 AM

    Switching on, or off a phone's microphone is just a computer signal,
    since phones switched (no pun intended) to touch-tone (land lines) forty years ago
    that has been possible, more important is that a cell phone's cameras can be used to
    see who you are with, even if not making a call, and track your location.

    Never leave you cell phone unattended, when taken in for repairs, erase the
    memory card an reinstall the operating system when you get it back.

    Software can be installed to send copies of your contacts, text messages, and even
    switch on conference calling without your knowledge.

    So be warned, everything that can be done to a computer can be done to a smartphone.

    ReplyDelete

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