Monday, February 29, 2016

The evil that circles us

Today Leopoldo Lopez had an OpEd piece published in the Washington Post. The piece may seem short on specifics for us here in Venezuela but we are not the audience. The audience is the US political class in its time of trial during primary season, to let them know that on inauguration day the worst problem in the Western Hemisphere awaiting them will be the humanitarian crisis that is starting in Venezuela this past few weeks. The silence of the US has helped a lot Venezuela become a failed state as Lopez letter implies.

Whether Bernie Sanders will burnish his break from ideologies credentials by condemning the Venezuelan regime or Trump will develop an interest about Venezuela besides the beauty pageants remains to be seen. I'd rather use that editorial to muse on the evil that surrounds the people of Venezuela.

Let's start with Leopoldo Lopez in jail now for two years and condemned for a trial that we now know was based on forged evidence. He is not the lone political prisoner though now he is the best known, a cause in himself. The new National Assembly is trying to pass an amnesty law that is targeted at freeing these people and you should hear the vituperation from the regime's as to that law, announcing without a shade of self doubt, no beam in their eyes,  that it would promote crime in Venezuela.

But we could pass on that, perhaps, on politically motivated vindictive. The problem is that evil sneaks everywhere in the regime. I suppose it all started with the Tascon list of 2003 that split Venezuela in two type of citizens, those against Chavez having from now on a second class status. That list built by killing the vote secrecy is still in use today.

We can remember the multiple violent expropriations, the worse ones in the country side where often people were not even allowed to take their personal belongings. By then the totalitarian nature of the regime's soul could not be hidden anymore.

Then crime went up and up, and jail roles went down and down until the regime allied itself with the jail gangs who operate from the "safety" of the jail for all sorts of racket.

Should I even bother mentioning Venezuela becoming a narco-military regime or is that just a form of business?

But the worst evil was saved for the end, when all of us, chavista voters or staunch opposition alike must suffer lack of food and lack of medicine and the concurrent crime wave.  While the fat high ranking of the regime in all selfishness prove everyday their ignorance of the situation, it is made worse by their denial, and even worse, that they do not care about it. The question is simple and should be asked by anyone; if the regime actually cared about the plight of Venezuelans, would we be in the dire straits we are today? If you have an ounce of integrity you know what the answer is.

Today president Maduro launched in great fanfare a new plan of urban agriculture that is supposed to provide within 100 days 20% of the food intake of the 8 major cities of Venezuela. That this plan is launched at a time of major water shortages in Venezuela cities has not been detected by Maduro and his entourage, Or at least they did not care about it. Failure is certain, the more so in a country that does not like much veggies, and less to work for them. Pretending, in the XXI century, to present an agricultural construct that is a mere throwback to a primitive XIX century in Venezuela when actually privileged people who could lived off their backyard garden is an insult to our intelligence. Now becoming a failed state is an achievement.

To add insult to injury, that new wonder does give birth to a new bureaucracy: National System for Urban and Semi-urban Agriculture that will include a Venezuelan Corporation for Urban and Semi-urban Agriculture. Which gives a new meaning about selling the Tiger hide before killing it....

The ultimate stage of evil is when the torturer starts making fun of its victim. We have reached that stage.




28 comments:

  1. I disagree that the US has been "silent." Remember when the US sanctioned 7 regime thugs last year. The problem is the rest of Latin America rallies around the regime every time the big bad US boogeyman says anything abt Venezuela. If US actions help foster lat am solidarity with Maduro, they are counterproductive.

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    1. Yes, but it came quite late and through the judiciary, not the White House which seems to prefer silence.

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    2. I am sure once big oil was kicked out of Venezuela, and their property stole, they pushed the world oil super powers to destroy Venezuela's oil industry.
      If the USA would have been vocals and did all it could when the rest of Latin America was bribed to support Chavez then Castros would have taken over the whole region and not just Venezuela. Key way to stop it was destroy oil.

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    3. "...through the judiciary" Through the legislature, no?

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    4. Cuba still has friends in Ecuador and Brazil, and maybe Bolivia. Especially Ecuador!

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    5. Sorry, it was in fact the Obama Administration (the State Department, to be specific) that issued the sanctions. However, to get back to my point, you should know Maduro et al LOVES when the U.S. issues some condemnation of what is going on Venezuela. How do you think he was able to waste all that time gathering signatures and the opposition meekly denounced the sanctions. U.S. actions against Maduro DO NO GOOD WHATSOEVER thanks deep-seated anti-Americanism that (justified or not, it's real) exists in Latin America.

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    6. For what its with

      http://www.el-nacional.com/mundo/Obama-prorroga-emergencia-nacional-Venezuela_0_804519734.htmlor what its worth

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  2. I wish the one who launched with great fanfare would have also announced he would donate his body to use as manure to ensure the success of urban agriculture.

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  3. Boludo Tejano3:21 PM

    Whether Bernie Sanders will burnish his break from ideologies credentials by condemning the Venezuelan regime...

    Maybe Bernie Sanders will, but judging by the way he conducted foreign policy when he was Mayor of Burlington back in the 1980s, I doubt it. As Mayor, Bernie Sanders spent a lot of time supporting the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua. Either Bernie wasn't aware, or he didn't care, that within three months of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Sandinistas signed a joint proclamation with the Soviets which supported the progressive transformation[s] that the Soviet troops brought to Afghanistan.

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    1. One can always hope he grew up.

      Me thinks not.

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    2. Boludo Tejano8:53 PM

      One can always hope he grew up.Me thinks not.

      As Bernie Sanders was in his 40s when he was rooting for the Sandinistas, it is not likely that he will grow up any more. Not many of us radically change our politics at that age. I did my changing in my late 20's to mid-30s.

      I didn't get interested in Nicaragua until 1986-87. I found about the Sandista-USSR joint proclamation when I read The Central American Crisis Reader, published in 1987. I located the joint proclamation in Barricada (~3/23/1980) and in Pravda English. I don't recall how the Central American Crisis Reader footnoted the joint proclamation.

      The joint proclamation was also placed into the Congressional Record within a month IIRC of its issuance in 1980. Who placed it in the Congressional Record? Your friend and mine, Jessee Helms. Does one say that even a stopped clock is correct twice a day? Or that even a good-for-nothing is on occasion good for something?

      As an aside, I am reminded that in the South, it was quite common to label as Communist anything that was threatening- such as those expressing any degree of opposition to the Jim Crow laws. Jesse Helms probably came to anti-Communism from that approach.

      Where I grew up in the North, as there were no Jim Crow laws, no anti-Communists came to their beliefs the same way many in the South did. My home area had some paradoxes with regard to anti-Communism. On the one hand, there were some Progressives in the area who were definitely and rather vocally anti-anti-Communist.

      [There was one vocal anti-anti-Communist neighbor about whom I didn't find out until relatively recently- nor did he find out until years later- that back in the home country one Communist cousin by marriage ordered the execution of another cousin in Partisan conflicts during WW2.Who needs fiction? Truth is interesting enough.]

      I also had I found out years later that some peers of mine were red diaper babies- which puts another twist on anti-anti-Communist. I wasn't close to them, and their families at the time didn't want to publicize such political attachments. At the same time, there were a disproportionate number of Iron Curtain refugees in the area, largely due to the people of Eastern European descent living in the area.

      When I made my political change, I made reference to those with whom I had grown up. None that I knew wanted to talk about their experiences behind the Iron Curtain,which is mute testimony to why they left.

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  4. Agreed BT, but of the big 4 candidates he's the only one I would let in my house. And yes, I am a genuine knuckle dragging rethuglican who is not offended guns the CSA battle flag.

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  5. Boludo Tejano6:04 PM

    I am sure once big oil was kicked out of Venezuela, and their property stole, they pushed the world oil super powers to destroy Venezuela's oil industry.

    I would suggest you look not at conspiracy theories but at facts. Venezuela's drastic fall in oil income is attributed to two factors:

    1) The transformation of PDVSA from a well-run oil company to a poorly run appendage of the Chavista political machine. If money normally used for maintenance of plant and equipment is transferred to various Chavista so-called social programs, production will fall. Money that could be used in exploration will instead be used to clean up messes caused by lack of maintenance. If money normally used for exploration is transferred to various Chavista so-called social programs, production falls. If production falls, there isn't as much to sell.

    2) The increase in worldwide oil production- mainly in the US- coupled with Saudi Arabia's decision to go for market share instead of price.

    Chavismo is 100% responsible for the destruction of PDVSA. I am tempted to write 110%.

    The increase in oil production in the US is due to fracking, which was initiated by smaller oil companies, not by the big ones like Exxon-Mobil or Chevron which had problems with their operations in Venezuela. Moreover, anyone who would claim that the increase in oil production in the US was a connivance of the US Government to drop the price of oil and thus go after Venezuela ignores Obama's attitude towards oil prices and increased production.

    Saudi Arabia's decision to go for market share is in part economic- maintain its position as a top producer- and partly political- punish Iran.

    I am for the moment ignoring Chavismo's oil freebies to Cuba and other places, which certainly has reduced oil income available to Venezuela, but in any event that is also a self-inflicted wound.

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  6. Boludo Tejano6:36 PM

    Ash Skinner:
    I am sure once big oil was kicked out of Venezuela, and their property stole, they pushed the world oil super powers to destroy Venezuela's oil industry.

    Do you really believe that Exxon-Mobil would rather have oil at $30/BBL instead of $100/bbl? While the lower price will hurt Venezuela, the higher price will mean higher profits for Exxon-Mobil. Follow the money.

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    1. BT posting from Canadian looking in as at computer not phone same person as Ash Skinner. True what you say but do you really believe supply of oil has much to do with the actual price? Has the price ever gone up do to the fact it couldn't actually get enough oil? Lets not forget any vertically integrated oil company is making record profits on the commercial fuel side and are buying up all those small fracking companies you speak of on the exploration side. Hence balance on income while taking out much competition and gaining new oil fields.

      No doubt of the incompetence and corruption that exists with the Venezuelan gov't. But we must remember the whole point of a socialist gov't of any kind is to not lift the populous out of poverty as it is the impoverished that vote for them. It is to make them as dependent on gov't as possible and make the middle class impoverished too. Hence take all industry so you control all employment. Give enough handouts that the people are dependent. Issue in Venezuela was oil prices were driven down and incompetence and corruption destroyed all industries instead of controlling them as they hoped. Only way to stop that gov't quickly was to ensure they do not have enough to keep all the corrupt happy and to give the minimal to keep the majority of impoverished happy. Taking away oil prices was the quickest way to do this but this was slowed by Chinese assistance. You just watch how fast oil prices will drive back up once this regime is out of power and big oil is invited back in, fracking or no fracking.
      Let's also not forget the words conspiracy theory were invented by people in power in order to have an answer for the ignorant such that they could dispel anyone challenging them.

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  7. Ha ha...as if!!!...why in the world would USA spend one dime on helping Venezuela? !?..I wouldn't. ..Every time Chavez put up his hand and yelled fuck the Yankis...the whole country aplauded. ..I love Venezuela. ..but you eat it.

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    1. and when Bernie Sanders put up his hands and said I will take from the rich and give hand outs in the form of free education, health care etc the poor and students didn't applaud. Or when con artist Trump said I will make Mexico build a wall the people of the USA didn't applaud. Ignorance exists around the world. In fact nobody votes for common sense anymore hence we do not see it in politics as it doesn't win.

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  8. mile high ben9:28 PM

    Daniel nitpickin' a little, the title should say "encircle" or "surround" instead of circle.

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    1. "encircle" suggests static, you are in a situation. "circle" is more dynamic, as the sharks getting closer and closer.

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    2. well, I think, anyway.

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  9. The left-wing nut jobs in the US love Castro. They will try to cover up or mitigate any problems in the socialist paradise of Venezuela and then howl about imperialism if the US does anything. All of these idiots should be condemned to live under communism.

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    1. Eduardo12:33 PM

      "COMDEMNED to live under communism"

      The word is very accurate. Regretfully, there are many things you can ask a left-wing, but not to live under his/her "principles".

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  10. Interesting Op-Ed suggesting Donald Trump has a lot of Chavez like tendencies.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/02/27/donald-trump-may-be-showing-us-the-future-of-u-s-right-wing-politics/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_cage

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    1. I am glad you said it, not me. 😉

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    2. haha
      firepigette

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  11. National Assembly just passed an Amnesty Bill on March 2, 2016. Maduro has promised to veto the bill! What a surprise!!

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  12. The problem for the US is that they are damned if they say something and damned if they don't...However that does not excuse their inaction as the major financial contributor to the OAE. What the heck are they paying for? Other Nations contribute quite a sum of money as well to stand around and take pictures in front of flags. How the Democratic Charter has not been invoked is beyond comprehension. The US should open the discussion on this or the OAE should just disband and go home. They are already viewed as moribund. This Nefasto Regime is already in violation of more that half a dozen points on the Charter and I am not even through the list yet. The beacon of Democracy in the Hemisphere does nothing about the biggest crisis to come upon the Region in decades. VZLA has a humanitarian crisis brought on by a corrupted, inept Regime and the OAE does not invoke the Charter and start a discussion on what is really going on here. The medicinal crisis is shameful, disgraceful and takes more lives everyday. Corruption goes unchecked and uninvestigated. The Constitution is trampled upon daily by the CNE, TSJ, and the Executive Branch and the OAE is silent. Complices,.....Eso es simplemente verganzoso....verganzoso.

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