Sunday, July 03, 2016

Revocatorio, Brexit and other assauts on democracy

This past week we got dramatic examples on the limits of democracy. Let's dispatch Brexit fast as the "revocatorio" will require some details.


Some claim that Brexit was an exercise in Democracy and sovereignty. But this week has shown that it was anything but. From the quick collapse of Boris Johnson to the obvious intentions of a few in the Tories to remove Cameron at all costs, without forgetting Corbyn's naked intent at turning Labour into a British version of PODEMOS (or is that English now?) we can see that the voters interests were, well, accessory. Now Scotland is veering fast towards a new independence vote while the idiots that did not bother voting are now marching in the streets of London. And never mind the flow of racism that opened after Brexit, showing clearly what the vote was for some.

The saddest part of all this is that not only the UK voter took unnecessary risks to exert their "esprit de clocher" (podunkness?), but they are dragging Europe down with them, breaking up a peace zone that was so difficult to build up. Now that I think of it Europe should also have been voting as to whether keep Britain in. Things would be clearer today, for better or for worse.

The revocatorio in Venezuela is quite another expression of the limits of democracy, but with cruel fascist political garbage to boot. The objective here is that 20% of the electoral body can sign up, under certain conditions, to ask for a recall election of any given elected official. This may work out in countries like the US where people are used to register with a political group and where the given political group can never take for granted the amount of people that claim intent to vote for them.

But in savages country like Venezuela, a recall election is a sure way to destroy the secrecy of vote. It happened in a really bad way in 2004 with the Tascon list (yours truly was denied passport for a while for having signed up to recall Chavez, to give you an example). But now, without Chavez and with a group of renegades on top with too many crimes to confess, a recall election is out of question and any, ANY pseudo-legal trick will be tried to avoid such an election.

The latest one is that after an arduous process to collect 2% of preliminary signatures (not because of the lack of will of the voters to sign up but because of all the political pressure exerted by the regime to block the signature drive) rumors are that the regime will toss away these signatures anyway. The argument? A handful of signatures were ill collected and thus none of the million + is valid. Never mind that the electoral bord, CNE, supposedly did its job by filtering and rejecting already 600,000 signature including some of those from opposition leaders that signed in public, in front of news cameras.

What we see here is the profound anti democratic reasoning of chavismo. Since this one has had no convincing argument, for years now, their only debating strategy is to negate all because of one. That is, you can advance 100 solid arguments, if one is slightly shaky this will be used by chavismo as a proof that the other 99 are worthless. Self exempting themselves along from sustaining their own arguments, by the way. Note, such systemic reasoning is not exclusive of chavismo as we could see in some of the comments in my previous entry, quite similar to those of chavismo in the days where they infested all opposition blogs.

Thus in addition of the Venezuelan high court preparing itself to destroy the will of the people, we already see the regime creating a new version of the Tascon list with those poor sols that signed over a month ago. And the victims are the 8% that signed, even though the CNE "rejected" a good third of them. For apartheid, they are suddenly all valid.

As a I wrote, thus went away the secrecy of vote in Venezuela. The remarkable thing is that in spite of this, in spite of incredible regime pressure, 8% managed to sign. And this is duly noted when even Obama getting out of his reserve, forgetting for a while his tractations with Cuba, clearly stated that the recall election should go in Venezuela (timely this year, according to may others as a 2017 a recall election would be useless according of the shitty constitution of Chavez).

Churchill said that democracy was a messy system of rule, but that no better system had yet been invented. And probably will not. So we are left to try to improve the workings of democracy. Direct people rule is showing its limits fast. Even Athens, the copy right holder, succumbed to its excesses. With visceral reactions on twitter, facebook and other such easy access media people vote more and more through their gut feeling, electing the like of Chavez, or finding easier to bring down worthwhile instituions rather than reform them because of too many pakis.

For all what is worth, nothing pretty much, my provisional solution is to reinforce representative democracy. Shorter terms and strict term limits on executive positions should be installed to avoid the need for recall elections. Federalism should be increased. As for referenda, mandatory vote should be required, or at least that results are only binding if 50% of registered voters approves the question.

One can always dream, no?

24 comments:

  1. Interesting observations.

    "What we see here is the profound anti democratic reasoning of chavismo."

    But Chavismo is neither a true ideology, nothing "profound" about it, not much "reasoning" at all. They're neither democratic, nor socialist, nor excessively dictatorial, nor communists. No.

    They are very simply Corrupt Thieves. Ambitious, under-educated bastards with no moral values. Criminals.

    People keep trying to over-complicate things, even smart, well-informed ones like the author of this blog. Freaking "Chavistas" couldn't possibly care less about even about Chavez, el pajarito supremo, he's been dead for a long time, luckily. They don't give a flying fock about "el pueblo" or their well-being obviously. It's all a pack of lies to remain Enchufados and steal as much as possible, as fast as possible.

    That's all. Simple as that. Pure Crooked Capitalism, and since no one gets punished for massive Theft or any other crime, more and more people from all levels of join the party.

    Rest assured. It's not an "ideological" dichotomy of any kind. And it's not just Maduro, Cabello, Luisa, Delcy, Ali Baba y los 40 ladrones. No.

    It's Millions and Millions of "pueblo" people also stealing, left and right, in every city, at every level, from the obrero, to the union leaders, to the private company managers. And if a few are left that don't steal as much as they can, they have to bribe many groups and individuals, just to remain in business.

    The corruption cancer metastasized long ago in Kleptozuela, and that's the root of all problems, besides very poor education and no justice system. 90% of "el pueblo" is involved in some chanchullo, some Guiso, cazando tigres, if not flat-out robbing and stealing. Not just the fake "chavistas"

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  2. Socialists everywhere are trying to distance themselves from Chavism (Almagro, Felipe Gonzalez, etc.) The Chavistas are giving socialism a bad name, it appears. The Venezuelan regime has adopted a centralised, controlled economy, near total control of the powers of the state, price control and currency controls. These are socialist policies. The chavistas are crooks alright, but socialist crooks.
    I just listened to a UK Labour Party leader (John McDonnell, Corbin's ideological handler) talking about wealth redistribution and participatory democracy. I wonder what Churchill would have said about this.

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  3. Daniel, the problem in Venezuela is that too many people - you included - continue to describe Chavistas as the one you're fighting against when in reality it is Castro and Cuba who are hiding behind Chavistas but directing the battlefield. Until people start calling them out and exposing the truth I don't see how you succeed. Cuba will not let go of control of VZ just because the people want them to. They'll replace Maduro if that's what it takes to calm this down, but Castro has never shown that he cares about popular will.

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  4. Daniel, I dream that election dates are defined in a new or modified Constitution, like say Presidential elections will be held on the first Sunday every xxx years, and the same for governors and other elected officials, taking the discretionary power from the Election Board and creating certainty.

    Javier

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  5. Venezuela already had term and other election laws including control of seperate powers. However the same way you would put such a law into effect which is through popular will yiu can always remove it. The whole world seems as corrupt as the Chavistas. The poor were pronised goods for nothing and jumoed all over it. The wealthy hate as they net lost but you can guarantee if they gained they would be happy too. All the surroundi governments took handiuts to support. USA only worries about its net benefits and so on. Intelligent people are generally not socialist as they generally make more at the expense of the dumber and are happy as net benefiters. They had socialists as they are net losers in such an environement. Pure selfish cause rules the world and the people in it. Greed runs amuck in all the world. Look at Trump and his supporters. He promises hate of some will make the remainders better off. Many support him as they want more and care little for those being hated. Same selfish greed that allowed the rise of Chavismo. Now the poor in Venezuela want rid of Chavismo as they feel they will be better off. Which they will as the capitalists scraps will be greater then the Chavismo's scraps. The whole world has no game plan to make all better off.

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  6. An email we just got from Washington: "Please note that today out office is closed for Independence day (aka original Brexit).....

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    1. Pardon my ignorance but I thought Brexit was a country that voted to end its trade alliance not a colony of a country that went to war for its independence. Was your comment meant as a joke or you just dont relate events well?

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    2. Ash, please relax, life is serious only to a point.

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    3. Ash...not exactly! The trade alliance should continue. Brexit was to avoid becoming part of a failing superstate or USE. i.e. we are 'overtaxed' and 'under represented' in the EU: exactly the problems the fledgling 'Americans' had.

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  7. Sometimes I feel they should introduce Sharia law in Venezuela. Imagine the salute of all these poor militaries.

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  8. About the Brexit.. Reading the latest news and opinions, it's clear that public opinion regarding immigration, played a mayor role. Not just Economics.

    And you can't blame any European country trying to protect itself from the deluge of poorly-educated, non-English speaking refugees of sorts invading your country by the millions.

    On top of that, many of these people are Muslisms. Let's face it: a violent, intolerant, confrontational religion. Most - if not all- terrorists, suicide bombers, happen to be motivated by radical Islam.

    When was the last time we've seen a Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon, Agnostic, Atheist, blow themselves up in a market place?

    The Britts are not dumb. The Germans are, because of their guilt-trip after 2 world-wars, they've accepted WAYYYY too many immigrants. Dangerous ones, from Syria, some related to Isis or Al Quaeda. Religious, Muslim fanatics that view the civilized world as "infidels". And their nasty little book, the Koran, literally says they must kill us, "the infidels".

    Heck they kill themselves even among Muslims, if they're "Shiites" or Kurds, as we just saw in Iraq or Bangladesh.

    The common denominator? Freaking Muslim religious extremism. None other. Profiling is bad?? Well, try sitting next to a Muslim, weird looking Muslim on a plane, with that little beard. Of course you must "profile".

    Ask the 50 dead people in Orlando, just a few days ago. These days apparently we must learn a few lines from the damn Koran, to stay alive.

    So the Britts have a point. Shut down the freaking border. Screen these religious maniacs. Even Donald Trump realized that. The Germans will learns sooner than later about their mistakes, just like the Belgians recently did after they got bombed. Same as in Paris, etc. Bombed by whom?

    You guessed it, not Hindus, not Boudhists.. Muslims, as always.

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    1. Sledge England had no immigrtion requirements via its status in the European Union. The gov't of England itself was responsible, as Germany choose to allow many mmigrants into its country.
      Seems in Venezuela that Venezuelans are killing 100s or 1000s. Hence I guess the world should fear them too. They killing each other as well. Hope yku don't get caught near one of them too.
      Wake up your talking about some extremist generally well funded by rich cou tries to reek havoc for the purpose of reactions like yours allowing thise funding countries to justify actions like going to war or spy on its own people etc.
      Is well known Alkida was created by the CIA in order to reek Havoc on the then USSR who was invading in the Middle East.

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    2. "Is well known Alkida was created by the CIA". You sound just like Trump: "I heard this, I heard that". Try reading some actual facts. The bin Laden family is extremely rich and influential, and has many similarly wealthy friends who have been funding Sunni extremism for decades. They do this for their own personal security, fearing the loss of their wealth and status if the religious extremists take over the Kingdom. Al Qaeda was formed from the tenets of Wahabi, an Islamist ideology from the 16th century, which seeks to return society to the practices of Islam from its founding days. It is funded primarily by Saudis and seeks to remove anything perceived as Western influence from Islamic lands. ISIS is only the most recent iteration of the theme.

      As to Maduro and his thieving fellow travelers, they will never leave by the ballot. Where are they to go with their ill-gotten gains? Who will harbor them? No one. Cuba may in the end give refuge to a few, but only in exchange for all their money, forcing them to live as ordinary workers for the rest of their lives. I fear the only option for Venezuela is the Ceaușescu solution. This saddens me, for many will suffer and die before it comes to pass.

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    3. Your hilarious. Cant blame the Venezuelan average joe for believing the crap the regime writes if this guy believes what ever he reads.

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    4. The extensive amount of delusional nonsense from AS here is what's hilarious. Dude, read the news, watch a little TV, buy any paper. Get a shrink - And stay sober.

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    5. Which part is delusional that is not a well documented fact. Search any released documents and you will see that the USA funded Alkida and provided them with arms to fight the Russians.

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    6. Say what you want and believe what you want but operation Cyclone was the origin of Alkida.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

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  9. you knoebhatnto doo

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    1. https://youtu.be/OO43rU1pAI8

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  10. And no such scrutiny or validation of the signatures from the Presidential Elections of 14A ????? I am surprised more is not being made of this point...But then again, everyone knows and accepts the fraudulent voting practices that happened 14A, don't we.... : (

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  11. The EU has always been destined to break up since it was created. The question was only when. The reason for the breakup is due to the very different groups of people in the EU which are mainly represented/controlled by a pseudo socialist cliche of people in Brussels who are the EU government.

    Currently, there are groups in France and Germany that are pushing to leave the EU. The strongest of those is in France. There are similar movements in other countries like Greece.

    Brexit or Britain exit is like a group of people who have been living on an old rusty freighter. The freighter is going to sink at some point or it will be sent to a ship bone yard to be scavenged and recycled. The British voting to exit are simple those wanting to get off the old rusty freighter before the rush to get off or before it sinks.

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    1. And as we see from the crisis in German, Italian and Spanish bank it is already sinking. With another round of Greek crisis due later this month.

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  12. So your Brexit bitterness goes on.
    https://www.facebook.com/danielhannan/videos/10153537536517331/

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  13. Robbie12:54 PM

    Tragic news in France, so sad to see the photographs if children. Maybe Brexit does have a positive angle, one which indeed may be quantifiable.

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