It is very hard to avoid those major labels that sear History. When I started using the word "dictatorship" I was criticized; yet, proven right in the end. Fascism came in slowly, almost behind totalitarian even though it should precede it in the processes. But Fascism is a tainted label whereas totalitarianism is a generic drug. Nazi I refuse to use it to qualify the Venezuelan regime because, well, that horror goes beyond all horrors and thus it is to be expected today that no one could try to pull such a stint again. Though I indulged into the term Nazional Guard because that guard has clear thuggish attitudes and actions that are deserving of the brown shirts.
Communism is also a word that is used freely although now that the crimes of Stalin and Mao are well established Communism should be as taboo as Nazism. But the intellectual appeal of Communism has been too strong and the petering of the USSR too long to effect this wished for change. Thus we have plenty of intellectuals still defending the Castro murderous regime under the flimsiest of excuses.
Genocide I drew a line, until today.
Genocide is a word we cannot wrap into anything, it is too specific, it implies too much gratuity against any specific human group. That is until the Venezuelan regime of Chavez cruised into its 18 years. I am going to give you three items of this week and then I will let you know why I have come to the conclusion that the dictatorship of Maduro has genocidal hues.
The first two items come for the president of the illegal constituent assembly, Delcy Rodriguez. The woman has clearly shown hints of being a sociopath, maybe even psychopath. When she was foreign minister she declared that there was no humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, that hunger and lack of medicine was a cabal of the international press. Well, as soon as Trump signed the sanctions against Venezuela she said that the ships with food and medicine arriving to Venezuela could not be paid anymore and that the crisis in Venezuela was now due entirely on Trump. You need some chutzpah to ignore years of lacking to recognize it all at once and blame it on someone else. The most charitable word for Delcy is that she has no care for the travails of Venezuelans. Blame is her game.
But that is not all for her. During her campaign for an illegal constituent seat her proposal was that we should end the white supremacist justice in Venezuela that targes brown skin. Two things are hair rising in her words. First, that no one has promoted so vilely racism in Venezuela. Chavez at his lowest points would be racist and anti semitic but not in the vileness of Delcy. Second, that in 18 years they have not done anything to change that judicial state, if it truly existed. Race as a weapon is now requested since there is nothing else to use to justify the tyranny of the few.
My third item is about a container of anti HIV medicine that is retained for taxes reason, allegedly, at customs. This is absurd because by law only the state can and must distribute for free such medication: there will be no sale of it, there is an emergency for these items. We do not know whether the intention is to steal these medicine to resell to those who can pay for them. Or maybe it is just another case of sheer incompetence, and uncaring. If this week it is HIV in the front, last week it was any of the following: diabetes, anti graft rejection, anti cancer, etc... And next week another. There has been investigations as to people stealing such precious medicines to resell them on the black market! And this for at least a couple of years. The bureaucracy that has flourished under chavismo has seen also reckless contempt for the welfare of others flourish.
The common thread here is a regime that has stopped to care about the people, to the point of not even pretending anymore. People difficulties are just good enough to make politics, as an excuse for putting up a constituent assembly "for peace" whose main accomplishments so far are measures to get rid through blame of political adversaries via stalinist court methods, or debating on how best censor Facebook and Twitter.
I have come to the conclusion that this dictatorship has confessed its genocidal tendencies.
It is not of the classical genocide type based strictly on race or religion. It has a more generic flavor of getting rid, or letting die out those who do not agree with you. Be they political adversaries, be they sick people that you do not want to spend money on it, it does not matter. I can even include in the pattern the indifference of the regime as to the millions that have left the country: they only started taking notice of them recently when these exiles started to pursue them in foreign streets.
It is a generic genocide, a genocide due to their own low educational level, the one of people that made it to power because Chavez brought them up and they had the thug street smarts to retain power. It is a generic genocide because they cannot come up with a better targeted strategy of at least proving that you can better some by screwing some. They cannot solve a problem, nor they care about solving problems. Thus whomever complains is simply ditched and left to its own devices to survive.
The better if they do not make it or leave the country.
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
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If there is a common thread in the extreme political movements and factions of all kinds the word "insanity" comes to mind.
ReplyDeleteThere are sick minds at work, selfish minds, minds that on one hand have no thought as to how their actions might harm others.
Minds that on the other hand might indeed desire to hurt, torture and kill others they don't like.
Many are aware of the insanity of Chilean or Argentine military officers decades ago.
Not enough are aware of the insanity of Stalin's purges, Mao's Red Guards, Castro's brutality, Pol Pot's killing fields in Cambodia and the list goes on.
I guess as you describe it we are seeing pin pricks of insanity in Venezuela.
During her campaign for an illegal constituent seat her proposal was that we should end the white supremacist justice in Venezuela that targets brown skin.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that of the 112 seats the Oppo won in the December 2015 National Assembly elections, Chavismo chose to null 3 seats in Amazonas. That sounds to me like "targeting brown skin."
typo: targes 4 targets
ReplyDeleteplease delete my comment
Don't know if you guys have noticed but the human nature all around the world is uncaring. Whether the rich fund stealing the poor or average persons income, the drug company announcing today it has a cancer treatment but will cost in the 100s of thousands per person for treatment or Trump followers worshipping his vial words to people expressing themselves. Most people are greedy as we see when a parent dies and the kids fight over the scraps. World needs a cure for inhumanity as a whole. The USA and rest of the world don't care about Venezuelans either, until it concerns then directly. As the Venezuelans have thought little about the Africans or North Koreans suffering for lifetimes. Only way anything changes is by taking direct action greater then the one oppressing you. Venezuelan youth in the past have getting the families to follow. Now the youth made their play and all the families did was useless marches. Nothing stops this regime but force by the majority, this has been evident for years. Either deal with it with force as a whole or move or stop whining and embrace it as is the only options.
ReplyDeleteWay more accurate than Kleptozuela's tropical-style Dictatorship, arroz-con-mango Fascism, or its sporadic Genocidal nature you have 2 precisely descriptive words, perfectly valid in Spanish that hardly anyone employs: Cleptocracia ; Desgobierno.
ReplyDeleteTo be exact, in English one should always utilize the CCPNK acronym:
Criminal Cubazuelan Petro-Narco-Kleptocracy.
genocidal negligence
ReplyDeleteLefties play it the same way everywhere. They claim to be fighting hate & white supremacy while really only fighting to maintain their own privileges.
ReplyDelete