A Cadena, the universal Chavez remedy

In the spirit of yesterday's post, we got tonight another signal that things are a tad confused in the Chavez administration: we got the same cadena as last night. That is right, all networks around 9 PM (prime time news for Globovision) had to show again in mandatory simultaneous broadcast a 15 minutes show on Barrio Adentro II. I do not think it was the same as last night. The pro Cuban tone did not seem as marked (maybe I am starting to get used to it?). But all the key words were there: socialism (XXI century variant), neo-liberal policies of the adeco-copeyano governments (when was there a real neo-liberal policy in Venezuela? I must have missed it!), media wars, etc, etc...

So, why the revamping of the same cadena? Again we are left to look for subtle signs of what it really means. Here, a few ideas.

Chavez is mad at the media

Well, that would assume that the media did not report adequately on this new great opus of Chavez, as seen on Alo Presidente on Sunday. But, then again, when did the media ever reported to Chavez liking? As long as they do not spend all their newshour praising El Supremo he will not be happy, anyway.... And we know that if Chavez really wanted to punish us, he would have made a cadena himself of a couple of hours. No, the explanation of this unusual repeat performance is elsewhere.

Things to hide

That is more likely. Having a lot of dirty laundry revealed lately, Chavez decides to push on the forced feeding of the only program that could be qualified, arguably, as a success: the Barrio Adentro thing (after all, the Robinson Mision for illiteracy cannot be advertised anymore since supposedly it has eliminated illiteracy.....)

A short list will show why distracting methods are needed.

Some sectors of the Army are in uprising, not to defend Chavez, not to attack the opposition coupmongers. No, they seem to be settling accounts among themselves. Corruption? Ranking? Pro or anti Castro? But apparently not for the glory of Chavez. Petkoff has a great editorial today as to the latest troubles in Bolivar state where the Nazional Guard seems to have exacted undue payments from the gold diggers/garimpeiros (who by the way are ruining the environment, but why should chavismo care about the natural resources of Guyana when it is ruining preserves such as hato Piñero (heard that Green Peace?)

In the PDVSA ongoing saga of decrepitude and corruption, it was the turn of Citgo auditor to say that Citgo had a few black boxes of its own. About 700 million USD in 2002 went nobody knows where. Maybe the IRS could give a hand?

Jesse James Chacon, the Interior (Homeland)minister has admitted that the Colombian drug kingpin that escaped from the highest security jail in Caracas, did so thanks to internal complicity. Imagine that!!!! Apparently he also had a nice life while in jail.

Vice Foreign minister Izarra, father of Communication minister Izarrita (who apparently has his dad as the most quoted opinion maker in the ministry web site, according to Tal Cual statistics published today: 10 ope-ed pieces out of not even 100 published in the site) has declared that in 48 hours the extradition petition of Posada Carriles will be given to the US. What? Weeks of pig squealing about the US "protecting" Posada and the formal papers are not in yet?!?!?!?!?!?!

The protection of Governor Manuitt Human Rights violations from a parliamentarian inquiry who found enough evidence to call prosecutors is raising a heck as the gross interference of the chair, Maduro,overruling his colleagues demonstrated how far from bipartisan inquiry and debate we are now.

OK, I'll stop now. This list is enough for Chavez to want to distract us with another cadena while he comes up with something else. Apparently more assassination rumors for which Izarra has promised us arrests, as heard on TV. I kid you not, the communication minister realizing that eventually they are going to have to arrest someone for all of these assassination attempts for which no one has been arrested!