Cindy Sheehan does Caracas

While I was away Chavez held the Social Forum, Caracas version. Needless to cover this old news, covered enough elsewhere. I just need to add two comments.

First, the general impression was rather unfavorable. An already seriously dilapidated Caracas was not pleased with the hordes that went down to destroy the Vinicio Adames or Los Caobos park. I use the term hordes, because if many of them were genuine lefties searching for better ways to manage our damaged planet, too many were in only for a good time. Even as far as Carabobo, Charito Rojas observes dryly in Notitarde that Venezuelan poor have better personal hygiene than many of the visitors.

acompañados por un concierto de violín que ni nuestra gente más pobre está acostumbrada a oler.

[the attendees came] accompanied by a violin concerto that even the poorest of our people are not used to smell. (in Venezuela when some is said to play a violin means that the date of the last shower resides in a very distant past).

Perhaps a superficial comment but unfortunately rather accurate, and duly backed by this Yahoo news picture of an activity where no self respecting Venezuelan women would be caught dead doing in public.

But outside of this rather folkloric comment the fact of the matter is that Chavez did indeed tried to hijack to his own personal benefit the meeting, in spite of the “non political” character that the Social Forum organizers want to imprint. Sensing that, many of the luminaries that were supposed to come, including Lula of Brazil, decided to skip it. The result was a rather lackluster, dirty, messy meeting which managed to raise complaints from some participants at the obvious ways in which chavismo was trying to handle matters to the glory of El Supremo.

But some people did come. And the second part of my note is dedicated to Cindy Sheehan.

Before I must criticize this woman, I must state clearly that I feel sorry for her loss. It is always a terrible thing to lose one’s child. Ms. Sheehan’s grief is no less that any of the mothers who lost a son to Iraq. But what she is doing with that grief can be submitted to review (1).

Ms. Sheehan came to Caracas to embrace unambiguously Chavez. As many lefties termed PSF in these pages (2), Ms. Sheehan will embrace anyone that goes against George Bush, no matter what crimes they might have committed on their own.

So, in case Ms. Sheehan has not been well informed, and to help her realize her mistake and get free from the interest groups that have cornered her since her original initiative at Crawford, here is a small list of crimes committed under Chavez tenure for which answers remain to be found. Cindy, feel free to do the adequate comparison with your own situation.

• The Venezuelan army has become the source of power and decision in Venezuela. You can go to any public administration and you will see that key posts are occupied by uniformed officers.
• The Venezuelan army has become a bloated organization where no one knows what goes where.
• The Venezuelan army has killed a few of its own soldiers in circumstances that TO THIS DATE have not been clearly explained and lightly punished, if at all. The death of these soldiers was often in atrocious conditions: burnt to death, drowning during training by abuse of the commanding officers. Cindy, you could look today at the front page of El Nacional to see the plight of Carmen Martinez.
• And you could also ask about the student youth regularly killed by the security apparatus of the regime.
• And, while you are at it, you could watch some videos on how the Venezuelan Nazional Guard represses anti Chavez marchers in ways that would give great ideas to the cops guarding a certain ranch in Texas, if they were allowed to do as they pleased.
• And it certainly would not hurt you to try to visit the abject prisons of Venezuela where the death penalty constitutional ban is in fact common practice for those that spend there a few too many years. Sometimes even without a trial.

But you did not check on these things Cindy. In fact the press throws interesting things today, nothing less than, imagine that, a juxtaposition of a piece of news from FOX and one from Cuba’s Granma. We learn thus that you are thinking about a run to California’s Senate against Diane Feinstein, just what the Republicans need to pick up yet another senate seat. We also learn from Granma that you could go 12 months to jail fro trying your State of the Union speech stunt (which will not happen of course, you know that, don't you?). Well, Cindy, I can assure you that Carmen Martinez would not even received an invitation by an opposition deputy to Chavez own State speech since Chavez has got rid of any legal opposition. Something you might want to think about too.

This reminds me of Jane Fonda a few decades ago. She was hated for what she did in Vietnam. Hanoi Jane they called her. Yet she also managed to garner a reluctant admiration. See Cindy, Jane was really brave. She put at stake her reputation, her career and even her life by going to Vietnam. It was a time, in a country at war, where an “oooops!” would have been much more credible than what it would be credible today.

It took some guts to go to Vietnam to protest US intervention. It takes only some stupidity to go to Caracas to protest US intervention.

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1) For the new reader, or the ones generous enough to return to this blog, I have often stated my deep anti military feelings. Deep seated negative feelings against anythign wearing military drag. My judgement on Ms. Sheehan has nothing to do on her pro or anti Iraq position, but about what she does with it.

2) PSF = Pendejos Sin Fronteras, (Fools Without Borders) term coined by Teodoro Petkoff (I believe) and which stands for any idealist that goes outside of his/her country to support things that they would not dream of putting up with at home.