The heir: Hugo Chavez, el primero

Thus the family picture is complete.

When I arrived from work today Globovision welcomed me with the just released video of Chavez visit of Castro in some hospital where he is secluded. Castro’s health is a state secret, dixit Castro, giving a new meaning to Louis the XIV famous sentence “L’Etat c’est moi”, I am the state. Thus today it was only normal that we saw the king putting his blessing on the presumptive heir, Hugo Chavez.

Well, at least if Castro dies any time soon otherwise if I were Chavez I would not be so certain of my “prince in waiting” status.

Now, the good news here was that I was right all along not to indulge in the silly speculation that has shaken this portion of the world that gravitates around Cuba. Rather than worry about who was in charge in Havana and where was Raul, I waited for the funeral procession of Castro to start speculating about Cuba’s future. I am vindicated; all was yet again a montage by the wily Castro using the opportunity of a grave death-bed disease to make fun, once again, of all his opponents and friends. He cannot help it, his life has been built around throwing star dust on people’s eyes and even a few inches from death he could not resist to put up yet an ultimate show. And most fell for it, including CNN.

On its Spanish language service, CNN en Español, each time they talked about Cuba there was that somber and dramatic music that suggested the death of a beloved constitutional king when in fact what we were about to bury was the longest serving dictator of the XX and XXI century. Unbelievable! Goes to show how ignorant are today’s journalist that have never studied how Castro reached power and kept it, probably sensing at some level that the marches that Castro called on the Malecon were surely as good as an election. Funny how they did not think the same during the Venezuelan opposition marches of 2002-2003…

But this post is not about trashing the MSM lack of proper cultural training for their staff. No, this is about examining the official passing of power to Chavez. Of all world leaders, none was informed about Castro health status. Not even Chavez (at least that he let us know). Only some banalities as to Castro doing better were sparsely dispersed from Castro associated thugs such as Ortega in Nicaragua.

Today, what no MSM could obtain, Chavez provided: evidence of Castro alive if barely.

This was done through a mellifluous and tacky video of the visit of Chavez to Castro on his birthday. That video included watching a photo album of all the political pictures of Chavez and Castro through these last few years. Note that: not a family album, nothing of the sort, just an album about their shared glory which pages Chavez turned. Each man is the other one true family. The video also included Chavez, hold tight on your seats, discussing how he was trying to draw himself at home a portrait of Fidel over the past few days to bring it as a present. We saw Chavez and Castro hold hands, more than once. Chavez was charming, even remembering the visit to his first girlfriend and Castro replying that he was already leading some Cuban zafra or something. Cuban TV edit even provided through a sappy background music. CNN clueless, not able to let the void speak, had its announcer utter further banalities while the sappy music kept on in the background! Even on his death bed Castro plays them like a fiddle, has more wits than a major network editor! Unbelievable!!!!

The symbolism could not be clearer. Even if they had erased the mandatory scene where Castro speaks to Chavez from his death bed in a pose that could only mean that he was passing last instructions to his favorite son, all the rest was in place to suggest that Chavez is the anointed heir of Castro, the true son of Castro. All the FreudoJungian symbols were in place. This video will have a long story and its fame will be provided by CNN in Español, courtesy of clueless and hapless Daniel Viotto who could only focus on any sign of Castro health while history was made at the expense of his network, and he could not see it.

So there we are, Chavez as the heir.

My last comment is for those who still think that Chavez could lose an election someday in Venezuela. Do you think that people like Castro or Chavez, that have worked so hard and taken so many risks to consolidate personal power will risk losing it on some stupid democratic ritual? The innovation of Chavez reaching power through an election to establish a leftist regime will stop there: Chavez will never allow elections to take away the power he conquered. When he sees how Castro managed without oil in a poor island, why should he doubt himself? These guys have a project and your opinion does not count. Your choice is to play dumb like Daniel Viotto or wake up.

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PS: I have been asked to write for Babalu articles on Cuba and Venezuela sick relationship. I am thus quite honored to be the first token Liberal over there where I will limit my scope to Venezuela and Cuba. I have already started this week end, and also just put this post as relevant. Huguito and Fidel are giving me extra work....