The Honduras cadena: chavismo propaganda at wits end?

There was a short cadena last night on the Honduras situation and it spoke volumes of the current mind set and phobias of chavismo.

First and again, as it always needs to be repeated, a cadena is a MANDATORY SIMULTANEOUS BROADCAST OF ALL TV AND RADIO STATIONS OF THE COUNTRY, FOR THE GOVERNMENT, BY THE GOVERNMENT, FOR AS LONG AS THE GOVERNMENT WISHES IT TO LAST. Of course no financial compensation is given to the private networks that lose ad time, nor any right to reply to the parties that might be attacked by Chavez or any of his sycophants during the cadena.

The cadena was supposedly a fair representation of what had been taking place in Honduras last week. Of course it represented only the side of Chavez and Zelaya even though the film had the pretense of a documentary. I will spare you the details, only too predictable, details that make other films such as "The revolution will not be televised" relative models of objectivity when compared to this product of chavista (Cuban?) studios. The mesh was so thick that one would have been hard pressed to figure out what was true, or at least genuine, from what was purely political manipulation.

But I was not shocked by the cadena. No. Heck, any rational and moderately informed person upon watching this hysteria might be tempted to become pro Micheletti just out of instinct.

As I was watching the cadena I was hit by a revelation of sorts: chavismo is descending into propagandist imbecility. I mean, really, do they actually believe for a minute that people who have made up their mind on Honduras will change it based on such a poorly made and clearly biased "documentary"? No, they are not that dumb; their stupidity lies elsewhere.

What is happening is that after ten years of massive propaganda, of constant cadenas, of Tascon lists, of ideologization campaigns, of training folks in Cuba to come back train the masses, they still cannot convince, their message does not reach as far as they think it should. They beleive that their message does not get through because of "others", not because of the flaws of their message. That cadena was not an argument, it was a screaming until-your-face-turns-blue moment. The objective was to drown with noise the words of the other side; to establish a truth "because I scream it louder than you". Exactly as some PSF juvenile tactics when they try to troll opposition comment sections in blogs. If this last one is understandable, seeing that government has reached the same level of idiocy in media is a sobering moment.

The other worrying element hitting home is that chavismo now believes more and more its own crap, as we could see alter that evening in La Hojilla commenting on the Clinton interview. Chavismo seems to have lost any critical perspective. In that "documentary" grand sweeping exaggerations were the norm, followed by minimizing, objectifying, and degrading anything that tried to stand in front of you.

I already knew all of that but last night I was faced with it in the crudest way, in the most naked show of force, demanding that I listen to Chavez view point. As if I had escaped it so far, as if I could escape it anyway.

In a way it is good because such crass imposition along the threats on Globovision are in my opinion counterproductive. It is just too much, it is beyond the pale, it just goes beyond the right of reply since people realize, no matter how uneducated they might be, that there is no reply possible, that the concept of reply is now alien.

And it also explains why in polls so many self described chavistas are against closing Globovision: no matter how hysterical this one might get it is still light years removed from what the state media has become and they still sense a need for balance in their lives, no matter how perverse that balance might be.


-The end-