My fellow colleague Juan Cristobal over at CCS has been receiving quite a beating for his un-nuanced condemnation of AD as being caught through Wikileaks as begging for funds at the US embassy in Caracas. This has generated quite a firestorm of comments. Besides makign me glad that my policy of comment moderation naturally dampens the flood of comments, it also forces me to take his defense with a special post because I do not want my opinion being just one in a 100. One is a prama donna or one is not, and, besides, this is too important to limit itself to a single blog.
So, I agree with JC, that AD should be banned from the MUD or accept a self purging of its representation at the very least. I will add that having Ramos Allup seating at the MUD is a magnificent weapon that the MUD is offering to Chavez who will use it ruthlessly. And he will be right in doing so. Unless AD finds a way to convince us that the wikileaks are fake, its position becomes a burden (and there is more than one cable on the subject, and I know enough of Alcantara from Lara who is a total loser and more than capable to go and ask for favors just becasue he things he represents something in Lara).
So there you go JC, you are most welcome.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
11 comments:
Comments policy:
1) Comments are moderated after the sixth day of publication. It may take up to a day or two for your note to appear then.
2) Your post will appear if you follow the basic polite rules of discourse. I will be ruthless in erasing, as well as those who replied to any off rule comment.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
So purging or self-purging before, or even without, due process? Will chavez claim that USA once again is directing MUD actions if MUD blindly reacts to a wikileaks document? And won't people forget this as quickly as they forget everything chavez does?
ReplyDelete--
What is more strategic in these circumstances ?Nobody has any proof one way or the other but I think most of us could agree on the following:
ReplyDelete1. Chavez does not need this to find fault with the opposition.He will use anything and get away with it
2. We should not plan a strategy based on fear of what Chavez likes or dislikes.Our strategy must be based on confidence and self reliance, not the crumbs of what Chavez throws to us
3.In a dictatorship is is impossible to win by playing by the rules.We are not children in a monopoly game.
4. Wasting time of squabbling with others in the opposition takes away the power we have to confront Chavez
5. whatever the wikileaks opines, may or may not be true.these are just opinions
6. politics by its very nature is corrupt and dishonest, and to pretend that it is different or even CAN be different in any foreseeable future is sadly naive.All of this is business as usual.If we want to change the world, first we have to change ourselves and stop playing power games and forming alliances not based on meritocracy something few people do, not even on these blogs.
7.Chavez has put the opposition in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation.He himself has total access to government funds.He makes it practically impossible for the opposition to be able to fund itself by harassing those who donate money to the opposition.They cannot get the money that way and if they break these rules and cannot get the money, the lose...vaya!!!!!!!!!! Accepting that has one meaning:destruction
8TRAICION A LA PATRIA? Give me a break!If the Libya rebels and help from foreigners, they are lost.Are the rebels treasonous?
9. If people want to get rid of Allup they should campaign against him in the primaries, and expose him in that way, not by kicking him out.Everybody has their list of who should be kicked out.This will create a chaos!
Wikileaks le mandó su merecido a Ramos, que pidan o no a la embajada de USA es asunto de ellos, pero que no quieran hacer la primarias este año sino en febrero 2012, esto si es traición más que repelencia. La Maga Lee
ReplyDeletecochonette en feu
ReplyDeletethere is no reason to make this complicated: AD went to the US embassy to ask for help, for direct help. i do not know about you but on that business i will trust the word of Brownfield any day over the one of Ramos Allup.
which by the way explains quite well why people like AD never lifted a finger to defend SUMATE. after all, they were too embarrassed that SUMATE work earned its help from the NED while AD was walking around with its hand put in front.
I thought this blog opposed wikileaks. Opposing them, and then using their revelations, is inconsistent.
ReplyDeletejeff house
ReplyDeletei never "opposed" wikileaks. i said that it was destructive, that is should not have happened, that it put people people's life at risk, that it was a lot of useful gossip as all embassies do, that it sabotaged uselessly international relations, that it served none except some idiots on the left and al qaeda types, etc, etc... but i never questioned the validity of the information it carried for one simple reason: i can hardly question the veracity of US embassies reports as they can question my opinions in the blog.
There is certainly a good case for disassociating with those who did the begging, but when you say "AD" do you mean everyone associated with Accion Democratica? Is that not a sizeable (if well short of a majority) of voters?
ReplyDeleteconsdemo
ReplyDeleteof course i do not mean AD, i mean the leadership of AD. AD should remain in the MUD but through different spokespeople. in fact, it should be AD that overthrows ramos allup and the alcantaras that hang aorund....
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteThanks for defending common sense, principle, and decency!
Re. the AD vs. its leaders commnets: the leaders of AD are not members of the MUD, AD is. This wasn't the actions of rogue members of AD leadership, this was an institutional practice. The institution should pay.
ReplyDeleteBut this discussion is pointless. Nothing is going to happen because AD controls the MUD.
JC
ReplyDeleteA little bit of disagreement with you: the cable also bring us the divisions within AD. So we could conceive that other AD leaders at the MUD might be better. Though better in this context, I will grant you, is not very encouraging all the same.....
Maybe we could have a serious discussion as to whether the AD is really, really necessary in the MUD. After all their big selling point is their supposed electoral machinery. And yet after each election we find out that scores and scores of voting centers were left without witnesses.
Unfortunately this is another thing that the MUD fails at, coming out with its failures to ask us ways to help them improve their performance. And thus AD can easily conceal its failures.