The latest scandal to shake chavismo and provoke yet another intemperate response that hurts it more than it he's is the expose of two remarkable activists. They showed that the huge green houses set along the ARC highway for propaganda purposes were in fact empty, some with overgrown grass that showed they have served no agricultural purposes for maybe a year. The video that infuriates the regime is below. It is in Spanish but the images speak for themselves.
As a personal note I can assure you the Potemkine green houses are fake. I pass at least 4 times a month in front and for quite a while the peasant in me wondered what the he'll was going on. Never any worker to be seen. A lot of dust. Overgrown access. Etc.
Meanwhile not only we import 60% of our food, at least, but the regimes prides itself on that "to cut down on inflation"
Looks like a shade tobacco farm after the Surgeon General called in an air-strike.
ReplyDeleteAs a rational individual I'll need much more than a single lot of abandoned greenhouses to convince me the revolution is "false".
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't rush to blame the President when something blows up the other side of the country. Be rational guys.
OK, how about this:
DeleteThere are still folks living in hotels from the rains of 2010. How long does it take to build housing?
How about, we import 60% or more of our food, or did you think those warehouses were going to feed us all.
Where were you when the umpteen thousand containers of food rotted on the piers?
Daniel has written close to 3500 posts and articles about the failings of Chavez' project, and that is just one blogger.
I am damn sure you do not live in Venezuela, nor have you ever even visited for you to write what you wrote.
You really need to get rational, Mr. Anonymous of 2:37 am
Of all the people who complain about food import levels today (overwhelmingly the opposition), guess how many were complaining during the IV republic? That's right: 0.
DeleteAll that rotten food would have fed all of Venezuela for one afternoon. Get over it!
I lived in Vzla for 3 years total and will be back soon.
So living in Venezuela for three years in Venezuela entitles you to talk out of your ass? Puh-lease!. Before buying so happily all the propaganda that the government is selling about Chavez being the savior of the universe and his so-called socialism being the panacea against capitalism, you should get your facts straight.
DeleteWere it only a random accident and an improductive plot of land, you'd be right. But it's the whole country and PDVSA that are falling to piece after the biggest oil windfall in three decades.
After 14 years of mismanagement we have that the homicides have quadrupled, blackouts are happening everyday countrywide because the electric power system is falling to pieces, the national debt is four times bigger in the middle of a huge oil windfall, the number of accidents of PDVSA has increased while production has fallen, hospitals and schools are in terrible shape, public employees are denied collective agreements, and many other problems that the goverment just try to hide behind its so called battle against imperialism and capitalism. Because, you know, why bother solving real problems when you can fight against capitalism, USA and many other imaginary foes?
It always amazes me to see this late in the game people like anonymous starting this sub-thread (sub in more ways than one).
DeleteWhen you need to bring back the 4th republic (a chavista concept since we never left the third), or that pudreval is dismissed as a mere picnic (false since even in the low estimates it is about two weeks of the country's food) then we just need to expect the next argument: 2002-2003!!!!!!
This people are mere sad "casquilleros". You only need a single smashing argument: Germany and Japan recovered their war destroyed country in a decade, chavismo cannot even recover from a strike that left an intact industry into their hands. PDVSA was intact when chavismo got it in 2003. It is proven by all the documentation of the fired workers and that in spite all the threats the regime has been unable to make a case against any of this workers. On the other hand we know today that chavismo did destroy PDVSA in 10years. And agriculture. And manufacturing. And counting.....
Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI think it is about time we stop talking about Potyomkin Villages (a term I have often used as well).
I am thinking now: Chávez villages or urbanisations (urbanizaciones chavistas in the language of God) are a new concept we need to introduce for the 21 Century. As you surely know, Potyomkin villages were basically an idea - its historicity still disputed- by Potyomkin to fool Catherine II, but here we are dealing with the Emperor himself cheating the Venezuelan people and even some useful idiots abroad.
This is bigger, from an infinitely smaller man.
I see you have read your wikipedia too.....
DeleteWhat did you smoke, Daniel? That was not the point. And it's not only French who read something more than Wikipedia.
DeleteI meant the concept of Chávez's lies do require a new term.
Relax. I am just poking fun of your desire to be precise on potyomkoyne village.....
DeleteI think the word is potyomkogno village.
Delete"As a rational individual..."
ReplyDeleteBy your comments you have proven the exact opposite.
A. Barreda.
Well written. We might also include that Capriles is drawing thousands & thousands of supporters all over the country who voluntarily show up to his rallies while Chavez has to use threats & hundreds of forced busing to get his meager followers to show up.
He doesn't have a chance of winning.
Hay un camino!
Anonymous, I don't know why I waste my time on you but I would like you to consider the following in light of your above statement:
ReplyDelete"I lived in Vzla for 3 years total and will be back soon."
Very few people really see their surroundings.We take our mind with all its baggage, bias, hopes, wishes and automatic memories with us.Most people who travel never " see" the country they travel to , even often after years of living in the new country.In order to see a place that is not our own, we have to make a conscious decision to not judge what we see for a period of time, and just live what it has to offer.
In other words you, Anonymous, carry your Potemkin village within you.
We all do to some degree.For Venezuelan people it is easier to see the damage that has been done, because of greater knowledge of the culture.The knowing goes deeper.Travel knowledge is always very superficial.
You carry your Potemkin village within.Remember that the next time you go, and maybe you can free your mind from the self- centeredness that comes with individual bias and years of automatic thinking.
We know from one of those involved in the project (Beatríz Borges) that “hay 4 casas sembradas."
ReplyDeleteWe don't know how many "casas" there are in total, to gain an idea of how many are unproductive.
We don't know when cultivation began, in those 4 casas, after the announcement was made by Chávez (October 10, 2010) on Aló Presidente.
We don't know anything about those yields, moreover, as a percentage of what was promised by Chávez and what is being promised through billboard propaganda.
We don't know how many other hectares, not under sombra malla, are supposed to be producing corn, for instance, but obviously are not.
Numbers. That's what I want. More numbers.
Daniel, would you be able to count the casas, in total, the next time you go by?
If I remember it I will certainly try to count them.
DeleteIf you remember it??
DeleteYou've just written a post about a sensationalist discovery by a third party that was unable to provide quantitative detail.
Of course you'll remember it. With the exception of GEHA, you're the only blogger on the road.
I look forward to reading better details about this issue, preferably before 7O.
Since I am challenged, from memory.
Delete- going from caracas, right hand after Santa Teresa, something like 4 huge areas of tents. The thing is that sometime they touch. Some don't and in the back it is harder to figure out.
_ right after, on the left. More like fields and a hangar with silos. Fields across the high way also. They used to be sugar cane, now they have some crops and some decorative plants, which reveals that efficiency is no concern.
- then at the valencia toll. On both sides. Fields more or less planted and a disproportionate administrative building with lots of machinery on display. All nice and painted but never much activity.
That is, even students in in a tranca for an hour I do not see shit happening.
Whatever they are doing, the level of activity pales in comparison with the polar compound in san joaquin....
Is is possible to take an odometer reading at the point at which the tents begin, and another reading at the point at which the tents end?
DeleteThat would be one measurement. Not an accurate one, but better than 'something like', or the total absence of quantifiable data from Graffe & co.
"Of all the people who complain about food import levels today (overwhelmingly the opposition), guess how many were complaining during the IV republic? That's right: 0.
ReplyDeleteAll that rotten food would have fed all of Venezuela for one afternoon. Get over it!
I lived in Vzla for 3 years total and will be back soon."
Please don't bother coming back, you are not welcome.
It was our money, not yours, rotting on those piers. Piers that now are unconstitutionally in the hands of a foreign power. Guess how many foreign powers we gave our piers to in the 4th? That's right: 0
Guess how many flags flew over our military bases in the 4th? That's right : 0
Guess how many dead in 1998 by murder? 4998
Last year? 19000 +, 95% non trial rate.
In the end, you deluded Pendejo Sin Frontera, there is nothing you can do or say to make Chavez and his mis government look good here. How about you take a long walk off of a short pier and go play somewhere else? ANd don't let the door slam your ass on the way out, yes?
Roberto
DeleteDo not bother with this kid. From the style he could be that kid that ended up at venezuela analysis when even wilpert could not be bothered with. Even la golinger managed to move to greener pastures. That this kid needs to come back tells you that he even failed as a "jalador"
If it is true, as I have read, that the regime wants to prosecute the makers of the video, that is shocking indeed. Since the arrest if Afiuni, e government has been able to impose pretrial custody for unlimited periods on anyone they chose, merely by making a false allegation.
ReplyDeletePlease keep us informed as to the sagety of these brave young people.
"The latest scandal to shake chavismo and provoke yet another intemperate response that hurts it more than it"
ReplyDeleteActually, for those who don't live in Venezuela, what WAS the response of the chavernment? Did they do the obligatory blowing of a fuse in cadena, accusing everyone of lying while providing no evidence whatsoever that they are lies (which would have been trivial if everything was actually working)? Jeffry mentions that they want to prosecute the makers of the video, but is that an official thing done in public (aka live on VTV) or just something everyone knows is gonna happen?
Please keep us informed of the details of their reaction.
The chavernment alleges that either Carlos Graffe or Daniel Blanco, the authors of the video, shot someone on the farm while making the video. The allegation is that the farmer tried to stop them from filming and was shot in the neck. It was a grazing shot, so the farmer is OK and "back at work".
DeleteThe chavernement has "launched an investigation" and since it seems that Globovision equipment was being used, has involved Globovision in the mess.
This is public and is being reported in most local media.
http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/120831/globovision-reitera-que-colaborara-para-investigar-situacion-en-aragua
Anonimo
DeleteI am not following quite well,but it is in the papers today as how the kids who did the video are called terrorists and globovision sending goons in the green houses. Developing as they say in CÑN
Daniel, Chavez learn to make these "Potemkin villages" from china! In china they make Potemkin cities!! Buildings there look pretty on the outside brite lights But inside there nothing but a shell of a building!!
ReplyDeleteDaniel,
ReplyDeleteWhile you stop to count the hectares could you also do me a favor and perform a soil analysis so that we can accurately calculate the potential yield of those fields ;)
I just now read a blog post about Gabriela Montero.While I am not as impressed as some by her improvisational talent, nor did I love her first composition on the musical level,I do recognize that she is a good pianist and that in the middle of so much sadness she wrote her jewel of love in which one can hear merengue , seis por ocho, and a touch of other Venezuelan warm musical forms.Her variations on a theme are moderately well done.
While I don't normally approve of political art, I do however understand her sorrow and her need to express her love and support for Venezuela.
Then, when reading the thread of commentaries I saw one Lefty idiot say:
” I myself do not know that much about Venezuela, but I would prefer to take the words of a Le Monde Diplomatique reporter with a pinch of salt than those of a pianist about whom I have no background information.”
This illustrates the authoritarian mindset that does not respect the emotional outpourings of a native who knows and loves her country, but prefers to rely more on the phony experts to verify a belief system.
This is one of the reasons why we have potemkin villages fooling the fools.
The whole length of the Autopista Francisco Fajardo can one day be transformed into a "museum of the socialism incompetency". Let's start with the Chinese Train to nowhere, then lets move to the Beatríz Borges greenhouse failures, and then Veneiran auto parking lot of shame. Not to talk about the state of the highway itself. Shame shame shame. Everything can be viewed from the confort of your seat.
ReplyDeleteThat´s not the FF highway, That´s the ARC or Autopista Regional del Centro (middle zone highway?)
DeleteI started to get worried Capriles will get hold of those greenhouses and will start growing tomatoes and Venezuela will stop buying food from us and we`ll all rot in hell after our economies go to pieces after the savior is gone.
ReplyDeleteThe worst aspect,(always shocks me) is Chavez ignoring the issue of the greenhouses never producing anything and in a state of disrepair-I bet nobody is involved with this..
ReplyDeleteIgnoring the subject- and shooting the messenger.
Anonimo #5