Many people criticize some of us when we use the term dictatorship to characterize the Chavez regime (I personally started using it in all propriety since the enabling law of 2010). Of course, people are still in the mind frame of XX century dictatorships. Times have changed. With clever abuse of the media and understanding on how to make things "legal" dictatorships have assumed a new facet. Now their objective is not controlling the daily life of people and killing scores of opponents. Now they satisfy themselves by making sure a small "elite" stays in office through manipulated but still sort of real elections. These "elites" are then allowed to plunder the state coffers, which was the point all along. Let's say that absolute power has been replaced by absolute plunder.
The Amuay refinery is still burning this morning as I type this note. But that is not the news. What are the news today is really Chavez visit yesterday. In that visit he bragged that he wanted to get closer to the fire, where even experts did not dare to go. We never got those images. He declared that the explosion was not due to a leak or lack of maintenance. Even though the going on fire did not allow for any examination of the wreckage yet. He said that it was impossible that folks smelled gas on Friday even though the reports to that effect are too many to count and found their way even in the New York Times today. He warned the media on "speculation" and took plenty of time to try to humiliate publicly a Colombian journalist that dared to contradict his words. He said that the show must go on, a tremendously telling subconscious betrayal. Etc...
In short, he behaved like a banana republic dictator, of the XIX century no less.
then why does MUD participate in these elections if the democratic process has been corrupted?? Will you accept the result what ever way it falls?
ReplyDeleteadamski
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and your offered solution is?
DeleteDaniel - are my questions to you unreasonable??
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Yes, your questions are unreasonable. If we used your simplistic approach them we could also say that "why is the GOP participating?". After all the Republican party of the USA is sponsoring all sorts of laws because they have "problems" with the US electoral laws.
DeleteAs for your other question, no one can accept in advance the final result because that result needs first to be considered valid. If there were real guarantees that the result will be valid no one would have problems accepting the result in advance. But that only happens in democratic countries where the electoral authorities are not questioned the way they are questioned in Venezuela. For example in France it is the interior ministry that organizes the elections. And yet in the recent April presidential elections I do not recall anyone doubting that the votes would be counted as they should, nor anyone questioning whether Sarkozy would surrender his seat if Hollande were to win. In Venezuela, the allegedly independent CNE is called "election ministry".
So yes, I repeat it, both of your questions were unreasonable.
I know you - if the right wing fundamentalist Capriles win - you will say free and fair elections and if Chavez wins the opposite. Sound like a crock to me Daniel. Past election have been declared free and fair? Yes? Can you point to a country that says the opposite?
DeleteSo Republicans have "problems" in the US electoral laws ay??? The problem of too damn blacks and hispanics potentially voting for corporate fall guy Obama that need to be purged from the electoral register. Thats some beacon of democracy you worship.
Unreasonable? No . Uncomfortable/ Inconvenient?? Yes
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Adamski, the "free and fair" aspect of an election is determined not by its result, but by the process. At least to a reasonable observer. (Your "right wing fundamentalist" allegation raises questions about your own reasonableness, though I do not pretend that it answers them.) And that can only be tested by participation.
DeleteHow can one promise to accept the final result, without knowing how the process went? It's not unlike not accepting the winner of a sporting event until they pass a drug test. If you promise to accept the result no matter what, then cheaters will cheat, and they will prosper. Politics is hardly any different in that regard.
AIO - please pay attention. Who has said the process was undemocratic? If you claim the process was and IS corrupted to your disadvantage, then why engage in it? Doesnt make sense. Oh and it not an allegation. Its a bear faced fact.
DeleteAIO
DeletePay no atention to this chavista like character. If people like him had sway at election time, Pinochet would have died peacefully at La Moneda, still president of Chile.
When electoral cheating favors their side then they would like nothing better but the other side to stay home. That is why they are unreasonable because they are unrational.
By the way, nice analogy with doping. Do you hold copyright :) ?
electoral cheating because you say so. What a joke
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Adamski, the process to which I refer will take place on October 7. (I thought that was pretty clear when I compared it to a sporting event, but I guess not.) How can anyone prejudge it today?
DeleteDaniel, I know what you're saying, but you know me. :) The doping example just occurred to me. If I indeed hold a copyright, I grant you all privileges to use it. (I do expect at least 50% of any actual profits derived - ha!)
adamski
Deleteyour reasoning reminds me so much of some spoiled brat that used to harrass oppo bloggers... really, el saliente supporters seem all to be cut from la misma tijera....
now, in case your density is only on the surface. cheating starts way earlier than the voting day. for example using all the resources of the state to buy votes. abusing advertising. propaganda cadenas. jailing noted political adversaries on lame excuses.
do i really need to go on? what is it you find unreasonable in my words?
then it that case - show me a nation that agrees with you and doesnt recognise the Chavez govt as a democratically elected one. You got any balls to be honest Daniel?
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Deleteadamski
Deleteyou are an idiot. even north korea is recognized by most nations.
if this is as brilliant a counter argument you can advance, this thread is over for you.
Adamski, I never made a comment about what has happened thus far. I am only discussing your own initial comment: "Will you accept the result what ever way it falls?" I am asserting that is entirely foolish to choose to accept what has yet to happen.
DeleteIn discussions on this blog, I choose to keep things as simple as possible. I will welcome your doing the same, at least with me. If we can fully address one point, I'll be happy to move to another.
good report in the NYT. Thanks, Daniel.
ReplyDelete"With clever abuse of the media and understanding on how to make things "legal" dictatorships have assumed a new facet."
ReplyDeleteI was much taken with the point of your posting. Well done! I would differentiate between a 'totalitarean' government (i.e. North Korea) and a 'dictatorial' government (i.e. Venezuela, Iran and Russia) by the necessity of having superficial elections. When people like Eve Golinger or Sean Penn support the Chavez regime it is not, in their minds, that they're supporting a dictatorship. No, they still see themselves as democrats. This despite the fact that all of the organs and power of the state are used to support their favorite dictator. They could care less about stuff like that. A guy like Penn would surely support all of the cadenas, a one party judiciary, and an ideological based news media and not, not!...see the irony. They could also care less about any election being a battle of economic ideas. It isn't. Their ideology/ideas, (Chavez, Penn, Golinger etc), will always, always be superior no matter the physical evidence. They can simply ignore the butchering of democratic principles, as is currently taking place in Venezuela, because their ideas are above all others. And, they're arrogant about it as well. This new type of 21st century 'dictatorship' can be found in Putin's Russia and Ahmadinejad's Iran as well. They were all supposedly elected to political office, but just don't ask about the details. You don't wanna know.
The official definition of these people these day is "progressive". When you hear that, just run away as fast as you can.
DeleteI agree Charly, I particularly hate the word 'progressive" used in a political context because it is so darn manipulative.
DeleteUnconsciously people will see it as good even if not good, just as the world "conservative" often sounds bad, especially to young folks.
I think the names of political movements should not include these kinds of adjectives because they are highly untruthful.
But then again there is so little of truth in anything political.It's all about image without substance.
-firepigette
Chavez sounding more and more desperate with his absurd comments
ReplyDeleteIt's easy for these new style dictators to get away with anything by joining the easy membership and super popular club of 'Acuso America Primoris'...no matter what is happening, in any, and every situation, the first thing they do is blame America.If Chavez can blame his Cancer on the CIA, i am sure he can blame them for his newest disaster.Where would politicans be without blame and Chavez is shameless in this respect.
ReplyDelete"Chavez..took plenty of time to try to humiliate publicly a Colombian journalist that dared to contradict his words."
ReplyDeleteYou saw it the way I saw it-wasn't that horrible behavior. Yet, a typical example of Chavez humiliating and insulting and the brainwashed chavistas backing him up..I fully expected him to break out into a song...
I was embarassed for Chavez's behavior. Idiotic
is not enough to call it. Psychobabble?
Anonimo #5
Being on the road it was only today that I realised this thread had reached 40 comments. Checking why, as usual when thread passes the 20 mark, it was a personal discussion of little relevance to the post. So I had to erase all adamski posts after he was told that thread was over for him. And unfortunately other replies that were sensical but out of context once adamski was removed. I am sorry for the comments that were unfairly removed.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to use this opportunity to restate that even though comments are more than welcome, I have no patience to read threads with more than a couple of dozen comments, the more so when half of them are private discussion. In my ten years of bloggng I have not seen 10 threads, here or elsewhere, with more than 50 comments that were worth reading. This may sound arrogant but think about it this way: are there indeed threads with 50 or more comments that qualify of "great reads" if there were not at least a couple of your own comments? That is right, if you did not feel compelled to participate then indeed the thread was not that great. No?