Today is the birthday of Bolivar, and as a happy coincidence for some parties, the victory of Maracaibo lake which was the last "battle" fought against Spain for independence. Thus it is also the navy's day. We got a never ending cadena for idiot political speech and an even more idiotic naval parade. Among other things we could verify that indeed we have more admirals, vice admirals and counter admirals than serviceable battle ships. The naval parade had to include peñeros to bulk up some...
Normally I would not watch it but I was lazy in my hammock enjoying the fee afternoon and waited to turn off TV. When suddenly I saw Chavez ghost... Thus I grabbed my camera and made this 30sec clip for you....
Yes, they use the soundtrack of Chavez singing the national anthem to lead the navy officers and the public along. For the TV audience, mostly chavista lumpen at this stage and idiot bloggers with too much time on their hands, they appropriately fade in and out a ghost of Chavez, all well calculated. Observe also that they all wear the now standard fascist arm band of the regime.
I did not record it for you but later own they had the staging on a truck float of the alleged soldiers discussion at the Maracaibo battle, totally out of military context, totally out of historical record, pathetically silly.
And of course, besides rewriting history and using historical symbols for political partiality, the occasion was used to attack the opposition.
Fascism always evolve towards ridicule. It cannot be helped. But what is very dangerous is how the navy allows itself to be so politically manipulated, permeated......
Time to ponder again the wisdom of Samuel Johnson and colonel Dax: "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel".
ReplyDeleteCloser to home, my wife had no time to honor the fatherland today, the local drugstore got a shipment of toilet paper.
The embers of the dying/dead Chavez can always be stoked.These are the emotional memories, the larger than life iconic ones.I seemed to recall writing about that after a dream I had years ago ....something that went like:
ReplyDeleteyou can go out some early morning
to the ridge at the edge of dawn
there the embers will still smolder
though they burned all the night long
and his Ghost will dance in silhouette
like streaks against the sky
as if the streaming ground itself
reached fingers up on high
Howsomever,You have to admit that one perk living in Venezuela has is more vacation time than just about anywhere else in the known world.You can enjoy that anyway.
firepigette