Homophobia as a chavista weapon to destroy the opposition

Besides that I am particularly sensitive on the topic, what was most disgraceful tonight was the deliberate use of insult and homophobia to taint the opposition. Chavismo must have reached real lows that it is left with the language of the lowest life thug as political argument against its political adversaries.  Let me try to summarize briefly, if I can, if my mind clears up some after the homophobic onslaught to which we were subject today, live on TV.

The thing is that the regime has decided to destroy the opposition, or at least its leadership. Polls are not good and there is no hope of improvement as the economy shows no sign of better days, nor measures can be taken by the regime to that effect. The regime is now a military one since the only way it could have survived the Chavez death and the constitutional violations that followed is because  the army accepted them. Just look at who has power in the public administration and most of the time you will bump into a barracks product. Thus the current situation is forcing the regime into its final conversion to frontal military dictatorship, of a fascist nature; and homophobic as well as are all those kind of regimes in history, of course.

Besides the usual attacks against the opposition inherited from Chavez (traitor, pro US, blood thirsty capitalist, etc.) the new regime feels like it needs to push the ante. A few weeks ago started a massive propaganda blitz trying to prove that the opposition is the real culprit of corruption in Venezuela. This is not catching much because public opinion has not a jaundiced view on corruption and know very well that the regime is the most corrupt in our history, accepting the situation perhaps because, after all, many get the occasional freebie.

But the regime keeps pushing, using the corruption theme to get rid of some of the opposition leaders. Whether the charges pressed are real is irrelevant because the controlled judicial system will do what is expected from submissive judges; and, come to think of it, what is really sought is the discredit of that leadership by association no matter what a judge does in the end. After all, the same judicial system does not bother to examine sustained accusations of public notice against the regime own corruption, cases that dwarfs orders of magnitude whatever is charged to the opposition these days.

When you lean so heavily on a supposed financial corruption that does not fly in public opinion the final consequence is that you must extrapolate it to moral turpitude.  The objective is to state that the accused party is more corrupt than the accusing party on so many levels that the accused cannot fight back in public opinion, the more so when the media is muzzled. To put it more simply, Diosdado Cabello may have stolen 100 million dollars by himself against, say, the 100 thousand that Mardo laundered, but Mardo is a worse criminal because he is ALSO gay, he hires whores, he smokes pot, he does not stop at red lights for old ladies. In the fascist Goebbelian tradition it does not matter how believable the charges are, the one that can repeat them the most, and the louder, will win the argument. Or so it goes because that argument is rarely won, and not for long, but at least the opposition shuts up for a while.

What happened tonight was the crossing of that line, accusing Primero Justicia to be a haven of faggots that dabble in prostitution at Miranda state house. And challenging the rest of the opposition to remain around PJ, very close to them, hugging that bunch of faggots, corrupt faggots by association.

There is no need to enter into the details, the excuses that chavismo used to cross that line: the historical mechanism that I hinted at above are always the same, even in Communist regime like Cuba who in their drift toward totalitarianism reach the same methods that fascists reach a little bit earlier. Let's just talk about the agents and what they said.

The main one, the one that crossed that line was Pedro Carreño (@pedrocarreno_e). This character has no credibility and as such has been the henchman of Cabello to start the most grotesque attacks against the opposition (like the broken nose of Maria Corinna Machado). Why do I write this? Because besides been a lout, the product of drunken barracks and whore houses according to chavista themselves, he made his reputation on announcing that Montesinos, the henchman of Peru's dictator Fujimori, was dead (he was not, just blackmailed by corrupt chavista security) and that Direct TV decoders had secret cameras to see what people did inside their home (take that! NSA).  Thus for Pedro Carroña Carreño there is no problem to assume the posture he did today, and assume it with relish, sort of coming out from his closet of repressed homophobia.

I can give you a short summary of Carreño performance tonight in La Verdad  including a video impossible to watch for me right now to pick up details (Internet is getting worse by the day). But I had the distasteful privilege to watch it live and maybe it is a good thing that You Tube is basically out of order in Venezuela. Or you can go to Noticias 24 who carries in highlight the words he used:

Responde, homosexual. Acepta el reto, maricón. Reply, homosexual. Accept the challenge, faggot [actually a much worse term in that context]
Es problema de ellos (los dirigentes de Primero Justicia) lo que hagan con su culo, pero tienen que ser serios It is their problem [PJ] what they do with their ass, but they have to be serious.

Then it was the turn of Disodado Cabello, sounding more moderate after the attacks of Carreño but equally as obnoxious, equally as homophobic in defending himself against homophobia. Again, yet another product of low educated barracks (@dcabellor).

Beyond the current political crisis, I need to remind readers that long ago I have pointed at the inner homophobia inside chavismo, at my bemusement on how come many gays actually supported a movement that had only contempt for them starting with Chavez himself whose silence on the issue was more deafening than an actual homophobic comment (the sexist ones, he did spread around easily). This is a government that has done nothing for gay except promising that they would do a lot for them. No civil union, no domestic partnership, no access to insurance for partners, no nothing except a vague "we do not discriminate" when in practice you have yet to have an single gay person holding any position of importance inside the regime though we know that many are closet cases.

There is a reason why homophobia is one of the tags of this blog, a tag that yet I use sparsely to avoid making it look like a personal issue. But tonight, I felt personally offended by these chavistas speakers. And even more offended because not a single one of the other chavista representatives had the courage to stand up and say that "PJ is corrupt but we should refrain on discussing their private lives". Not one of them. All guilty by association. But then again I should not be surprised, this is how fascism works.....

PS: for those who have the stomach for it, the video of Carroña Carreño