How to hold an electoral campaign under Venezuela neo-fascism?

For long time readers of this blog the title should not come as a surprise. It has been long that I have rejected the democratic pretense of the regime as well as the one coming from those that still pretend to comment "objectively" on Venezuela. That is those who try to find a fig leaf of democracy, be they foreign journalists, bloggers or actual Venezuelan journos. As far as I am concerned we are in a military regime since at least late 2010, a regime which is turning openly fascist since late 2012.  If you do not agree at least in part with me, then you have been wasting your time reading this blog.

A Eduardo Samán hay que responder, aunque sea inútil

Eduardo Samán, auto-proclamado radical en la defensas de los consumidores y la robolución revolución, no se le contesta como se debe. Claro, sus palabras son burradas que la mayoría de la gente entiende como tal, pero eso no impide que su repetición continua tenga mella en el ánimo de muchos, agregando consecuencias negativas para un futuro cada vez mas cercano. Es que cuando un tipo del talante de Samán dice cosas como “Los asalariados y los capitalistas, que se roban el trabajo de los primeros” se puede esperar cualquier cosa. ¿Se dará cuenta el pobre hombre como nos revela su pensamiento arcaico con esas palabras? Y ni hablemos de la confesión de partes que a pesar de 15 años en el poder sus amiguitos no han podido parar dicho robo (que sea dicho parece que ocurre en peores circunstancias en las empresas donde el estado es el "capitalista", el patrono, que roba más que cualquier empresario se atrevería a robar).

Lo que hay que contestar hoy en especifico es su entrevista en YVKE como esta reseña breve por El Universal (no conseguí el enlace YVKE).

Chávez siempre fue un reaccionario

Siempre pensé que la seudo revolución bolivariana era en el fondo un movimiento reaccionario. No me esperaba encontrar en el aeropuerto de Valencia una prueba clara y sencilla.

Waiting for your bags in Valencia

I am back home and I wanted to finish my little chronicles of a holiday that was not.

To understand how degraded Venezuela is, travel by plane....

Registration under Chavez

I left for a short holiday to Margarita and truly, it is an awesome experience. Not for the adventure, good food, beautiful scenery, but for the lousy service, the degraded infrastructure, the lack of basic items such as milk....  So there, a little summary.

It all started with the difficulty in finding a plane ticket. In Venezuela now, if you want to have a choice of travel dates, you need to buy a month ahead, even in low season, which is my case. By trying to get my ticket with barely three weeks notice, I could not find the adequate dates and I lost one day of my "package" while having to pay the full price anyway.  Not to mention the aggravation of useless web pages of Venezuelan airline companies which forced me in the end to go to an agency....

Proof that Chavez was a reactionary

But I got my ticket and on the set day I went to Valencia to take my flight.  To decorate this entry I have a collection of the airport political propaganda that I had to endure while at the airport: I had to be there two hours earlier to make sure I would not be bumped for a "waiting list" and my flight was 1 hour and a half late without any explanation. Click the pictures to enlarge for details.

A month and a half to play it out in Venezuela

For some, the local elections of December 8 are the last horizon. Crossing it successfully will mean the end of chavismo, at least as we have known it. For others all will be played as soon as the Enabling Law is published. Some think that a popular uprising is around the corner. Some think that it is all over. All are wrong, on these and other suppositions. That does not make me right because, well, I actually have no position. So, instead of trying to figure out a way out of this mess I should limit myself to try to evaluate the current situation. May the reader think whatever s/he pleases.

The almost daily morning line at Makro San Felipe. It is under the sun, people now carry umbrellas rain or shine.
This a short one. Sometimes it is 4X longer, reaching the main avenue downhill.
It is not the only line in San Felipe, but it is probably the most recurrent because Makro always get some item.

Whatever one thinks, one thing is certain, the next couple of months are decisive. Even if you think all has been played out, the coming weeks will decide the extent of the economic crisis and the extent of the repression we must suffer through 2014.

A disabling enabling law

Certainly, that the Maduro's enabling law was presented yesterday officially does not mean that it will be approved and that even if it is approved a predictable Armageddon will follow. The outrage yesterday is that when a regime decides to roll the dice with such a law it means that we are in dire straits, that its ability to run the country is on the skids.

Will that change this week?

There is a difference between this enabling law and the ones passed before, or even the attempt at constitutional change sought in 2007. These previous attempts were at least supported by the clear preference of the country for Chavez, for whatever misguided love his voters had for him. Also their scope was less ambitious in that Chavez sought to control specifics (or all in 2007 but at least it was through a constitutional reform submitted to popular vote).  What we got yesterday was the declared intention of the regime to control all of the economic aspects of the country and, through them, our private lives. Fascism or Communism, your choice, there are both of these elements in the brief proposal submitted yesterday.

The repressive, dictatorship consecrating, enabling law is out

Original

So, after much, much hot air the regime had to show the enabling law it wants for Maduro to become a full time dictator. It does not matter whether the unconstitutional project is to silence the opposition or to purge the ranks of chavismo of its undesirable elements (they are all undesirable but apparently there are gradations within chavismo). The fact of the matter is that chavismo does not want its bankrupt regime to be discussed either on the air waves, or the newspapers and even less at the Nazional Assembly (yes, I am retaking the "Nazional Assembly" moniker because after this re-edition of Ermächtigungsgesetz the next step is our own version of Nuremberg Laws which the projected enabling law contemplates as an extension of our very own Tascon list).


The excuse the government offered is that there is a need to fight corruption and to face down a severe economic crisis. But the solution offered by this enabling law is to silence the opposition, find corruption there and among some token chavistas for good measure, more to make room for other corrupt chavista officials rather than any good intention.  The economic measures are fake ones as a regime whose currency went from 500 to a dollar to 50,000 to a dollar in 14 years has no credibility anymore on this respect. Amen of an inflation currently at 50% annual. As long as the perpetrators of this economic disaster remain in office no enabling law of any type will solve the problems. This is not a matter of laws, it is a matter of personnel.

Carta abierta al cobarde de Diosdado Cabello

El dedo del odio

Diosdado Cabello, lo trato de usted porque quiero que me extienda la misma cortesía en caso de que se atreva a contestar esta carta. Lo que dudo porque los cobardes raras veces contestan argumentos. Observe también que no voy a usar ningún otro calificativo en esta carta ya que con cobarde basta y sobra para describirlo.

Le escribo hoy porque termino de leer, asombrado, que usted no va a permitir que nadie de la oposición participe en la comisión parlamentaria que estudiará la propuesta de ley habilitante que presentó Nicolas Maduro; presidente sin legitimidad para solicitar tal ley, sea dicho de paso.

Maria Corina Machado to the front line?

It has been a good weekend for Maria Corina Machado, if you call notoriety good in times of crisis and repression. Suddenly she is top billing above Capriles in Maduro's paranoia, and she gets two major interviews, one in El Universal but one also in La Nacion of Argentina. And she got two top journalists for that, Roberto Giusti and Hugo Alconada respectively, this last one having become an expert on Venezuelan and Argentinean corruption since the Antonini case of the 800K bucks in a suitcase.

Of course, MCM has never been too far away from the front pages, miscellaneously having her nose broken in the Venezuelan National Assembly while more serious parliaments go out of their way to receive her with all the respect she deserves. Yet we must be surprised that Maduro went out of his way this weekend to suggest that she is the one chosen by the US to replace him by leading an upcoming transition.

Enabling law as intra chavista power play of radicals in the ascent

UPDATED There two major news today, one just breaking with the "promotion" of Ramirez to the vice presidency of Economic area while the fate of the previous holder, Merentes, is still unknown (he may retain his seat of finance minister but we have no confirmation at this typing). The second news is the expected formal petition for an enabling law for Maduro. Let's start with this later one although the first one is the more revealing news as to what is truly happening.

Edifying read of the day: the WaPo about our implosion

This is your must read for the day, an editorial of the Washington Post, aptly coming out while the chavistas assholes celebrate the Chavez near-corpse victory of October 7 2012, 'cause they have nothing else to celebrate since.

Los Gafos del 7

En estos días cual agobio nos hace escapar las portadas de los periódicos todavía nos llegan rumores, rumores de que otra vez el gobierno tomará las calles caraqueñas en día de trabajo para celebrar algo. Sin contemplaciones, condenándonos a colas, atracos por motorizados en colas, trabajo productivo perdido y más. Hoy, van a celebrar la elección de Hugo Chávez el 7 de octubre pasado. ¡Bien gafos son!

Van a celebrar el resultado de una elección amañada, fraudulenta a todo nivel, y que además fue una estafa a la nación porque presentaron, a sabiendas, un “candidato” que tenía sus semanas contadas. Hoy en día sabemos que si los votos de Chávez aquel 7 fueron posiblemente suficientes para ganar, se mejoró el resultado ya que también hasta los muertos votaron por ese que los iba a visitar muy pronto. Los que hoy se acercarán a tal o cual tarima celebratoria no solamente van a conmemorar el éxito del muerto, pero también todos los fraudes que este hizo para conseguir ese éxito, desde el obsceno ventajismo estatal hasta la ayuda poderosa de las alcahuetas del CNE. ¡Bien gafos son!

Hard blues to shake off

Explanation in text

I have to admit that I have a hard time to recover from the news of the last two weeks. And my deep blues comes in part from that Cassandra syndrome that affects me on occasion. People minimize what I say or feel and I am, unfortunately, proven right later, but too late for any good or any comfort. There is always a Clytemnestra to put our kind out of our misery.

The two news that bear heavily on me are the 1.3 tons of coke through a regular Air France flight, and the looting of a truck over the dead body of the driver. I think that these news were covered barely adequately but I fail to sense a feel of outrage, even among readers of this blog. I read here and there stuff that can be summarized as follows: "there has always been looting in Venezuela" or "Air France, Water Spain, Truck Mexico, same difference". It is not. I see those two events as seminal examples on how bad, and doomed?, Venezuela may be.

Keller polls on Maduro's illegitimacy

There are many ways to conduct an electoral poll. In general you ask folks for whom they plan to vote and apply the acknowledged corrections to predict who is going to win. This works more or less but it tends to at least predict the winner, the margins of victory being the major problem. Or you can ask voters who did they vote for. After the fact and totally useless for us, but good for a pollsters as a way to control their polling methods when the vote is still fresh in mind.

This is what Keller did, who used to be my favorite pollster before I decided to send all of the them to the dumpsters. At least Keller still has the saving grace that on long term trends he is one of the best, only lacking when he wants to apply them to tomorrow's result. But that is another story.