Transforming a mistake into a revamped tool of repression: the Delcy Rodriguez scandal

For all my intentions (not resolutions, never) to take a soft approach to blogging the Delcy Rodriguez scandal that started the year forces me to write a second note, this time in English.  Yesterday I wrote in Spanish that Rodriguez, minister of communication which in Venezuela is a mere ministry of propaganda with an annex for censorship, posted a list on her Twitter as to opposition leaders leaving the country for the holidays. In front of the outcry the regime went in a counter attacks though it took a few hours to launch it. In short, they were surprised by the intensity of the reaction, they realized it was a blunder and thus, as fascism always does, they decided to dig the hole deeper, if anything hoping for a shock value to silence the other people. Not to mention that if they succeed, from now on it will be routine to publish lists of "undesirables" on any excuse or political need.

My argument yesterday was that Delcy Rodriguez had committed abuse of power by using information that she should not be privy of, information that, if crime related, should be released by the judicial branch of government and not a propaganda ministry. This was aggravated by her inclusion in that list of people that do not exert elected office, nor even do occupy any position in a political party. In other words, she made an amalgam of all the people that irritate her, or her superiors, regardless of their privacy or their actual political importance.

And yet this was not all the extent of her fault, though enough to demand her immediate resignation in a democratic country, which Venezuela is obviously not. Certainly she failed to include the lists of the many regime officials that travel around the world all the time without any one knowing for sure who pays for their trips. At least we can be sure that most of the opposition travels comes from their own pockets. Chavistas travels are well documented through the web and Twitter, and include visits in the US entertainment centers by personalities that vomit the US of A in their public personality inside Venezuela. And I will pass on the air shuttle between Havana and Caracas which can only be explained by Maduro et al. going to get their running orders.

As if the double immoral standards of the regime, of a fascist nature,  need it be repeated, were not enough, Delcy Rodriguez is a great representative of the ineptocracy that presides over the country: she could not get her facts straight and placed Capriles in Aruba for Christmas when he had been tweeting from his Xmas Eve gathering with the firemen of Guatire.

Thus we cannot be surprised today that the regime went to back up a cornered Delcy instead of doing the sensible thing: dropping her and try to renew the so called "sincere" requests for dialogue with the opposition so we can all work together to face the crisis coming upon us. And there is where we can start to worry, and be sorry that the opposition has not coordinated better its response besides the very appropriate tweets on this respect by Aveledo. We can even find rather surprising tone deaf pieces making light of something rather grim in a country that has been suffering the devastating effects of the Tascon list, a state sponsored discrimination system in use as I type.  The point here is the abuse of power to lynch folks. The rest are details.

What is worrisome in the "counter attack" of the regime, to give it a name, is that Maduro starts himself with a tweet where he urges Delcy to "continue to say the truth" which with the precedents we have in the last decade and a half is a naked intention to turn the holidays of a few people into a crime. For example, any meeting with a political exile or someone that has expressed criticism of the regime can be turned into a conspiracy against the fatherland, and make the chavista lumpen scream for blood. The order comes from above, just as the looting in November was also ordered by Maduro. El Pueblo can demand it now.

Delcy herself went to the bat writing a pathetic piece to justify herself. I mean, did she write it so badly on purpose or is she that inept? Of course, behind her voice it the regime attacking on the "double moral" of the opposition without specifying why, just throwing back at the opposition the words this one use with full justification. She demands the opposition to "justify" the expenses of its private flights when I can assure you that I have seen a boatload of private regime flights taking off from La Carlota airport this week in Caracas. ONLY the higher echelon in the regime, and the military, are allowed to use that small airport. Who? Where? Why? The woman clearly has no clue or has decided to lie and lie hoping it will stick. As such the first lie is against Capriles for private flight he may have taken. Not this Christmas since she was busted but on other dates that she does not mention, entertaining the confusion that it was this Christmas. She promises "proof" and yet nothing comes when she had no problem getting the data for the list she posted. There goes her probity.

And then, suddenly, completely out of topic, she dismiss any opinion on that matter from anyone here or abroad because they did not treat the death of Chavez with the due respect. Due respect according to her standards, which are those of a cult fanatic of course.

The rest of her text is infantile, name calling, and absolutely improper for someone who claims to have the qualification to be a minister of anything. We should not be surprised at her arguments, after all she is the sister of Jorge Rodriguez, Caracas mayor and former Electoral Board honcho who did offer the information that appeared in the Tascon list in 2003. Their father was a communist that had the misfortune to die while in custody in 1976 and, clearly, they have yet to find the Mandela way in their lives, even after 15 years of screwing people. I happen to know personally of people who worked at the foreign office, career diplomats that could have been used by the regime without any trouble but that Delcy had to force out through repeated humiliations while she was having a previous job there. With this week scandal we also know now that she was not placed there for her diplomatic skills. As I put yesterday, I can vouch that she has all the qualifications to be a Oberaufseherin whenever the regime starts opening concentration camps or rather XXI century socialist educational camps (?).

But let's move beyond the current scandal. The point here is that the regime is going into overdrive over the mistake of an idiot hack. True, there might be many reasons. One could be simply to create a conversation talk to hide an announcement this weekend that will hurt our wallets or our rights, or preferably both. But the true importance of the scandal is the openness of the regime's intentions to shut down dissent. Writing lists of undesirable people, a treasured fascist tactic even more than communist, is a great way to discredit people, blackmail other, and scare away the bulk.  I use Fascist deliberately here, because Communists usually do not accuse people of the sins they commit themselves: they invent other if necessary to silence ennemies. As such, the well known extensive touristic travelling at taxpayer expenses of regime personalities should have given Delcy pause. But it did not. Instead of going straight to conspiracy theory by demanding what was going so and so in a place were we know there is Smith and Jones, noted enemies of the revolution, Delcy went to accuse them of alleged crimes her colleagues truly commit just because they can get away with it.

This is why I am not letting go of this issue and I give it utmost importance. Because I have known too many people that have been hurt by the Tascon list, I have been a victim myself of it, because I know too many people discriminated in public office even when they did a good job. This is a discriminatory regime, one that has this strain of fascism in its blood and as such we should never ignore such actions, no matter how pitiful the character is as is the case of Delcy. In fact, her nothingness is what makes her dangerous, what gives her the drive to commit such crimes. After all, there is little difference between the motivations of a Gulag Komissar and those of an Oberaufseherin.