Crucial elections everywhere, dramatic conclusions! Shame and pride for all!

Today we had dramatic elections in three areas of the world and curiously, I can put them together in a way that they relate to Venezuela! Not necessarily directly but bear with me.

Did the MUD serve an ultimatum to UNASUR?

One should never forget that the crisis in Venezuela is also about Venezuela and its place in the world. All is not played at Caracas alone and the world is wondering what it will do with the ruins of Venezuela that will still be seating over quite a nice pile of oil, hydroelectric power and even some usable agriculture as the world will run out of arable land.

As such, UNASUR, the faulty creation of Brazil's Lula as a lame attempt at excluding the US from its own hemisphere policy making, is facing doom at its first real challenge ever. The more so when idiots like Uruguay president Mujica come out on a CNNE interview implying that only the opposition in Venezuela is violating its constitution when CNNE has been proving it otherwise for months now. Mujica positioning squarely on Maduro's side is simply scandalous: he is either and idiot, either misinformed, unforgivable for a president, or either simply vicious. Not excluding the three together, obviously.

Notes on Voluntad Popular, under siege

Just a short post to remind readers that the only political party that is truly creative these days in Venezuela is Voluntad Popular. Not that other politicians are not creative, such as Maria Corina Machado, but her failure at creating a solid party handicaps her a lot.  For example today Voluntad Popular promoted a march to defend gay rights in Venezuela, to demand the liberation of one of its activists, Rosmit Mantilla,  unjustly arrested on false charges. The event seems to have been small attendance by current oppo standards. I did not show up since it was my day to take care of the S.O.. But that is not the point.

Narendra Modi

This was tweeted a few hours ago by yours truly.

Modi is a conviction politician who can think out-of-the-box and challenge conventional wisdoms http://t.co/UwLNwHEfam
— daniel duquenal (@danielduquenal) May 17, 2014

I thought maybe a little bit more thought from this Times of India quote could be interesting.

I am afraid there is no peaceful outcome for Venezuela anymore

The opposition political umbrella, MUD, decided to walk out of the dialogue table, a decision based on the regime intensifying repression, a decision based on the clear plain fact that the regime is not interested in any compromise, in any dialogue, in any power sharing, ANY. Actually, with the abusive repression of yesterday where even kids distributing flyers were arrested we can safely assume that at no point the regime saw the dialogue meetings as anything but a device to gain some time. That the first public hearing was a first time eye opener for many chavistas about the rottenness of the regime was enough to sink the dialogue if there was anyone in the regime serious about it.

We are thus entering the heart of the crisis.

The morally uptight revolution

Long time readers of this blog will remember that I often wrote that on many aspects the bolivarian pseudo revolution is a mere look at the past, your basic reactionary movement. This week they reminded us again how morally uptight they also are, Victorian to the core but without the work ethic or basic honesty.

An excruciating summary of what are the stakes in Venezuela

In these recent days of anguish, when hundreds of students are taken into custody and at the very least psychologically abused, when Human Rights Watch issues a damming report that should send Maduro to jail some day, that inside the opposition there are clearly double agents that try to protect regime's human rights violators in the US in exchange of, well, goodies, etc. it is a good time to remind the reader what is ABSOLUTELY at stake here, least we get confused by all of these people trying to confuse the truth out of reality.

A time of truth for the Venezuelan opposition

According to BBC, those may be the real defenseless victims.

I think that today will mark a watershed in the ability of the Venezuelan opposition to keep a united front against the regime. Two things happened that force us to look dispassionately at what the hell is going on inside.

We will start by how the day started, with the regime dislodging a few tents set in some squares, a little bit like our own version of "Occupy Wall Street".  As expected the regime even "found" dollars inside those tents, as if anyone in Venezuela would be foolish enough to keep dollars with them in the street. Or does the top cop, Rodriguez Torres, ignore the crime curse over our country that he is absolutely unable/unwilling to stem? So, once again, there goes the credibility of the regime, though it is possible that some recreational drugs may have been present. Sue me Coloraddy!

Venezuela seeking the status of pariah state?

UPDATED
Is it what Venezuela is seeking? To become a pariah state and thus play the role of victim the way Cuba plays albeit being probably the country with the highest ratio per capita of concentration camps in the world? Let's see.

In the wee hours of the night the police descended on a series of camping grounds set at several public locations, you know, like the Occupy Wall Street camps. Though we can be pretty sure that the idiot left is not going to defend these camps for freedom set up by Venezuelan democratic students. So now we have at least 243 more students jailed.

Political correctness running amok at CNN

I am outraged at this morning coverage made by CNN about the girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Nigeria. I do not know what can be done in that particular situation but starting by reporting all the facts is definitely preferable at promoting wishful thinking hash-tags. Compare with the coverage of ABC in Spain where they report on organized rapes of these girls, forced conversions, forced spousals.  Then go back to the CNN page and search for, say, the word "rape". That is right, the kidnapping is a clean one, just your normal ransom search, let's not tag Islam or anything that could offend religious sensibilities.  CNN just sticks to the threats of slavery from Boko Haram for these girls, as I suppose slavery is more despicable than forced rape, conversion and what not.

And then you want me to trust CNN coverage of, say, Venezuela?  Where a benign dictator in favor of the poor is annoyed by a few rich kids that do not want to share? OK, I am exaggerating some but you get my point, I hope. Sometimes things should be denounced as they are and if the government of Nigeria is offended, then so be it. After all, like many Muslim majority countries, the moderate Muslims, the civilized ones, the ones heir of the intellectual tradition of Cordoba, are simply too afraid, or worse unwilling, to take a stand against their extremes as in the US CNN does against KKK and what not.

Sorry for that rant but double standards sometimes get me raw. The thing is that I am reaching a point that I wonder if there is any, ANY media worth watching. So far the Spaniards are the best, from their public TV to El Pais or ABC. No matter where they stand on the political spectrum they seem to at least agree on some standards applicable to all and everyone. Something that US media seem to have given up on with some honorable exceptions like the WaPo. But US TV, from all sides, simply suck.

The mythomania of Rodriguez Torres, when conspiracy theories run amok

I shall be brief: there are scarce explanations for Rodriguez Torres actions these past weeks.

The money-losing machine in Caracas

A must read epic article on Venezuela's disaster at Foreign Policy. The last paragraph alone is worth the price:

Which brings us, finally, to the million-dollar question: In post-Chávez Venezuela, who has the political capital to institute the deep and painful reforms the country requires to break out of this wicked cycle? If Chávez himself -- who was the closest to God you can get in Venezuelan politics -- didn't dare to touch the gasoline subsidy or move against the Armed Forces' involvement in organized crime, who would dare? In the answer to that question, more than in the epic battles painted by the likes of María Corina Machado, lies the key to Venezuela's long term future.

May 1 follies

Let's look at the economic thermometer of today, Labor Day in Venezuela, a traditional populist day since I can remember when the president grants to the workers a hike in minimum wage. This time around, Maduro orders a 30% minimal wage increase. In time of crisis, the inflation at 60% is sure to gain fast a dozen points at the very least. Middle incomes cannot be adjusted at 30% so what we are going to see is a continuing pauperization of the working class AND the middle class. The rich, at least the bolibourgeois rich who do not need to follow the revolution's charge books will become richer.