Chavismo, according to some, is not protesting. Here is why

On my way out to Caracas yesterday I saw many long lines in San Felipe. Here is one.

The Right, The Left, and The Poor

By Maria Alexandria Beech

As a friend lamented that the right-wing media and think tanks hadn’t covered the Venezuelan crisis as thoroughly as the “liberal” media, it dawned on me that while The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, NPR, PBS, and others had covered the conflict days after it began, the Wall Street Journal, Fox News, and others had fallen asleep at the wheel, becoming irrelevant in the process.  

“Why did the conservative media cover the 2004 crisis so well whereas they are nowhere to be found this time,” he asked. “I mean, nothing. The National Review, Reason, Cato.”

Replacing the role of the media on the right was Senator Marco Rubio on the senate floor. The rather lazily-delivered speech was accessible on YouTube, and many shared it. The speech drew exhausted parallels between Venezuela and Cuba, and expounded upon the evils of the Castro brothers. Rubio also held a press conference with Florida’s Republican governor Rick Scott at a Venezuelan restaurant where Marco delivered the same message. In one fell swoop, Rubio campaigned for votes from Cubans and Venezuelans, for the senate and an inevitable future presidential run. No one took notice.

Laborious Labor Law Load from Chavez who never held a real job in his life

[UPDATED] What keeps us abuzz all these days is the promised new labor law.  There is no mystery, Chavez is using it to distribute goodies for his reelection but the consequences may be devastating.  Not that it matters for the regime, they have no intention of fulfilling it anyway inside the public sector.

Workers of Venezuela, divide!

THIS POST IS GOING TO BE A TWO PART POST
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The regime must be reaching some sort of paroxysm.  This one might be due to a croaking Chavez, to bad polls, or simply Chavez ego unable to stand that headlines are regularly about the Unidad primaries and programs and not his own ego burps.  There is really no other explanation to his latest rant at the formation of yet a new Labor Confederation, "central obrera" and the promises that came with it.

First, let me make something clear: from personal experience I have a dismal view of Venezuelan trade unions, even before Chavez.  They are particularly corrupt and strictly interested in sucking dry business so the trade union leaders can live well.  Why workers vote for such unions has baffled me, unless they put up with their union bosses in the hope that one day they can become union bosses in turn.  Though as always there are some reasonably honorable exceptions where union bosses establish a collaboration with direction so that all benefit. At any rate, you can certainly imagine that a new trade union organization dedicated to Chavez, the boss of most of them to begin with, is certainly going to reach heights that the old CTV could not dream of.

The Venezuela that Chavez will leave us (or to himself for that matter): 12 years after

Herr, lehre doch mich,
dass ein Ende mit mir haben muss,
und mein Leben ein Ziel hat,
und ich davon muss. (1)

The Chavez regime is finally reaching an end, transition has started, regardless of the fact that today it reaches 12 years.

Transition to where, we do not know. How long a transition is any one's guess.  Maybe we are returning to democracy and the rule of law, or maybe toward the final Myanmarization of Venezuela with a Chavez II holding on, but a hold over a very different country as the one we used to know in 1998.  The country that either us or Chavez will inherit is a country with little prospects, wasted time, squandered opportunities and a mess.  I suppose that there are those who may think that it would be poetic justice for Chavez to stay over for a few more years and face the mess he created.  But autocrats do not function that way and I doubt that Chavez at this point is able to comprehend the extent of the damage he has inflicted on our country.  And even less able to care (ref: the movie "the last days" if you do not get the psychology behind this comment).

So what is the country we are getting after 12 years?  Before we can even attempt to think about what to do to start fixing up the disaster upon us we need to understand our inheritance.  Below I try to be brief and split the description in different areas without any particular order.

And now Chavez promotes anarchy

As Aesop already said, the tongue is the worse.  And when it is attached to an incontinent Chavez the damages can be terrible.  In his Friday cadena Chavez said that his supporters should be looking for empty lots that could  be used to build refuges for the 130,000 homeless people left by the rain.  Sure enough, within hours, in the wee hours, well organized groups carried by state vehicles arrived at the Chacao townhall to seize some of the rare empty lots left there.