Concrete vision of the future versus the nutty living in a reactionary past

While I was on the road today on my way to Caracas news came together that made this evening a delightful moment of glee.

On one side the two powerhouses of Latin America decided to start speaking in earnest about free trade and oil cooperation. Mexico and Brazil are now, by far, the two biggest economies south of the Rio Grande. Even if the Mexican one has been battered lately from a larval civil war due to drug captaincies to a flu pandemic, not to mention its unhealthy dependence on exports to the US, it still is varied and large enough to start rebounding any time soon. President Calderon from the right wing PAN is touring Brazil of left wing PT's Lula. Well, I should rather write right of or left of center to describe them but let's hold unto the cliches of that past even though these two man are consummate pragmatists.

During that visit Calderon proposed what should have been proposed long ago, a free trade deal between Brazil and Mexico. Can you imagine what that would mean for Latin America if these two countries could manage such a feat? Their economies are really not complementary but Mexico is an entry to the US and Brazil is an expanding market with a rising technological value. Calderon is certainly aware of that as he is trying still to stir Mexico away of the last two decades of PRI doldrums and he even proposed a cooperation between Pemex and Petrobras.

Let me put it this way, if such a deal is worked out and if it succeeds more or less Latin America could finally once and for all take the path away from underdevelopment. Between them, all the other economies of the sub-continent would have to align their economic policies and the US would need, really need, its FTA to work out full speed with Colombia, Peru and Chile to counter somewhat the new economic colossus that could emerge. Because of course Mercosur would follow Brazil's lead and Mexico would be able to retake its natural area of influence, the Caribbean and Central America.

This is so big that one wonders how come it was not tried out earlier. I suspect that the US recession and a certain protectionist bent of the US since Obama's election must have played a role since Calderon was barely coming out of the North American summit.

I am not sure if Chavez realizes what happened today, what major geological shift suddenly started that could render Venezuela totally insignificant, but he certainly had his head elsewhere, probably up his, well, you know what...

First, the good man took his plane, a tax payer expense, to Cuba just to wish Fidel Castro a happy birthday. No word about the real presents carried to Havana, nor about how many people, all expenses paid, went along with Chavez. Maybe Chavez has accumulated enough frequent flier miles to fly for free to Cuba, including his court?

After this memory trip to a past that is reeking more and more of reactionary if anything because it has already been 50 years of standstill at Havana when the rest of the continent has moved on, Chavez came back to offer yet another old and probably dead idea: whip Obama. I suppose that he got that from Fidel who cannot live without an enemy in Washington. If Obama were a genuine friend of Cuba Fidel would still try to make him an enemy!

So today Chavez said that Obama was lost in space because he called him hypocrite for Chavez wanting him to intervene in Honduras. Note to president Obama: Dear Mr. President, Chavez is like a scorpion, it does not pay to be nice to him because he will always stab you in the back. Though the scorpion has an excuse because of the position of his tail, Chavez has none as he is merely a coward, unable to face the people he insults. In Spanish, on TV, with Chavez grimacing it is much stronger than the Reuters script I link above.

So to make sure what a reactionary throwback Chavez is at heart he went on again on the US having unseated Zelaya, putting the most formal accusation to date. Why so late Hugo? Your other arguments have failed so badly that now you have only leis left to your arsenal? Or is it that you simply cannot abandon the worn out line coming from Fidel? Is there no originality left in you now that your ship of state is having serious leaks? Why not you worry more about the PEMEX-Petrobras bond forming while you have been unable to do a PDVSA-Petrobras bond? I suppose it is because when Petrobras caught whiff of the corrupt set that manages PDVSA even the one at Pemex does not look that bad.

Anyway poor Obama gets hit from all sides, including a Wall Street Journal piece by Maria Anastasia O'Grady that includes the infamous picture of Chavez receiving Raul Castro with a military salute, quite a symbol of how passé, retrograde and reactionary the guerrilla left, the military and the the anti US cheapo rhetoric have become (1). The title, "anti American Amigos", says it all, how much at risk is the US policy in Latin America if some new thinking does not come fast at the White House (I am less concerned about State, I think the short is at the White House). You know guys, if you need help you could do worse than calling me, and I would not charge.

The future is more than ever with Lula and Calderon, not with Castro and Chavez and that accidental clown in the picture, the Kirchner fraud.

1) I cannot imagine ANY Venezuelan president in past history salute military the head of state of ANY country. Such image is enough, in my opinion to impeach Chavez. Not even because he is betraying Venezuela but for being so stupid, so lack of self worth. Bolivar must have rolled in his grave!

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In other bad news for Chavez: Mexico votes the PRD in a distant third place

Remember Mexico's election three years ago? When Lopez Obrador and the PRD refused to recognize the close victory of Calderon even though the PAN was winning the congress vote with a PRI in a distant third?

Well, today the PRD is paying the price for stupid opposition and for not cutting on time links with hysterical politicians like Obrador or Chavez. The PRI seems to make a spectacular come back and perhaps making it to a Congress majority while the PAN victim of a crisis from outside, the flu and a drug war still manages to retain a honorable second. Good news for Honduras too, Chavez might not be anymore in such a hurry to take over. With a 13% at best for the PRD and a divided left, and many inside who do not like Chavez, it seems that the big enchilada of XXI century socialism will have to wait far into the next decade.

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There is no escaping Chavez!

In this South American capital where your intrepid blogger is working, the news from Venezuela are never too far behind. In fact, my efforts at escaping the drudgery of Chavez hysterical are not rewarded as my hotel radio this morning belched the latest. It seems that foreign media now have discovered that Venezuela needs to be covered only on Sundays as the rest of the week will develop according to whatever announcement, or inanity, Chavez made during his Alo Presidente. So this morning I was shaken from a nice slow wake up at 6 AM by Chavez insulting Mexico's Calderon.

See, about a couple of weeks ago, Calderon said that all investors that did not like the nationalization tunes of Venezuela would be welcome in Mexico. Well, imagine that, Chavez is not pleased that Calderon is "bullying" investors and other countries, and went as far as saying that Calderon was following the path of Fox, "cachorro del imperio" (the Empire's puppy dog). I think that Chavez in fact was miffed because, well, you know, Calderon simply stated the obvious: investors are going to stampede out of Venezuela and he wants his share (like other more discreet but who certainly will seek to get some of the money that has stopped, or will stop flowing to Ecuador, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and even Argentina up to a point.

Once when breakfast was over and I could turn up my notebook I sought a link, but did not find it. On the other hand I found some other gems.

The Miami Herald has an excellent summary of the evolution of the media in Venezuela, something that the well informed readers of this blog have known for a long time. The two first paragraphs are worth quoting (my emphasis):

On a typical night on Venezolana de Televisión, the government's principal TV channel, viewers can catch interviews of a Cabinet minister and a pro-government community leader as well as a late-night talkshow host taking rhetorical jabs at the opposition. In between, there's a constant barrage of pro-government ads, one of which proclaims VTV is ``the channel of all Venezuelans.''

For many Venezuelans, VTV, as it's known, is the preferred alternative to private channels they consider poisoned by political and business interests whose sole aim is to topple President Hugo Chávez. For others, VTV is propaganda, more befitting of the old Soviet Union than modern Latin America. For all, VTV may be the future.

The next gem is that apparently Chavez had to spend part of his Sunday show undoing his words from the previous Sunday show. Now, apparently we are told that the government is not after folks secondary homes and Humvee and yachts. Apparently someone must have told Chavez that the big Humvee that threaten us in Caracas narrow streets, or biggest and newest yachts docking the yacht clubs piers are owned by supporters of the regime. The opposition rich, you know, have long stopped renewing their fleet, preferring to stash money away, just in case, probably in Mexico for some.

El Universal reports some interesting gossip. Apparently Lula has warned Chavez not too weaken democratic institutions (seriously Lula, point to me a democratic institution left in Venezuela; it is kind of late, you know). And Kirchner would have told Chavez that nationalizations were "been there, done that, hated it" thing that he would be well advised to forget about.


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