Venezuela is done for; it is not me saying it, it is Raul Castro

The news today is of course Obama deciding to renew ties with Cuba after about 50 years of embargo and what not. I will not even bother to put up a link, just open your Google News section.

I am not going to argue the pros and cons. One thing is clear and it is that the embargo has not worked, has furnished the odious Castro criminals with an excuse that they have milked beyond the udder. Yet the failure of the embargo was not the idea per se, but the way successive weaklings applied it, speaking tough when the Miami Cuban vote was needed, forgetting about it as soon as they were sworn into some elected office. Clearly something had to be done and I am too busy, too overwhelmed by my own life and home problems to give you the opinion of my crystal ball about the well founded of that initiative of Obama, or any other possible one.

Venezuela se termino de joder

Yo no se si la gente se da cuenta pero la caricatura que llevó  El Universal a botar a Rayma después de 19 años es una poderosa suma de símbolos que se cristalizan en un instante para decirnos en la cara lo jodido que está nuestro país con esa cuerda de maleantes y narcos que gobiernan.

Empecemos por la caricatura.

Se puede argumentar que tal vez sea algo fuerte. Lo que no se puede negar es que el sistema de salud venezolano esta padeciendo una profunda crisis y eso después de 15 años de chavismo. La culpa la tiene el gobierno de Chávez. No hay excusas.

Por lo tanto es mi opinión que lo máximo que podía hacer El Universal era no publicar la caricatura. Botar a Rayma es una denegación de la verdad, es censura. Es un crimen.

Por lo tanto prosigamos con El Universal.

El periódico de mi infancia se vendió. No voy a discutir si la familia Mata tenia razones o no de venderlo. Total, no vi a nadie saliendo a defenderlos con poderosas marchas de apoyo. Aquí los periódicos se están muriendo de mengua, sin propaganda y sin papel y la gente feliz en su cola del bicentenario para cuatro migajas, o mas preocupada por el cupo de CADIVI que por la libertad de información. Tenemos lo que nos merecemos.

Scenarios for the post apocalypses

OK, now that I got your attention I got nothing. No one can. But it is time to state a few points that cannot be avoided in case anyone has a script to propose. In no particular order.

Getting ready for 2014 (2): chavismo today and its options

Describing chavismo today is a little bit like trying to describe a secretive dictatorship which has a lot in the open.  It is that schizophrenia of sorts that makes it difficult to see what is really going on since we can never tell what is real from the fluff sent to confuse us.  If we keep it simple we can still try get a picture of the group, essential if we want to understand its motive and guess its options for 2014.

The organized chaos of Venezuela

For the casual observer visiting Venezuela these days two things must be striking: the chaos surrounding almost everything and the feeling to live in a magic realism novel that not even Garcia Marquez could put on paper. Unfortunately for those of us who live here it is all but too real as well the realization that it was all planned, at least at some point.

We can start by the magical part: the president is/is not back in Venezuela. He is/is not at the armed forces hospital. But he may be/maybe not in a secret compound of Fuerte Tiuna. He is smiling and well with his daughters but Evo Morales, his close ally cannot see him when he visits,  not even through a window, not even through a computer screen. His vice-president has spoken of his forceful voice but the regime spokesperson, ever so proven wrong/or right, says he cannot talk because of a tracheotomy. And more of such contradictions which make it impossible to reach a grand unified field theory on what the heck is going on.

Telling details of a rotting regime: orders from Cuba

I cannot pass on two things that tell you what a decomposed (rotten already?) country we live in.

When a thousand words may be better than a picture: Chavez in bed

UPDATED 1 and 2
What to do with the proof of life the regime offered today?

Smiling reading Granma?  Must be the comics page.....

So apparently Chavez is alive. The husband of one of the two girls above, also minister of science and technology for which he has, as far as I know no qualifications other than talk show host on state TV, brought them back from Havana. The Granma is of Thursday 14 February, according to Spain's ABC (I could not open the Granma page to check out myself).

So many things are wrong with that picture and the announcement of Arreaza today in cadena that it inspired me for the title: maybe they would have been better off not showing these pictures.

Give us our daily constitutional violation, and a real hack also

This has gotta be the chavista prayer recently. Since January 5 we can say that the average constitutional violation has been one article a day....  I am not going today into the details because for one thing they may be bait for the opposition and tomorrow they may actually prove that Chavez signed something that Maduro was not allowed to do today but announced anyway (second part of this entry).  but the strange thing is that I am starting to have that feeling that they want the chavista crowds to believe that they are indeed violating the constitution deliberately as a way to show strength.  Woe is us!

Our men in Havana: reporting to the colonial master

This has gotta be one of the most offensive pictures that I have seen in a long time:

The master and two of his trusted servants

This weekend, the more important figures of the Venezuelan state, the ones that have power, real power, were reporting to their colonial overlord, all together, in Havana. That the meeting took part, at least in part, at the airport so as to offer the excuse of "Look who just happens to walk by! Let's say hello!" does not diminish the crude reality that Venezuela is unbelievably a Cuban colony where the local appointees must go on occasion to report.

A happy new year for the military in Venezuela?

I am facing a complicated week end and I may not be able to write much until next year. OK, next Tuesday....  Thus, just in case, I wanted to write with some leisure right now to wish you all a Happy New Year and to write some about what is in store for Venezuela.

Chavez leaves Venezuela for Cuba and deliberately tightens the colonial link

As any serious commentator expected all along, Chavez left for Cuba to continue his cancer treatment (we only know he will undergo chemotherapy but we do not know for what type of cancer, for how long, how advanced is the metastasis, etc, etc...).

The reason why Cuba was the ONLY choice for Chavez is several fold:

Tightening the colonial control over Venezuela

Cuba is very worried about its colonial outpost in South America.  Things are not going well there.  The Viceroy is ailing just as the province is having serious difficulties in providing the monthly stipends due to the imperial metropolis, Havana.  Thus measures had to be taken before the natives become more restless than what they already are.

First, the Viceroy needs to be controlled tightly.  His ailments cannot be let known by all and any.  His planned health trips have to take place in Havana where it is easier to hide the side effects of chemotherapy.  The problem is that the masters have not found yet someone reliable enough to replace him, or politically skillful enough to make sure that the stipends keep coming, and to make sure that the natives keep believing they are an independent nation.

That colonial feel from Viceroy Chavez

I do not know about you but never have I felt as much a Cuban colony as I am feeling this week, and it is only Tuesday.  Not only now our orders come directly from Cuba where Chavez prefers receive treatment that he could perfectly receive at home, and probably of a much better quality, but his latest decisions reek of old style colonialism.

Yoani Sanchez on barrio adentro

Do not miss it.  Even in Cuba they know what Barrio Adentro is all about!!!  Barrio Adentro, Corazon Afuera!

Le Monde criticizes the selling out of Venezuela to Cuba, Chavez gets revenge by taking away a minor farm of Diego Arria

The grand tour of Diego Arria has certainly infuriated chavismo.  Among other things Diego Arria, ex ambassador to the UN and ex president of the Security Council was received by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, and got published in Le Monde, the newspaper of record in France.  In this article French readers will find out how Venezuela has become a neo-colony of Cuba, something that readers of this blog have learned long ago.

The Human Drama of the Venezuelan Country side: Plain Robbery, Ruining Lives

Crying over her job

The drama of La Carolina keeps unfolding.  The cover of El Universal Thursday (1) carried the picture of the former manager of La Bodeguita in tears, praying while her boss (former?) was taking a stand, publicly calling Chavez a thief and risking to go to jail as he was also stating clearly that Chavez crimes were worth of international courts. A life work destroyed.

Chavez and his toy soldiers

While the opposition organize its meager primaries, what goes on within chavismo and Chavez sick mind?  More barely contained violence, as if that small display of democracy was already too much to stand for the autocrat Fidel wanna-be.  His Alo Presidente of today was in full military regalia with many of his toy soldiers in front of him.  I say "toy soldier" on purpose because according to Chavez we had to wait for the Cubans to come to teach us how to repair radios in tanks, store compasses and other such garbage.  Does he really believe what he says?  And anyway, what war in what past year is he getting ready to fight?

The fact of the matter is that his nonsense today, his attacks on General Rivero and his bad rerun of April 13 and 19 only indicate one thing: he is scared of his own army!  Be it because he thinks it will turn against him or because it is really that incompetent, it does not matter.  No wonder he decided to do the only things he knows to do: try to scare people with his toy army and buy loyalty at any price.  Thus he gave all officers in the army a pay raise of 40%.  We wonder how will it get paid, but that is another story. 

PS: Incidentally what will those civilians who only get a 25% pay raise this year think?  Never mind that they got it in two installments, the second portion in September, while the military apparently will get it in one chunk.  Another hint that Chavez does not care about electoral results to retain his office?  I have a friend that reports on Alo Presidente as Alo Delincuente.  She was particularly on target today.

Cubans train sharp shooters and snipers in the Venezuelan army

What we all knew but did not dare discuss much was finally stated clearly by someone who knows about that.  Antonio Rivero retired from the army a few days ago.  He was a general and he was in charge of the Civil Defense system of Venezuela, the one that does rescue operations and the like.  His role was not too stellar but can be excused in part as chavismo has no patience for such trivial matters as the Avila burning of last months illustrated to all.  He certainly never got the funds he needed to perform his job as it should be.  He was at least one of those few chavista public servants that one could listen to without much wincing.  Well, today in a press conference he let us know that Cubans are training sharp shooters in the Venezuelan army and that when there is a conflict, Cuban military personnel are given priority.

And thus more evidence for the status of Venezuela as a Cuban colony just when we commemorate 200 years of alleged independence.  How long until Rivero finds his way next to Oswaldo Alvarez Paz cell?

De abril 11 a abril 19, perdiendo nuestra independencia

Cada vez se torna mas irrelevante volver a examinar los acontecimientos que nos llevaron al 11 de abril de 2002. Sin embargo, ya que en apenas una semana también vamos a conmemorar la Independencia de Venezuela, es oportuno volver a examinar una vez más los eventos del 11 de abril para mostrar en que grado hemos perdido la libertad cuando llegamos al 19 de abril, 200 años después.

Muchos libros han sido publicados sobre los días cuando Chávez cayó brevemente hace 8 años. Y, sin embargo, todavía estamos lejos de conocer todo lo que deberíamos saber a estas alturas, como los nombres de quienes ordenaron la matanza. Como muestra tuvimos incluso un simulacro de juicio que condenó a algunas personas a 30 años de cárcel por los "crímenes" de abril de 2002 y sin embargo sólo los chavistas endurecidos aceptan el resultado de ese juicio. No es que los condenados sean inocentes o culpables, pero la forma en que el juicio fue llevado a cabo vuelve absolutamente claro que el gobierno había decidido fabricar un culpable, independientemente de la verdad.

From April 11 to April 19: losing Venezuela's independence

It is becoming lame to re-discuss the events that led to April 11 2002.  However since in barely a week we will also commemorate the Independence of Venezuela, it is fitting to revisit once more April 11 events to show how much freedom we lost as we reach 19 de abril, 200 years later.

Many books have now been published over the day when Chavez fell briefly 8 years ago.  And yet, we are still far from knowing all what we should know by now, such as the names of those who ordered the shootings.  To witness, we even had a mock trial that condemned a few people to 30 years sentence for the "crimes" of April 2002 and yet only the hardened chavista accept the result of that trial.  Not that those condemned were innocent or guilty, but the way the trial was led it was absolutely clear that the government had decided to create a guilty party, regardless of the truth.