Today, at my occasional week day brunch joint, they were out of the papers I read. Only Ultimas Noticias was available. So, to eat my early arepa lunch washed down with fresh squeezed OJ, I had to buy
Showing posts with label rangel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rangel. Show all posts
Monday, July 01, 2013
The fascist methodology in mind games: Jose Vicente Rangel
It is one thing to read the everyday fascistic acts the regime resorts to on a daily basis, it is another to live through it and to watch how the minds are affected.
Today, at my occasional week day brunch joint, they were out of the papers I read. Only Ultimas Noticias was available. So, to eat my early arepa lunch washed down with fresh squeezed OJ, I had to buyNoticias de lo Ultimo Ultimas Noticias. It is not that this paper is bad. Although indulgent with the regime we need to keep in mind that it is not written for people like me: it is a tabloid and not the NYT. The news are thus short, analysis is brief, when available, the concerns are of everyday life, dressed in man on foot vocabulary. Just reading the everyday needs of the population is, by the way, condemnation enough of the regime which explains why Ultimas Noticias has come under fire on occasion. (1)
Today, at my occasional week day brunch joint, they were out of the papers I read. Only Ultimas Noticias was available. So, to eat my early arepa lunch washed down with fresh squeezed OJ, I had to buy
Monday, June 10, 2013
18 aviones, una plasta
La ultima intervención televisiva de Jose Vicente Rangel nos dice mas sobre el poco respeto que tiene el régimen hacia sus seguidores que sobre amenaza alguna del régimen. El tipo se le ocurrió decir el domingo que la oposición compró 18 aviones para atacar a Venezuela y que esos aviones estarán listos en Colombia en noviembre. Lo único que le faltó indicar es el numero de cuenta de ahorro de la operación para que podamos depositar dinero y ayudar ese esfuerzo opositor en el presunto ataque.
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Things that go bump in cadenas: Chavez leaving the IACHR
[Post scripted] Certainly it was not the most important announcement of the day by Chavez, just before he took of for Havana again. But it may have been one of the most telling moments of his presidency in recent months. After signing the new Labor Law, Chavez decided to activate finally the "Council of State" and ask from it as a first mission to study ways that Venezuela can exit the Inter American Court for Human Rights.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Camila Vallejo y Jose Vicente Rangel: generaciones distintas, un mismo fraude.
El otro día la afamada lideresa del estudiantado chileno, ese que reclama por una educación "gratis y de calidad", viajo a Cuba a ver a Fidel, peregrinación obligatoria de cualquier wanna-be líder de la izquierda arcaica de nuestro continente. Yoani Sanchez, que sí es una resistente de verdad en condiciones que la pobre Camila no puede ni imaginarse en su glamoroso Santiago con un Internet y Twitter velocícimos para organizar protestas, le pidió visita, para que conozca el otro lado de la moneda en Cuba donde si la educación es gratis hay serias dudas en cuanto a la calidad.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Recall Election in Venezuela: from democracy beacon to autocratic ridicule
This weekend Venezuela, or rather the CNE, held the signature drive for next year possible Recall Elections. It was a total bust, reminding me of the words of Groucho Marx (?) "what if you threw a party and no one came?". I do not know if Groucho ever thought of these words but had he planned this weekend events to be utterly ridiculous he would not have succeeded any better than the Venezuelan Electoral Board, CNE.
Readers of this blog should not be surprised: in April 27 I had already predicted that the event would be a fiasco. Well, if it became noteworthy it is because it worked out so badly. As I am typing, of the hundred plus signature drives it is possible that at most a couple of them might end up in a recall election to be held in a couple of months, and they would be internal chavista affairs. Since I have already covered the mechanisms and the main reasons on why the Recall Election system in Venezuela was gutted of all meaning as a civil right, let's just review briefly what happened and the reactions of some players that seemed to be surprised by the lousy result.
The result
Pathetically empty polling places. Only in some districts were there is an internal chavista mini civil war did the recall election signature drive held any appeal. In at least 90% of the cases, be the elected position belong to chavismo or the opposition, no one bothered: the attendants were spending their weekend playing domino or gossiping. In many districts, a majority of them it seems, the people "asking for the recall election" did not even send witnesses!!!!!
Why it failed?
The Tascon list
Since the Tascon list no one wants anymore to post his or her name to a piece of paper that could be used against you someday. The system set up by the CNE in 2004 during the recall election against Chavez in fact killed the secret of vote in Venezuela. No one, chavista or not, who is not out in the open with its politics will go and sign a Recall Election drive. For those who doubted that, well, the results of this week end demonstrate pathetically, yet dramatically, how the notion of democracy in Venezuela is all but dead.
There is no looking for excuses: the Tascon list and the obscene support and later casual dismissal by Chavez of that fascist tool has done more harm to Venezuelan democracy than perhaps anything else besides the take over of the Judicial power by Chavez and his minions. Nothing short of a severe punishment to Tascon and to the people who used that list to discriminate in Venezuela on political grounds could ever bring back trust in Venezuelan elections. For those not aware of this topic and the moral devastation it brought I have several links on the right hand of this blog.
The speciousness of the recall drives
But if this was not enough, the casual and out of touch with reality attitude that the CNE took in setting up this year election drive killed any chance of that democratic tool to be of any use.
To begin with, the CNE decided to regulate tightly what should be a spontaneous popular organization to remove elected officials that do not please their subjects. In fact the rules set up backfired badly as some pro Chavez obscure organization did set up the large majority of the recall elections. Through legal artifacts they called for them without demonstrating that there was some popular feel for such elections. Thus from the very start the recall election process of this year looked more like an internal chavista knife throwing contest than any justified popular corrective measure.
Why did the CNE fell into that trap? Well, I suppose that no one went to set up that trap really, but trap it was. The reason why the CNE so carelessly went ahead even though early signs were pointing out to a potential bust was that the CNE tried to correct for its abuses of 2004. As all chavista employees, of which the CNE is just a branch, they thought that their will was enough for any correction, and perhaps that Chavez would waste his political capital on the recall elections. But RCTV and students in the middle, Chavez had much bigger fry to deal with than some local lousy officials and the CNE angst.
The CNE board thus demonstrated that 1) it has no political savvy, 2) it is incompetent and 3) they are mere bureaucrats that work under orders: when the orders do not come, they flounder!
The CNE should be asked why it allowed such a failure, why it spent so much money on something that weeks ago was predicted to be a bust. Because it cost a lot of money: employees paid extra to work weekends; equipment rental; the finger printing machines (which by themselves are a counter incentive in Venezuela); security personnel; food; etc.... millions of dollars gone to waste.
The uselessness of it all, anyway
The Venezuelan voter is no fool after all, even if it accepts Chavez to buy his or her vote. The mechanism set by the CNE was so ridiculous that no one could get bothered. After all, if you sign today, with all the risks that are attached to it, the vote would take place only later this year, BARELY a year before that official that you so dislike must face reelection. So, why take a chance when at most you cut down the term of the said official from 4 to 3 years?
The CNE is the only one to blame for this. In 2003, to help Chavez, it dismissed the signatures taken by the opposition in early 2003. The argument then was that signatures could not be taken BEFORE the midterm, as people needed to reach a mid term to evaluate fairly the elected official, in this case Chavez. So, having to accept a ridiculous precedent, the CNE last year decided that it would not hear of any recall election petition before October 31 2006. And since the presidential election was in December, the CNE servilely decided that nothing should cloud the presidential election and thus nobody would be allowed to present a petition before sometime in 2007, AFTER the CNE finally got around to set up rules that it should have set BEFORE the 2004 Recall Election.
In fact, we can see the the CNE is more than incompetent: a case can be made that the CNE has been actively involved in gutting the civil right that petitioning for a recall election is.
Conclusion
The civil right that appeared in the 1999 constitution as to subject elected officials to recall elections is dead. Tascon and the CNE have effectively killed this for good. Whatever hope of recovery that some chavista had (the opposition stayed clear from it, knowing full well the implications of 2004), it was more than smashed today. We had Tibisay Lucena trying to put the blame elsewhere pretending that it was not for the CNE to promote these signatures drive. Was not her job, as CNE head, to verify that the petitions submitted were serious petitions? That real people were backing them?
But even worse, pathetic and even despicable, was Jose Vicente Rangel words today trying to put the blame on the opposition!!!!! The ex-vice president, the one that allowed application of the Tascon list in his offices in 2003, said that the opposition should have promoted these drives. Forgetting to mention that the opposition did very few petitions, the large bulk coming from chavismo itself. And forgetting even more conveniently to observe that the petitions against opposition officials were failing equally to the anti chavista petitions! Poor Jose Vicente, he will say anything for a laugh!
But the truth is that now Venezuelans know very well that the only power that truly matters is the one of Chavez and that there is no point wasting time, energy and money on underlings, elected or appointed. Same difference. By ignoring this weekend signature process, the Venezuelan people in fact acknowledges that Venezuela is not a democracy anymore!
-The end-
Readers of this blog should not be surprised: in April 27 I had already predicted that the event would be a fiasco. Well, if it became noteworthy it is because it worked out so badly. As I am typing, of the hundred plus signature drives it is possible that at most a couple of them might end up in a recall election to be held in a couple of months, and they would be internal chavista affairs. Since I have already covered the mechanisms and the main reasons on why the Recall Election system in Venezuela was gutted of all meaning as a civil right, let's just review briefly what happened and the reactions of some players that seemed to be surprised by the lousy result.
The result
Pathetically empty polling places. Only in some districts were there is an internal chavista mini civil war did the recall election signature drive held any appeal. In at least 90% of the cases, be the elected position belong to chavismo or the opposition, no one bothered: the attendants were spending their weekend playing domino or gossiping. In many districts, a majority of them it seems, the people "asking for the recall election" did not even send witnesses!!!!!
Why it failed?
The Tascon list
Since the Tascon list no one wants anymore to post his or her name to a piece of paper that could be used against you someday. The system set up by the CNE in 2004 during the recall election against Chavez in fact killed the secret of vote in Venezuela. No one, chavista or not, who is not out in the open with its politics will go and sign a Recall Election drive. For those who doubted that, well, the results of this week end demonstrate pathetically, yet dramatically, how the notion of democracy in Venezuela is all but dead.
There is no looking for excuses: the Tascon list and the obscene support and later casual dismissal by Chavez of that fascist tool has done more harm to Venezuelan democracy than perhaps anything else besides the take over of the Judicial power by Chavez and his minions. Nothing short of a severe punishment to Tascon and to the people who used that list to discriminate in Venezuela on political grounds could ever bring back trust in Venezuelan elections. For those not aware of this topic and the moral devastation it brought I have several links on the right hand of this blog.
The speciousness of the recall drives
But if this was not enough, the casual and out of touch with reality attitude that the CNE took in setting up this year election drive killed any chance of that democratic tool to be of any use.
To begin with, the CNE decided to regulate tightly what should be a spontaneous popular organization to remove elected officials that do not please their subjects. In fact the rules set up backfired badly as some pro Chavez obscure organization did set up the large majority of the recall elections. Through legal artifacts they called for them without demonstrating that there was some popular feel for such elections. Thus from the very start the recall election process of this year looked more like an internal chavista knife throwing contest than any justified popular corrective measure.
Why did the CNE fell into that trap? Well, I suppose that no one went to set up that trap really, but trap it was. The reason why the CNE so carelessly went ahead even though early signs were pointing out to a potential bust was that the CNE tried to correct for its abuses of 2004. As all chavista employees, of which the CNE is just a branch, they thought that their will was enough for any correction, and perhaps that Chavez would waste his political capital on the recall elections. But RCTV and students in the middle, Chavez had much bigger fry to deal with than some local lousy officials and the CNE angst.
The CNE board thus demonstrated that 1) it has no political savvy, 2) it is incompetent and 3) they are mere bureaucrats that work under orders: when the orders do not come, they flounder!
The CNE should be asked why it allowed such a failure, why it spent so much money on something that weeks ago was predicted to be a bust. Because it cost a lot of money: employees paid extra to work weekends; equipment rental; the finger printing machines (which by themselves are a counter incentive in Venezuela); security personnel; food; etc.... millions of dollars gone to waste.
The uselessness of it all, anyway
The Venezuelan voter is no fool after all, even if it accepts Chavez to buy his or her vote. The mechanism set by the CNE was so ridiculous that no one could get bothered. After all, if you sign today, with all the risks that are attached to it, the vote would take place only later this year, BARELY a year before that official that you so dislike must face reelection. So, why take a chance when at most you cut down the term of the said official from 4 to 3 years?
The CNE is the only one to blame for this. In 2003, to help Chavez, it dismissed the signatures taken by the opposition in early 2003. The argument then was that signatures could not be taken BEFORE the midterm, as people needed to reach a mid term to evaluate fairly the elected official, in this case Chavez. So, having to accept a ridiculous precedent, the CNE last year decided that it would not hear of any recall election petition before October 31 2006. And since the presidential election was in December, the CNE servilely decided that nothing should cloud the presidential election and thus nobody would be allowed to present a petition before sometime in 2007, AFTER the CNE finally got around to set up rules that it should have set BEFORE the 2004 Recall Election.
In fact, we can see the the CNE is more than incompetent: a case can be made that the CNE has been actively involved in gutting the civil right that petitioning for a recall election is.
Conclusion
The civil right that appeared in the 1999 constitution as to subject elected officials to recall elections is dead. Tascon and the CNE have effectively killed this for good. Whatever hope of recovery that some chavista had (the opposition stayed clear from it, knowing full well the implications of 2004), it was more than smashed today. We had Tibisay Lucena trying to put the blame elsewhere pretending that it was not for the CNE to promote these signatures drive. Was not her job, as CNE head, to verify that the petitions submitted were serious petitions? That real people were backing them?
But even worse, pathetic and even despicable, was Jose Vicente Rangel words today trying to put the blame on the opposition!!!!! The ex-vice president, the one that allowed application of the Tascon list in his offices in 2003, said that the opposition should have promoted these drives. Forgetting to mention that the opposition did very few petitions, the large bulk coming from chavismo itself. And forgetting even more conveniently to observe that the petitions against opposition officials were failing equally to the anti chavista petitions! Poor Jose Vicente, he will say anything for a laugh!
But the truth is that now Venezuelans know very well that the only power that truly matters is the one of Chavez and that there is no point wasting time, energy and money on underlings, elected or appointed. Same difference. By ignoring this weekend signature process, the Venezuelan people in fact acknowledges that Venezuela is not a democracy anymore!
-The end-
Monday, May 21, 2007
That credibility gap: Jose Vicente Rangel cries "wolf"!
Tonight, in another sign of increasing chavista disarray at their PR fiasco as to the RCTV debacle, Jose Vicente Rangel, former vice president of Chavez, has declared that Colombia is preparing a destabilizing plan in Venezuela. We get some names, a strategy, a modus operandi even.
The only problem is that JVR has not enough credibility left to make us sleep uneasy tonight.
The only problem is that JVR has not enough credibility left to make us sleep uneasy tonight.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
Tidbits: Barbara, no private education and Borges messes up
There were three items that appeared today in the news that would be worth of a spot but I preferred to discuss of local matters that would not be discussed in English on the web otherwise. That is why you can find the post on Didalco Bolivar above this one. But these other items to deserve to be mentioned.
Barbara Walters does Chavez
What can I say? In 17 years in the US I NEVER liked Barbara Walters, finding he superficial. If she were younger she should join the cast of E! network, much more suitable for the type of journalism she does. Well, she interviewed Chavez and she swallowed it all, Bait, Hook and Sink. No need to cover this since Miguel has done it here.
No more private education
The association of Bolivarian teachers say that education in Venezuela should be public only, controlled from the state and starting from the womb. Private education should be "eradicated". Words fail me. When we read a few days ago that school enrollment DROPPED in public schools while it increased in private ones, we know what link with reality these people hold... By the way, someone should tell them that chavista leaders have their kids in private schools.
Borges gave an interview to Jose Vicente Rangel
Jose Vicente Rangel has recycled himself into his old talk show now that he has been fired (resigned?) from the Chavez administration vice president. Why would someone take seriously Rangel as a journalist after 8 years of cynical lies goes beyond my understanding. But apparently some people are so desperate to get rid of Chavez NOW, that they are even willing to believe that Rangel could be the man.
What is surprising is that Julio Borges seems to share this opinion, that maybe Rangel is the ticket for his glory. Next Sunday he will be the guest in the third show of Rangel. The third show!! Can you believe that?
I am not opposed to opposition leaders to eventually go to Rangel show. After all, if in a few months he shows himself to be again a real journalist and that his political era was strictly a political position and he played the game, I could perhaps see it. Though I would never accept it, 8 years of utter lies, cynicism and manipulations cannot be "forgiven" just like that, Rangel will be judged one day if chavismo falls before he croaks. He should be ashamed to get back his old job. But then again, chavismo has a way to make a thug out of anyone that lingers too close to the flame...
I think Borges is making a terrible mistake. Many rumors have been circulating about him and his making of Primero Justicia a palatable opposition to Chavez, the official one should we say. By going so soon to Rangel, well, he is going to give sustain to these rumors among the opposition folks who have serious doubts about him. But what is worse, he will gain very little from the chavista side, and the price of appearing colluding with Rangel. Big mistake in my opinion. And a mistake compounded by the summary of the preview from Union Radio where Borges does not seem to come out under a very flattering light. So soon after its division, Primero Justicia is not going top be helped by that interview.
-The end-
Barbara Walters does Chavez
What can I say? In 17 years in the US I NEVER liked Barbara Walters, finding he superficial. If she were younger she should join the cast of E! network, much more suitable for the type of journalism she does. Well, she interviewed Chavez and she swallowed it all, Bait, Hook and Sink. No need to cover this since Miguel has done it here.
No more private education
The association of Bolivarian teachers say that education in Venezuela should be public only, controlled from the state and starting from the womb. Private education should be "eradicated". Words fail me. When we read a few days ago that school enrollment DROPPED in public schools while it increased in private ones, we know what link with reality these people hold... By the way, someone should tell them that chavista leaders have their kids in private schools.
Borges gave an interview to Jose Vicente Rangel
Jose Vicente Rangel has recycled himself into his old talk show now that he has been fired (resigned?) from the Chavez administration vice president. Why would someone take seriously Rangel as a journalist after 8 years of cynical lies goes beyond my understanding. But apparently some people are so desperate to get rid of Chavez NOW, that they are even willing to believe that Rangel could be the man.
What is surprising is that Julio Borges seems to share this opinion, that maybe Rangel is the ticket for his glory. Next Sunday he will be the guest in the third show of Rangel. The third show!! Can you believe that?
I am not opposed to opposition leaders to eventually go to Rangel show. After all, if in a few months he shows himself to be again a real journalist and that his political era was strictly a political position and he played the game, I could perhaps see it. Though I would never accept it, 8 years of utter lies, cynicism and manipulations cannot be "forgiven" just like that, Rangel will be judged one day if chavismo falls before he croaks. He should be ashamed to get back his old job. But then again, chavismo has a way to make a thug out of anyone that lingers too close to the flame...
I think Borges is making a terrible mistake. Many rumors have been circulating about him and his making of Primero Justicia a palatable opposition to Chavez, the official one should we say. By going so soon to Rangel, well, he is going to give sustain to these rumors among the opposition folks who have serious doubts about him. But what is worse, he will gain very little from the chavista side, and the price of appearing colluding with Rangel. Big mistake in my opinion. And a mistake compounded by the summary of the preview from Union Radio where Borges does not seem to come out under a very flattering light. So soon after its division, Primero Justicia is not going top be helped by that interview.
-The end-
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