Paspalum Fasciculatum

Radio Open Source

2005-12-07T19:31:00.000-05:00

Oh well, I guess I did not make the cut, but I hope I contributed to the background. And it would have been too much to be in the same forum with Miguel and Daniel!!!. This Opposition electoral strike has been better than I thought, a whole hour dedicated to Venezuela's situation, and in a program that can reach quite a bit of the American left.

You can find their own blog here and they will put up the audio file at some point. But if you want to catch the audio streams, it will be retransmitted today at 12PM EST by KOUW in Seattle (stream) and it will be re-transmitted tomorrow (thursday) by WUML in Lowell MA. at 9PM EST (stream)

But my opinion is that the message is definitively not getting through, the fight is democracy against a non-democracy (whatever that is). I don't get how in an hour-long program, after such an election, and the reports generated by all international observers, did not mention either report at all!!.

BTW: I did not know Daniel had a french accent when he spoke english!!

Mmmmph... I got the time wrong, the listings where in local times, I have now corrected them (I think)

Update: The stream is now online you can reach it in openradio's website (direct quicktime mp3 stream here)

Preliminary OAS and EU reports are out

2005-12-07T00:02:00.000-05:00

I have to admit that I did not expect the OAS and the EU observers preliminary reports to be so clearly against Chávez's regime [1]. Both reports criticize, in no uncertain terms, the mistrust of the population towards the electoral body, and the need to create a new electoral body that would eliminate this mistrust. But don't take my word for it, you can read both of them in Bureli's blog (sorry the OAS one is in spanish, but Daniel has analyzed some of it here).

I didn't expect that they would go into so much detail criticizing the Maisanta software, thus state repression, the 'Morochas' specifically saying that these clearly go against the spirit of the constitution, thus criticizing the Supreme Court in the process, and the use of state funds for political propaganda, thus denouncing government corruption. Not to mention saying, in no uncertain terms, that keeping the voting stations open after 4PM was plainly illegal, and coincided with an intensification of the, campaign to move people to the polling stations (with some illegal components to that too).

Of course, they have criticized some of the Opposition's actions, and have praised some of the CNE ones, and I am sure that the CPM™ talking points have been actualized to spin those any way they can (and you will see those ad infinitum soon in blog's comment sections), but the totality of the reports leave no doubt in how much of a mess is Venezuela's political system right now.

So, in short, the OAS and the EU have acknowledged most of what the Venezuelan opposition [2] has said about the CNE since the days of the RR, impressive indeed. No matter what is the outcome of all this, and there is clearly a long road ahead, but I have to say that this has been a great day for the Venezuelan opposition.

Just in case, the electoral council or CNE is just one more of Chavez's institutions, thus criticizing them is to criticize the government.

I keep the convention started by Quico's blog of capitalizing Opposition to denote Opposition parties, and using lower-case to denote the generalized group of people that oppose Chávez's regime in any way.

Update, here are the original reports: OAS, EU (PDF)

Abstention as a weapon

2005-12-06T08:38:00.000-05:00

From Miguel's Blog, (the Press was not allowed to take such photographs)

So we had 'perfectly normal' elections in Venezuela, as the CPM™ loves to say. It does not matter that the main opposition parties removed their candidates, it's quite normal after all. It does not matter that 100% of the legislative body is now pro-Chavez, democracies work that way. It does not matter that media sources were not allowed to photograph or show the lack of participation in the voting centers, freedom of expression is like that. It is irrelevant that the CNE was caught red handed lying in front of all international observers merely days before the election, voting arbiters side that way. It does not matter that 75% (the official number so far) to 90% (the initial estimates) of voters decided to abstain. And of those that voted, it does not matter that 20% decided to nullify their vote. It is irrelevant that government officials ordered all public employees to vote, or they would loose their jobs (more than 15% of voters). It does not even matter that 30% of the vote happened after 4PM time at which the poll stations should have closed in accordance to the Venezuelan law and to the agreement letter that the CNE signed with the international observers. So it must be a democracy after all.

But let me concentrate in that last detail for a second, the one that made me extra suspicious: 30% of voters cast their vote after the legal closing of polling stations. That single detail made me realize exactly how the government has managed to manipulate the vote since the RR. A recently reported study indicated the impossibility of 1.5 to 2 million extra votes in the last hours of the RR (which would on its own reduce the 18% victory of Chávez in the RR to a 5% defeat), based mostly on analysis of the data flow from the voting machines. The last election, also showed a long illegal delay in the closing of the voting centers, and showed abstention numbers smaller than most estimates. In this one the best source (Súmate) reports an 82.3% abstention to the government's 75% (a number that is sure to change in the near future, as I think that they have not figured out the actual numbers for the previous elections yet). So a full million extra votes (7.3% of voters) could have appeared in the oh-so-secure voting machines in that time. Add to this all the steps that the government used to obtain a large abstention figure in the RR, and reports of people that appeared to have already voted when they had not, and that explains it all.

I hypothesize that the misfeasance goes like this:

The voting process proceeds normally during the alloted time, with the normal number of non-voters (and of course the normal number of illegal voters sanctioned by the CNE).
The CNE extends the voting time, to avoid the electoral centers from closing and printing out the final result from the machines
The CNE sends new votes to the machines (which explains all the extra traffic seen during the RR)
The voting process finally closes, with a brand new vote tally

This would explain why the 'finger-print catching machines' were necessary in the RR. They needed to: a)increase the number of abstentions in a process that has had the most participation in any Venezuelan election (by making the process slower and more complicated), so that this trick could work, and b)know exactly who had voted so that they would not exceed any machine total (as machines where assigned by ID card ending). Knowing who voted for whom is a nice little extra. Though this is quite inefficient (for anyone that knows about computers), it has the advantage that none of the voting software needs to be altered, only the data entry front-end, which can be made part of the operating system itself, and being that these are just simple Windows machines... need I say more?

So, going back to Sunday's plebiscite, I am inclined to believe Súmate's abstention numbers more than the CNE's, so let me re-do a graph that Miguel put up in his blog, but with Súmate's numbers for the last two elections in it (it's the most I can find), notice the 'phase transition' after the Referendum.:

Now, what was won with this abstention?: international attention to the lack of Democracy in Venezuela and a bit of confidence towards the Opposition parties. But let's wait and see what the international observers have to say about all this, after all the CNE violated their 'rules of the game' among other things by: delaying the closing of the polls and connecting a large number of machines before the closing of the polls (for such scheme to work, but it remains to be proven),

What is left for Venezuelans?. If we are very lucky this election will be nullified, and a fair election, without morochas, and without the current CNE will be organized. If we are not, the civil structures have to get organized and fast before the new National Assembly removes the only constitutional articles that would allow for a pacific end to the internal conflict. If we are very unlucky Chávez will just get rid of what is left of his Democratic façade and declare his dictatorship openly for all to see.

For further reading:

High Abstention and Information Black-out in Venezuela Elections. Global Voices Online

Bloggers get the scoop on Venezuela's disputed election. Robert Mayer

RIP Venezuela's democracy. Aleksander Boyd

A victory for Chávez?... Miguel Octavio

The electoral analysis. Daniel Duquenal

Euphoria Unhinged. Francisco Toro

Venezuelans 'lost faith in polls'. BBC News

Boycott of elections was right. U.S. Senator Bill Frist

Cracks in the Democracy Façade

2005-12-04T06:01:00.000-05:00

As most of you might know, today is an election day in Venezuela, the national assembly (single chamber of the legislative power) is being elected. Or rather, was being elected, as the huge majority of important Opposition candidates have removed their names from consideration (as I hoped, and mentioned in my last post before the hiatus). However, since the Chavista spin machine is in full gear trying to get out of this one, let me present some of the facts:

There are a LOT of political parties in Venezuela, though in any region only two tend to matter, and these would be either Chavistas or Opposing Chavez.

boycotted

Electoral conditions are totally non-democratic in Venezuela.

was caught

Opposition parties are following the call of the people by boycotting the election.
There will be a large number of coerced votes.

Now, don't confuse this non-participation in the elections by the Opposition parties as staying away from the game, this is really a very good move inside the game. By giving a very clear message to the voter, there is no more division in the "evil" options, which were either to legitimate a clearly crooked process, or to loose what little breathing space was being left by Chavismo. The Opposition now has removed the second option from the table. Now is all up to Chávez to rally his own people to vote (and note that I say Chávez, not Chavista candidates, as these are mostly irrelevant completely interchangeable individuals).

But what I don't get, is why most of my fellow bloggers seem to agree that this is some kind of turning point for Venezuela's Democracy?, and even more, most lament the fact that the opposition decided not to run, even though the CNE made the one and only concession of removing one of the 'cheating' pieces of electoral machinery for this election (and this election only). Venezuela stopped being a democracy when the "democratic institutions" blatantly stopped following the law, when Venezuelans where left without any resource against the government. We Venezuelans in the opposition agree that Chavez and his ilk does not represent our country anymore, the problem is removing him from power, and we knew that these elections, under the current CNE and its rules, would not be a step in that direction, no matter what.

From my perspective, this is the best card the opposition [1] had in its hand (I would actually say the only card at this point), however it's far from being the 'check-mate' that PMB suggests. My electoral prediction for today is simple: there will be a huge true abstention (bordering 80% and maybe more). But what does that mean for the regime?, the spin is already out there: "Only 10% of the candidates joined the boycott, abstention is normal for this kind of elections, and the Opposition is using violence." Not to mention that only one of the cheat mechanisms have been removed, they can inject as many votes as they want into any part of the system they want (i.e. places that are not being audited), so abstention can be "reduced" without much problem (as it probably happened in the previous election). The main thing this does is to restitute some of the lost ground back to the Opposition parties in Venezuelan's hearts, now, by following, they can start to lead.

That would be the only point gained if it where not for the call that Súmate made to go to mass to pray for Venezuela's Democracy this Sunday morning. That not so innocent call is another good play, but it's a wild card at that. I interpret it as a show of force, to show the international media the empty voter lines and contrast them with the huge church gatherings. But if you have large masses of people in the streets, meeting in groups in a way that bypasses the special laws against public gatherings that apply on election Days in Venezuela, there is a recipe for trouble, or for truly democratic change if it is managed correctly.

Today, the future of Democracy in Venezuela is more linked to what happens around those churches than to anything that could happen in the ballot boxes. I, for no other reason than solidarity, am planning to go to church today with the faint hope that my fellow Venezuelans face no more danger than the one that I will face being in a U.S. church.

I have decided to follow the convention that Quico started in his blog of capitalizing "Opposition" when referring to the Opposition parties, and using it in lower-caps to denote the more generalized concept of "people that do not agree with Chavez."

I'm Back

2005-12-03T23:48:00.000-05:00

Has it really been that long?, more than a month since I last published something!

I feel that I owe my followers an apology, and I have definitively violated Blogging 101's main rule: "post often," but then this is something I started because I needed to do something about Venezuela, and after a few more startups in that direction I became very disappointed and unmotivated with the general Venezuelan attitude. Then I had to catch-up with work, multiple urgencies, life in general. In short, there seemed to be no time to post for posting sake, specially when Daniel and Miguel do such a good job with the day-to day and are actually on-the-ground, instead of observing from afar as I am. But then I feel that I should have said something, even a "down for a while" post, but I just don't seem to think that way. And for that, I apologize.

My apathy got to the point that I stopped following much of the News (and the Blogs), and I did not know about the Candidates retiring from tomorrow's Venezuelan elections until 3 days after it happened (and it was Ivan that brought it to my attention), I'll sure have to write a post on that, since I feel that it's time for a pre wrap-up before what happens tomorrow happens (as Daniel did here).

Can I promise that I will not disappear again?. No I cannot, but I hope I will keep you updated when that happens.

On the faltering state of democracy in Venezuela

2005-11-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

As Alek informs us the NGO Súmate has produced the most comprehensive report about the state of democracy in Venezuela (or rather utter lack thereof), "only the facts". As Burelli says a MANDATORY [and very complete] Reference Document for Policy-makers, Journalists, Academics and all concerned with the faltering state of Venezuelan democracy (you can find it in spanish here).

This report is a factual description of how, in what dates, and with what actions, Venezuela slowly degenerated from the imperfect democracy it once was (is there any other kind?), before Chávez took power, into the budding dictatorship it now is (my words, Súmate is too even handed to put it in those terms). It is in a way an organized comedy of manipulations and errors, that in hindsight seems very well directed to produce the current outcome. This should help you understand why even the Catholic Church has denounced Chávez's dictatorial ways.

In December legislative 'elections' will occur, though I hesitate to call them that way. Someone should come up with a word to denote the act of voting by the people when in reality the only one electing is the government itself, or as the oh-so-democratic Joseph Stalin once said: The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything. As Miguel and Daniel reported, the Venezuelan 'supreme court' (we also need a different name here), has broken the very last legal straw regarding this election (not that this blogger expected a different outcome). It has, without apologies and very literally schmoozing (see Daniel's pictures) to the rest of Chavez's regime, violated the constitution, again, by giving their blessing to the "morochas" electoral scheme. This scheme can allow a party to gain twice the number of seats as the votes would suggest, thus summarily violating the 'proportional representation of minorities' that has always been part of Venezuelan constitutions (in case you where wondering, the last one too). Of course, the 'opposition leadership' walked directly into this one (I really have no concept of why), and as Daniel reports they have been rightfully ridiculed by the Venezuelan press.

Let's hope that the current opposition candidates stay true to their word (though I doubt it), and just walk away en-masse from these elections, any insignificant quota of power, that they could pry away from Chávez's hands for their participation, is not worth giving such a sorry undemocratic process their support.

It's been time for a different kind of political activism for a while, let Rosa Parks lead the way

Corruption in Venezuela II

2005-10-25T09:06:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on Corruption in Venezuela in which I used the Corruption Perception Index from Transparency International to show the different trends, and I commented that I was waiting for this year's numbers to see the 'progress' of the Chavez regime. Well, as Daniel and Alek, have already reported, the 2005 indices are out (I have been a bit busy and doing some traveling lately, pardon my tardiness). So, here is an updated graph that includes the 2005 indices.

Let me start with the punch-line: Venezuela's index did not change, it's still 2.3 for this year. So let me put this in context. From my previous choice of countries Zimbabwe and Colombia improved to 2.6 and 4.0 respectively, while Brazil worsened to 3.7, which is not surprising given the recent corruption scandals around the governing party (remember that this is a perception index). That is, our 'model country,' Zimbabwe, improved by 0.3 while we stayed in the same level, which leaves Venezuela slightly above Iraq (2.2), and just above Paraguay (2.1) and Haiti (1.8) in the whole of the Americas. The next American countries in the list are: Guyana, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Bolivia all with an index of 2.5. So, I have to say that to me the biggest surprise in the index is the improvement of Zimbabwe.

Of course, the CPM™, has already tried to discredit Transparency International using words like "obscure methods" and the like, which are only obscure if you don't even try to read their web site, and pointing to previous ties to the "opposition," which is not only ad-hominem but ties into what I have said about the government use of the opposition tag before. As if an internationally recognized institute with more than 14 years of history had nothing better to do than to risk its reputation by attacking a petty dictator.

But there is a couple of points in TI's methodology that are worth mentioning. The Venezuela study used 10 different corruption studies (of a total of 16 different studies from 10 independent organizations that conduct these studies around the world) putting it in the high bracket for the number of studies used in any country. In the 2005 time period, the range of the studies' results has reduced to 0.2 (from 0.3 the previous year). That is, of all those 10 studies the 2.3 value assigned to the index is more solid this year than it was last year (and even more relevant, to the index assigned in the 1998 electoral year when the range was of 0.8). It is half the range of Brazil, and very small when compared to the 0.9 of Zimbabwe. Put in other words, discrediting Transparency international on this, is also discrediting the 10 different independent organizations that serve as the basis for the report.

So if I were to characterize this with a one-liner: No matter how you measure it, Venezuela is now more solidly corrupt under Chavez.

"Venezuela ahora es de Choros" means "Venezuela now belongs to thieves and thugs" which as reported in Daniel's article is the signature of one of Noticiero Digital's contributors, but the image has been around the e-mail circles for some time.

Rosa Parks

2005-10-25T08:59:00.000-04:00

Rosa Parks, the pioneer of the American Civil Rights movement died yesterday at 92.

Though the story is a relatively well known one for Americans, her very simple act of defiance in that December of 1955 that sparked a whole movement with MLK at its head, and in particular brought the bus company to its knees and made the supreme court declare the segregation laws unconstitutional, is relatively little known outside of the U.S. After all she just refused to stand from her seat in a bus because her feet hurt, right?. That's one of the misconceptions that surrounds this figure, and it's probably a reflection of the propaganda of the day. She was barely 42 at the time and she was really tired of the segregation, not of simply of her work.

Rosa Parks was an active member of the underground pacifist movement that existed back then, she was more than aware of passive resistance. In 1943 she had become a member of the Montgomery chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and she served as its secretary until 1956. She not only knew about what passive resistance meant, she had been trained in it for several years before that bus incident brought her to jail. And even then, as she would admit, she never thought that her little act of resistance would trigger such a movement. One of the beauties of passive resistance.

Venezuelans should study Mrs. Parks, as she is a very clear example of what passive resistance is about. She died peacefully, humbly, and with a very clean conscience, what better reward for such a great hero?.

The only thing that bothered me was that we waited so long to make this protest
-Rosa Parks

Chavez and Mugabe the new dream team

2005-10-18T12:28:00.000-04:00

So this is what it has come to?. Oppression, political assassinations, election 'adjustments', even the grant of poiltical asylum to low key Chavez opposers, none of that matters, as long as they criticize Bush and Blair?, as the irish press reports.

There is nothing new in Hugo Chavez giving a friendly embrace to Mugabe after all, as the relationship that he has had with prominent figures like Saddam Hussein, and Kim Jong Il among others is nothing new. Though it seems that Chavez is closely following Mugabe's footsteps in his way to making another Cuba out of Venezuela (or just make both countries one as he has promised multiple times).

But what makes the "first world leftists," that you can find in any of my fellow bloggers comment sections, go gaga for these leaders?. I have to ask, because some leftists would at least admit to the damage their idols have done in their own countries, as a witty blogger reported about a Stalin t-shirt wearing youth in Venezuela a month or so ago: yeah, yeah, he killed a bunch of people, we can all agree that's terrible. But why does no one ever talk about all the good things he did?.

Ask Hugo Chavez

2005-10-18T07:44:00.000-04:00

As Alek reported here, Daniel here, and Miguel here, the BBC has opened a form in their web site to allow for questions to be directed to Hugo Chavez as he will be interviewed in their 'talking points' section this week. Since BBC's position is very clear in the matter we don't have much hope of real questions getting through, but Alek promised to publish all the (decent) ones he gets, being pro, against or neutral to Chavez.

Here is my basic starting set which I am adding to their site right now:

Why do you choose to ignore all the signs of corruption inside your government and even punish those inside your revolution like Walter Martinez that criticize it instead of acting against it as you promised during your campaign, do you realize that now Venezuela is more corrupt that ever?.

Why do you insist in dividing your country with artificial divisions, like race, education, and experience. Why did Miquelena, your political mentor, leave you?

Why do you insist in calling traitors those that seem to have the Venezuelan democracy in mind, while at the same time giving our territory away, giving citizenship to anyone that would vote for you, and allowing the infiltration of the country by foreign nationals that might sympathize with your cause

Why are you spending so much money buying consciences around the world, while your own hospitals are falling apart?.

Why don't you trust Venezuelans to be your security detail and bodyguards, choosing to use Cuban nationals, to which you have extended Venezuelan passports, instead?.

Let's let the BBC know what real people think about their position, should we?.

Follow-up: surprisingly to me a couple of good questions were asked, but Chavez just lied all he wanted without having a real confrontation with the facts. I guess one of the beauties of being interviewed by someone that did not do their homework. I don't have time to do a full post on it, but the whole interview was posted by Alek here and Daniel did a quick couple of articles on it, here and here.

The frog in the boiler

2005-10-16T01:09:00.000-04:00

I have wondered for a while, how can people let themselves fall into totalitarian regimes. How did Stalin become Stalin?, how did Mussolini become Mussolini?, how did Franco become Franco?, how did Hitler become Hitler?, how did Castro become Castro?.

Before, in royalty times, it was the thing to do, it was what was expected, so it's understandable that it took a thought revolution (and the quest for power of some of the displaced) to get from under the King's rule. But these modern regimes start from relatively little, sometimes with a military involvement sometimes democratically, but in many cases these regimes start by being popular and very gradually change their tune to become totalitarian.

It is amazing to me to see the apathy that Venezuelans have towards our current regime, quite a few have seen the regime change over time, and quite a few have seen where it's headed. But even then I have spent countless hours on the phone and countless e-mails to try to make my friends and family understand this, and I very seldom get past a "do you think so?, noooo, I know he is bad but no way it can get _that_ bad!." Of course some of those that see it clearly, have already left the country, or are making plans to do so. Many others, that also see it clearly, are desperate to get their neighbors understand this, as they cannot conceive the possibility of leaving their country. But the great majority of Venezuelans choose to ignore the signs, and go on with their lives, while the regime becomes more and more totalitarian. Partially because they feel themselves powerless to fight against it, partially because they prefer to ignore it to be able to justify their own inaction.

Chávez has made an art form out of dividing Venezuelans into 'us' vs. 'them,' this permeates all strata of society. The "opposition" (which as I have mentioned before includes everyone that does not agree with anything from the Chavez regime) is even divided by this, all the opposition political parties are now part of the "them," it does not matter how many good things they have done before, it does not matter how many good intentions, it does not matter how democratic they are, it does not even matter that some are recently formed parties to fight against Chavez regime. They are not "us" and as such, cannot be trusted to do anything good. But then, at the same time huge segments of the "opposition" is waiting for a leader to get them out of the bind Venezuela is in!. Am I the only one that sees a problem with this logic?.

I understand the sources of the apathy, and it all goes back to the Revocatory Referendum. The Venezuelan society was very organized back then following basic precepts of non-violent struggle, and it was this organization that allowed the RR process to go that far. But opposition party leaders made huge mistakes by negotiating with the regime (and they still don't seem to have learned that lesson), and failed their own people by not reacting fast enough to the multiple tricks pushed forward by the regime. After that, all the power that was in the hands of the Venezuelan people dissipated, and it even looks as if it had never existed.

But a year has gone by, and the basis of the fight should still be fresh in their minds. There are many people pointing out what needs to be done, but even in forums of people that think this same way, they choose to complain and whine, instead of choosing to fight, to get organized, to do what even the Venezuelan Catholic Church has said that must be done. It amazed me that I seem to have a better understanding of the consequences of article 350 of the Venezuelan constitution than many people that are actually lawyers and don't see a way out!. At least Súmate seems to have a clear idea by starting to organize a parallel government, so that the "ignoring a totalitarian regime" put forth by article 350 can be implemented. Let's hope that "they" succeed before even that article gets removed from our constitution, but to do that, it has to stop being "they" and start becoming "us."

So, unlike a frog, that contrary to popular belief would actually jump out if the water gets hot enough, people seem to just prefer the status quo, hoping that it will not get worse, without realizing day to day that it already has. And I can assure you that this does not apply _only_ to Venezuelans.

Apropos:

"All politics are based on the indifference of the majority."
-James Reston

"Politics should be the part-time profession of every citizen."
-Dwight Eisenhower

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
-Albert Einstein

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."
-Dale Carnegie

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
-Edmund Burke

"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
-Albert Einstein

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
--Margaret Mead

The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of great moral crises maintain their neutrality.
-- Dante Alighieri

Born Again Agnostic

2005-10-11T06:25:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine pointed out today that all agnostics are born-again, that becoming agnostic would normally come from a strong introspection on our belief system, and on what it means to be part of a religion just because our parents were part of that religion. So this kind of introspection is the revelation that makes us agnostic and can even be said that we are reborn through it. In my case it came when I was 15 and got exposed to the religions of the Mayans through the Popol Vuh, then I had a very different comparison point for the need of an explanation of our existence.

True agnostics could have much stronger sets of morals than a large number of the members of established religions, and in some cases (myself included) became agnostic precisely because we find many of the religious practices amoral and denigrating of the human condition, and of the same principles they claim to represent.

However being agnostic also means that our "religion" is kept in the inside, is very private and only revealed to the closest of our friends, and it coexists, without conflicts, with reason and understanding. We don't try to impose it on anyone, though it guides our everyday actions.

It is because of this being private that our views are characterized by many of the so called religious people as amoral, as we don't follow their religious precepts. Because we see the clear disconnect between their words and their actions. I privately howl every time that I hear the name of Jesus Christ being used by the same people to justify actions that Jesus himself would have rebelled against.

After all, back in his time, Jesus himself became the best known Born Again Agnostic. But in his case, he decided to spread his own religion.

The Rule of Ilegality in Venezuela

2005-10-06T06:04:00.000-04:00

I have had in mind writing an article about the difference between the Venezuelan Courts and the U.S. courts when it comes to actually applying 'the law', but law being very far from my interests I have not found the motivation to do the research about the details. Thankfully Miguel has found, and analyzed, an excellent document by a Venezuelan ex-supreme court justice (it's in spanish, but you can find it in Miguel's post) regarding the undemocratic, biased, and unconstitutional character of the new and improved revolutionary supreme court of Venezuela.

This is another point that seems impossible to get through to citizens of 'first world' countries. From the perspective of a working, albeit imperfect, legal system, it seems extremely hard to comprehend that when we say that we have 'partisan judges,' we mean judges that work for a party, not even bothering to give any veneer of justification for their partisan actions, and that would actually be on the public record as staunch supporters of the Chavez regime. When we say that the court is 'biased' we don't mean that the justices are left or right-leaning, we mean that _everything_ that the regime says must be right, unless your case is so outrageously strong that the international community might actually be outraged if they ruled the other way, and most times even that is not enough.

From the perspective of having a centuries old and extremely brief constitution, it seems hard to understand that when we say that a decision by the supreme court is 'unconstitutional,' we actually mean that there is an article of our constitution that explicitly says that what they did is illegal, not to mention that most of the constitutional assembly members are still alive though not so well, so we have plenty of people to point it out.

From Miguel's article:

...the "new" (and improved?) Court resolved the unconstitutionality of its own existence, as well as the requirements needed to be part of it, going as far as saying that the prerequisite of being a Full Professor of Law, does not mean you need to have an academic career, but simply that you are a Professor at any university, even at lower ranks.

The Court itself also approved and ratified that the National Assembly can approve, by simple majority, the New Supreme Court Bill, extending the number of Justices from 20 to 32, as well as the ability of the Assembly to remove or sanction Justices by a simple majority. This was accomplished in part, by the Court itself ratifying the validity of the new regulations of the National Assembly, also approved by simple majority. Talk about conflict of interest!

Yet another problem with bias and labels and if you have read my 'tenets' you already know that. But would you please stop using the label 'democracy' when you refer to such an outrageous government system?.

Now, would you also please consider this perspective when you think about Harriet Myers as a supreme Court nominee?. Or as Alfred E Newman would say, 'who, me worry?'

Unbelievable apathy

2005-10-05T06:34:00.000-04:00

It has always surprised me how people can be so apathetic to things that affect them directly without realizing that it requires relatively little action on their part to correct them. I am thinking about the Venezuelan society in particular, but I can see many equally disconcerting examples in the U.S.

Recently some friends of mine started fighting 'the man' in their school, because of a large number of inequalities in the treatment of Fellowship vs. non-Fellowship students (to make a long story short, fellowship recipients have less rights, and more problems than 'normal' research supported students), this inequality became more evident when comparing it to how other schools treat the same cases. After researching the issue, they found out that the whole problem can be traced to the difference in definition of a single word!!, "employee," because after all if you are a 'student' you cannot be an 'employee.' This very basic problem, actually affects a myriad things around campus, it generates inequalities in retirement funds, tax treatment, insurance premiums, and to a huge number of people (fellowship recipients and non-recipients alike). I hope you now you see why I have so many problems with labels.

Surely enough, today they are taking 'the man' with very good chances of success. And this is just a couple of grad students, armed with the right tools--reason and facts--that generated the right plan of action and did not accept no for an answer. And it only took them two weeks to get to the people than can exert the changes. But it strikes me as odd, that after hearing the myriad complaints from multiple people all across the school, for many years, such a simple problem had not been addressed before. And the answer is the failure to make the problem yours, to expect that someone else has to fix the problem, instead of forcing them to do it.

It is in this context that I see America today, I see the multitude of problems cropping up, I see electoral fraud (scary facts if you research them [1]), I see cronyism, the complete deterioration of the media, the increase in corporation power, I see the fast deterioration of democratic institutions all over. But I don't see the action, save for a small number of individuals that have made it their job to keep people informed, but people is not reacting

The only thing that you have to do is act, create your own plan of action, don't wait for someone else to do it for you. Choose a problem, dedicate half an hour a day to research it and join efforts with similar minded people to analyze what can be done (see the example of Otpor!, it really works). If Americans don't start paying more attention to their own country, in a few years, this beloved democracy will be no more.

Me?, I have Venezuela to worry about.

Evidence of Electoral Fraud in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election: A Reading List, and please get over the bias label, you know what I think about that one.

Update: My friends had their first important meeting today (two rungs down from the school president), extremely well armed with facts and figures, and a recent read of my 'bias' article. They described to me how hard was to get through that one, but by the end she was surprised, concerned, and supportive. Most people don't realize that such injustices are just due to the administration not 'knowing' the effect of their practices, if someone had just taken the time to inform them before, these would not be there. Of course, an administrative practice of many years, around which a whole structure has been created, is hard and expensive to change, so now the real work starts.

Cronie, who?

2005-10-03T22:34:00.000-04:00

I cannot believe this, exactly what is the Bush Administration thinking?. I really don't care much about who this Harriet Myers is. But to nominate her to the supreme court?. Is this some kind of distraction, a smoke screen?. A big resounding no, no, so that the next one can slide through looking great in comparison?.

Bush has clearly shown with superhero Brownie and all the others that have been indicted or forced to resign, that he likes to appoint cronies to important positions in his administration. Look how much good it has done with FEMA. And Harriet Myers clearly fits at least the 'buddy' definition by the book. When the best the media could do, is say that "she is very loyal, and worked for Bush!!!," and that is some sort of an endorsement!!!.

So, with such a track record in mind, there is only one main consideration for me in this case. It has to be someone that has a transparent public carrier, that is an elected official, a judge, a renowned personality, anyone!!, but his/her record has to be verifiable in some way. Not to figure out if she is partisan or not, but to see if she is able to make unbiased decisions at all!. Harriet Myers is as opaque as you can find in this regard, and she is unique as a supreme court nominee in not having any public record

So to me this innocent until proven guilty thing should not apply to Supreme Court nominees. This a lifetime election, a King or Queen election!!, higher standards have to apply. Congress should just say: "we refuse to even meet with her, we consider this insulting, try again," and not even waste their time. Anything else is a tacit approval to cronyism.

Open letter to Venezuelans

2005-09-29T09:27:00.000-04:00

La versión en español es ésta

To Súmate, to the opposition parties, to all those that oppose Chávez, to the ni-nis. What is wrong with you?. Can't you see the trap that is looming for the December elections?. Isn't three times enough?. Can't you see that the CNE cannot be trusted?. Are you willing to have as an only resource the international observers?, again?. You know the saying, "fool me once, it's your fault, fool me twice, it's mine." But fool me four times?. I have been wondering what can be done, but clearly walking, yet again, towards the slaughter house that is the CNE, staying at home and abstaining, or voting null is not it.

This election is it, what started with the RR will be consolidated here, after this there will be no turning back, at least not in a very long time. Some sectors inside the Chavista masses are starting to rise, but I would not trust that to exert any change, Chavez might end up buying them, suppressing them, or just ignoring them without any consequence. And who knows if this is yet another distraction technique to keep attention away from the elections themselves.

I have always noticed how a large portion of Venezuelans just want a messiah (specially you ni-nis), an opposition candidate that will give you 'hope.' Can't you see that if Chavez is not stopped, there will be no one to do this?. Can't you see that we have to create strong democratic institutions?, that is not the job of one man, that is the job of all Venezuelans. You have to force institutions to be strong, and blindly following an individual, no matter which one, is not the way to do it.

Chavistas, you have put your trust in having found that messiah, well I hope that you like the conversion of Venezuela in another Cuba, the abolition of private property, the sliding away from the civilized world, and the dilapidation of the immense oil income directly to sustain the international image of your idol. Look towards Cuba, that is your future. While you keep believing that Chavez is being fooled start thinking how can someone be so blind to what is happening around him?. How can you be so blind?

Opposition parties, I feel sorry for you, I know that many of your members feel that you don't deserve the way that Venezuelans are treating you, but that is the price you pay for being in the forefront, for making the many mistakes that your members have made. The debacle of the RR is as much your fault as it is Chávez's. Be honorable in this juncture, think what is the best for Venezuela. Create a clear message, be responsible with your message. Show the numbers, show the effect that Chavez is having, make people understand all the money that is being wasted, all the corruption taking place, and the destruction of private property, and all the consequences of staying the path. Relearn how to lead again, but more importantly, learn how to be led by the Venezuelan civil society. Some humility would do you good. If you can't do that, just move away and be forgotten.

Venezuelan civil society, Súmate, neighbor assemblies, you are the hope of Venezuela. Regain that strength that drove you towards the RR, but focus your objectives. It is clear that any protest will be heavily repressed, but you don't need to take the streets to show force. There have been many examples of the power of continuous pacific protests. Fliers, stickers, graffiti, obstruction, inaction, education. Some basic ground rules is all that is needed, follow the examples of what works and discard what doesn't. Learn that Chavistas are not the enemy, Chávez and his close cronies are. Make Chavistas, and the remaining honorable military understand that. But more importantly, act as a single unit, don't waste time on minor divisions, mold a clear objective and pursue it. Chavez's strength is in dividing the Venezuelan society, your strength is in uniting it again.

Quoting Gene Sharp (a must read for anyone willing to resist the regime):

Dictatorships usually exist primarily because of the internal power distribution in the home country. The population and society are too weak to cause the dictatorship serious problems, wealth and power are concentrated in too few hands. Although dictatorships may benefit from or be somewhat weakened by international actions, their continuation is dependent primarily on internal factors.

What to do about the elections?

First, don't put all the eggs in one basket. You cannot trust the CNE to do the right thing, they have not done it so far, what will make this time special?. Build a parallel organization, there are more than enough volunteers to man it, invite some of the displaced Chavistas, a significant percentage of them don't trust the CNE, they might be willing to sidestep it as long as the effort is about the CNE, not about Chavez. A parallel election does not have to cost much, as long as it is carried away across a few days, on a few centers. Súmate has made this before, it can be done again. It is not legally binding, but Chávez owns the laws, so does it really matter?. Make it an exit election, make it a secret poll, add some relevant voluntary questions. Are you willing to give away your private property?. Is it ok to have imported 50000 cubans into Venezuela?. Do you trust the CNE?. Did the Carter Center do their job in the RR?. Make it a massive poll, make it open, make it easily verifiable, negotiate its contents with the Chavistas that are willing to participate, make people swear that they voted the same way as in the CNE, if they did at all. A simple database search would show the CNE fraud. If 1/3 of Venezuelans participate in it, it would overshadow the CNE election, and remember that you can be much more efficient. Talk to the international observers, even invite the disagreeable Carter Center to this, you might have some fun with them trying to save face.

Second, get organized. Your strength is in the numbers, make a true educational campaign, distribute the information through any means possible. Tell the people why are the institutions important, force them to think. Keep the messages short and to the point, not long winding essays (I know, I am not giving a good example here). You don't have to print a million copies of anything, just let each Venezuelan print 10, that would cover the whole country several times over, minimize the individual risks. Let the lowest level of organization, the individual, decide how to best distribute the information and minimize their risk. But make sure that the message is clear, choose a powerful symbol and a powerful message. Remember, the 'opposition' has to be that strong organization, not the personalities in it. Let the opposition parties follow your message, but not take over it. Stick to institutions, not personalities.

Third, keep yourself pure, and be open about your intentions and actions. If an opposition leader detracts from your message, point it out, attack the message not the messenger. Let the international media notice you, but don't make them the object of your campaign, Venezuelans are your main objective. Don't lower yourself to any personal attacks of any personality on one side or the other, make this a very clear difference to Chávez. Remember, it is about the institutions, attack the actions, not the actors.

Fourth, be alert. Mold the message to the circumstances. Chávez disinformation goons will try to subvert your message, make sure to point it out, but keep the style pure so that there is no confusion of where is the message coming from and don't waste your time discrediting them multiple times, or fighting about the little details, allow for intelligence to work, remember that the goons are not your objective, the general public is. Make everyone aware of what is the acceptable style, only distribute information if it follows the right style and the topic is verifiable. Create trust circles around such messages, and don't forget that it is democracy that you are seeking, be democratic about this too. Chavez will have a very hard time trying to get through this 'media'.

Would any of this work?. I don't know, though it has worked many times before. It will increase the level of society's participation and it is definitively more rewarding than just doing nothing.

From Dictatorship to Democracy: A Conceptual Framework for Liberation by Gene Sharp
Otpor!Working quietly, a group of student activists target the very foundation of Milosevic's power - the ordinary people who until now have been afraid to oppose him. (PBS)
Otpor: the youths who booted Milosevic
Otpor! Resistance!
Kmara
Pora! It's time!
Human Rights Watch blasts Chávez's government, is anyone listening?
Electoral disarray in Venezuela
Chavismo internal problems The multiple cases of Chavistas trampled by their own party.
The Chávez praying mantis effect is alive and well.
Hugo sows fear by Teodoro Petkoff
Savage Socialism by Teodoro Petkoff
Polar does not back down Lorenzo Mendoza gave a lesson on how to stay on topic.
Carter Baker report on elections generates anger and laughter in Caracas
The words of a fascist president

Carta abierta a los Venezolanos

2005-09-29T09:25:00.000-04:00

The english version is here

A Súmate, a los partidos opositores, a todos aquellos que se oponen a Chávez, a los ni-nis. Que les pasa?. No se dan cuenta de la trampa que se avecina en las elecciones de diciembre?. No han sido suficiente las últimas tres elecciones?. No se dan cuenta que el CNE no es de confianza?. Están dispuestos a colocar como única alternativa a los observadores internacionales?, de nuevo?. No conocen el dicho: "engáñame una vez es tu culpa, engáñame dos y la culpa es mía". Pero dejarse engañar cuatro veces?. Me he estado preguntando que acción se puede tomar pero claramente el caminar, una vez más, hacia el matadero del CNE, el quedarse en la casa absteniendose de votar, o el votar nulo no es la solución.

Ésta es la elección, lo que comenzó con el RR se va a consolidar aquí, después de esta elección no va a haber vuelta atrás, al menos no en mucho tiempo. Algunos sectores dentro de las masas chavistas se han comenzado a levantar, pero yo no confiaría en que eso ejercerá cambio alguno. Chávez puede terminar comprándolos, suprimiéndolos o sencillamente ignorándolos sin consecuencia alguna. Y quien sabe si ésta es otra más de las técnicas de distracción para mantener nuestra mente alejada de las elecciones que se avecinan.

Siempre me he percatado de como un gran número de Venezolanos sólo quieren un Mesías (especialmente dentro de los ni-nis), un candidato de oposición que les de 'esperanzas'. No se dan cuenta que si Chavez no es detenido, no quedará nadie para cumplir este rol?. No se dan cuenta que tenemos que crear instituciones fuertes y democráticas?. Ese no es el trabajo de un solo individuo, debe ser el trabajo de todos los Venezolanos. Se debe obligar a las instituciones a asumir su fortaleza, y el seguir ciegamente a un individuo, sin importar quien, no es la manera de hacerlo.

Chavistas, ya han colocado su confianza en un Mesías, espero que les guste que Venezuela se convierta en otra Cuba, la abolición de la propiedad privada, el alejarse cada dia más del mundo civilizado, y la dilapidación de la inmensa fortuna petrolera usada para sostener la imagen internacional de vuestro ídolo. Miren hacia Cuba, ese es su futuro. Todo esto mientras siguen creyendo que a Chávez lo tienen engañado, pero como puede ser alguien tan ciego a lo que pasa a su alrededor?. Como pueden ustedes ser tan ciegos?.

Partidos de oposición, siento pena por ustedes, sé que muchos de sus miembros sienten que no merecen la manera en que los Venezolanos los tratan, pero ese es el precio que tienen que pagar por permanecer al frente, por haber cometido los muchos errores que han cometido. La debacle del RR fue tanto culpa de ustedes como de Chávez. Es hora de tener honor, piensen que es lo que mas le conviene a Venezuela. Creen un mensaje transparente, sean responsables con su mensaje. Muestren los números, muestren el efecto que Chávez ha tenido, hagan que la gente entienda todo el dinero que se está malbaratando, toda la corrupción y la destrucción de la propiedad privada, y las consecuencias de permanecer en ese camino. Aprendan de nuevo como ser líderes, pero aún más importante, aprendan como ser dirigidos por la sociedad civil venezolana. Un poco de humildad les caería bien. Si no pueden hacer eso, apártense y sean olvidados.

Sociedad civil Venezolana, Súmate, asambleas de vecinos, ustedes son la esperanza de Venezuela. Recuperen la fuerza que los llevó al RR, pero enfoquen sus objetivos. Esta claro que cualquier propuesta será reprimida con enorme fuerza, pero no necesitan tomar las calles para mostrar fuerza. Han habido muchos ejemplos del poder de protestas continuas y pacíficas. Volantes, calcomanías, grafitti, obstrucción, paralización, educación. Algunas reglas básicas es todo lo que necesitan, sigan el ejemplo de lo que funciona y desechen lo que no funciona. Aprendan que los Chavistas no son el enemigo, Chávez y sus rateros son el enemigo. Hagan que los Chavistas y los pocos militares con honor que han de quedar entiendan eso. Pero aún más importante, actuen como una sola unidad, no pierdan su tiempo con problemas irrelevantes, moldeen un objetivo claro y síganlo. La fuerza de Chávez está en dividir a la sociedad Venezolana, nuestra fuerza está en volver a unirla.

Como dice Gene Sharp (un libro que debe leer todo aquel que desee ofrecer resistencia al régimen):

Las dictaduras existen principalmente debido a la distribución interna de poder en su país. La población y la sociedad son demasiado débiles para causarle problemas serios a una dictadura, la riqueza y el poder están concentrados en muy pocas manos. A pesar de que las dictaduras se pueden beneficiar de las débiles acciones internacionales, su continuación depende principalmente de factores internos.

Que hacer respecto a las elecciones?

Primero, no coloquen todos los huevos en la misma cesta. No pueden confiar en que el CNE haga lo correcto, no lo han hecho hasta ahora, que va a hacer que esta vez sea tan especial?. Creen una organización paralela, hay más que suficientes voluntarios para manejarla, inviten a algunos de los Chavistas desplazados, un porcentaje significativo de ellos no tienen confianza en el CNE, han de estar dispuestos a dejarlo atrás mientras que el esfuerzo se dirija contra el CNE, no en contra de Chávez. Una elección paralela no tiene que ser muy costosa, mientras se lleve a cabo en unos pocos dias, en unos pocos centros de votación. Súmate ha hecho esto con anterioridad, pueden hacerlo de nuevo. No tiene peso legal, pero Chávez es el dueño y señor de todas las leyes, así que eso no tiene importancia. Háganla una elección a la salida de los centros de votación, haganla una elección secreta, añadan algunas preguntas voluntarias. Está dispuesto a abdicar a la propiedad privada?. Está bien el haber importado 50000 cubanos en Venezuela?. Confía en el CNE?. Hizo el Centro Carter su trabajo en el RR?. Háganlo una encuesta masiva, háganla abierta, háganla fácil de verificar, negocien su contenido con los Chavistas que estén dispuestos a participar, hagan que las personas juren que votaron de la misma forma que lo hicieron ante el CNE, si es que votaron. Una simple búsqeda de la base de datos mostraría el fraude del CNE. Si 1/3 de los Venezolanos participan, la elección del CNE se vería muy disminuida, y recuerden que pueden ser mucho más eficientes. hablen con los observadores internacionales, inviten hasta al desagradable Centro Carter, puede que les sirva de entretenimiento.

Segundo, organícense. Su fuerza está en sus números, hagan una verdadera campaña educativa, distribuyan la información a travez de cualquier medio posible. Instruyan a la gente acerca de la importancia de las instituciones, fuércenlos a pensar. Mantengan el mensaje corto y vayan al grano, no creen largos y tediosos escritos (lo sé, no estoy dando un buen ejemplo). No tienen que imprimir millones de copias de nada, sólo dejen que cada venezolano imprima 10, eso cubriría todo el país varias veces, reduzcan los riesgos individuales. Permitan que el nivel más bajo de la organización, el individuo, decida como distribuir la información y minimizar su riesgo. Pero asegúrense de que el mensaje sea claro, escojan un símbolo claro y un mensaje profundo. Recuerden que la 'oposición' tiene que ser la organización que muestre fortaleza, no las personalidades dentro de la oposición. Dejen que los partidos de oposición sigan su mensaje, pero no los dejen usurparlo. Mantengan el foco en las instituciones, no en las personalidades.

Tercero, manténganse puros, y manténganse abiertos acerca de sus intenciones y acciones. Si un dirigente de la oposición se aleja de su mensaje, indíquenlo, ataquen al mensaje, no al mensajero. Permitan que los medios internacionales se den cuenta de su existencia, pero no los hagan el objetivo de su campaña, los Venezolanos son el objetivo principal. No se rebajen a hacer ataques personales de cualquier personalidad de un lado u otro, hagan de ésta la diferencia principal con el mensaje de Chávez. Recuerden, el mensaje es acerca de las instituciones, ataquen las acciones, no los actores.

Cuarto, permanezcan alerta. Adecuen el mensaje a las circunstancias. Los chulos de desinformación de Chávez intentarán modificar vuestro mensaje, asegúrense de indicarlo, pero mantengan el estilo puro de manera que no haya confusión de acerca de donde viene el mensaje y no pierdan el tiempo desacreditandolo en múltiples ocasiones o peleando por detalles menores, permitan que la inteligencia funcione, recuerden que los chulos no son el objetivo, el público en general es el objetivo. Hagan que todos reconozcan cual es el estilo aceptado, sólo distribuyan información si sigue el estilo correcto y el tópico puede ser verificado. Creen grupos de confianza alrededor de dichos mensajes, y no se olviden que lo que buscan es democracia, sean democráticos acerca de esto. A Chávez le sería muy difícil penetrar este medio de comunicación.

Funcionaría semejante plan?. No puedo saberlo, a pesar de que planes similares han funcionado anteriormente. Aumentaría el nivel de participación de la sociedad y es definitivamente mucho más satisfactorio que no hacer nada.

De la Dictadura a la Democracia Un Sistema Conceptual para la Liberación por Gene Sharp (PDF)
Otpor: la juventud contra Milosevic
Encuestadora revela descenso en apoyo a las misiones sociales
Tierra de gracia Venezolanos rechazan la sociedad sin clases, Hinterlaces y Keller
Estudio Cuantitativo y Cualitativo de Tendencias y Coyuntura VII MONITOR SOCIO-POLITICO HINTERLACES Marzo 2005 Powerpoint (ppt)
¿Por qué tanta prisa?

Rita beforemath

2005-09-24T02:45:00.000-04:00

I have always noticed that Americans tend to over-react in many situations with the implementation of simplistic solutions that do not work in the long run (Venezuelans tend to have the opposite problem, suffering from inaction while trying to find the perfect solution). Among many other places I saw that happen after September 11, with all the security measures that got implemented immediately that not only where not really secure and were mostly giving a false sense of security, but were just inconveniencing the public at large.

Nothing exemplifies this more than the reaction to the hurricane that is about to hit U.S. coasts. Houston Mayor Bill White called for immediate mandatory evacuation, probably thinking himself safe of Blanco's and Nagin's faults. But the obvious consequences of such action completely escaped him (1). An infernal gridlock (2) that has already claimed the life of 26 souls (3), and has put quite a few people in a much greater danger than what they were if they had just stayed put or found local shelters (4).

They thought that the planning was being taken care of, but failed to see such an obvious consequence that anyone that has given any thought to road infrastructure could have pointed out. Lousiana Governor Blanco, seems wiser by comparison, as in her evacuation speech for this hurricane she called for everyone to "...get a map and take side-roads headed north, every mile north is a mile that you will be safer, keep in mind that the highways will be extremely congested, head north..." (5)

We will have to wait for the aftermath of the hurricane to figure out how effective this reaction to Rita was. But what will now happen when those same Texans, that were trapped for 15 hours or more in a gridlock, are asked to evacuate next time an even nastier hurricane hits?. Any guesses?

race against rita 160km jams, 2.5 million on the road, officials panic as hurricane approaches

The Evacuation: 'It Was Like the End of the World,' One Texan Says

Rita rains chaos on coast; Houston may escape the worst

Texans Rush to Shelters as Hurricane Rita Approaches

Blanco urges evacuation; FEMA, Guard prepare Governor's request for additional troops yet to be answered

Is Súmate an opposition party?

2005-09-21T07:38:00.000-04:00

What exactly does 'opposition' mean?

The action of opposing something that you disapprove or disagree with

the relation between opposed entities

the act of opposing groups confronting each other

a contestant that you are matched against

a body of people united in opposing something

a direction opposite to another

an armed adversary (especially a member of an opposing military force)

a political party opposed to the party in power and prepared to replace it if elected

Yet another pesky label. Chavez uses this label every time he speaks. "The Opposition" is his enemy. For most people the word 'opposition' conveys the 'political party opposed to the party in power' meaning, the 'Democrats' are opposition to the 'Republicans.' Even if a Republican opposes what Bush says, that is not 'the opposition' that is the 'party of the president,' if a Democrat agrees with what Bush says, he/she is still part of 'the opposition.' Funny how words work.

However in Chavez's world, everyone that opposes him in any way, is opposition. Anyone that opposes any of his actions, is opposition. It does not matter if there is a party or not, it does not matter if it is an individual, or even if it is a 'Chavista' (which of course, automatically stops being a 'Chavista' to become 'opposition'). Thus the media is opposition, the Catholic church, the unions, federations, bureaus of commerce, companies, universities, are opposition. Most of my fellow Venezuelan bloggers are clearly opposition. His previous mentor Luis Miquilena (besides Castro of course), the one that took him to Venezuela's presidency, is now his opposition. A large portion of the 'forcefully retired' military are clearly opposition. The disillusioned, but loyal, 'Chavistas' are calling to the 'opposition' media because they cannot vent in the 'Chavista' media, thus they enter the gray area of 'escualidos' in the 'opposition.'

Now combine this with the use of the label for the ones on the 'coup' which are obviously opposition. Or with the very diminished, deservedly or not, true 'opposition parties.' And add re-interpretations of the label like 'election campaign groups' or 'political party' and you have a nice tool to denigrate anyone that does not agree with you. "He is from the opposition" is that powerful tool that serves to disqualify anyone, and anyone's opinion. Why are ad-hominem arguments so prevalent when there is no argument to make?.

Of course, strictly speaking, yes, we are opposition, we oppose his destruction of Venezuela, of our democracy, of our courts, of our election system, of our oil industry, of our private industry, of private property, of basic freedoms. We oppose his corruption, and his corruptive influence. We oppose his giving money away while our Venezuelan poor are becoming poorer. We oppose the presence of a Cuban invasion force in Venezuela and his giving our territory away to Castro. We oppose his delusion of grandeur with which he is meddling with the democracies of the whole hemisphere. We oppose his manipulation of the media, his propaganda machine, his discriminative policies (partially through the Tascon list). So yes, we definitively oppose him and his policies, however the great majority of us are not part of an 'opposition party,' we are just concerned Venezuelans.

The Súmate case

Súmate (spanish for "add yourself up") is an organization that got formed from this 'generalized opposition' because of the failures of our electoral system. The National Electoral Council (or CNE for its initials in spanish), the supposedly impartial electoral organization, is just another of Venezuela's new class of fake democratic organizations, you just have to carefully read the Carter Center report to realize it. A recent poll, the same one that gave Chávez a 70% approval rating, showed that 47% of Venezuelans consider the CNE the _most_ untrustworthy of Venezuela's organizations, combine that with the last election results in which there was at least a 68% abstention (non-CNE sources estimates it at 80%) and a 17% null vote (second only to Chavez's own party), and we have to conclude that even a considerable number of Chavez supporters don't trust the CNE.

Súmate from the beginning has been trying, to clean up the CNE's act (to no avail), and to compensate for its many failures. Through volunteer work they managed to put together the resources, the databases, the systems, and the mechanisms, that made it possible to satisfy the Constitutional requirements of the Revocatory Referendum. Despite all the obstacles, and hurdles put in the way by Chavez's government, the courts, and the CNE, their level of organization made it possible. They were very careful in their target, they have avoided dealing directly with Chavez, they avoided campaigning against him or in his favor, they have avoided becoming a party, they have no 'candidates.' So clearly Súmate is not an 'opposition party,' anymore than a worker union or a bureau of commerce is an 'opposition party.' Of course since Chávez is molding a dictatorship while Súmate stands for democracy, it clearly stands in the way of Chávez objectives.

Now, it is this 'opposition' label (understood as 'opposition party') that many uninformed people use to decry the use of U.S. NGO money to support Súmate's efforts. While at the same time conveniently ignoring that Chavez, which nobody can deny is a true political party himself, accepted $1.5 million in campaign contributions from a foreign institution (BBVA), something that according to our Constitution _is_ illegal, while a contribution to a NGO is not.

Of course, Chavez has tried to convict them of something, he wants them out of the way, but since there is really nothing in the Venezuelan laws that makes it illegal (for now at least), he went for that good old populist stalwart: treason.

So, next time you see the label 'opposition' would you please think twice about its real meaning?.

Dissenting with Chavez Daniel's take on our "so called opposition"
Has Human Rights Watch Joined Venezuela’s Opposition? Part II Aleksander
Who you gonna call? Chavistas calling 'oppostion' media.
The case against Chávez Some history and Miquelena's transition
Venezuela's new Electoral Board (CNE) Daniel (Jan 21, 2005). Even more Chavista than before.
Statement of the CIV concerning the situation in Venezuela Questioning the legality of the CNE and the referendum
Why I Didn’t See Chavez in New York (Or, a Tale of Two Presidents) Comparing president's attitudes in N.Y.
Chavez's milestones Describes when many of us became 'active' opposition
Tascon list Yes, the actual list, with all its information, can be found in Alek's article
Rebuttal to the Venezuela Information Office Regarding the referendum process, and Súmate's role.
Long and positive day at the Remate (final push) Miguel's first hand account as a Súmate volunteer
Sumate: the guardian of Venezuela's democracy Aleksander
Hugo Chávez moves ahead with elected dictatorship Andres Oppenheimer, The Miami Herald
Sumate: Fighting for Fair Elections Christina Leadlay. Embassy Newspaper.
Delenda Súmate Jorge
Venezuela in July 2005: a political portrait Súmate's role in later elections
SUMATE calls it: no clean elections on August 7 Daniel.
Carter Center report (PDF)
Justin Delacour comes to rescue his Venezuelan idol The constitutional articles related to funding of parties.

Global Summit

2005-09-17T21:54:00.000-04:00

I just watched "A Global Summit w/ Bill Clinton" which was a special show in CNN based around the summit that President Clinton organized around the same dates as the U.N. meeting (what is that one for BTW?). I only wished that he had not sat beside Queen Rania of Jordan, as every time she was talking, the wide shot of his looking at her would distract me a bit.

From the other side of N.Y., amid the frustration of the White House, the biggest news seem to be that Bush 'asked for permission' for a bathroom break. Which if you stop to think about for a bit makes a lot of sense. If the president of a superpower stands up, and walks away, in the middle of some other president's address, a war could start you know, and at this point one is already too many.

For the first time in a long time I hear things that make sense, on practical means of reducing poverty, dealing with global warming, reducing and eliminating corruption, using education as a weapon against terrorism, and using aid effectively. And at the same time designing the way to do it, keeping western governments somewhat on the sidelines, though pressuring them into taking the right actions (and it was a one hour program!!). Clinton even talked about how much cheaper, and reliable, was for his organization to deal directly with problems that would have been unthinkable for him as a President. It was impressive to see a few true world leaders talking for a while (even Bono had intelligent things to say, what's up with that?). And they mean action, the plan is that if you do not keep your promises, you are kicked out. And action is a much more solid foundation for a world organization than any rhetoric would be. This is starting to sound to me like the seed for a substitute to the decrepit U.N.

A thought just came to me, what would all this mean, combined with the Katrina debacle, in terms of the 2008 presidential elections?. But then, it is the actions that matter, right?.

Yeah, I was not planning to post anything more today, but I did say I had an addiction, didn't I?

A blogger's language

2005-09-17T15:23:00.000-04:00

I feel like procrastinating for a bit (if you can call 'procrastinating' doing what I am paid to do and I have neglected because of my blogging 'habit', of course), but I did not want to leave you guys wondering when my next post is going to be. I am mostly finished with a new one, but I don't want it to be as reference-light as my last one (to which I also plan to add a few more references after some more searching). So let me just talk about my motivations.

For those that have been around since the beginning (less than a month ago) you know that I created this partially because I was tired of fighting Pyrrhic battles in my fellow bloggers comment sections. But now that I have created this, I now find myself fighting the same battles in other blogger's comment sections!!!. I need to stop what is becoming a stronger addiction. Anybody knows of a good 'bloggers anonymous' organization?.

I feel that I have a somewhat different view of the world (aren't we all special?). While I see people wanting to fight the particular color of a particular leaf in a particular tree. I see myself pointing out that not only it is plastic tree, but that there are all those forest fires around them that they should be paying attention to. So I tend to focus on what I would call meta-discussions, and that's why I pay so much attention to language (and labels).

Many of the 'arguments' I face tend to be purely Ad Hominem and given the way I see language, this is a non argument. Sometimes it becomes very hard to make someone entrenched in their views to understand that I don't care about what their saying, because to me they are not really saying anything. At that point the battle becomes about the 'existence of a leaf.' And if the other battles are not that satisfying, these are plainly boring. So if you checked my 'rules' you now see why this is a big no-no in my blog.

Most of the real arguments I see, and the ones that I really become a part of, tend at the end to be related to particulars of language, many times I end up realizing this, and pointing it out. And many times I wish that someone had figured it out before I did, as some times it can make some tempers boil (including my own). I know about word definitions, I have recently wasted a good part of two man-years of effort, and have a project delayed by three months, just because of the difference in definitions of a couple of words in between two different scientific disciplines. So those are errors I try to avoid at all costs. If you follow some of my own comment sections, keeping this in mind, you will clearly see what I mean.

So the next time you get into a heated discussion, try to stand back and see the other person's point of view, remove everything that is irrelevant, try to understand why that other person thinks the way they do (and avoid going Ad Hominem yourself of course), and try to figure out what word definitions could be modified to make sense of their point of view. You might start seeing the world differently, or at the very least you might conclude that you are just wasting your time, and move on. After all, it all depends on what your definition of 'is' is.

Is Venezuela a Democracy?

2005-09-14T08:57:00.000-04:00

Some people like to think that 'free elections' is enough to define a democracy, but then what does 'free' means?. Is it to be able to cast a vote?, or is it that the vote is actually counted?. Is it to be able to have an election?, or to be able to oppose that election in a court of law?. Is it to let judges decide on the elections?, or is it that those judges actually follow the letter of the law?. A few days ago I talked about my ideal of a government system, and there is a particular quote that is worth repeating:

Freedom is when the people can speak, democracy is when the government listens. -Alastair Farrugia

Democracies have cycles, democracies go through dark periods in which reason is thrown by the window, but democracies tend to correct for its mistakes, democracies tend to perfect themselves or they would just stop being democracies for a while. People can make stupid decisions some times, but as long as the democratic institutions remain in place, the democratic forces will bring the system in check. Those stupid decisions are the jolts that the democratic systems require to perfect themselves.

To me, as to many Venezuelans, Chavez was one of those jolts, the forces that nucleated against Chavez made me proud, true democracy was being instilled in all Venezuelans to a level that was not there before, a concept of country was being developed in all conversations, understanding that there is a deep inequality that formed Chavez power base was one of the learned lessons, politics had taken a second stage, democracy was front and center. The end of the cycle was the Recall Referendum, we could all see it clearly, the end of this dark phase was within reach. The level of participation can be seen in this picture taken at the closing of the RR campaign against Chavez. But then the official results came out, it sent chills across all of Venezuela, Chavistas and non-Chavistas alike. The day after the RR was a mourning day, there were no celebrations. A lone protest broke up, and one of the protesters, a lady that had left her new home in the U.S. just to vote in the RR in Venezuela, was killed. The end of the RR process marked the official end of democracy. But how can an election process indicate the end of a democracy?, you might ask. To understand this, I have to refer to the events that led to the RR (1).

First, let's keep in mind that a recall referendum is not an election per se, it is a one-party vote, either for, or against that party, so to talk about 'opposition' when it comes to a referendum is not putting it in the right context. The RR, for us in the 'opposition' (defined as those that would naturally oppose a dictatorship) was a vote for or against democracy, for or against government abuse, for or against meddling with our judicial system, for or against discrimination, for or against the destruction of our infrastructure, for or against the destruction of our culture.

Now in that context, the government institutions, including the ones that were supposed to be the impartial arbiters of the process, the National Electoral Council "CNE" (2) and the courts (3), opposed the process at every stage, impeded its progress, forced a process of signature collection whose rules were changed over and over, coercion was part of the process, if you signed you could face problems, and many did and still do (4), "fraud!" was shouted by Chavez and his subordinates, and the call of "fraud!" was all it took to force new rules, and new obstacles. But even with all those obstacles the signatures were collected, re-collected, and confirmed. A single organization, the most democratic of the new institutions was a strong shining star in this process, "Súmate," (5) the same organization that, now labeled as 'opposition' faces charges of 'treason' under Chavez's regime. The government, through CNE, had no other choice to be able to keep the thin veneer of democracy, the RR had to proceed. It took the presence of OAS and Carter Center observers even to get to this point.

The only legal resource that could fight the partisanship of the CNE is the supreme court, but these were not much different. After the restructuring that happened under the new constitution the majority of the judges were patently partisan. There were (3) a few hold-outs, and these tried through a slim majority in the 'Electoral House' of the court to bring some legality to the process. However the 'Constitutional House' overthrew the decision, a decision that has been qualified as partisan and unconstitutional in dissenting opinions by members of the supreme court itself. So now, there are no legal resources to fight the illegalities of the process. In this atmosphere, and in hindsight, the opposition made one of the most stupid decisions of the whole process, to go along with the RR trusting that the international observers would be able to validate the process.

Needless to say, the CNE went into overdrive, installing shiny new electronic voting machines, for a process that could have been done by hand in a few hours. Installing fingerprint capturing devices, thus causing unnecessary delays in the process. All this costing multiple millions to the whole nation (and putting money in the hands of companies whose background is somewhat hazy). All requests by the 'opposition' were denied by the CNE, all the checks in the process were denied, all the requests for depuration of the voter registration were denied, all the audit avenues were denied. Hundreds of thousands of 'new Venezuelans' nationalized in a hurry were added to the registers, thousands of voters were moved from one location to another. Even the non-Chavista CNE directors were denied access to critical CNE's installations. Millions of dollars were spent in new 'missions' in an obvious attempt to buy votes. But the process kept going, it was the RR or a blody outcome, the 'opposition' (and Venezuela as a whole) had its hands tied, the international observers were our only hope.

The RR finally came, the level of participation broke all records, the voting lines were eternal, some people stood in line for 12 or more hours to vote, partially due to the 'improved process' in place by the CNE. But we all saw this as a way out, there was no other choice. All the indications were there, the festivity in the lines, the opinion of the voters, the exit polls, everything indicated that the 'Sí' option (against Chavez) had won 60% to 40%. The celebration of democracy was about to start. But then, in the wee hours before dawn, the 'official' results started coming out, the 'No' had now won 60% to 40%.

A huge portion of Venezuela shouted "Fraud!" but then, it was only Venezuelans shouting, it was not Chavez, so who cares, right?. The CNE could care less about this, it grudgingly agreed to an audit, some days after the process closed, forced by the international observers. The political opposition did not take it anymore, and after being scolded by Carter himself, they finally did the only democratic thing left to them, walk away from a game in which all the cards had been stacked against them (and, through them, against us). Boxes of paper trails were found on the streets, installations with duplicate voting machines were found and documented. Data communication records showed that some voting machines had received more data than what they had transmitted. Evidence of bi-directional communications across the voting day came out. Testimonials of some of the now repented participants came out. But without a working judicial system, who cares?. It's only illegal if a judge says that it's illegal, what the law says is irrelevant.

All of us with some knowledge of statistics went into overdrive analyzing the results, the data looked suspicious, but there was nothing that could be explained in 10 words or less. A long scientific report indicating that the audit sample did not represent the total vote came out of this effort, but it was ignored by the Carter Center (whose own graphs verify this conclusion, though their written conclusion ignores it). Only Gaviria, in his intervention in the OAS, indicated the serious flaws of the process, gaining the title "traitor!" from the Chavez regime, and if Chavez says it, he must be right. At least the U.S. had a minor diplomatic victory by changing the wording of the OAS resolution from 'congratulate for your victory' to 'recognize your presidency.'

Today 47% of venezuelans consider the CNE, that impartial judge of democracy, the least trustworthy of all Venezuelan institutions, while the media, and the Church are among the most trusted (both of which continuously denounce Chavez as the dictator he is). However, we keep having elections, the CNE does not even need to give results anymore, nobody cares that they have to correct them every few days because these don't add up. The political opposition is either too stupid to realize how futile this is, or too afraid to loose whatever little power they have left.

So yes, we have election processes, but are they free?, can these be verified?. Has the government listened?. Would you consider this a democracy?. I would say that this is a sad state of affairs for what was the longest lived democracy in all of the spanish speaking world.

Daniel's: The recall that matters
The new CNE
Court independence:Human Rights Watch report. Justice dismissed from the supreme court, Decision reversals by a packed court
The Tascon List: Modern political apartheid in Venezuela
The Súmate files

Added Wed Sep 21: I finally got around to adding a few more references, there are many more from where these came from. It's mostly things that popped up while I was doing some searches for a new article and, after skimming them, I considered that these represented a partial portrait of the situation at the particular time.

Venezuela's Hugo Chavez: The cornered narcissist Francisco Toro (Apr 12, 2003)
Venezuela: Will Recall Referendum Separate Chavez Friends From Foes? Stratfor (Dec, 2003)
Archived news from march 14 2004 Daniel
Venezuela: Reactions to the Supreme Court’s (TSJ) decision. Ismael Pérez Vigil (Mar 16, 2004)
Venezuela and the judicial coup: the thin hair between law and lawlessness Daniel (Mar 23, 2004)
Venezuela’s recall referendum explained Aleksander (Apr 21, 2004)
Human Rights Watch Rigging the Rule of Law: Judicial Independence Under Siege in Venezuela (Jun 2004). None of their recommendations have been followed to this date.
Has Human Rights Watch Joined Venezuela’s Opposition? Part II Aleksander (Jun 19, 2004)
The Measure of Democracy: assessing Venezuela Aleksander (Jul 18, 2004). How democratic is a country?.
The consequences of the recall election result in Venezuela, Part I The electoral fraud has a long story. Daniel (Aug 2004)
The consequences of the recall election result in Venezuela, Part II Chavez Hangover. Daniel (Aug 2004). My memory seems to have failed up there, Gaviria was not lambasted as a "traitor" by Chávez just as a "liar."
Statement of the CIV concerning the situation in Venezuela Questioning the legality of the Referendum (Sep 27, 2004)
From The Economist: some people are not fooled Daniel (Nov 2004)
An overview on the relationship of Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, terrorism and its international supporters. Part II Aleksander (Dec 28, 2004)
Venezuela, a military dictatorship? Daniel (Jan 4, 2005)
Venezuela Separation of Powers is Dead. Is this the end of democracy Daniel (Feb 2005)
Hugo Chavez’s Threat to U.S. Security and Regional Stability Frederick Stakelbeck, Jr. (Feb 20, 2005)
Venezuela in July 2005: a political portrait Súmate's role in later elections (July 6, 2005)
Hugo Chavez vs. America Dale Hurd, CBN News.
To The Washington Post: Please... Get serious... And start reporting facts, not spin... Three years of dictatorship. Pedro Camargo (Aug 29, 2005)
Venezuela featured in the "wars around the world" Strategy Page (Sep 1, 2005)
And now, what is wrong with your Constitution, Mr. Chavez? Jorge (Sep 17, 2005)
Carter Baker report on elections generates anger and laughter in Caracas Miguel (Sep 20, 2005)

Reports (PDF): Proveo's "A case study in electoral fraud." Carter Center's "Observing the Venezuela Presidential Recall Referendum." Súmate's "White paper on democracy and electoral rights."

Chavez in the Big Apple

2005-09-13T01:56:00.000-04:00

Demonstrations against the Fascist-communist regimes of Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro

SAVE-VENEZUELA, International Venezuelan Council for Democracy, and Recivex-USA, invite the Venezuelan and Cuban community in the Tri-state area to the demonstrations against the fascist-communist regimes of Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, and in favor of democracy and respect for human rights in Venezuela and Cuba. These protest acts will take place in New York city alongside the 2005 International Summit organized by the United Nations.

First demonstration
United Nations building
Dag Hammarskjöld square, 47^th St. and 2^nd Av., Manhattan, NY
Thursday September 15^th 2005. 2:30pm to 7:00pm

Second demonstration
Americas Council
680 park Avenue, Corner of 68^th St. and Park Av., Manhattan, NY
Friday September 16^th 2005. 10:00am to 12:00 noon

Let's show with our presence, our voices and our enthusiasm, that we are not willing to be robbed of our country. Note: Permits for both demonstrations have been given by the respective police precincts on September 9^th 2005.

And if you get a chance, please feel free to give him a piece of your mind, human development, industrial decline, or illegal expropriations could all be good starting points:

His Excellency Hugo Chavez
President of Venezuela
Friday, September 16, 2005
Registration: 10:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.
Presentation and discussion: 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Council of the Americas
680 Park Avenue
New York City

Update 10:35 PM: Perhaps he will not go after all, Chávez claims that delegation visas have been denied.

Katrina update

2005-09-10T13:28:00.000-04:00

The more I learn about the situations surrounding the Katrina Hurricane, the more convinced I am about my initial assessment. The largest portion of blame falls squarely on the hands of the the Federal Government. Despite all the spin words and the avoidance of the blame game by Washington officials (which really translates to 'let's blame the local authorities', and if that doesn't work, let's blame the New Orleans' inhabitants), multiple facts and testimonies have surfaced, which point in that direction.

The timeline of the events. NPR's report is specially damning
The attempts to silence the media by pre-censoring access to New Orleans
FEMA personnel decrying the response as the worst in 22 years in the institution (listen to the audio, the blaming of local authorities would not withstand that test).
The state national guard resources have been strained due to the Iraq war
The testimonials coming out from evacuees, wether true of feigned, equally damning.
The use of private 'mercenary' forces to be able to handle the situation (against its own declarations).
The loss of support from known personalities. Even some of Fox News 'entertainers' are leaning that way.
The media not taking the Washington Evasive any longer (this is a mild example, some of the things I heard from Fox reporters were equally tempered).

Add to that all the stupid things that federal government officials have said around this disaster and other dispatches from the 'front lines' and Bush's position seems tenuous at best. His approval ratings are sliding even further (not that these were very high as of late). Polls are already showing the polarization of Americans in this issue. And even today he fails to see that the lack of immediate action (i.e. deservedly making the head of FEMA an scapegoat by firing him) are only going to make it worse. Specially when people have other comparison points of what it could have been. The Republicans that want to get any chance of re-election in the future are starting to realize all this. I now can only see three possible outcomes:

The continuation of a lame duck presidency, in which the complete lack of support by all parties would mean that absolutely nothing would get done in the next 3 to 4 years.
The 'I' word. The Republicans tried to impeach Clinton for a much lesser crime than anything that is now in Bush's hand, not surprisingly this is now one of the top search terms in all of the internet.
A miracle. I will never underestimate Bush's entourage (and Rove's), they might actually pull a rabbit out of their collective arse

What does this mean for Venezuelans?

Unfortunately nowadays the U.S. seems to be the only regional force capable of counteracting Chavez's influence. Too bad Bush and Chavez seem to me like two sides of the same coin. U.S. is the only force that could lead the region in the right direction to force Chavez towards a true democracy, in which he could be legally ousted. A weak Bush presidency, does not fare well in this scenario. I am convinced that if Gore or Kerry would have made it into the White House, the amount of power that Chavez has gained in the region would not be there. Heck, he might not have been in power by now!. From this perspective, I can only hope for the 'I' word or a miracle. Venezuelans, we are on our own for now.

The Katrina blame thrower

2005-09-08T08:00:00.000-04:00

I got carried away a few days ago, mostly out of frustration, by laying most of the blame for Katrina's lack of response directly on Bush's hands. A large number of Bush's apologist today are placing the blame squarely on New Orleans' mayor, or Louisiana's Governor. Today I have a somewhat better picture of the whole complexity of the issue, so let me qualify, to my current understanding, the different instances were blame should be assigned.

New Orleans mayor Nagin

The mayor made quite a few judgement errors by not forcing people to evacuate during an scenario that had been predicted for many years. He decided to let personal rights trump common sense, and until today he chooses to allow it (I find it hard to blame him for that because freedom to die because of our stupidity is still a right that many would applaud). He did not fully foresee the consequences of leaving people, without resources to evacuate the city, inside their homes, and to evacuate some of them into the Superdome. In his defense, he is the mayor of New Orleans, his jurisdiction is restricted to the city, he depends on the Governor and the Federal government for the larger picture. And in foresight it's easy to see all the faults with the implementation of the evacuation plan (or lack thereof). But to blame him for what happened after the storm, is just a low blow, he made a mistake, but he is now a mayor without a city, his forces where the only people on the ground during the first few days after the disaster. His obvious desperation to get some relief on the situation is what prompted me to write that particular article. I hope that he raises to the stage to accept his portion of blame however big or small it might be. That would shut-up quite a few 'media types' and would allow for adequate coverage of the bigger instances of blame.

Louisiana Governor Blanco

The biggest portion of blame falls on her hands. My Louisiana friends call her the most inept governor in a long history of inept and corrupt state governments. From my perspective her career would now be over. She failed to activate the state's disaster plan, to declare a national disaster on time, to order the mayor to evacuate the city, for the rupture of communication at many levels, for not requesting or allowing federal support at the earliest possible time, for not mobilizing the national guard early enough (though the jury is still out on that one), for lack of coordination with NO's mayor and federal agencies. For giving orders in the media without giving orders through the proper channels. For trying to play politics while people were dying. In short for absolute and utter mismanagement of a looming and ongoing crisis. Correction 10:13 AM: Ivan correctly pointed out that there was an state of emergency in place 2 days before the hurricane hit as acknowledged by Washington. Also when I take some time to review the detailed timeline I might further change my perception of the events (I have no problem with flip-floping when I find further information). It seems that the Federal government's share of blame keeps going up.

Federal Instances: Congress

Congress has failed for many years to pass the necessary budgetary laws to improve New Orlean's levee system and to improve its crisis management infrastructure. A spending that many have seen as just pork barrel for Louisiana. Also they confirmed Michael Brown as FEMA's director back in 2003. Let's hope that they don't further compound the problem by covering up the responsible for the chaos that ensued. Maybe you should start contacting your representatives to let them know how you feel.

Federal instances: Homeland Security/FEMA

Homeland security and FEMA's director are to blame, for the several days of delay that they introduced in the bureaucracy of crisis management, for not 'forcing' Louisiana's governor to acknowledge the magnitude of the crisis, for trusting the incomplete information they received through internal channels, instead of the dire images that everyone could see on TV. I could not believe the declarations of FEMA's director when he said "nobody knew the levees would break" (which Bush also said at some point), a problem that has been considered and studied for many decades under this particular scenario. He will deservedly become a scape-goat for this whole mismanagement of a crisis. I just heard in the news that a FEMA rescue plane ended up flying to a different state yesterday!!, what is going on inside that institution?!!. Homeland security should be able to handle this kind of emergencies faster, mayor or no mayor, Governor or no Governor. Such a breakdown in communications, in an announced tragedy like this, is completely unacceptable. Just check the Homeland Security mandate, they have done a miserable job of implementing it the way I see it:

NIMS establishes standardized incident management processes, protocols, and procedures that all responders -- Federal, state, tribal, and local -- will use to coordinate and conduct response actions. With responders using the same standardized procedures, they will all share a common focus, and will be able to place full emphasis on incident management when a homeland security incident occurs -- whether terrorism or natural disaster. In addition, national preparedness and readiness in responding to and recovering from an incident is enhanced since all of the Nation's emergency teams and authorities are using a common language and set of procedures.

And from my perspective the incompetency of the Homeland Security and FEMA directors, and the inadequacy of its structure, falls directly onto The White House's hands.

Federal Instances: Washington and Bush

Washington also blocked Louisiana's infrastructure improvements from federal budgets multiple times ('W' as well as previous presidents). And, though it now seems to me that this might be a non-existing problem, it still early to ascertain the influence that the diminishing of national guard troops and resources, now committed to Iraq, had on this disaster. But there is an effect that has been felt (from Wikipedia):

On June 8, 2004, Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana; told the Times-Picayune: "It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay. Nobody locally is happy that the levees can't be finished, and we are doing everything we can to make the case that this is a security issue for us."

Also Washington tried any photo-op, media interviews, and press conference opportunities to raise the falling president's image, delaying rescue efforts while people were dying. A president that hesitated in leaving his vacation to ascertain the magnitude of the disaster, while a military support vessel was stationed off the coast of Louisiana for days waiting for his direct orders for goodness sake!. A pet peeve of mine: every time I hear declarations of: "I have heard none of the victims complain when we rescue them," I have to shout: "what did you expect?, have you heard of Stockholm syndrome?". Kidnapping victims would normally face more humane conditions. But to me the main blame to place in Bush's hands is his complete ignorance and disregard of anything that science has to say, and in this particular case, of the many scenarios that had been predicted and that came to pass with Katrina. To surround himself with advisors that obviously have no idea of anything coming out of the scientific community, and probably of anyone critical of his actions. The same attitude that he takes towards global warming, Iraq, or plain critical thinking. In short, his utter lack of good judgement, and in my view, a sign of a lack of true leadership skills. In the words of Daily Show's John Stewart:

This is inarguably a failure of leadership from the top of the federal government.... Hurricane Katrina is Bush's Monica Lewinsky, the only difference being that tens of thousands of people were not stranded in Monica Lewinsky's vagina.

The media

For the first time in a long time the media seems to be doing their job. After the exploitation of humanity that this tragedy became they have started asking the right questions and using their power for the right reasons, avoiding the spin, and the White House talking points, thus forcing action from the different government instances. Who knew that there was still a spine somewhere in there?. Let's hope that this is not just a 'phase' that they are going through.

Rescue personnel

All this said, the people on the ground have done a wonderful job, the police officers, the military, the rescue personnel, the random volunteers, and most of New Orleans' citizens. All this in spite of the mismanagement, the lack of resources, the lack of a working management structure, the breaks in communication, and the lack of basic necessities. The fact that they managed to function under these circumstances is a testament to the spirit of the true leaders inside the community, and of what a human being should really be.

The Venezuela analogy

I cannot let this opportunity pass without talking about these instances of power in Venezuela. The fact that so many instances of government can share blame, even in a leadership crisis like this, is because there are many instances of decision. The democratic structures of the U.S. are mostly intact. In Venezuela Chavez has ruled by removing anyone from power that disagreed in any way with him, or that was just too honest to stay around. Now the whole government is just under his control, though he claims that he does not want it to be this way. Anyone under him (including all the courts, electoral instances, and 'congress') is too scared to contradict him and subsequently to be removed from their sources of income (if you catch my drift) or to have the Chavez thuggery thrown at them. This has created a lawless government structure in which nothing is done unless he implies it, suggests it, authorizes it, condones it, or has shown his willingness to ignore it. So in Venezuela there is only one instance to blame for the total ineptitude and corruption of the state, the pillage of democracy, and the destruction of Venezuelan values and infrastructure: 'El Supremo' himself.

For further reading:

THE DISASTER EFFORT: HOW DO WE GRADE IT NOW?
Opinion: No time for turf wars
Outraged Americans clamour for Katrina scapegoat; FEMA head may fit the bill
Exposed by Katrina, FEMA's flaws were years in making
Dean Blasts Hurricane Katrina Response
Left Behind part of the population cannot be counted on to leave their homes.
Long term housing a staggering process
Constitutional Topic: Martial Law
Bush sees hurricane damage from air, vows to rebuild 3 days later, that is.
Magic Marker Strategy
Hair-rising first hand account
Dispatches surrounding Katrina
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Hurricane Relief Support and Levee Repair (pdf)

Update 7:37PM: The more I read about this, the more I am seeing the magnitude of the looming scandal, and the amount of blame on the multiple instances of the government, this post and this post will show you what I mean.

Corruption in Venezuela

2005-09-07T01:18:00.000-04:00

Corruption was Chavez's call to power, his main political platform became the removal of the corrupt elite (1) from power. A large portion of the venezuelan middle class, and even a non negligible number of higher class citizens voted for him, exclusively because of that. He portrayed himself as the Anti-Corruption Messiah, and the great majority of clueless Venezuelans followed him like lemmings. So it requires some analysis, specially because newcomers to the Venezuelan problem know very little to nothing about its history, and thus are very easily manipulated by The Chavez Propaganda Machine™ (2). So let me expound on a couple of fallacies that surround this keystone of Chavez appeal.

Corruption levels in Venezuelan government have always been high, Chavez government is no worse than previous ones

This, which I would hardly qualify as a defense of Chavez's government, given his platform and that he has been in power for more than 6 years already, is one of those half truths that Propaganda Machines like so much. By personal experience this is not true, Corruption is now worse than ever, just a simple sample was recently reported by Miguel, and his account of the electoral history of Venezuela gives a glimpse of the evolution of government corruption, but personal experience does not a solid argument make, so let me go to the most scientific source I can find on this, the corruption perception index from transparency international and the university of Passau, these institutions compile corruption perception indexes for most countries in the world, using an average of several (up to 18) different statistic studies. Which, even if each one of them is biased, being independent studies by different institutions, the overall result should have very little variability and bias. One of the purposes of the index is that businesses know what to expect if they are setting shop in any of those countries. A lower index means more corruption. The following plot shows the Indexes for Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, and Zimbabwe during the period of interest (as a reference, the U.S. index averages 7.6 in the graph period). Even the CPM™ has used the index in the past to erroneously show that it had improved since Chavez took power, to discredit them, or to blame AD and COPEI for the corruption. However we have to keep in mind that it is a perception index. To use it as 'absolute corruption in 1998' is as fallacious as using W's popularity index during his electoral campaign to indicate support for his presidency 9 months later. If we look at the index during the previous governments, we see a dip in 1998, coinciding precisely with Chavez's campaign, the "perception" of corruption was higher during an electoral year in which corruption was precisely the leitmotiv of the campaign, what a shocker. If we go back to the year before the campaign (1997), and the year after (1999), we can see that the index is very similar. Which is to be expected, as the level of corruption should not change overnight as the electoral year data would suggest. So from then on we can see the declining trend across Chavez's presidency. Need I say more? That is the progress that they boast about, that is the work of the Chavez government, I am just waiting for this year's numbers to continue to appreciate the Supremo's miracles, we now might have to start looking up to Mugabe for inspiration.

PDVSA was a corrupt organization before Chavez, the oligarchs (3) are not in control of it anymore

The different companies that now comprise PDVSA were all descendants of the international oil industry nationalized in 1976, the company culture, and its management was pretty much a model of what the top private oil industries in the world were like at the time. Needless to say, personal merits, and high moral standards guided the functioning of the different companies. Industry directors were all ascended from inside the company's ranks. The central government had very little interference in the industry, besides setting global country policies, taxes, tariffs, or basic industry direction planning, the day to day was handled by the different managers. Each one of the companies had a somewhat different culture, so I will talk about the one I know the most of: Lagoven. In Lagoven, efficiency was key, and any kind of corruption was heavily prosecuted. It had its internal 'police' department, and though corruption cases did exist and these were seldom publicized, we would normally learn from them through hall-rumors, when someone was forced to leave their office by the arm of a police officer to get charged on their felony. I only remember one case that made it to the media, and it was an industrial espionage case that involved some higher level management personnel. Needless to say, it was a tight ship. At the same time, Lagoven had its own internal social programs, it had scholarships for its workers and their kids, and aid campaigns, a very motivated and intelligent daily laborer that I knew made use of these programs to become an engineer in a private university, I hope he still has a job there, but I doubt it. At the time PDVSA was one of the most efficient oil industries in the world, with numbers that astounded me, like 100 times more efficient than PeMex (Mexican petroleum company). Though it was state owned, it was left alone to produce riches for the country. Of all the Venezuelan state companies (and there are many) PDVSA was the most efficient. Now, Chavista propaganda likes to portray this, as a 'state within a state,' because the central government had relatively little to say about the day to day of how things were run. We, Venezuelans, liked it that way, because we saw the amount of corruption in the rest of the government institutions, and it was refreshing to have our main source of income isolated from all this, we called it our 'golden goose'. PDVSA and all its affiliates never missed a yearly report, never missed informing the nation of all its dealings, it had cultural programs, and facts in all of the media, it conducted itself with the transparency that a company of its magnitude has to have towards its owners, the Venezuelan people. Chavez changed all that, after merging all the companies into PDVSA (which before was just the 'umbrella' company, but it was something that had been in the general plans anyway), he started by assigning industry directors from anywhere he wanted (mostly the military), changing them every time they disagreed with what he wanted. A famous episode that exemplifies this was when one of this directors gets a call by Chavez in the middle of an address to the nation, after which he retracted what he was saying before. Needless to say, he also resigned. The large purge of PDVSA (18000 employees according to some counts) that Chavez did after the industry strike in 2002 got rid of all the meritocratic systems in place, and put government cronies in all industry posts. I don't doubt that there is some honest people inside it (I know some of them, and they just stay because they have to make a living, it has become another government cesspool). Now, it's almost impossible to know any of PDVSAs dealings and accounts, and transparency has been thrown overboard. PDVSA is now no different from the rest of the government, as an example, one of my family members, a professional and a Chavista called to work for 'the revolution', got fired because of not wanting to take part in the corruption ring at the PDVSA office!!, quite a change of culture, no doubt.

And in case someone wants to talk about what Chavez has said about corruption, that is irrelevant, because the fact remains that he has done nothing but make it worse than it has ever been, as a sample, just take a quick scan of the blogs: Miguel's: Non-existing fight against corruption Coronel's: Document the illegitimacy of Chávez and denounce him Miguel's: PDVSA cannot be audited Miguel's: PDVSA, serious inconsistencies at the company Miguel's: A trully revolutionary swindle Miguel's: Seven stories El Universal: Citgo faces piteous situation Daniel's: A Cadena, the universal Chavez remedy

Elite here should be interpreted as the ones in power before Chavez. If you are wondering, why I am explaining the obvious, read about my problem with labels. it might be obvious to you, but to me the new 'elite' are the Chavistas, they have absolute control of the state.
I am starting to like this label, this is a topic that has been covered ad infinitum. Chavez spends millions of dollars a year in maintaining a propaganda machine with the sole purpose of distracting international attention from his dictatorship, and recruiting clueless left-wingers, specially reporters, with this cause in mind. This is handled through embassies around the world, and it seems mostly concentrated in the Venezuelan Information Office (VIO).
This is fallacy on it's own, as oligarchy means "Governed by a Few persons," and now the number of deciding instances is PDVSA is lower than ever, just 1, Chavez himself.

Correction: 4:46PM, fixed the oil industry nationalization year.

The more things change...

2005-09-06T01:19:00.000-04:00

I decided to do some changes around here, I got some complaints that the contrast of the text to the background made it hard to read (1), so I tried to make it softer on the eyes. Also, the color is closer to my title-pun so I thought it was more appropriate. I will be eternally grateful to the unix command utilities (specially diff and patch), which allowed me to make this change in a matter of a couple of minutes. I also re-organized the links in a more logical fashion (to me at least), in which I added a 'reference' section, to those articles that I consider should be easy to access when someone is trying to find information about Venezuela. I added the 'Oilwars' blog to the link section, as I believe that the other side of the story should be heard, though I consider them too biased in the direction of Chavez propaganda. It comes to join the Aporrea link, which though it's very pro-Chavez, and you can actually find some of the not-so good things of the Chavez regime in it (which you will never see in the propaganda sites), it is in spanish, so it would not fit my target audience. I purposefully avoided links to what I consider pure Chavez propaganda sites, as I very seldom read them, and it's mostly through links put forth by fellow bloggers anyway. It's been barely more than a week that I started this blog, and by giving me an outlet to fight for my birth country, I now feel that it's changing my life. I have to wonder, what was i waiting for!!.

Fine, I confess, it was only one 'complaint,' but they asked nicely.

50 years of Venezuelan electoral politics

2005-09-03T16:35:00.000-04:00

Venezuela had been the longest standing Democracy of all Spanish speaking countries (yes, even longer than Spain), we used to send observers around the world, and practically organized a big part of the first Nicaraguan elections in recent history. Miguel Octavio has aptly managed to express most of modern electoral history of Venezuela in this post:

Somehow foreign readers come around to tell us that Chavez is different, because he “cares” about the poor, wants to “redistribute” wealth, is not part of the “elites” that have governed our country, because he is very “popular”, he wants to eliminate corruption and is a “break” from the past. I wonder how much this people know about Venezuela’s forty years of political history prior to Chavez

An excellent read. With an excellent comment thread. The only comment I will add to it, is that in the Caldera II election, a sizable segment of the population saw much better candidates in any of the other 3:

Claudio Fermín ("El Negro Fermín"). Soft-spoken sociologist, representing AD.

Álvarez Paz, the governor of the main oil production state in Venezuela

Andrés Velasquez, with deep daily laborer roots, himself part of a labor movement ("Radical Cause" ) that democratically took several Venezuelan Regions by storm.

I personally would have voted for any of them, all of them were sensible options, running a truthful campaign with different perspectives, but we had to chose one, so me and most of my friends, just relied on polling data and media hype to go for the one with the most perceived support (I can't even remember which one I chose!!!, but I remember kicking myself for not voting for Claudio Fermín in that election). These three candidates split the vote evenly. I recall the numbers being much closer than in Miguel's article, with a Caldera advantage of barely 1-2%, but then I'm just relying on memory. That is one of the "advantages" of a simple majority vote. The addition of an "anyone else but Caldera" option would have put the country on a completely different path. The same way that an "anyone but Chavez" option would do it in the 2006 elections.

You get what you vote for

2005-09-02T17:14:00.000-04:00

Ivan sent me this post that got me thinking. Let me quote:

And this question also hangs: [The Katrina disaster] is just like 9-11, isn't it? Warnings unheeded, a late, strangely toothless military response, an absent President -- then later, denials and eqivocations, and aid promised but dilatorily sent. If you'd like to be startled, hunt out the clip of Bush's first appearance after 9-11, a short prepared speech done as a touch-and-go on the way to an undisclosed location. He looks dissociated and terrified. The 'strong leader' PR began later. That was the face of George Bush in a crisis.

On a previous article, I mentioned my point of view on the illogical selection that the American people did on the last election, just because of their 'gut,' 'fluffy,' feelings, and how the same people now started realizing what a bad decision they made. Now, during the Katrina aftermath, a large number of American Citizens, on American Soil are paying a high price for not having true leadership in the White House, for having a White House that cannot react fast enough in times of crisis. The first days and hours after a disaster of this magnitude happens are the most critical. Hundreds, if not thousands of lifes are being lost just for not reacting fast enough. Just listen to the audio link (on the second paragraph) of New Orleans Major's (Ray Nagin) call to CNN, if that is not a speech that could bring down a government, I do not know what could. And this was what the "American's being safer" campaign was all about?. I tremble to think what would happen on a real terrorist threat. Of course, now the spin machines will start, after all Nagin could just be doing it to position himself as a National leader. So that clearly becomes an attack point. By now the PR machinery could be working at full speed, diverting needed White house resources, to prop up the President's image. But the truth has been laid bare for all to see, the truth of the worsening Katrina aftermath is not something any truly Democratic leader should play with.

Added 10:48 PM: I wanted to make this only about the U.S. but I just read an article that describes Chavez's reaction under a natural tragedy, any similarity is purely coincidental. If you don't really care about your people you are not a true democratic leader. Due to their actions, you will recognize them. Added Sat 3:20 PM: 'Seriously Random' has an in-depth piece that gives some perspective on the whole issue, and what the reaction is escalating.

Democracy and you

2005-09-02T07:22:00.000-04:00

Democracy n. government by the people; especially : rule of the majority.

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote! -Benjamin Franklin Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters. -Abraham Lincoln Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. -Abraham Lincoln Freedom is when the people can speak, democracy is when the government listens. -Alastair Farrugia

To me, the ideal system of government is a democratic system in which people take educated and intelligent decisions, but between a 'benign' open dictatorship, and a mob rule democracy, the dictatorship would have the upper hand. The objective is to distribute the most well-being to the most people, during the most time, let's not put the cart in front of the horse. This statement can be construed to suggest that I want an elitist democracy, but education means much more than just going to school, to me, education can better be described through the words of Aristotle.

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -Aristotle

Going to school might only increase the possibility of getting an education, but it does not guarantee it. The same way that being illiterate reduces the possibility of being educated, but it does not curtail it. All people can make intelligent decisions, but to have that possibility people have to be educated enough to be able to be intelligent about those decisions, gut feelings are a poor excuse for a decision that affects your whole country. On the last U.S. election I watched with amazement how the voters where being manipulated, how amoral propaganda took over information, how gut feelings trumped any rational decisions. Now, you can see the approval ratings for this government, the lowest such ratings have ever been, does that sound like an intelligent decision to you? Venezuela's decision to elect Chavez was a poor one, but it was their Democratic decision to do, it was their mistake. But to take that to mean that Venezuela must be pillaged and burned because of such decision, that Venezuelans must be subjected to raising levels of crime, corruption, poverty, and disease, lower levels of freedom and democracy, and its infrastructure and institutions being destroyed, just because, he was 'democratically elected' is to me the most hypocritical and amoral of the excuses that could come out of the mouth (or hands) of a true democrat.

Morals and education are the most basic of our necessities. -Simón Bolívar

A quick sampler of current articles from the blogosphere:
Six thousand executed, by Teodoro Petkoff
Democracy in the Venezuelan pretty revolution marches on
A nice corruption racket with official deposits in the Venezuelan banking system
Bloggers have their radio programs censored by the revolution.
Great moments in populism
Death by asphyxia in Venezuela

Is this guy for real?

2005-09-01T08:11:00.000-04:00

I just can't let this go, I can't.... I was just listening to NPR to Dubia Bush saying (regarding the Katrina hurricane effects in Loisiana):

I don't think anybody predicted the rupture of the levies...

begin{outburst}

Yes, the scientists had, for years, and years, and years, and years, and years (it was a subject of my post a few days ago). The local governments knew it. A large portion of people in the Baton Rouge knew it..... Can someone be more of an ostritch?. There is this thing called science you know.... Hello.... Anybody home?....

end{outburst}

I feel better now.

The fallacy of bias

2005-09-01T01:18:00.000-04:00

Bias n.
A preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment.
An unfair act or policy stemming from prejudice.
A statistical sampling or testing error caused by systematically favoring some outcomes over others.

Yet another of those pesky labels, probably one of the most pernicious ones, and one of those that have bothered me the most from people in the U.S. It has taken me a few years to realize that one of the reasons it bothers me is because of different cultures with respect to my native Venezuela. The bias label is generally used to stop a conversation, because 'everyone is biased'. Nobody can argue against this fact, but here nobody seems to take into account that there are biases and biases. In the U.S. bias is used to discredit whole segments of the media, one way or another, to ignore persons completely, to shun out conversations, to ignore pertinent information. In the U.S. the bias label has been taken to an extreme, it has a binary value that it was never meant to have, in the U.S. the bias label can be used to justify completely irrational thoughts. You can see that the same thing is reflected in the first and second definitions of bias. In venezuela our everyday language reflects that difference: "When the river rumbles there must be stones in its midst" is a very common saying in all social strata and it means that even though everything the sources say seems too exaggerated to be beleived, there might be a sliver of truth somewhere in there. Which would probably be equivalent to the U.S.'s "when there is smoke, there is fire" but when was the last time that you heard someone use that in a casual conversation?. "I don't believe in witches, but they do fly," is another common one, meaning that even though I do not believe in what they are saying about a particular peril, I better stay on the 'safe' side (does global warming come to mind?, I hope so). I have already mentioned the fair and balanced fallacy, but let me repeat myself:

In the US the fallacy of fair and balanced reporting is exulted. If you have very dissimilar strategies on two sides, one lies 95% of the time, while the other tells the truth 95% of the time, if you are fair, you cannot portray both sides in a balanced way, and if you are balanced you are obviously not being fair. During the last US presidential campaign a TV news director got extremely criticized, precisely for trying to compensate for such biases from the campaign headquarters, so here, in the US, it's much better and 'cooler' to be 'balanced' than 'fair.' Not to mention that it makes for much better ~~entertainment~~ 'News,' as any WWWF fan would point out.

So it was the fallacy of bias that was used to ask for the head of the news director, because his leaked internal memo was clearly not supporting balanced news, but what about being fair?. Now the same yardstick is being applied to the private Venezuelan media, as it is obviously not balanced by portraying Chavez in a certain way, however, nobody stops to ask the question, could it be that they are being 'fair'?. Because, you know, when the river rumbles there must be stones in its midst.

My house, my rules

2005-08-31T07:30:00.000-04:00

If I send you here I think you have violated my code of conduct I might get tired of repeating myself.

If somebody invites you to their house and you are meeting for the first time, would you enter the house and exclaim 'you are a jackass'?. If you would, dude, you have issues. So let's make this clear, this blog is MY 'house'. That is the basic rule of conduct that I expect from my visitors, and I will have absolutely no qualms to enforce it. If that seems dictatorially fascist to you, I am sorry, but to me is a very basic rule of civilized people.

1. Be civil

I can accept and welcome any dissent, as long as it is rational and based on arguments and facts (not labels). I am interested only in rational arguments, not in boxing matches. I will not waste my time on ad-hominem attacks, so I will ban and/or censor anyone that makes me waste my time.

If I consider your conduct _extremely_ offensive, defamatory, or illegal, I might decide to publicly post either or both your geographical location and internet address so that fellow bloggers, or any authority, can be aware of who you are. I consider the use of someone else's handle an extreme offense. You have been warned.

Keep in mind that ad-hominem attacks are not arguments, moreover indicate the lack of an argument and an admission of 'defeat'. Don't attack me, attack my arguments. So unless you have something to write about my arguments, I suggest that you do not write anything.

If your post looks like this:

You are a moron, you have no idea of what you are talking about. The jackass author of the article is a right wing wacko.

Consider rephrasing it like this:

The ideas you are expressing are erroneous as can be seen in such and such article, the source you cite is a known right wing extremist.

If you go for the first option don't complain if I teach you some manners. You will not manage to offend me, and I will make sure to make you look as ridicule as possible.

Stand behind what you write, the apparent anonymity of the internet allows people to assume any personality they want, but I have access to tracking your different personalities, and I will unmask you at will. Changing personalities like a snake sheds skins is a very bad sign of lack of moral fortitude and the strength of character to stand behind what you say, admit your mistakes and move on. Anything else is a shady or at least childish behavior to say the least. The use of multiple personalities to fake agreement in a debate is another serious offense in my book.

2. Stay on topic

The topic of a blog entry should be the topic for most comments pertaining to it. Beware of conversational drift. If your comment is longer than the post, maybe you should rewrite it.

This is a blog that mainly deals with information on, about, or somewhat related to Venezuela. It is a terrible world out there and I understand the need to vent, but if it does not concern Venezuela in any way I almost surely don't want to hear it unless it relates to the specific topic of the post.

If you feel like discussing about how much you love/hate Bush, Bin Laden, Zapatero, Chirac, Madonna, the smelly guy next door, the war in Iraq, or the sound of your keyboard, there are plenty of blogs devoted to those topics. Visit them, or just create your own.

Of course, all work and no play..., humor in between friends is welcome, what kind of host would I be if we could not have some e-tertulia.

3. Be brief

I understand the precepts of communism, capitalism, socialism, christianity, judaism, and Pastafarianism. I know the intentions are good, but don't try to convert me to your _religion_. Remain on topic, if you feel like explaining Communism/capitalism/socialism to me you are very probably going way off topic (point me to a source, if you feel it's that important). I mostly consider such arguments just noise , I am only interested in the signals. I will normally just ignore it, unless it starts getting on my nerves. The same applies to all the very bad things that the imperialists have done in the world all the way back to the early pleistocene.

4. Don't take it on the wrong side

If you read my headline, I plan to be very methodical, after all I am a mathematician by training. I like to make my 'proofs' very structured, so that these become, concise, logical, and easy to follow. This allows me to keep the signal to noise ratio in a discussion as high as possible. I want these discussions to be constructive, wordiness leads to misinterpretations.

I will ask you for the obvious, if you read my labels 'issue' you will see why, I want to know how YOU define your words, so that there is no possible missinterpretation that ccould keep us going forever. Remember, a mars lander got lost because someone thought that the units where in a different system, conversations can go down for much less than that.

Several of the rules have been adapted from Miguel's you might want to read them if the term 'common-sense' is too hazy for you, in this post I used the ones that I consider the most relevant.

Updates:

Wed, August 31 10:45 PM, added all of section 4.
Wed, October 26 6:40 AM, added the 'multiple personality' rule to section 1

I might change (or re-post if the modifications merit it) this topic from time to time to accommodate for universal drift.

No comments (part II)

2005-08-30T22:30:00.000-04:00

From: Ivan Raikov Subject: Your rather perplexing response to Edgar Brown Date: August 30, 2005 5:56:22 PM EDT To: billmon@billmon.org Cc: Edgar Brown Dear Billmon, I am a long-time reader of your blog, and I have thoroughly enjoyed many of your well-researched and thoughtful posts. I hold your writing in a very high esteem, and consider it a fine example of what independent, critical journalism should be, in stark contrast with the shallow opinions and farcical analysis that have become prevalent in the corporate media. I found your post entitled _Bring me the head of Hugo Chavez_ intriguing, because it was what I thought a good piece on Robertson, while at the same it did not cover the subject of Chavez and Venezuela in sufficient depth. The reason why I say this is because I believe the "left" in the United States (i.e. those who loosely align themselves with Social-Democratic ideals) is sharply divided in their opinion of Chavez, and I have thought for a long time that both sides would benefit from a serious, thoughtful discussion about what exactly is going on in Venezuela. While it is difficult to get the facts without living there, and without being fluent in Spanish, I have witnessed many misinformed and pointless flame wars on "leftist" forums, and as I am keenly interested in both Latin-American politics and oppressive regimes, I want to get as much information about the subject, and to have reasoned arguments about it. This is why I asked my friend and colleague Edgar Brown to write a rebuttal of sorts to your post---not really a rebuttal, but an elaboration of the weaker points you make about Chavez; I imagined that if you do get around to reading Edgar's email, and verifying the information contained in his links, you would perhaps do further research into the subject of Chavez, and gain further insights and perspective into Venezuelan politics and how it relates to the United States. I have not finished reading Edgar's email, and I do not know whether his sources are reliable, but nevertheless I thought there was a good chance that all sides involved might learn a little something in the subjects they are passionately interested in. Your response, however---"fuck off, pig"---stunned me. Quite literally, I am dumbstruck. Stupefied. I had imagined you will completely disregard Edgar's email, or that it will get lost in the vast ocean of email that you probably receive every day, but to say that your response was unexpected is an understatement of an incomprehensible magnitude. Even if Edgar is completely wrong and does not make any sense, what kind of a response is that? How could you possibly write something worthy of Rush Limbaugh and the rest of "America's leading mental patients?" I am ashamed and disappointed with you, I really am. And I hope you respond to this email and apologize, because this is ridiculous and unworthy of you---of anybody over the age of 12, really. I am waiting for your response. Sincerely yours, Ivan Raikov -- Democracy isn't Freedom. Inalienable Rights are. Democracy is only a precondition for Inalienability of Rights.

No comments

2005-08-30T21:40:00.000-04:00

From: billmon@billmon.org Subject: RE: Your post: Bring me the Head of Hugo Chavez Date: August 30, 2005 12:26:18 PM EDT To: Edgar Brown Reply-To: billmon@billmon.org --> Fuck off, pig. Billmon

From: Edgar Brown Sent: Monday, August 29, 2005 11:39 PM To: billmon@billmon.org Subject: Your post: Bring me the Head of Hugo Chavez I hope you take the time to read this, as it took me much longer to research it. A friend sent me your article, and I have noticed that you do not seem very aware about the actual situation in Venezuela, which might help you to understand Pat Robertson's position (either way, BTW). Don't take this as a call for action or anything, just that the next time that you have an article that mentions Venezuela you should keep some of the things that I am saying in mind. Preamble: I am Venezuelan, I emigrated to the US 9 years ago, I have been here before Chavez got elected, I know how things work down there and I have many relatives and friends in Venezuela, a couple of them are still Chavistas, so I am very abreast of the situation. I do not represent any 'organization' and obviously I am not formally 'opposition.' Only in the sense that any individual would oppose a dictator. I recently created a blog precisely because I could not stand the amount of media manipulation that was going on. I have posted my position regarding Pat's comment here: http://paspalum.blogspot.com/2005/08/pat-robertson-5-days-later.html and regarding the 'actual assassination' here: http://paspalum.blogspot.com/2005/08/extirpate-assassinate-or-castrate.html . Venezuela keeps a team of people whose only function is controlling, and manipulating, all the information that is generated about Venezuela, there is a long track of evidence in this regard (some of its actions can be seen through public documents that can be obtained through the freedom of information act). The main instrument of this system (at least concerning the web) is www.venezuelanalisys.com, which I have no doubt you used for your report. I recommend that you go to the 'equivalent' opposition site (with the difference that it is a financed by a single individual): http://www.vcrisis.com/ , I will concentrate my links here, as it is a cross-section of the opposition blog-space. You can find information about the 'Venezuela Information Office' here: http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200406211040 . I am also sure that you might have received e-mails from the system portrayed here: http://www.vcrisis.com/?content=letters/200412210833 My current view on the media manipulation can be gleaned here: http://paspalum.blogspot.com/2005/08/venezuela-international-media-cesspool.html I have some of your same suspicions about Robertson, and given some recent events I would not be surprised if he received some direct payments from Chavez to generate that outburst, don't get me wrong, I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but there have been too many coincidences that point to some form of smoke screen to keep the media distracted. Very important elections for the Venezuelan senate are approaching (BTW: 100% of it changes, yes, I know, that's dumb) and Chavez's modus operandi has been to keep the opposition running in circles before any election, this seems to follow the same pattern. Now to your misconceptions: But, since Chavez is not a dictator... Chavez is a dictator, in the same way that Hitler (and I am sorry to use that example, but think of his early years) became a dictator. He got elected, he was extremely popular, he changed all the institutions around him to suit him. Yes he was elected fair and square, twice, however he has manipulated all the state institutions (including the oil industry, and the electoral bodies) in a way that he is the ONLY power that exists, if you read spanish I recommend this: http://www.sumate.org/democracia-retroceso/intro-spanish.asp it contains only the _facts_ about how the system has been transformed from a democracy into a dictatorship. The key to such a power grab was the constitutional reform, by forcing changes in _ALL_ institutions at a time that he was extremely popular he manage to get an inordinate amount of his people in power (as a sample, the Constitutional assembly was 90% Chavista). Just read what the highest ranking member of the Venezuelan Christian Clergy (a Cardinal), previous assistant to the Pope, has to say: http://www.vcrisis.com/?content=letters/200507180522 ....I have been saying for a long time that here there is neither democracy nor Rule of Law. What we have is a veneer of democracy. Those laws passed by a weak majority, but ultimately a majority, against the Constitution, according to which organic laws need to be passed by a qualified majority, represent neither justice nor right, but rather a means for achieving an oppressive goal. By the way, all this is vox populi in Venezuela, at all levels, how does it manage to stay out of the international media--almost--baffles me. ...builds health clinics for the poor and (horror!) True, but: These are basically first aid centers, anything more than a headache would need a hospital, or an assistance center, and those are falling to pieces. See: http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot.com/2005/08/death-by-asphyxia-in-venezuela.html for a simple example of a couple of days ago. distributes land to tenant farmers True, but: the biggest land owner is the state, and the targeted farms were mostly for symbolic value (one of them an _internationally_ renowned ecological refuge, and a model for ecological sustainability: http://www.vcrisis.com/?content=letters/200504081223 ). Also no titles are being given, the new 'owners' cannot borrow money or do anything because it does not belong to them. he's milking [the oil company] for the benefit of the country's impoverished mestizo majority. You seem to have fallen for his race struggle card, please read my post here: http://paspalum.blogspot.com/2005/08/racism-in-venezuela.html . And the way he is going the oil industry will not last for much longer, Chavez thinks that by putting a soldier alongside an oil well it will keep producing: http://www.vcrisis.com/?content=letters/200505161048 http://www.vcrisis.com/?content=letters/200505290830 Which let's me segway into his patriotism: http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2005/08/13.html#a2419 but who also don't want to make the great leap forward into Stalinist repression Repression has been very clear for quite some time, a new media gag law was passed that makes it illegal to protest against anyone in the government, punishable by jail time, Human Rights Watch has criticized it, read this: http://www.vcrisis.com/?content=letters/200412010935 and this http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2005/07/28.html#a2383. And this is a sample from last week's events: http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2005/08/22.html#a2429 And more traditional means are also common, read this for yesterday's events (which BTW was the second time that the same march was attempted in just a month, with similar results): http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2005/08/29.html#a2440 http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2005/08/27.html#a2437 and communal poverty. Poverty indexes have increased continuously during all of Chavez's presidency, as have all the correlated indicators (malnutrition, infant mortality, etc.) I am sure that you can find multiple sources to verify that, but make sure that you check the actual source, not the manipulated information. Here are some indicators for your verification: http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/2005/08/21.html#a2428 (Under Chavez Venezuela has become such a communist police state that his opponents were only able to collect 1.9 million signatures on their recall petitions.) I see the bias in that 'only', the process was extremely oppressed on the opposition side, however they managed to get through the constitutional bar 3 times, please read the preliminary sections of the actual Carter Center report, specially the part that says that _ALL_ split decisions of the electoral body were taken in favor of the government. And ask yourself how democratic was the process: http://www.cartercenter.org/documents/1837.pdf . Compare the verification process that the electoral body imposed on the signature drive (which in political terms really decides nothing) to the amount applied to the actual referendum. Also see the magnitude of the Caracas opposition march during the Referendum in my blog, and the Chavista opposition march in the Wikipedia, compare and contrast. his popular approval rating is currently north of 70% That is a reported figure of which we very much doubt it's truthfulness, the same way that the polling company itself doubts it. Compare that to the 60% of Venezuelans that think the electoral system is rigged (I believe it was the same poll): http://www.vcrisis.com/?content=letters/200507160845 . And to the 80% (opposition figure) to 70% (government figure) of abstention in the last elections. With the amount of people that were intimidated for signing the referendum (see: Tascón list: http://www.vcrisis.com/?content=letters/200505160410 , that was the first that popped up, any blog search will give you days of reading material on that), I am not surprised that everyone will start supporting Chavez every time that someone asks. The Center for Security Policy has a good analysis of the current situation, and of possible solutions: http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/index.jsp?section=today All that said, I have to admit that I laughed out loud with your article. Thanks for your time, Edgar Brown _____________________________________________ Edgar Brown http://paspalum.blogspot.com/

Lessons from Hurricane Katrina

2005-08-30T07:46:00.000-04:00

Katrina victims, my prayers and my thoughts are with you. Though it is way to early to tell the amount of destruction that hurricane Katrina will leave in its wake and the final toll will probably rival some of the worst natural disasters on record, one thing is for certain, it was not the doomsday scenario that many scientists had predicted when a hurricane of these precise characteristics went through the region. And we have to be thankful for that portrayal, as it was partially this perception that might have reduced the death toll considerably (1). Though many lay people would chalk this up to Scientists not knowing what they are doing, to Scientists this belongs to: thank god we were wrong, let's take the data to improve our models. That is what Science means, Science is perfectible, proving parts of itself wrong is its modus vivendi, is what makes it science. Science cannot staunchly hold to beliefs though, being a human creation, it will have its mistakes and biases. The only thing needed is a good proof (and some promotion) to completely change the playing field. That is my way of thinking, on everything, including politics, the only thing you need to change my mind is a good reasonable argument based on facts not beliefs (or labels for that matter). It is this way of thinking that I want to portray in this blog.

If it seems like I am implying anything related to the global warming scenarios that a large proportion of US wants to ignore, let's make that a certainty, yes I am (and BTW, is Bush still on vacation?)

Venezuela, an international media cesspool

2005-08-29T11:57:00.000-04:00

Time for a quick IQ test. When you see the picture of this injured Venezuelan on the right, what do you see?

A Chavez supporter
A government 'foe'?
An opposition demonstrator?

The contrast that Venezuela has between the international news scene and the blogging community should tell even the staunchest foreign Chavez suporters, the most biased of reporters, even the imbeciles and morons in between the idiots (1) that some truth most be behind the many, many, many, many, many, many, many opposition (in the broadest of senses) reports. In Francisco Toro's words:

One of the most difficult points to put across to foreign readers, especially those who may be inclined to sympathize with a leftwing regime in a poor country, is the consistently, systematically, unabashedly deceptive nature of the Chavez regime. It's not that regime leaders lie now and then about this or that, it's that lying is their default mode, standard operating procedure, on most issues most of the time...

And add to that, the Venezuelan Catholic Clergy opinion:

“this is the most detestable government in Venezuelan history,” and finally action, the repudiation of the regime by way of Article 350 of the Constitution [should be taken].

And these guys are the true Clergy, the real deal, in direct chain of command from the Pope, not tv-evangelists and opportunists (as the CPM™ would have them portrayed), that just dance for the media like Pat and Jesse. There is a spanish saying: "When the river rumbles, it's because there are stones moving within it," that can be interpreted in this context to mean, that when there are reports of something happening, no matter how ridiculous and unbeleivable, there must be a small sliver of truth in its midst. And when the river is at least as wide as the Iguazu falls, even a tiny little stream coming out of it, would be grounds for a mildly intelligent mind, let's say a moron, to be suspicious. In the US the fallacy of fair and balanced reporting is exulted (2). If you have very dissimilar strategies on two sides, one lies 95% of the time, while the other tells the truth 95% of the time, if you are fair, you cannot portray both sides in a balanced way, and if you are balanced you are obviously not being fair. During the last US presidential campaign a TV news director got extremely criticized, precisely for trying to compensate for such biases from the campaign headquarters, so here, in the US, it's much better and 'cooler' to be 'balanced' than 'fair.' Not to mention that it makes for much better ~~entertainment~~ 'News,' as any WWWF fan would point out. However, in this case, not even 'balanced' becomes a part of the scene!!. So you have to wonder, why is, in the eyes of the media, everything that Chavez does 'good' while anything that the opposition does 'bad'. Why will they change the facts of a story to portray things that way? (and yes, I say what I mean, facts, not 'interpretation of events' (3)). I understand that a particular individual could do that, but representatives of the major news agencies?. Are their editors not aware of this?, are their bosses not aware of what is going on?, even when they have been directly in contact with 'opposition bloggers' that have pointed out the possibility of these biases (and have court cases against them precisely because of these biases)?. Has the international media conglomerate's IQ fallen below the imbecile level already?. Or is it their (not so hidden) agenda to make a Cuba out of Venezuela while dragging the huge majority of Venezuelans (95% if my memory is right) kicking and screaming?. I believe that a case of crimes against humanity could be brought up in international courts to put these media types behind bars. What has the media become, where are the Woodwards and Bernsteins in the bunch?, c'mon, even a moron should be able to figure it out!!!.

After writing this, other events during the day added another dimension to the problem which I want to make explicit. Could it simply be that Chavez's is 'greasing' these reporters?. So DeepThroat's advice becomes vary valid here: Follow the money... Another thing: I realize that I did not put context on the 'test', so let me do it now: Yesterday a pacific opposition demonstration, in an authorized march, with police protection, was attacked when they were close to their final destination. The police did nothing, while 9 people were injured, and then gassed the opposition supporters, not the attackers. Venezuelan news sources correctly reported the events, while the international media's response varied in the way given by options 1 and 2. Pay special attention to the use of the label 'foe,' what do you picture when you see it?. And if your answer is none of the above as it is obviously just an injured individual, congratulations!, you excelled the test, and maybe exposed some of my bias in the process.

I am using the original, somewhat deprecated, meanings here: Idiot, someone with an IQ level below a 2 year old. Imbecile: someone with an IQ level between that of a 2 and an 8 year old moron: someone whose intelligence is between that of an 8 and a 12 year old.
A particular network comes to mind, which, thanks to its biases, is one of the few that seems to be able to compensate enough to shed some light on the truth.
It's somewhat out of character for me to jump to strong conclusions this fast, but given the preponderance of history, evidence, and fairness of the sources, the chances of being wrong on this are near to nil.

Extirpate, Assassinate, or Castrate?

2005-08-28T23:58:00.000-04:00

Sorry for the obscure pun in the title, I have a thing for obscure puns, just look at the name of the blog for goodness sake. The 'Castrate' comes from a cartoonist's (1) very sharp political humor that portrayed Venezuela saying: "I am not being Cubanized, I am being Castrated." After some exchange on my post regarding Pat Robertson's comment, which happened in Miguel's blog (it's a connected world after all), I realized that I had not elaborated on my opinion regarding the content of the comment itself, perhaps for the same reasons that I argued other bloggers would want to brush over the issue, or perhaps because I like being obscure like that. So let me correct that oversight. But first you need to know a bit about my thought process, I have no problem juggling multiple contradictory 'facts' in my head to follow a rational argument, everything is relative, I don't have a freudian need for absolutes. Even if such a thing might seem unconceivable for a large proportion of G. W. Bush voters in the last electoral campaign (2). So let's suspend morals, with that pesky 6th commandment, for a second (context alert to the CPM™: If any of you quote me without quoting this paragraph, I will consider that as your legally binding express authorization to exercise the 'Castrate' option on you):

begin{no-morals}

Let's assume that Chavez is assassinated (who does it is really irrelevant, the US will be blamed no matter what). And let's assume that we are talking about a 'clean' assassination, not a mob lynching. A very clear possibility, and probably the reason that any manifestation is now heavily repressed, just imagine what would happen if a crowd 1/10th of the magnitude of the one of the referendum campaign were to arrive uninvited to Chavez's party.

Transition of power

The only constitutional alternative to assume power is a person that could be even worse, as a president, than Chavez, JVR. A new election will happen in a year or so (article: 233) and he does not have the charisma or the pull of his boss, but other alternatives could be equally bad. Given that Chavez is the only important figure in the Chavez government, no other Chavista leader should be able to legally keep power, and a leader of the new opposition might gain more strength, but remember that we are talking about the CNE here, they do not need people to vote as long as the votes can be fabricated, the money flow must go on. And now, there is a very reduced US in the world community and with the huge international outrage there would be no way to revert this tendency without even more violence (generating even more outrage). With Bush's approval rating down the gutter, Venezuela is hosed. Only a true democrat public Chavista could avoid this scenario, but read Jorge on that.

Cuban invasion forces

At best count we have 50000 cuban personnel in Venezuela, infiltrating multiple instances of the government. My best bet is that they would try to prop some puppet into power using the same existing Chavez machinery, but with the added benefit of assassination power, the US would surely be blamed for these also. The Castration scenario could be an even bigger danger here.

Political opposition (3)

After about 5 seconds of mourning (the time to make sure that they are not dreaming), they would have 10 seconds of celebration, before the sharper ones realize that now they are going against a martyr, a much bigger figure than Chavez, while obviously being "the collaborators" of the ones that made him the martyr. They are extremely diminished as it is, this would be their coup de grâce.

Ultra-Chavista masses

I believe that many opposition leaders, the media, the many organizations, the not-lowest class districts of Caracas, in short, any of Chavez's favorite targets would have to start running for their lives, these masses are the ones with the guns. Infrastructure would be slashed and burned, under the call of 'let them f** themselves' (without realizing that they should have used 'ourselves' in that phrase). Chavez has armed a bomb, and he himself is the kill switch. The Chavista military would have to take control of the situation, at some point, and given Chavez's purges I wonder if there is any democrat left in the bunch.

Regional conflicts

In Venezuela the perception of Chavez is closer to reality, I believe a huge majority of the population knows what he is, even Chavistas (they just don't care). But the same is not true for the region, he is a much bigger figure abroad, and several governments have started to align with his preaching. So now we are dealing with a martyr much bigger than the Ché. I predict long periods of uncontrollable instability.

What would the leftist screaming benchies do?

Whine, moan, make blogs insufferable, stage hundreds of manifestations in front of the White House and the Senate, and buy lots and lots of Chavez's T-shirts and red berets, probably made in Cuba.

What would the international media do?

The same thing they always do, print whatever the CPM™ sends them. Under this scenario Venezuela would probably go through an extremely harsh transitionary period, and it would devolve quite a few decades more than what it already has. And why bother, a much simpler alternative for the US is to put a gun (a really big one) to Smartmatic's head, and play with the electoral machines themselves, who knows, maybe that's what's causing so much trouble inside the CNE these days, they might be having to make their own numbers by hand, thief stealing from a thief (4)....

end{no-morals}

So, the only real alternative in my mind is to force the democratic solutions, Chavez has to be exposed for what he is: a criminal and a Dictator. There are a myriad constitutional means to get rid of him (using the constitution as toilet paper might as well be one of them), article 350 (the "people will not recognize an authoritarian regime" article), suggested by the Venezuelan Clergy, is just one of many, it's just a matter of forcing the hand of the Chavista institutions to apply the constitution, it could be extremely hard, but I choose to believe that it's not impossible. The recommendations expressed by the Center For Security Policy might even work. His multiple crimes have to be made very internationally public, an impartial court (there must be one somewhere) has to sentence him, the court of opinion has to sentence him. We have to legally extirpate this cancer that has corroded all of Venezuelan society, and is corroding all of the Americas (even the U.S.). He cannot be made a martyr, or the whole hemisphere could go down in flames. It's the only moral thing that can be done.

I believe it was Zapata, the same one that draw the cartoons that offended Danny Glover, and the TransAfrica forum so much.
"The test of a first rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." -F. Scott Fitzgerald. Another quirk of mine, I like to quote famous people.
Note that I am explicit, this is the true political opposition. It does not include Súmate, yours trully and my fellow bloggers, and many other organizations that are portrayed as 'opposition' by the CPM™. Another label used to discredit the extremely valuable democratic work done by portraying a single 'opposition' group that contains the old political actors (have I mentioned that I have a problem with labels?). After all, anyone that has democratic convictions opposes a Dictator.
An spanish saying: "A thief that steals from a thief has a hundred years of forgiveness," this is one that has always troubled me, but there are no morals in that section so it's OK.

Racism in Venezuela

2005-08-27T14:40:00.000-04:00

Negro Primero

Chavez has played the race card, trying to portray his "fight" as one of the Venezuelan light-skinned minority against the dark-skinned majority. Given the US race perception and tabus, a wise political move that has eased a lot of leftists into his "support structure." Needless to say most Venezuelans disagree (even Chavistas, which the propaganda would portray as: "many generations of brain washing leaves its toll"), many of us find the manipulation disgusting, and we see it as just yet another ploy to add to the rich vs. poor, U.S. vs. Latin America, powerful vs. oppressed, Meritocratic vs. Uneducated (yes, I am not kidding), Bourgeois vs. Proletarians discourse of his "pretty revolution." I have read many of the arguments from the left, some of them rational, some of them not, and following Descartes teachings I have tried to do some deep introspection on the matter, but try as I might, I find extremely hard to accept this point of view, and to contain the rage that this perception inspires in me.

I guess that at this point I have to show my cards, so let me start with my race, I am, and look, latino, which to you might just be a label, but to me means mostly "mixed." I have an immigrant caucasian grandfather and a black grandmother on my father side, and a "mestizo" (American Indian/caucasian) grandfather and grandmother on my mother side. Most of the people I know would classify that as the typical Venezuelan. My mother's nickname has always been "la negra" (the black one) or the diminutive "negrita," as she is the darkest of her siblings (suggesting that there is probably more "black blood" from that side of the family), and that, together with "chino" (chinese), "catire" (literally blonde, but mostly used for white), and "indio" (indian), are relatively common nicknames. Most traditional Venezuelan families have a wide color gamut among siblings.

Black people in Venezuela, as in the rest of the Americas, descend from a population that has its origin from slave trade. But, as opposed to the US, some of the slaves all the way back to colonial times, became named "national heroes," and we are exposed to our heroes from our nursing songs. One of Simon Bolívar's nannies La Negra Matea (Matea Bolívar), herself a slave, went to Bolívar's funeral by the arm of the Venezuelan president of the time. La Negra Hipólita (Hipólita Bolívar) being his other slave Nanny, was the one that nursed him as a baby, and Bolívar loved, and treated, as a mother. Both Hipólita and Matéa are burried in the Bolívar family crypt. Negro Primero (liutenant Pedro Camejo), a freed slave reputed as one of the bravest soldiers of the Bolívar armies, earned his quote in history by returning to his commanding officer in the middle of a battle and exclaiming: "My General, I come to say goodbye, because I am dead" dropping on the spot. Now, compare that to the only ones I can think of from US culture Uncle Tom or Aunt Jemima (remember, I am talking colonial times here).

Of course, there has been a lot of immigration into Venezuela, mainly "white" at that, and combined with disparities since colonial times, and traditional immigrant work habits (1), the richer strata of the population is lighter skinned, on average, while the poorer strata is darker skinned, on average. The more educated segments of the population are lighter skined, on average, while the less educated, are darker skinned on average. So yes if you derive some measure of color of skin vs. wealth or education you would see a larger accumulation on the lighter side of the scale. But to jump from that to racism is a long stretch, don't confuse correlation with causation. It's at this point in the conversation where the tag "racism" morphs to mean when a class discriminates against other and it's not really related to skin color. Then call it "discrimination" as it has absolutely nothing to do with race, you idiots!!!. The use of the "racism" label has the sole purpose of putting the wrong image in the right people's mind, and that is my problem with labels. I might cover the discrimination (or rather the "inequality" as I do not agree with that label either) topic at another time, or chose not to as it has been covered before, but now I am talking about racism.

To be fair, let me point to some parts of our culture that can be perceived as a race connotation. When somebody sees a darker friend going out with a lighter 'significant other candidate', a joking shout of "improving the race, eh..." would probably follow, in an American frame of mind that is as un-PC as it can be, but we don't see that much into it. I have heard the phrase "shitty negro" being used disparagingly, jokingly, or as a friendly call, but a phrase like "shitty catire" is not that uncommon. The disparaging part is the 'shitty' adjective, not the "negro" or "catire" part. "Mono" (monkey) can also be used as a disparaging tag or just a nickname, but it has no race connotation (the only "mono" I know is actually a very white individual), disparagingly it would be closer to 'gang member', 'petty thief', 'ill-mannered', 'misbehaved', 'thug', it has more to do with attitude (I hope you now see why it has been used for Chavez and Chavistas) (2). My grandmother was a bigot, she would have no qualms disparaging some of my darker friends to their face (I still remember some of her racist poems), at least one of them told me not to worry, as his father was the same way!! (and to tell you the truth these are the only two bigots I can think of). But then we take bigots by what they are, ignorant people, we don't make them the center of our life.

I hope that now you can see that race is not a problem for us, it comes up in conversations or in the media, the same way that you could hear a mature sex conversation in daytime radio or TV (before the gag law that is), oh, sorry, you don't have that in the States either. You can shout "negro" on the streets if you want to call your buddies attention, as my mother gets shouted at sometimes. She has also been told "you sing like a negro!" a very good praise indeed (some of the genes which I proudly inherited, I might say). You can draw a caricature of a negro, with all the african stereotypical qualities, and it would be a caricature, not a racist drawing (though it can be as offensive as many caricatures are). So this takes me to Danny Glover. (unfortunately I cannot locate the caricature that I wanted to insert, if you know where it is, please drop me a note)

When a delegation of Americans from the TransAfrica Forum visited Venezuela, Danny Glover included, with all the American racist background on their backs, they were faced by this libertine attitude towards race, and being the latests of Chavez's useful fools, they were rightfully mocked and ridiculed by the media, and this was one of the bases they used to declare Venezuela as a racist country!!!. Yet another example of "understand the situation before you make any assertions" you fools. So let me finish by quoting Gustavo Coronel:

Bringing racial conflict into Venezuela, as an artificial political strategy, is a crime only equivalent to the bringing of smallpox to the Indians of the New World. The difference is that the smallpox came to us unwittingly but the racial issue is coming to us as part of a deadly, conscious, political strategy.

I couldn't agree more.

After posting this, I realized that Francisco had covered TransAfrica's original visit here, and here, and The Chavez Propaganda Machine™ response can be found here (I said that I have a problem with labels, not that I don't use them!!). So ask yourselves, really, WWMLKD?. Another thing I chose Negro Primero, La Negra Matéa, and La Negra Hipólita, not because these are the only ones, but because these are the only ones I can remember as being negroes, precisely because there is a 'Negro' in their nicknames. Did I mention that we don't care that much about race?

Don't read too much into this, but consider the current immigrant population into the US. Immigrants, by their sole condition as immigrants, have to be harder working that the established population (on average of course). In Venezuela it's this last generations of immigrants that own most of the very small neighborhood (city block) shops and markets and, through work, some of them got to own bigger shops and markets (just in case, my immigrant grandfather was a poor miner, not a rich shop owner, so drop the bias card!). These is the, mostly white, people that has been targeted in our "racial uprisings."
Monkey can also be used to mean 'cute,' one of the nice things of the multiple facets of spanish slangs, but that requires some language subtleties and mostly uses the second spanish meaning of the verb "to be". 'To be monkey', would be 'to look cute', 'to be a monkey' would be the disparaging connotation.

Pat Robertson, 5 days later

2005-08-27T00:10:00.000-04:00

Now that all the hoopla about Pat Robertson's Chavez assassination comments has died, Venezuelan bloggers can get on with their lives. Hours after "the event" web traffic saw a huge increase, to the point of moving some of the Venezuelan blogs to top 10 lists in the blogging world. Now you won't find a mention of it in the regular media, so I can now add my two cents, and elaborate on the consequences. The best response to Pat's outburst was the Venezuelan humor crowd: "Who do these gringos think they are!, if they want to kill Chavez they have to get in line..., like the rest of us!!." Not that I condone Pat's outrageous comments, I don't think that anyone, that calls himself a Christian, should blatantly disregard the sixth commandment that haphazardly. But for all practical purposes, given Pat's history, it could have been a non-event, and it was mostly so in Venezuela. To me a much more significant event was when a Cardinal of the Venezuelan Catholic church, personal assistant to Pope John Paul II, called Chavez a dictator heading the "worst goverment that Venezuela has had" and stopped short of just calling him a psycopath, an assessment that many of us share, and Gustavo Coronel will tell you why. But did you see any of this in the international media?, I seriously doubt it. Side note: have you noticed how Pat's extempore comments dropped Ms. Sheehan from the news scene?. The Venezuelan Blogger attitude was also very mild, almost to the point of taking the whole hoopla as a nuisance, partially because we have lived with this guy for quite a few years now, and probably, deeply inside, overtly, secretly, or even subconsciously, a lot of Venezuelans might have harbored similar thoughts, several times, in that long period. So understandably, it could be a somewhat uncomfortable topic. And having the blogs inundated with people that have no idea of all that has been discussed during the last 4 years, trying to make sense of it all, could have been perceived as a drag. In Venezuela, as opposed to the US, we don't need Pat Robertson, Michael Jackson, Cindy Sheehan, or P. Diddy, to keep us "entertained." Government-related scandals can happen multiple times a day. Only one of Chavez's very, very, long weekly addresses could provide enough fodder for a couple of months of editorials. However, there is a positive side and a negative side to anything. Now, after Pat's statement, a large majority of Americans know that there is this guy called "Chavez" that presides a country called "Venezuela" which happens to have a lot of oil and is a major US supplier, and would probably pay a little more attention to what happens there. I personally got asked by many of my coworkers about my opinion on the matter and on "who is this Chavez guy?," creating, for me, a "show your dictator at work" day. But at the same time, the comment itself gave a lot of fodder to the Chavez propaganda machine, and, why be PC about it?, to leftist wackos. So much so that some of the same blog comment sections became insufferable, with illuminating rational arguments like: "liar, liar, liar, liar, liar...," coming from someone that probably doesn't even know where Venezuela is, directed to a bunch of people that were born or live in Venezuela. The nerve!!. Of course, if you are one of the leftist wackos, and you have read this far, you are already thinking: "this is a racist oligarch working for the imperialist forces," so I will refer you to my opinion on meaningless labels in a previous post. This attitude, which for almost obvious reasons is mostly extreme left-wing, is not surprising, since they have been a target of the Chavez's left-leaning message and his propaganda machine for quite some time. Part of the efforts headed by the Venezuelan Information Office, or VIO for short (1, 2, and many others). Even internauts' normally trusted sources like the Wikipedia (which saw a massive traffic to the Chavez entry) is not that trustworthy, as Chavez's minions seem to have their hands into maintaining their Venezuelan-related entries. Thanks to Wikipedia's pacate attitude towards dictator biographies, and the Chavista supervision, which can be seen in the discussions in the disputes section, more than one person is now better misinformed than ever. People would have been better served with a trip to the less biased, and briefer, dictator of the month biography. Don't take my word for it, take a look at the photographs I chose to illustrate this post with, which were taken in a political event against Chavez, in what probably is the widest of all Venezuelan highways, the days before the 2004 recall referendum, you won't see anything of this sort in Wikipedia (hint: it shows that there is a really big opposition). So, now that the dust has settled, we are starting to see some US groups that get it, with quotes like this from the Center for Security Policy:

Time is running out. Venezuela’s increased pace of repression, militarization, weapons imports, and destabilization of neighboring countries shows that time is running out for the Venezuelan people and for the relative peace that most of the hemisphere has enjoyed. The Bolivarian regime in Caracas presents a clear and present danger to peace and democracy in the hemisphere. It must change. It can change on its own, or it can invite hemispheric forces with the help of Venezuela’s broad democratic opposition, to impose the changes. Either way U.S. strategy must be to help Venezuela accomplish peaceful change by next year.

Which, following in Pat's wake, they published in a very concise and complete document (pdf), with very reasonable suggestions on how to deal with Chavez. The US, through the Carter Center and the OAS, missed a huge opportunity a year ago on the referendum for the removal of Chavez from the presidency. And don't get me wrong, it's not that the Venezuelan opposition did not mess up big time back then, but the right pressure, in the right places, could have helped a lot. So now let's hope that all this fuss generates enough public pressure to detach these parasites that are leeching away the present and future of Venezuela. The moral of this story might be something that Hollywood learned a long time ago: Even bad publicity, sometimes, can be good for your cause.

My problem with labels

2005-08-26T00:17:00.000-04:00

So, you think you know a lot about Venezuela. Let's say you are a somewhat typical left-leaning, non-Venezuelan, mostly rational individual that is interested in the developments of my native country. You have read a lot of stuff about Venezuela, from both sides, and have made up your mind that Chavez is the best thing to happen to the universe since red-colored carrot cake. I, a Venezuelan, now tell you: "you are wrong by far." What is your reaction?.

Assume that I must be an oligarch, Washington Consensus loving, racist bastard (OWCLRB for short).
Assume that I must be paid by some OWCLRB consortia.
Assume that I might be a somewhat rational individual, but my biases don't let me see "the truth".
Try to set aside your prejudices, check my facts, check the sources for the facts, and leave room to change, or qualify, your opinion.
Think that you might want to pay attention to someone from Venezuela, that has to be better informed than you are.
Decide that this topic is too complicated, and Venezuelans can't make up their mind, so you stop caring.

If you answered anything but '4', you are not a rational thinker in my book (if you answered '6', you are just lazy). Let me give you another example: what do you think about the empty labels: flip-flopper, death-tax, liberal, tree-hugger, bias; or better yet: right-wing, conservative, oligarch, elitist, communist, proletariat, poor, fascist, God? Do these create an image in your mind?. Well if they did, I will tell you that not only the image in your mind is different from mine and from everyone else in the world, but that I do not have an image in my mind the first time you mention it, because I know that it will not be the same, no matter what. To me these meaningless labels serve no other purpose than to manipulate people into thinking that they understand a topic, because they can attach a label to it, so the next step into stupidity becomes blindly believing someone, anyone (even me), just because he/she uses all the right labels that you like. So if you think that you know something because the right labels, placed by someone else, are lighting up in your mind, I need to tell you that you are wrong, because attaching a label to something is not the same as knowing that something. Remember René Descartes' method:

"...never to accept anything for true which I did not clearly know to be such; that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitancy and prejudice, and to comprise nothing more in my judgement than what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly as to exclude all ground of doubt."

If you have not read his discourse, you probably should. It's the basis for science, it's the basis for knowledge (and if you start squirming at his views towards "God" remember, that's just another label!). Granted, when it comes to news and politics, you cannot ultimately know what the absolute truth is, so you have no choice but to qualify the truth, to accept each possibility partially, and slowly come to an internal consensus opinion, without totally discarding the alternatives. At some point you might want to trust some sources more than others, but never negate the possibility of there being a consensus truth which satisfies those things that you know are facts, and best explains the position of the dissenting opinions, just make sure that such truth does not involve an empty label. Only principles and faith can make reasonable people to disagree, but never reason. Words are the biggest obstacle to communication. So, to conclude, I have no problem with ignorance, it is opinionated ignorants that I can't stand.

I give up...

2005-08-25T02:50:00.000-04:00

For the last year I have resisted the urge of creating my own blog, I have posted comments ad infinitum in some of my fellow Venezuelan's blog comment sections, and pestered them with e-mails. But until now I had avoided this additional time sink, I have real work to do after all. But I have realized that I need some more, I need to feel that I am doing something for changing the conditions of my native Venezuela, I do not live there anymore, but it is painful to see what has become of it, how it's being pilfered away to satisfy the ego of one man, it's painful to stay in the sidelines while the whole country goes down the drain. And if one more english language blog is the way to at least attempt to change the world perspective on that little oil-ridden country that is Venezuela, so be it. Before the last Venezuelan election that I voted in, I affirmed: "if Caldera wins I will leave this country," I could not conceive that Venezuelans could be that stupid, after all, every country has the government they deserve. At the time, thinking that Chavez was more than a side-note of our history (under 1992 coup organizer and killer of Venezuelans) was inconceivable, but then I left the country (as have now done most of my friends), Caldera pardoned Chavez, and the rest is history. So, for starters, let me just link to the pages of two of my favorite bloggers, the first one, to illustrate what many of us lived on those days of the Referendum on Chavez's rule (original in spanish here), and the second to show how many of us (I believe the majority, but recent polls contradict me) feel when the name Chavista is mentioned in our midst. PS: Daniel, Miguel, Alek, and Bruni, thanks for the inspiration.