Blogging the democratic revolution
How bad is it for Venezuela? Is it really a colony of Cuba? This essay by Gustavo Coronel should settle the question definitively. Read it here.
When thousands of Venezuelans came forward last year to exercise their legally guaranteed democratic right to sign a petition to recall their president, precious few realized the kind of use dictator Hugo Chavez could and did make of that signature list afterward. It was published on the Internet – the names, addresses and social-security-number equivalent of all those who signed. It was used to blacklist signers, deny people work, target dissidents. Thousands of people were affected, not just in those who were not hired for jobs, but for those who were denied services, lost rights, got harassed and were brutalized.…
Just when you thought the Venezuelan Revolution was on its last legs, I discover this promising new blog in English called Notiven by Javier Caceres. It’s an occasionally updated blog that’s full of thoughtful analysis and commentary on the news. Javier’s got a new item up about Hugo Chavez’s likely plans to align and control the FARC narcoterrorist jungle guerrilla movement of Colombia. Well worth reading here.
Ecuador, arguably the most beautiful country in South America, has probably the stupidest government. Only dollarization has kept the government from making a complete hash of things, and high oil prices and a willingness to drill have enabled the Andean state to post a 5.4% rise in GDP in 2004. But dollarization by itself is not enough. The place desperately needs rule of law, and they aren’t even close. This country’s crisis is centered around the Supreme Court, which was stacked with President Lucio Gutierrez’s 31 political cronies a few months back. This stacking didn’t going down well in the…
Venezuela’s opposition is melting away. Agencia EFE gives a good description of how 200,000 opponents of the Chavez regime have largely drifted over into Miami, where they are both invisible and increasingly irrelevant to the revolution. Coming to the U.S. is, in a sense, a revolution of its own, because it’s a transformative experience, that of becoming a free person amid vast opportunities, and given the choice between freedom here and fighting a thug at home, most people prefer to melt into the milieu. But it doesn’t do much for Venezuela. The regime knows this and is using it as…
Venezuela does not have a conventional revolutionary set-up. It’s a revolution within a revolution, where, six years ago, “reformer” Hugo Chavez was elected to power as an outsider who would make a difference, and who instead ran his country’s affairs like an old-line caudillo party boss, his cronies lining their pockets, but with the added detail of retrograde Castroite communism as his substitute for reform. Of course he is hated. Essayist Gustavo Coronel takes a serious, scholarly look at Chavez’s decaying revolution and the prospects for a more authentic one replacing it. Read it here.
Here’s a news editorial pointing out that the roots of Mexico’s revolution right now is not in the existence of the Marxist PRD but in the lack of leadership of President Vicente Fox’s PAN party. That’s what fuelling Mexico’s growing protests. Maybe Vicente Fox should wise up before the next Hugo Chavez mini-me steps in to take over. Read it here.
This just in from Mexico: Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the leftist populist mayor of Mexico City, unequivocally denies he is another Hugo Chavez. I don’t think he’s telling the truth, he is running for president after all, but how interesting it is, in his quest for votes, that he feels a need to deny any association with Hugo Chavez. Obviously, word has gotten around in Mexico. This corresponds to another story, seen yesterday about views that Chile’s OAS candidate has received the ‘kiss of death‘ by getting Hugo Chavez’s endorsement. Clearly some kind of critical mass is building in this…
He just doesn’t get it, does he? Just picture what the people in that room were thinking. Just when you thought the revolution had gone dead in Venezuela, this thug reminds you there is still reason for one out there. He never lets you down. Miguel has a photo of Hugo Chavez pontificating away at this, and notes his Parisian-tailored custom suit. Don’t miss this picture here. UPDATE: And Alek Boyd has an actual video of the grotesque spectacle here. (Scroll down on the page, and look for the item bylined ‘By Hugo Chavez.’ Indeed.)
The press is reporting that Paraguay’s ambassador to Venezuela was physically attacked in Caracas Friday. This comes on the heels of the kidnap/murder of Paraguay’s former first daughter by FARC guerrillas directing the operation by email from downtown Caracas. Paraguay has done literally nothing to Venezuela to attract this kind of thuggery. It does however have a weak state, a leftist guerrilla insurgency, and a rightwing government. Clearly, Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez thinks he’s got a state he thinks he can kick around with impunity. It’s not going to go down well in the streets of Asuncion. Read it here.…
It’s started. Cubans in Cuba are publicly meeting to begin their post-Castro revolution. Babalu has it. Don’t miss it. Read it here.
Thomas Lifson at American Thinker has an important item out about growing unrest in China. Huge riots are occurring, not just in the remote, impoverished west, but now in the wealthier coastal cities. At issue is corruption and impunity. And with the rise of mass communications and Internet connectivity, Chinese expectations about governance are rising. A billion people are getting sick of all the corruption and oppression they see around them. The root of the problem is this: the government will not renounce unworkable communism as its philosophy. It says communism is its system but capitalism is its policy. That…
Alek Boyd emailed one of Prime Minister Zapatero’s minions about the purpose of selling chemical agents to Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. He writes that in the reply he got from Spain, the Zapatero official said the exported chemical agents were used in tear gas. I guess we know what Hugo Chavez is planning now, given the disposition of Venezuela’s citizens. It should give one pause. Take a look at what Alek has learned here. UPDATE: U.S. Secretary of State Condi Rice has expressed concerns to Spain about its arms sales to Venezuela.
Venezuelan journalist Patricia Poleo, whose case we have tracked here was sentenced to six months’ jail by a Venezuelan kangaroo court. They said she misidentified a photo in one of her stories. It’s a characteristic of tyranny to issue draconian sentences for technicalities. But for Venezuela, the free press loses another voice. Government bureaucrats can safely operate outside free scrutiny. This is an outrage. Here is the email I got: Acaban de sentenciar a Patricia Poleo a 6 meses de carcel en el juicio con Jesse Chacon. VIVA LA LIBERTAD DE EXPRESION!!!!!!. UPDATE: Miguel Octavio has an insightful longer essay…
The sad reality of Venezuela’s opposition is its meltdown. Agencia EFE gives a good description of how opponents of the Chavez regime have largely drifted over into Miami, where they are both invisible and increasingly irrelevant to the revolution. Coming to the U.S. is, in a sense, a revolution of its own, because it’s a transformative experience, that of becoming a free person, but given the choice between freedom here and fighting a thug at home, most people prefer to melt into the milieu. It’s kind of sad. The regime knows this and is using it as a safety valve…
In Venezuela during the April 11, 2002 coup attempt, Miguel analyzes the chain of checks and balances that prevented the event from being far bloodier and more violent than it originally began. Those checks and balances – which he broadly reads as ‘decency’ – are now absent in today’s Chavez regime, which has since slid into tyranny. The analysis is critical to understanding how democracies metamorphasize into nondemocracies. Read it here.
In unstable countries, the fuse of revolution is lit from a burning dollar bill. And right now in Venezuela, there’s very dry tinder indeed. Billions of dollars of oil cash is being stolen by the cronies of dictator Hugo Chavez on a scale never seen while poverty there rises. Forty percent of Venezuela’s economy is oil, and all of that from an inefficient state oil company. What does that mean? Money that should be used to reinvest in equipment and maintenance to create jobs and keep the operation going is instead going into corrupt pockets while the pumpjacks, pipelines, refineries,…
Remember how thrilled you were when that clown-faced leftwing South American dictator with the leering grin got thrown out of power, in April 2002? And then just as swiftly, like some demented jack-in-the-box popping back out of his sealed box, he popped back into the seat of power? Jorge Arena has an interesting interview with Francisco Toro who was an eyewitness to the April 11 coup event in Venezuela, discussing the sights, moods and voices of the country during those uncertain days. Ruefully enough, it illuminates just how unworthy and incompetent Chavez’s opposition was. No wonder Hugo Chavez made it…
Miguel has translated a dazzling article from Spain outlining, in the most precise and concrete terms, why Venezuela can have all the poverty it cares to pay for. It’s chilling and illuminating. Read it here.
Miguel Octavio reports a wave of purges in Venezuela for workers who had the temerity to sign the Recall Referendum petition last August. Dictator Hugo Chavez’s vengeful party apparatus is hunting them down, one by one, and either denying them employment or firing them from their jobs. It’s all very redolent of the days of Stalin’s henchmen during the dark days of the Soviet Union or the Castro regime of Cuba over the years, and quite chilling. It heralds the complete politicization of society so characteristic of communist regimes and it will get a lot worse. Read the whole story…
Venezuela is the only country I know of whose Embassy employees in Washington are regularly commissioned to harass bloggers. Honestly, I don’t understand how this can be legal. We all get emails from them. They are worse than that, though – their crazed leftist “press” minions on the Internet, who have some sort of relationship with them, post bloggers’ home addresses, work places, phone numbers and e-mails on their sites. They also have called bloggers’ employers and attempted to get them fired. And of course they try desperately to find out who some of us are. This is all perfectly…
How’s we miss this? Here’s a tremendously good news source for Zimbabwewatchers called ZWNEWS.com, one of the best I’ve seen. Hat Tip: Dave
Miguel Buitrago at MABB blog in Bolivia has gotten word of four new blogs about Bolivia. See his roundup here. Apparently, blogging has taken off in Bolivia, a superb development, given the hammerlock assorted leftists have always had on news coming out of Bolivia. Now, we don’t need them, we get our news from Bolivians direct. Good work, Bolivian bloggers!
Blogger Miguel Octavio warns that despite the difficulty for many of taking Hugo Chavez entirely seriously, we Americans would be wise to pay attention to the rising tide of anti-Americanism now appearing in Venezuela. Don’t dismiss these ravings, they mean something, he warns. Based on what he knows of the Chavistas and their inherent psychology and known pattern of behaviors, he believes things could get serious.
Even if you don’t speak Spanish you can probably figure out what this cartoon, posted by Mexican blogger Cosme Hace says. I laughed when the cartoon comparison was made between Lopez Obrador and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Lopez Obrador was described as not another Chavez because he wasn’t ‘frivolous and stupid’ enough. Obviously, Hugo Chavez’s acquired a certain image around Latin America we all might not be aware of. Check it out here.