Blogging the democratic revolution
Venezuela: Where products are generic – and customers are branded Source: Anibal Barreto, Correo de Caroni, via Feathers In the slums of Caracas, Chavista grocery patrons are now being branded on their bellies (food goes into your belly, right?) with indelible ink by store personnel to ensure that they do not buy more chicken than…
Fausta has an impressive piece at Pajamas Media on how and why Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez was able to rise to absolute power as a dictator of Venezuela, which he announced on Jan. 9 and consolidated on Feb. 4. If you’re new to Venezuela, or if you just want to read something summed up perfectly, make…
After years of braying about ‘food security’ – Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has accomplished the opposite of that: widespread empty shelves for basic food stocks like meat and sugar, throughout Venezuelan grocery stores, duplicating Soviet-style food shortages. The next step will be rationing. As of now, only chicken feet can be bought, according to this…
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Source: AP, via Yahoo! News U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice came out with strong and unambiguous language for Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, warning that he was trashing democracy and destroying his country. She went after him with a sledgehammer. Naturally, the Venezuelan thug will response with those weird…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez assumed power to dictate by decree today Source: EFE, via Yahoo! Mexico Never let it be known that Hugo Chavez is not a dictator now. Anything he says, goes. The Venezuelan rubber-stamp assembly passed a legislative bill to let Hugo “rule by decree.”He will continue to expropriate property, devalue the money,…
RCTV workers in Caracas today protest Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez’s vow to shut them down Source: Reuters, via Yahoo! News Venezuela’s oldest television station is under the gun from the Venezuelan dictatorship of Hugo Chavez. When I say ‘under the gun’ I mean that literally, and you’ll see if you read further. Chavez has vowed…
Gisele Bunchen in Esquire, 2004 Source: Thomas Hawk blog Beautiful Gisele Bundchen of Brazil has always been my favorite supermodel. Her regal good looks, her tall physique, and her unusual grownup features have always made her a natural for the camera and great photographs. Now she’s given me a reason to really like her –…
Charallave airport west of Caracas Source: Globovision I am getting weary of the words ‘expropriation’ or ‘confiscation’ – what’s going on in Venezuela right now is outright stealing. Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez stole himself an airport today, taking over the Charallave small airplane airport well outside Caracas, which is where all the small planes in…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, who now rules by decree Source: AP, via Yahoo! News So how’d you like one man making all your decisions for you? He’d pick your legislator, or dump him, as he pleased. He’d decide your food security – what you would eat. He’d decide whether you get housing or whether you’d…
In Cuba, instead of using democratic decision-making conventions, like voting, governance is done through the screams and hurled objects of swarming Castroite mobs. Any time a dissident becomes known, the mobs which carry out actos de repudio – acts of repudiation – are right there on the scene, howling communist slogans, throwing rocks, and wielding…
No one relishes the idea of getting into a verbal spat with the likes of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. The Venezuelan president is a thug, a dictator, a caudillo and atrociously violent and vulgar with words, not even counting spit flecks and dog breath. Fighting with him is like wrestling a pig – you both get…
You can kind of hear it in the distance, the tolling bell for Chavez as his regime spirals into ever louder lunacy. But there is a real tolling bell that will get him, the bell of plunging oil prices. That bell is starting to ring so you can hear it. This week, oil prices fell…
Yelling “Fatherland, socialism or death!” Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez was sworn in for his third term, to the sound of crickets chirping. Not one world leader showed up to this Caracas spectacular to witness it – not a single one. Chavez says he didn’t invite anyone, but given his need for adulation, I leave it…
Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has signalled his true intentions with more clarity than ever today, announcing that he would expropriate: 1. All the phone lines 2. All the electricity As this happened, a provincial governor from Bolivar state down south let it all hang out, simply saying he wanted to confiscate the entire media, forcing…
Like a rotting jungle, redolent of every odor and fetid color, yet utterly impassable in viney tangles, nothing seems to stop the spreading corruption that has now gripped Hugo Chavez’s communist caudillo hacienda known as Venezuela. Daniel in Venezuela, at Venezuela News & Views has an excellent Venezuela corruption roundup, with links to several sources…
Is there any such thing as a Marxist regime without an invasion for territory? The Soviets did it – in Chechnya and elsewhere inside the marginally consolidated Tsarist empire, including the vast booty they took in one quarter of the Ukraine in the aftermath of WWI. Then they moved on to other territories, including forays…
When I went to Venezuela late last year, I came back with the impression that it was heading well into Jim Jones territory. There was too much cult of personality there, starting with the gigantic Hugo Chavez billboard that greets you from Caracas airport before you take the highway into the shantytowns, and within the…
Slavery, and human sacrifices, are the two great historic curses of our hemisphere that took vast amounts of blood and treasure and time to wipe out after great struggles. But amid these eradications, which were thought to be for good, the seeds of these evils apparently still exist. That’s why we are seeing slavery recrudesce….
Venezuela and Russia show remarkable similarities in their social, political and economic systems and levels of attainment, so it is perhaps not surprising to see their two tinpot leaders, Vladimir Putin and Hugo Chavez, seeking ever closer relations. An even more disturbing parallel, though, is that in both countries men who are essentially dictators have…
Anti-communist women from Santa Cruz are detained in Bolivia by police enforcers loyal to the leftist government of Evo Morales, which is showing growing intolerance of political dissent. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez threatened them today for their refusal to support Morales. Source, all photos: Getty Images Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez has warned the Bolivian babes…
Now that Hugo Chavez has been reelected president by a wide margin, Venezuela is swiftly moving toward a one-party state. I know, you think I’m just being a rightwing alarmist. I’m just making it up, it’s nothing but some ruse to make Hugo Chavez look bad. But this isn’t coming from Venezuelans, or from my…
In the wake of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s thundrous electoral victory on Sunday, he’s back in action, legislating new taxes on Venezuela’s battered middle class. For his first move, he’s decided to tax toilet seats as an “inessential item.” I guess the Venezuelans, some of whom elected him, are now supposed to just go without….
Voting around Caracas on Sunday. These photos were taken by a pool of 38 citizen journalists who documented the electoral process. Their fascinating slideshow can be found at this Flickr site, here. Hat tip: Venezuela Today Venezuelans went to the polls today to decide who their new president would be. The polls are closed, except…
Based on who I’ve talked to, here is the latest reading of what is believed to be likely to happen Sunday. It pretty much makes sense – on Monday, we can see how it stacks to reality. 1. Markets went hog wild Friday and one source tells me it’s because the markets are pricing in…
Venezuela is staring down D-Day, the great final election of a year full of Latin American elections, beginning this Sunday. At stake: Will Hugo Chavez be thrown out of power by his own people? Right now, the polls are mixed, with Chavista polls saying Chavez has a wide lead, and Opposition polls saying Manuel Rosales,…