Blogging the democratic revolution
How do democracy struggles, broadly interpreted, and environmental struggles, also in the greater scheme of things, specifically apply to Venezuela? Find out in Gustavo Coronel’s excellent, thoughtful, elegantly written essay here.
Class resentment is a toxic force in Venezuela and Blogger Daniel in Yaracuy has written an excellent descriptive essay of the phenomenon that gives the chavista movement its steam. It’s bitter stuff and keeps many people actively chavista for a long time. It pains me to say it but he incorrectly compares this bitter chavista group to the religious right in the U.S., using crude 1980s stereotypes that are false. E.g., I wouldn’t call this polished product the result of resentful Neanderthals covering up their own failures. But skip that graf – the rest of the essay is far more…
Venezuelans are barraged daily with exhortations about the wonderful state of Cuba’s progress. One blogger, Daniel in Yaracuy, notes the Tortugas refugees, and thinks there must be another story. What a sad thing to have to contemplate that from Venezuela, which is rapidly heading down that Cuban path.
We all know from reading Barcepundit that there is a lot of nonsense going on in Spain. But to a Venezuelan observer, it doesn’t quite look that way. In an indication of how low dictator Hugo Chavez has taken Venezuela, blogger Miguel Octavio notes interesting comparisons between the two states. In terms of progress, they seem to have switched positions, with Spain decisively moving upward and Venezuela moving downward. It wasn’t always that way. In fact, it wasn’t even that way within most of our lifetimes. There are reasons why. Read the whole thing here.
Ever wondered what makes the sinews of one the world’s foremost enemies of freedom move? It’s money of course, $500,000 of it in oil-rich Venezuela’s case, but how it happens is what’s most in need of some daylight. Alek Boyd at VCrisis has gotten hold of new Freedom of Information Act documents on the Venezuela Information Office, the propaganda arm of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez. He has a 31-page file filled out by the VIO in Washington itself, detailing the people it met, the ways it preoccupied itself, and the reporters it courted and harassed. It’s pretty creepy reading –…
Remember those pictures of Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez hugging Mullah Mohamad Khatami of Iran, and the two of them waving their fists from the banks of the Orinoco? To much fanfare, the pair of them jointly opened a tractor factory in Ciudad Bolivar to cement their alliance. Then they announced the dawn of a new era of friendship and cooperation between the two anti-American tyrannies. Ten days later, the new factory has gone on strike. Miguel has the scoop here.
More good investigative work on the Hugo Chavez financial and propaganda networks from Alek Boyd here. It’s interesting reading.
I knew the nicey-nice between President Uribe of Colombia and dictator Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was fake. The spat they had over Colombian bounty hunters snatching FARC terrorists from Venezuelan streets was just a prelude. Today, a new incident happened. Venezuelan troops, seeking ‘gas smugglers,’ actually crossed the border into Colombia and occupied a little Colombian village for several hours, abusing the villagers. This is no bounty hunter incident, this is a bona fide military invasion. And probably a practice run for a real invasion, because Colombia is a country that Hugo Chavez, along with Fidel Castro, has long had…
Fausta in the comments let me know about an article that not only describes the deteriorating situation in Venezuela and spies in the U.S., but how liberal commie-wannabes are idolizing Chavez and his so-called Bolivarian revolution. Check out the article. It has a lot of translations from Spanish articles.
Blogger Alek Boyd has done an amazing job unravelling the the tangled web of dictator Hugo Chavez’s financial network in the U.S. Linking shell corporation to shell corporation, he’s well on the way to putting together a comprehensive picture of these enemies of the U.S. nesting and operating in our own country. The Chavista network is being exposed. Read the whole thing here and see a telling photo here. P.S.: Eva Golinger looks just like one of those World War II enemy women – Eva Braun? Tokyo Rose? if you ask me.
If you need a summary of what has happened to Venezuela since the dictatorship of Hugo Chavez, Gustavo Coronel, an elegant essayist, has a long but well-written description of the path to ruin, “In Venezuela: The Time of the Barbarians” here.
Miguel Octavio outlines an alarming scenario to Hugo Chavez’s mysterious pattern of actions regarding his assets abroad and at home. The blogger believe Venezuela may be shoved into default, like Argentina, and Chavez is taking steps to shield himself from creditors after the deed is done. To ruin a country’s good name like that should be treason. But it’s likely what Chavez has in mind, and something that will further consolidate his power. Miguel has the alarming pattern of actions explained in easily understood terms here.
Last Friday, the Venezuelan government declared a new law, one that makes it an actual crime to ‘offend Chavez.’ Chavez of course will say when he is offended. The king decides. And this means bloggers. A new Venezuelan blogger, called Jolly, gives his take here.
Alek Boyd has one hell of a good news report and short analysis of the Boston “friendship” meeting with Chavista officials, who are conducting a propaganda offensive in the U.S. The details about grilled shrimp and duck quesadillas among the jeweled chavistas is priceless. But it goes well well beyond that to give us the scope of Venezuelan ‘active measures’ to manipulate perceptions in the U.S. It’s not normal stuff. There is one particularly wrenching encounter between a Russian woman who has known communism firsthand and has a perfect grasp of its underlying dynamic, and a Chavista official who keeps…
Remember the Venezuelan reporter whose house was raided and trashed by dictator Hugo Chavez’s security agents? We wrote about her here, here and here. She’s now being prosecuted. The interior minister is believed to be targetting Patricia Poleo because some think he wants to erase his role in a 1992 coup attempt from history, and she’s written about it. Alek Boyd has a summary here. In the middle of all this, there’s a grotesque picture of someone, accused by Poleo of being the interior minister himself, of posing over a dead body from the 1992 coup attempt here she wrote…
As we wrote here, Venezuela’s mayor of Caracas and some other offiicials paid a visit to Boston where they were met by starry-eyed officials, were dished heaps of praise, and were taken around town in the proverbial dog and pony show. The Venezuelan blogosphere, however, did more than just write words to reply this time, they also organized a counter demonstration, getting their word out to event-goers with a demonstration there and printing up a flyer. Details of the successful counterdemonstration are here and in the comments section here.
Jennifer McCoy, who led the disastrous Carter-Center-sanctioned destruction of democracy in Venezuela, is now trying to defend herself to Venezuela’s bloggers. A little spin control, I suppose, in light of just how deeply the Carter-endorsed fraud in Venezuela’s recall referendum has sunk into American consciousness. This shows the power of Venezuela’s tenacious bloggers in getting the truth out when the media first wouldn’t. The media has largely changed its line of course, so now the Carterites are on the defensive, but still defending the indefensible.
In Caracas, Venezuela, a controversial mayor there is a guy who once chased a potbanging protestor around with a broken booze bottle at Caracas airport. Well, he’s now in Boston to instruct the Ivy-Leaguers at the august institutions of Harvard and MIT. He’s a real charmer. Read the whole thing here, and here.
Congressman Bill Delahunt of the U.S. wrote a rosy piece for the Boston Globe this week, touting the glories of Chavista Venezuela. Everything he said looked like it was lifted from the playbook of the Venezuelan Information Office, the propaganda arm of the Marxist Venezuelan regime. Venezuela’s Gustavo Coronel corrects the record in an eloquent essay here.
You have to be there to know. And to appreciate. As Ireland struggles to shake off the gang violence and thuggery of the IRA in this Age Of Freedom, it makes an intriguing impression on a Venezuelan who is watching events unfold from the U.K. Read Alek Boyd’s fresh insights on what this world revolution is all about as he compares the two struggles here .
The outrages and tyrannies engulfing Hugo Chavez’s communist Venezuela are coming faster and more furious than anyone can keep up with. Blogger Daniel in Yaracuy has got the news roundup here.
A story so hideous I can barely think about it. This is the third such incident in Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela. This is how Chavez deals with dissidents and troublemakers … and warns the others. To make it even more suspicious, the soldiers, ages 19 and 20, injured in the incident were improving – but all of a sudden died. I do not know any other country where this grotesque ‘punishment’ happens. Read the details here, here and here.
The phrase, from a U.S. official, speaking on the record about Venezuela, is just too good. Read the whole thing here.