Huge rains have fallen this afternoon over Caracas and some areas of the country. Traffic is collapsed everywhere; landslides are happening; bridges are washed away.

What does Chavez do in front of the emergency? He calls a cadena to discuss a joint project of light bulbs with Vietnam, with cardboard models and all. Half of the country is washed away, half of the country is in need to listen to the radio to know ways to escape to return home from a hellish commute, and all they find is Chavez doing electoral politicking with a joint project with Vietnam, not even an inauguration. Chavez desperately trying to scrap a few more votes while people might be watching their home slide into oblivion.

It is hard to imagine a better example of abuse of the media by Chavez, who even has the nerve to say that “we are aware of some problems but we are taking care of them” and keep going on with his cadena as if nothing, a cadena that no one gives a fuck about. That is correct, if right now you are stuck in the worse traffic of your life, rain everywhere, and that mountain on the side looming quite dangerous as increasing rivulets of water keep coming down at you, the only thing you can hear, ON ANY radio station, is Chavez bullshitting about Vietnam and probably as usual rewriting history.

And that happened in 1999, and it happened about 4 years ago when someone drowned in the middle of Caracas main highway while Chavez was once again on cadena. You think the man would learn. You think that someone in his entourage would suggest to tape the damned cadena and play it later. But no. The supreme narcissistic creep, the most egotistical Venezuelan alive, keeps going on with his glory, giving a fuck about the rest of the country, be it his opposition stuck in traffic or his poor devotees whose shacks perilously clinging on the hills are about to slide down in a tide of mud.

What will it take for some of Chavez followers to realize that the guy only thinks of himself and that they are simply used for his personal goals?

-The end-

Huge rains have fallen this afternoon over Caracas and some areas of the country. Traffic is collapsed everywhere; landslides are happening; bridges are washed away.

What does Chavez do in front of the emergency? He calls a cadena to discuss a joint project of light bulbs with Vietnam, with cardboard models and all. Half of the country is washed away, half of the country is in need to listen to the radio to know ways to escape to return home from a hellish commute, and all they find is Chavez doing electoral politicking with a joint project with Vietnam, not even an inauguration. Chavez desperately trying to scrap a few more votes while people might be watching their home slide into oblivion.

It is hard to imagine a better example of abuse of the media by Chavez, who even has the nerve to say that "we are aware of some problems but we are taking care of them" and keep going on with his cadena as if nothing, a cadena that no one gives a fuck about. That is correct, if right now you are stuck in the worse traffic of your life, rain everywhere, and that mountain on the side looming quite dangerous as increasing rivulets of water keep coming down at you, the only thing you can hear, ON ANY radio station, is Chavez bullshitting about Vietnam and probably as usual rewriting history.

And that happened in 1999, and it happened about 4 years ago when someone drowned in the middle of Caracas main highway while Chavez was once again on cadena. You think the man would learn. You think that someone in his entourage would suggest to tape the damned cadena and play it later. But no. The supreme narcissistic creep, the most egotistical Venezuelan alive, keeps going on with his glory, giving a fuck about the rest of the country, be it his opposition stuck in traffic or his poor devotees whose shacks perilously clinging on the hills are about to slide down in a tide of mud.

What will it take for some of Chavez followers to realize that the guy only thinks of himself and that they are simply used for his personal goals?

-The end-

Tonight for the first time ever I actually felt sorry for Chavez. True, if this is amazing enough you will be even more amazed when you will know why: Chavez looked like a pathetic man when he almost sort of apologized from forcing on us cadenas. That is right, in one of the multiple cadenas he did today I heard when he was trying to explain lamely why he was doing a cadena, because the people had the right to know all the truth about what was going in Venezuela and well, it was his duty to call for cadenas to make sure people were informed.

The first rule when you are going to commit an abuse is to pretend at all times that it is not an abuse!!!! Or as one saying goes, if the lie is big enough it has a better chance to hold.

The astounding thing here is that Chavez admits, ADMITS, that his communication policies have been a failure, at least considering whatever goals he had. For those late in the game a cadena is that privilege of Venezuelan executive to force SIMULTANEOUS broadcast on ALL TV and RADIO stations in the country, of its message, for as long as the government pleases to do so. Needles to remind folks that Chavez has been abusing this privilege in mind boggling ways, the more so when elections are near. Just today we are, if I understand well, already through our third cadena. There might be an explanation for that: narcissistic Chavez cannot stand that today the world, including chavistas, are glued on TV to see the first African American be elected the next US president. Chavez just cannot share the limelight.....

So there we are, a president who controls the two networks with the largest reach in the country (VTV and Tves), who has neutered two other nation wide networks (Venevision and Televen) who has created supplemental networks which are nothing but 24/24 pro Chavez propaganda (ViVe and ANTV), who has created hundreds of local media that faithfully follow his dictum against only a few dozens independent regional media, who has banished to cable the only two networks that are critical of him (RCTV and Globovision), who has the only radio allowed to broadcast nation wide (RNV), who has several radio groups under its thumb, who has been busy dismantling any private radio group, who does a cadena whenever the f%$% he wants it, is admitting that his message is not coming through!!!!!!! I mean, in at least half of the country if you have no cable you CANNOT GET ANY CRITICAL MEDIA!!!!! So tonight he must do a cadena because he must silence Globovision (RCTV is only cable so they escape cadena rules). He did not say it directly but that what it was, he is silencing Globovison, not even Venevision or Televen who at this time play soaps and games.

I remember in past comment section wars that a few silly to idiot defenders of Chavez tried to make all sorts of excuses for him closing up RCTV. There was even a brat that was throwing lines such as all the answers were in Chomsky. Whatever. The reply was always simple: you cannot fight the power of the remote control. If people do not watch Chavez incessant propaganda media, it is because they do not want to watch it. Force feeding them will only lead to them turning off their TV, with the same remote by the way. Apparently if these supporters are not understanding this basic rule of human freedom, choice, Chavez understands it very well and admits he wants to take it away form us. Blunt admission almost.

Clockwork Orange anyone?

-The end-

Two articles today allow us to think that the US will not be as tame in its relations with Chavez, no matter which is the new administration. We already know that Obama and McCain have been competing in being the harshest on Chavez and his pals, but what these two articles make us see is that the "anti-Chavez feel", to give it a name, is percolating beyond the presidential candidates circles, an essential condition for a bipartisan policy against Chavez to be implemented.

The first one is an editorial, no less, from the Washington Post. Here the novelty is a clear petition that the US only helps friendly regimes and let the other ones sink in the "XXI century socialism" predictable fiasco. I am not too sure about the hang up about Correa who is weaker than one would expect in spite of winning his referendum in rather scandalous conditions. To begin with he lost in Guayaquil, his home state, thus previewing the rise of a strong opposition much faster than what many will expect. And second the dollarization of Ecuador's economy which will limit his range of action. If Correa dares to leave the dollar zone the backlash could quickly undermine him and create conditions for an early exit. After all dollarization survived the constituent assembly, the ideal time to make such change, and thus Correa might have missed his real chance at controlling all à la Chavez.

But the Post is right on one thing: the satellites of Chavez need more the US than the US needs them and it is simply fair that the US start using its leverage in forcing them to chose once and for all between socialist misery or democracy and a diversified economy. The resources recovered them can be transferred to more reliable partners or allies such as Colombia, Peru and the rest of Central America. Crisis or no crisis, "capitalism" and true democracy have demonstrated historically to be resilient, a re-inventive system whereas autocratic socialism has yet to establish a successful example anywhere in the world. Time is on the US side and Western values and thus it is time that the US starts speeding things up by choosing who to help: the other side will rot even faster.

The other article is from O'Grady at the WSJ. It is a direct warning that the congressional democrats need to put their act together. We do observe indeed a tendency from the House to be too lenient towards extremist groups while refusing to vote the free trade treaty with Colombia. However we cannot help but be dismayed by that congressional ambivalence that does not exist with Obama who is called to become their leader next November (I think it is in the bag for him as I cannot foresee how the GOP will recover in one month from the financial crisis). I suspect that once Obama is in the white House things will straighten up some as it has been clear that part of the ambiguous congressional posturing was for electoral purposes. Freed of that pressure and looking ahead to 8 years of rule the trade treaty with Colombia can be easily voted, in particular with the help of Chavez as he wants nuclear energy. We should not forget that we can always rely on Chavez to offer his enemies the necessary arguments to counterattack him.

If the current summary of Venezuela situation by Ms O'Grady is excellent (includes a video where she stumbles on the word Nuclear), we can still regret that she could not resist the cheap shot of showing Pelosi and Cordoba in chavista red. The picture was taken a year ago, when Cordoba was still not as implied in terrorist activity and before the freedom of Ingrid Betancourt. Since that picture was taken even Chavez publicly broke with the FARC (even if we all know that secretly he is doing anything he can to help them, but that is another story). Probably today Cordoba would not be received anymore by Pelosi. However this partisan moment of O'Grady does not diminish at all the main point she makes: the US Congress will have to chose sides if it hopes to retain any relevance.

-The end-

Since the Reyes/FARC laptops appeared, the ONLY defense that chavismo had found was that they are all fake, manipulated stuff. Well, maybe, but unfortunately Chavez has done enough pro FARC actions before to make these laptops unnecessary to establish his links with those criminal drug traffickers, no matter how hard his media offensive goes. The laptops merely give juicy details. The damage is done no matter what and Chavez knows that very well as he tries to distract folks attention by screaming "computer fraud" in the vain hope that folks will forget about all what he said about the FARC since last year. Weill summarizes this quite well today, the silly strategy and its failure.



-The end-

[updated]

In a stunning development I just saw on TV the communication minister resigning. The reason? He takes upon himself the decision of having "commercialized" the images of VTV, as I explained in absolute outrage early this morning.

I thought it was fishy and I am glad, for once, to congratulate the higher government echelons of Chavez who realized the foolishness of Izarra actions; even more so from a government who thrives on media exposure.

I suppose that again VTV will be free of charge, as it should be. It is up to the ministers of the government to behave and stop saying nonsense, not to Izarra to have Yuri Pimentel to charge for such inanities. By the way, my guess seems to have been good, it did not come from Pimentel but from his boss, who is fired from the same job for the second time. Ah! one cannot get good help these days.. :)

UPDATE: so how does Chavez face a major scandal? He calls for yet another cadena. It started two hours ago, the excuse being some medics coming back from their indoctrination course, errh, specialization course in Cuba. He is handing them their new job. For that we need a long cadena, a hijacking of ALL Venezuelan media so nobody can discuss on TV the disgraced (again) communication minister. So an abuse is hidden by another abuse. Democratic and responsible chavismo at work.

-The end-

One year after taken RCTV from the air waves, the chavista censors have found a way to silence Globovison. Or at least dull considerably their ability to expose the misdeeds of the government: from now on any second lifted from the open broadcast transmission of VTV will be charged at the exorbitant rate of 56 USD. That is, every 30 second that is used by Globovision (and others, cable or open air signal, it does not matter as Globovision is the real target) will cost 1674 USD. And this payable every time it is retransmitted. The memorandum sent by VTV director, ineffable Yuri Pimentel, is worthy of detailed scrutiny as it reveals the clear censorship intentions of the government through VTV.

The first paragraph is a masterpiece of arrogance.

VTV [the state TV, the 24/24 pro chavez propaganda channel at tax payer expense] in defense of its property and its most important asset, which is the the signal that they emit daily to 90% of the national territory; considering that it witness daily the indiscriminate use of its broadcast, through retransmission, by private broadcaster for commercial aims and other, has decided to establish the following payment schedule.

So here we are, the state TV who serves only Chavez, who rarely if ever allows any opposition view inside, will also charge for its broadcast. This would sound pretty reasonable IF THERE WERE another open air broadcast, paid by tax payer, that has 90% coverage of the country and where the political opposition would have, said, at least 40% of air time. IT DOES NOT. The TV stations that air opposition point of views are only private and are limited to regional transmission or to cable. That is the case of RCTV who covered 90% of the country and who now is limited to the 28% homes share of the cable. That is the case of Globovision who fares somewhat better as it also operates with an open signal Caracas and Valencia which roughly gives it a 40% national reach. That is the case of any local TV who individually reach at the very most a 10-15% of the population of Venezuela.

Some of you would said still at this point, "so what?". Let me first point out that a self styled socialist government suddenly considers as private property what belongs to ALL Venezuelans. Indeed, the vary same slogan of VTV is "el canal de todos los Venezolanos" stressing on the 'todos', the networks of ALL Venezuelans. As thus any Venezuelan should be able to use its transmissions since we all pay for them with our taxes, INCLUDING private media broadcasters. But let's move beyond this primal contradiction of the sick mind of Pimentel and those who ordered him to do that (I do not think that he is intelligent enough to come up with this strategy, though he is vicious enough).

If you still find nothing really wrong with that, which by now should mean that you are either a Chavez supporter or simply do not follow regularly how the news are broadcast INSIDE Venezuela, let me explain to you who the real target of this measure is.

RCTV was closed one year ago in what was perhaps the greatest political error of chavismo, even including the FARC recognition. Yet, in spite of this, RCTV through cable managed to gain the highest morning ratings with the talk show La Entrevista, which uses a lot of VTV footage to examine and criticize governmental actions. In the afternoon, in spite of all sorts of attempt, Alo Ciudadano reigns over the ratings from 5 to 8 PM at Globovision, not to mention Grado 33 from 8 to 8:30 PM. Neither VTV nor the neutralized Venevision and Televen have been able to do anything about this as even chavistas watch these spaces.

And why folks watch these spaces? Because VTV only offers propaganda, because the other private networks offer nothing and because through snippets taken from VTV Globovision and RCTV expose the mediocrity and failures and contradictions of the chavista regime. That is why there is a surprisingly large number of chavista who watch these networks, because they get the arguments they need for the internal chavista discussions.

But some of you might still not be impressed. After all you could say that Globovision should send its own camera folks to cover what they need and thus create their very own footage. Good, excellent point of course. Except for one thing: Globovision or RCTV are not allowed in most official functions or press conferences of government officials and thus MUST USE the VTV signal as it is most of the time the only source available for the declaration of such and such minister or chavista politician. When was the last time that Chavez gave a real press conference to ALL Venezuelan media? How often have you seen on TV ministers making important declarations ONLY in front of the microphones of RNV or VTV, and in a discrete hallway at that, as a perfect set up to make sure no embarrassing question shall rise?

By forcing Globovision to pay for ANYTHING taken from VTV in fact the government exerts almost direct censorship: the ability of Globovision to transmit information will be considerably limited, serious criticism of governmental measures at Globovision will be blocked as it cannot show the actual facts and thus risks lacking credibility by only "speaking" about things and not "showing" things, a crucial element in this media era. And the case for other services is even worse: Globovision could still afford the occasional snippet when it is really, really important, but local providers and RCTV simply cannot afford the fees of VTV as too much of their meager advertisement income would be swallowed (RCTV had to reduce its staff by 50% and one year after is still fighting to avoid outright bankruptcy). For all practical purposes, if this measures goes into effect, the access to information of the Venezuelan people will be severely damaged as all official information will have to come through the rosy filter of VTV. And let's not forget one additional benefit for VTV: since much less of its stuff can be now shown, since its editorial abuses will be less prone to scrutiny, we can easily imagine that creeps like Mario Silva at La Hojilla will feel even freer to slander opposition figures without these ones having the recourse to defend themselves at the remaining free channels.

Censorship, as simple as that.

Note: as an added insult to injury, VTV states that all all emissions featuring Chavez and official events will be free of charge, and only if these are shown during news hours. HOWEVER, if any editing is done they will be charged. The memo does not precise if simply shortening of a given speech is considered editing.... Since the words of Chavez are sacred, we can expect that even removal or portions will be considered editing.

And of course no word as to VTV paying Globovison or RCTV for all the transmissions that they get from them to show at slander shows such as La Hojilla.

And even less if private networks will be compensated from the loss of revenue from awful cadenas as the one last night.


-The end-

With the departure of "red" Ken Livingstone from the London Mayor office (not too soon), the new Mayor, Boris Johnson, brings back some reality in the day to day workings. One of his first measures is to put an end to one of the most scandalous and perverse subsidies known to us, the one where Chavez subsidizes transport in London through discounted oil price. Yes, that is right, the president of one of the most run down cities in Latin America, Caracas, with staggering poverty problems, utterly deficient mass transit and irremediably clogged streets was subsidizing one of the wealthiest cities in the World, London. The sole reason for the deal was to shore up the sagging fortunes of Ken Livingstone while getting a pro Chavez propaganda office in London sponsored by its mayor. Birds of a feather.....

In one of these revealing moments, Ken Livingstone, who apparently is unable to get a hint, declared that Boris Johnson was crewing the poor of London. Of course, "red" Ken has absolutely no sympathy for the poor of Caracas, demonstrating that in populism some poor are more equal than other poor. Not to mention his cynicism in declaring that suppressing the traffic advisory from London to Caracas was affecting the poor here. Clearly, Red Ken never sat his sorry butt in a buseta at Caracas at peak hour.

Note:

The G400+ of Caracas of which I am a founding signatory has something to do with the speedy decision of Johnson. Not that we hope that the money that was sent to London will come back in improving Caracas transportation system for the poor, but at least the obscene deal is off and we slap Chavez and one of his most cynical supporters. We also helped show that Chavez eventually brings bad luck to whomever takes money from him.


-The end-

Not a good Sunday for Chavez. There was this piece from Romero about his desperate need to control everything; the one by Carroll feeling sorry for the guy; and now the blast from the Washington Post. Here is the title and even more telling subtitle:

Hard-Drive Diplomacy
Evidence of Venezuela's support for terrorism could carry Hugo Chávez to the pariah status he deserves.

Oh dear.....

I am reporting this late because for some reason the mail daily digest of the WaPo came in late today. But talk about cosmic karma, the icing on the cake after the two previous articles.

Note that if the WaPo is direct, and strong, and convinced of Chavez complicity with the FARC, it also understands very well the rather cowardly Latin American mood. Thus its very constructive solution, one advocated in this blog already: punish the culprits, do not punish Venezuela. The WaPo wisely notices that the referendum was voted down in December and thus a majority of Venezuelans clearly do not agree with the FARC ties. Punishing all of us can only serve Chavez interests.

All in all AN EXCELLENT assessment of the present situation. Let's hope that all the people concerned, from the silly lefty Democrats (Delahunt) to the right wing nutty Republicans (Connie Mack) will sit down together and realize the gravity of the situation, that the time of permissiveness and grand standing is over.

-The end-

Today's editorial in the Washington Post is a must read because it marks a milestone in how a newspaper regards its role when the interests of a country are at stake, when faced with outdated parochialism from its top leaders. In this almost acerbic editorial the Post takes directly upon Speaker Pelosi and Union leader Sweeney, accusing them of false motives regarding their opposition to the trade deal with Colombia and thus favoring Venezuela. It cannot be any clearer. Below I post in full the editorial with my comments in between paragraphs. It is just too delicious to miss such an opportunity even if the editorial speaks for itself.

--- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Colombia's Case
The intellectual poverty of a free-trade deal's opponents

The subtitle says it all from the start.

HOUSE SPEAKER Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says the Bush administration's free-trade agreement with Colombia may not be dead, even though she has postponed a vote on it indefinitely. If the White House doesn't "jam it down the throat of Congress," she said, she might negotiate. Ms. Pelosi wants an "economic agenda that gives some sense of security to American workers and businesses . . . that somebody is looking out for them" -- though she was vague as to what that entails. Nor did she specify how anyone could "jam" through a measure on which the administration has already briefed Congress many, many times.

The Post calls Pelosi's bluff, if not lies. The lack of real leadership from Pelosi has been quite apparent and she has been a disappointment as a speaker. Her sole agenda seems to have been countering Bush. It is her right but not her duty for someone in her position. She could have started by realizing that Bush was a lame duck and thus think a little bit more outside the sand box keeping partisanship at home and not let it spill on the necessary bipartisan approach for foreign policy. Iraq, for all of its mistakes and horrors cannot cloud Pelosi's mind on other issues. That is her duty.

Still, in the hope that Ms. Pelosi might in fact schedule a vote, it may be worth examining once more the arguments against this tariff-slashing deal. Perhaps we should say "argument," because there is really only one left: namely, that Colombia is "the most dangerous place in the world to be a trade unionist" and that the government of President Álvaro Uribe is to blame. As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney put it in an April 14 Post op-ed, union workers in Colombia "face an implicit death sentence."

Because that is the only argument that is left for Sweeney and Pelosi now that all the other arguments have been made irrelevant. The Post implicitly recalls that it would actually benefit US workers as the trade deal FAVORS exports toward Colombia. The only advantage for Colombia is that its favorable status in exporting to the US will be made more permanent instead of being subjected to the vagaries of whomever is sitting in the Oval Office or Congress. In other words two Democrats are opposing the creation of more potential jobs for US workers that would be exporting to Colombia. Priceless! The third Democrat in the race must be be beaming!

Colombia is, indeed, violent -- though homicide has dramatically declined under Mr. Uribe. There were 17,198 murders in 2007. Of the dead, only 39 -- or 0.226 percent -- were even members of trade unions, let alone leaders or activists, according to the Colombian labor movement. (Union members make up just under 2 percent of the Colombian population.)

This hardly suggests a campaign of anti-union terrorism in Colombia. Moreover, the number of trade unionists killed has fallen from a rate of about 200 per year before Mr. Uribe took office in 2002, despite a reported uptick in the past few months. (Arrests have already been made in three of this year's cases, according to Bogota.) And evidence is sparse that all, or even most, of the union dead were killed because of their labor organizing. As Mr. Sweeney and other critics note, precious few cases have been solved, which is hardly surprising given that Colombia's judicial system has been under attack from left-wing guerrillas, drug traffickers and right-wing death squads -- a war, we repeat, that Mr. Uribe has greatly contained. But in cases that have been prosecuted, the victims' union activity or presumed support for guerrillas has been the motive in fewer than half of the killings.

The Post says it all briefly. Even crudely presented as that, it hardly seems enough of a reason to stop the trade deal when China children factories are allowed to export to the world, and the US. Apparently Colombia's evil are much greater than workers exploitation in China, in a scale that was not seen since the XIX century worst hours of US capitalism. where are the Union Leaders of China? How often they visit and sit down with Sweeney and Pelosi to ask them for help in protecting China's workers rights? Maybe next in line after the Tibetan monks....

An April 10 letter to the editor from Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch suggested that we would not make such arguments "if death squads with ties to the U.S. government were targeting Post reporters for assassination." We like to think that our criticism would be energetic but fair, especially if the government was responding aggressively to such a campaign and the number of killings was declining. No fair-minded person can fail to note that Colombian unionists are far safer today than they used to be.

This is kind of interesting. That the HRW Malinowski offers such an image is in fact perverse. We all know that journalists in Colombia and Mexico are routinely persecuted and killed by drug boss cartels and disgruntled politicians. The issue is completely different here and that Malinowski offers such a cruel and unnecessary comparison only proves the Post point: arguments against the FTA with Colombia have long ceased to be based on rationality.

There are two important countries at the north of South America. One, Colombia, has a democratic government that, with strong support from the Clinton and Bush administrations, has bravely sought to defeat brutal militias of the left and right and to safeguard human rights. The other, Venezuela, has a repressive government that has undermined media freedoms, forcibly nationalized industries, rallied opposition to the United States and, recent evidence suggests, supported terrorist groups inside Colombia. That U.S. unions, human rights groups and now Democrats would focus their criticism and advocacy on the former, to the benefit of the latter, shows how far they have departed from their own declared principles.

There, you have it, clear as water. The price the Democrats will pay for that is yet to be fully measured, but it will cost the US dearly. Trust me on that one. Again let me remind you that had Pelosi and her court in Congress be serious about their opposition they would have included time clauses or something to demand continued progress inside Colombia. But no, the objective was to sink a Bush proposal, one of the very few good ones he has had in 7 years. Partisanship at its worst.


-The end-