The Devil's Excrement

About a month ago, our dog suddenly died. She was only four, a
delightful, loving and slightly crazy Doberman. I did not mention it
in the blog, because it was quite tough to say much about it,
something anyone that has had pets will surely understand.

It was not clear why she died so suddenly, her liver was inflamed, she
had lost her appetite and within twenty four hours she was dead of
something that appeared to be akin to poisoning, but it was hard to
imagine how it could have happened.

Two weeks go we heard from our vet that more cases similar to her had
been happening in Caracas and cities nearby. On Friday, they called us
to find out what we fed the dog and whether we still had some of her
food.

Today, Purina of Venezuela carried full page ads in Caracas
newspapers, saying that as a precautionary measure they were removing
their Dog Chow line of dog food from the market, saying:

“We are taking this action after receiving veterinary reports that
indicate that some pets may have presented health problems due to
their feeding…Despite not having evidence that these reports originate
by the consumption of dog food, we believe that there is some problem
and we want to take precautions to insure the health of the pets and
the confidence of the owners”

I had never heard of this happening anywhere in the world and still
have a hard time imagining what could have caused it. It surprises me
that they are so forthcoming with the problem as it will be very hard
for the company to overcome the news that will surround it.

It does sadden me that by picking the wrong food, I unwittingly had
something to do with her death. I write this, so that anyone with a
dog being fed with Purina products in Venezuela, immediately stop
doing it until the matter is understood.

From today’s El Nacional by reporter Luis Garcia Mora, it speaks for itself

A Totalitarian Scheme

Let’s not fool ourselves, dear readers.

As a well known friend and medical doctor says, when he refers to the
regime and the current moment, anyone that thinks that this is going
to stabilize and its going to produce results is wrong.

None of this is permanent.

It has been six years and the country is living a subsistence crisis,
where one can feel the continuous collapse of populist management. You
can feel it, you can touch it: the waste is beyond belief and each
Bolivar is now worth only a cent. And this in the middle of the
highest oil windfall ever. You only need to see the streets, the
cities, to appreciate the national disaster.

The missions, the Bolivarian units, attempts on the fly and through
the grassroots to redefine a new social structure in the popular
sectors where the economic asphyxia is explosive. Neither his
Government nor his party work for Chavez and the human resources and
the technicians of the Armed Forces have reached their limit of
utilization for social politics, which implies there is a fight to
establish a new relationship between the poor and the Government.

For the Venezuelan without means, there is an abyss between the
whirlpool of billions and the galloping corruption that is now
manifesting itself without even blushing, in the highest spheres of
power. And all of the their myths to get out of their hole have
exploded, which is why trapped between the orthodox path, to be honest
and work hard, and the path of crime, rip offs, illegalities, jewels,
shoes and fancy watches, there is no other option, but to join the
Government and the missions to survive. And that is where Chávez is
launching his last bet.

The machinery of Government does not work.

And once again, it is facing a phase of accelerated decomposition.

This has been a characteristic of his Government, which every once in
while goes into a phase of self-destruction. Because of its waste,
because of its ineptitude.

A state that has been going like this for six years.

Spain (to give an example) tripled its GDP in twenty years and is
living in a state of bonanza, while here what we have is cities
submerged in garbage and crime. In only two months Valencia and
Carabobo appear as if the locust had gone by.

As another doctor friend says, in six years what we are going to have
is an autolyitic crisis. That is, destruction: “A bunch of guys say
that they are rebuilding the country and saving Venezuela and what
they are doing is deepening all of its imperfections and destroying
it. And not only in the physical sense, also in the moral one. How is
it possible, my dear reader, that Anderson (the killed Prosecutor) has
gone from having his funeral in the national mausoleum to being a
crook? Where are the moral reserves? And none of Chavez’ supporters
dares to say anything.

They never end up showing the slightest capacity for self-criticism
and recomposition in front of a public opinion which just observes it
all with perplexity.

Because the conclusion you have to reach is that with this vision of a
society, success is simply not possible.

As someone says, Chávez is surrounded by a Cyclopic pressure within
the structures of the regime, which he can’t get out of, “unless he
can correct that, but if he does he will be overthrown. It is
(corruption) all over the place. Horizontally and vertically”

“And in a reality where the Bolivar does not yield much, it will
explode, because you can’t give charity to the whole country”

A collective idea has been created that we are living a folly.

The Chavista folly. Which has lasted six long years. Seemingly
infinite ones. Where each new plan is crazier than the next.

An improbable world where Ramon Martinez (Governor of Sucre) created
an airline three years ago and nobody knows where it is. The same way
nobody knows where the Trans-Antillean airline that Chávez created
with his former presidential plane is. Lots of broken projects. Where
are the vertical chicken coops? So much inconclusive and unfinished
junk. How about those entrepreneurs with the projects to make tiles?
And the river boats to connect to the Meta River? A fortune thrown
overboard. Where are the much promised harvests? The modernization of
the penitentiary system? The humanization of jails? The schools and
home for the street kids?

But above all this, the crazy birth of a new state that simultaneously
is a single party and a segregationist apartheid of the other half of
the country, which does not agree with Chávez and his six years and
his totalitarian experimentation.

A sort of fascism (or fascism). Which is escaping through the seams.
And that is asking for new political-institutional experiments, to
execute in a more effective way the acceleration, conscious and
programmed, of a totalitarian process on society and the state.

A totalitarian spirit.

Which has been expressed in all of its nakedness, first, with the
defamation case against Tulio Álvarez and Ybeyise Pacheco, which
reveals in a very transparent fashion in one single action the
criminalization of dissidence and of freedom of expression.

Afterwards, in the announcement by the new President of the Supreme
Court, Omar Mora, that he is going to act aggressively and without
losing any time to remove from the Judiciary all of those judges
“coupsters” that are anti-Chavez. A warning that connects directly
with the suspension by Luis Velázquez Alvaray, President of the
Judiciary Commission, of the three judges which revoked the
prohibition from leaving the country against 27 people charge with
civil rebellion for their part in the events of April 11th (2002),
backing Carmona.

But, above all considerations, the accusation against Patricia Poleo
by the Attorney General/Prosecutor Isaias Rodriguez for the supposed
crime of obtaining and publishing confidential documents from a
judicial file.

For informing.

And that is very grave.

Because Prosecutor Rodriguez has said that ” it is not the same to
handle the confidentiality of sources of information that handling
documents that sustain that information” and that means simply that if
this nonsense is successful, investigative reporting is not only
finished here but also the exercise of pure reporting.

The right to be informed my friends.

Because the question that arises is why did the Prosecutor give that
jump that cuts down a freedom which is considered by contemporary
political thinking as one of the fundamental pillars of a pluralistic
society?

First, because there’s no democracy. Or it will die instantly the
moment that this arbitrariness is completed, this abuse, this madness.

And after it, because Rodriguez tries to escape from the truth about
Anderson. Of the extortion network that it is said had rotted his
institution. Of a dead hero of the revolution, who had amassed a
sudden fortune in which he kept, in his home alone, 1.5 billion
bolivars and six hundred thousand dollars.

Of a scandal Chavez has been unable to escape from, even threatening
to freeze relations with Colombia, nor provoking the first economic
and military power of the world.

Of a scandal that on top of that, sinks its deepest roots in the
social decomposition of the regime itself.

Because with the accusation against Patricia, Tulio, Ibeyise, Uson and
the signators of the decree, and taking into account the control the
Government has over the institutions, with the fiscal and judiciary
monopoly, what is expressing itself, dear reader, is how far the
regime is willing to go. What it is ready to do or transgress, in
order to impose its hegemony.

It could be all that is imaginable. With a clear message, to the rest
of Venezuelans, that the best thing anyone can do is not to fight with
him, not to confront him. Or what is the same, a final and definite
turn of the screws (and defining one) in this scheme of tightening and
loosening, and in which each time it loosens up, it leaves you tighter
than before, thus allowing you to live with the minimum oxygen
possible, so that you understand that the cost of fighting with him is
jail. Or bringing you to trial.

A totalitarian scheme.

From today’s El Nacional by reporter Luis Garcia Mora, it speaks for itself

A Totalitarian Scheme

Let’s not fool ourselves, dear readers.

As a well known friend and medical doctor says, when he refers to the
regime and the current moment, anyone that thinks that this is going
to stabilize and its going to produce results is wrong.

None of this is permanent.

It has been six years and the country is living a subsistence crisis,
where one can feel the continuous collapse of populist management. You
can feel it, you can touch it: the waste is beyond belief and each
Bolivar is now worth only a cent. And this in the middle of the
highest oil windfall ever. You only need to see the streets, the
cities, to appreciate the national disaster.

The missions, the Bolivarian units, attempts on the fly and through
the grassroots to redefine a new social structure in the popular
sectors where the economic asphyxia is explosive. Neither his
Government nor his party work for Chavez and the human resources and
the technicians of the Armed Forces have reached their limit of
utilization for social politics, which implies there is a fight to
establish a new relationship between the poor and the Government.

For the Venezuelan without means, there is an abyss between the
whirlpool of billions and the galloping corruption that is now
manifesting itself without even blushing, in the highest spheres of
power. And all of the their myths to get out of their hole have
exploded, which is why trapped between the orthodox path, to be honest
and work hard, and the path of crime, rip offs, illegalities, jewels,
shoes and fancy watches, there is no other option, but to join the
Government and the missions to survive. And that is where Chávez is
launching his last bet.

The machinery of Government does not work.

And once again, it is facing a phase of accelerated decomposition.

This has been a characteristic of his Government, which every once in
while goes into a phase of self-destruction. Because of its waste,
because of its ineptitude.

A state that has been going like this for six years.

Spain (to give an example) tripled its GDP in twenty years and is
living in a state of bonanza, while here what we have is cities
submerged in garbage and crime. In only two months Valencia and
Carabobo appear as if the locust had gone by.

As another doctor friend says, in six years what we are going to have
is an autolyitic crisis. That is, destruction: “A bunch of guys say
that they are rebuilding the country and saving Venezuela and what
they are doing is deepening all of its imperfections and destroying
it. And not only in the physical sense, also in the moral one. How is
it possible, my dear reader, that Anderson (the killed Prosecutor) has
gone from having his funeral in the national mausoleum to being a
crook? Where are the moral reserves? And none of Chavez’ supporters
dares to say anything.

They never end up showing the slightest capacity for self-criticism
and recomposition in front of a public opinion which just observes it
all with perplexity.

Because the conclusion you have to reach is that with this vision of a
society, success is simply not possible.

As someone says, Chávez is surrounded by a Cyclopic pressure within
the structures of the regime, which he can’t get out of, “unless he
can correct that, but if he does he will be overthrown. It is
(corruption) all over the place. Horizontally and vertically”

“And in a reality where the Bolivar does not yield much, it will
explode, because you can’t give charity to the whole country”

A collective idea has been created that we are living a folly.

The Chavista folly. Which has lasted six long years. Seemingly
infinite ones. Where each new plan is crazier than the next.

An improbable world where Ramon Martinez (Governor of Sucre) created
an airline three years ago and nobody knows where it is. The same way
nobody knows where the Trans-Antillean airline that Chávez created
with his former presidential plane is. Lots of broken projects. Where
are the vertical chicken coops? So much inconclusive and unfinished
junk. How about those entrepreneurs with the projects to make tiles?
And the river boats to connect to the Meta River? A fortune thrown
overboard. Where are the much promised harvests? The modernization of
the penitentiary system? The humanization of jails? The schools and
home for the street kids?

But above all this, the crazy birth of a new state that simultaneously
is a single party and a segregationist apartheid of the other half of
the country, which does not agree with Chávez and his six years and
his totalitarian experimentation.

A sort of fascism (or fascism). Which is escaping through the seams.
And that is asking for new political-institutional experiments, to
execute in a more effective way the acceleration, conscious and
programmed, of a totalitarian process on society and the state.

A totalitarian spirit.

Which has been expressed in all of its nakedness, first, with the
defamation case against Tulio Álvarez and Ybeyise Pacheco, which
reveals in a very transparent fashion in one single action the
criminalization of dissidence and of freedom of expression.

Afterwards, in the announcement by the new President of the Supreme
Court, Omar Mora, that he is going to act aggressively and without
losing any time to remove from the Judiciary all of those judges
“coupsters” that are anti-Chavez. A warning that connects directly
with the suspension by Luis Velázquez Alvaray, President of the
Judiciary Commission, of the three judges which revoked the
prohibition from leaving the country against 27 people charge with
civil rebellion for their part in the events of April 11th (2002),
backing Carmona.

But, above all considerations, the accusation against Patricia Poleo
by the Attorney General/Prosecutor Isaias Rodriguez for the supposed
crime of obtaining and publishing confidential documents from a
judicial file.

For informing.

And that is very grave.

Because Prosecutor Rodriguez has said that ” it is not the same to
handle the confidentiality of sources of information that handling
documents that sustain that information” and that means simply that if
this nonsense is successful, investigative reporting is not only
finished here but also the exercise of pure reporting.

The right to be informed my friends.

Because the question that arises is why did the Prosecutor give that
jump that cuts down a freedom which is considered by contemporary
political thinking as one of the fundamental pillars of a pluralistic
society?

First, because there’s no democracy. Or it will die instantly the
moment that this arbitrariness is completed, this abuse, this madness.

And after it, because Rodriguez tries to escape from the truth about
Anderson. Of the extortion network that it is said had rotted his
institution. Of a dead hero of the revolution, who had amassed a
sudden fortune in which he kept, in his home alone, 1.5 billion
bolivars and six hundred thousand dollars.

Of a scandal Chavez has been unable to escape from, even threatening
to freeze relations with Colombia, nor provoking the first economic
and military power of the world.

Of a scandal that on top of that, sinks its deepest roots in the
social decomposition of the regime itself.

Because with the accusation against Patricia, Tulio, Ibeyise, Uson and
the signators of the decree, and taking into account the control the
Government has over the institutions, with the fiscal and judiciary
monopoly, what is expressing itself, dear reader, is how far the
regime is willing to go. What it is ready to do or transgress, in
order to impose its hegemony.

It could be all that is imaginable. With a clear message, to the rest
of Venezuelans, that the best thing anyone can do is not to fight with
him, not to confront him. Or what is the same, a final and definite
turn of the screws (and defining one) in this scheme of tightening and
loosening, and in which each time it loosens up, it leaves you tighter
than before, thus allowing you to live with the minimum oxygen
possible, so that you understand that the cost of fighting with him is
jail. Or bringing you to trial.

A totalitarian scheme.

From today’s El Nacional by reporter Luis Garcia Mora, it speaks for itself

A Totalitarian Scheme

Let’s not fool ourselves, dear readers.

As a well known friend and medical doctor says, when he refers to the
regime and the current moment, anyone that thinks that this is going
to stabilize and its going to produce results is wrong.

None of this is permanent.

It has been six years and the country is living a subsistence crisis,
where one can feel the continuous collapse of populist management. You
can feel it, you can touch it: the waste is beyond belief and each
Bolivar is now worth only a cent. And this in the middle of the
highest oil windfall ever. You only need to see the streets, the
cities, to appreciate the national disaster.

The missions, the Bolivarian units, attempts on the fly and through
the grassroots to redefine a new social structure in the popular
sectors where the economic asphyxia is explosive. Neither his
Government nor his party work for Chavez and the human resources and
the technicians of the Armed Forces have reached their limit of
utilization for social politics, which implies there is a fight to
establish a new relationship between the poor and the Government.

For the Venezuelan without means, there is an abyss between the
whirlpool of billions and the galloping corruption that is now
manifesting itself without even blushing, in the highest spheres of
power. And all of the their myths to get out of their hole have
exploded, which is why trapped between the orthodox path, to be honest
and work hard, and the path of crime, rip offs, illegalities, jewels,
shoes and fancy watches, there is no other option, but to join the
Government and the missions to survive. And that is where Chávez is
launching his last bet.

The machinery of Government does not work.

And once again, it is facing a phase of accelerated decomposition.

This has been a characteristic of his Government, which every once in
while goes into a phase of self-destruction. Because of its waste,
because of its ineptitude.

A state that has been going like this for six years.

Spain (to give an example) tripled its GDP in twenty years and is
living in a state of bonanza, while here what we have is cities
submerged in garbage and crime. In only two months Valencia and
Carabobo appear as if the locust had gone by.

As another doctor friend says, in six years what we are going to have
is an autolyitic crisis. That is, destruction: “A bunch of guys say
that they are rebuilding the country and saving Venezuela and what
they are doing is deepening all of its imperfections and destroying
it. And not only in the physical sense, also in the moral one. How is
it possible, my dear reader, that Anderson (the killed Prosecutor) has
gone from having his funeral in the national mausoleum to being a
crook? Where are the moral reserves? And none of Chavez’ supporters
dares to say anything.

They never end up showing the slightest capacity for self-criticism
and recomposition in front of a public opinion which just observes it
all with perplexity.

Because the conclusion you have to reach is that with this vision of a
society, success is simply not possible.

As someone says, Chávez is surrounded by a Cyclopic pressure within
the structures of the regime, which he can’t get out of, “unless he
can correct that, but if he does he will be overthrown. It is
(corruption) all over the place. Horizontally and vertically”

“And in a reality where the Bolivar does not yield much, it will
explode, because you can’t give charity to the whole country”

A collective idea has been created that we are living a folly.

The Chavista folly. Which has lasted six long years. Seemingly
infinite ones. Where each new plan is crazier than the next.

An improbable world where Ramon Martinez (Governor of Sucre) created
an airline three years ago and nobody knows where it is. The same way
nobody knows where the Trans-Antillean airline that Chávez created
with his former presidential plane is. Lots of broken projects. Where
are the vertical chicken coops? So much inconclusive and unfinished
junk. How about those entrepreneurs with the projects to make tiles?
And the river boats to connect to the Meta River? A fortune thrown
overboard. Where are the much promised harvests? The modernization of
the penitentiary system? The humanization of jails? The schools and
home for the street kids?

But above all this, the crazy birth of a new state that simultaneously
is a single party and a segregationist apartheid of the other half of
the country, which does not agree with Chávez and his six years and
his totalitarian experimentation.

A sort of fascism (or fascism). Which is escaping through the seams.
And that is asking for new political-institutional experiments, to
execute in a more effective way the acceleration, conscious and
programmed, of a totalitarian process on society and the state.

A totalitarian spirit.

Which has been expressed in all of its nakedness, first, with the
defamation case against Tulio Álvarez and Ybeyise Pacheco, which
reveals in a very transparent fashion in one single action the
criminalization of dissidence and of freedom of expression.

Afterwards, in the announcement by the new President of the Supreme
Court, Omar Mora, that he is going to act aggressively and without
losing any time to remove from the Judiciary all of those judges
“coupsters” that are anti-Chavez. A warning that connects directly
with the suspension by Luis Velázquez Alvaray, President of the
Judiciary Commission, of the three judges which revoked the
prohibition from leaving the country against 27 people charge with
civil rebellion for their part in the events of April 11th (2002),
backing Carmona.

But, above all considerations, the accusation against Patricia Poleo
by the Attorney General/Prosecutor Isaias Rodriguez for the supposed
crime of obtaining and publishing confidential documents from a
judicial file.

For informing.

And that is very grave.

Because Prosecutor Rodriguez has said that ” it is not the same to
handle the confidentiality of sources of information that handling
documents that sustain that information” and that means simply that if
this nonsense is successful, investigative reporting is not only
finished here but also the exercise of pure reporting.

The right to be informed my friends.

Because the question that arises is why did the Prosecutor give that
jump that cuts down a freedom which is considered by contemporary
political thinking as one of the fundamental pillars of a pluralistic
society?

First, because there’s no democracy. Or it will die instantly the
moment that this arbitrariness is completed, this abuse, this madness.

And after it, because Rodriguez tries to escape from the truth about
Anderson. Of the extortion network that it is said had rotted his
institution. Of a dead hero of the revolution, who had amassed a
sudden fortune in which he kept, in his home alone, 1.5 billion
bolivars and six hundred thousand dollars.

Of a scandal Chavez has been unable to escape from, even threatening
to freeze relations with Colombia, nor provoking the first economic
and military power of the world.

Of a scandal that on top of that, sinks its deepest roots in the
social decomposition of the regime itself.

Because with the accusation against Patricia, Tulio, Ibeyise, Uson and
the signators of the decree, and taking into account the control the
Government has over the institutions, with the fiscal and judiciary
monopoly, what is expressing itself, dear reader, is how far the
regime is willing to go. What it is ready to do or transgress, in
order to impose its hegemony.

It could be all that is imaginable. With a clear message, to the rest
of Venezuelans, that the best thing anyone can do is not to fight with
him, not to confront him. Or what is the same, a final and definite
turn of the screws (and defining one) in this scheme of tightening and
loosening, and in which each time it loosens up, it leaves you tighter
than before, thus allowing you to live with the minimum oxygen
possible, so that you understand that the cost of fighting with him is
jail. Or bringing you to trial.

A totalitarian scheme.