The Devil's Excrement

I have been mentioning for days that all the information I could gather indicated that the number of people who had died from the floods exceeded by far the sixty some number that has been officially announced by the Government via its spokesman the Minister of the Interior. However the media had chosen not to say anything for fear of having the Government accuse them of violating the media law, better known as the gag or muzzle law.

Today the silence was broken by the media paying attention to the statements made by the Arch-Bishop of Coro Roberto Luckert who said that the number of dead people was “many more” than the 62 officially reported.

“WE have information that things were worse than what the Government wants to make it look” added the Arch Bishop. He said that over one hundred people had lost their life in Santa Cruz de Mora alone when a river overflowed and filled a bus terminal full of passengers.

The Catholic priest said the Chavze Government was making a political campaign out of the tragedy, saying that he does not understand why the Government wants to hide the information about the dead and that the Government is giving away bags off food with the logo of Chavze’ part MVR.

“You don’t do politics with the misery and pain of others” said the Arch Bishop.

This is the same version of the facts I have been hearing for the last few days and posted about only after checking my facts with two of Caracas best known journalists.

I have been mentioning for days that all the information I could gather indicated that the number of people who had died from the floods exceeded by far the sixty some number that has been officially announced by the Government via its spokesman the Minister of the Interior. However the media had chosen not to say anything for fear of having the Government accuse them of violating the media law, better known as the gag or muzzle law.

Today the silence was broken by the media paying attention to the statements made by the Arch-Bishop of Coro Roberto Luckert who said that the number of dead people was “many more” than the 62 officially reported.

“WE have information that things were worse than what the Government wants to make it look” added the Arch Bishop. He said that over one hundred people had lost their life in Santa Cruz de Mora alone when a river overflowed and filled a bus terminal full of passengers.

The Catholic priest said the Chavze Government was making a political campaign out of the tragedy, saying that he does not understand why the Government wants to hide the information about the dead and that the Government is giving away bags off food with the logo of Chavze’ part MVR.

“You don’t do politics with the misery and pain of others” said the Arch Bishop.

This is the same version of the facts I have been hearing for the last few days and posted about only after checking my facts with two of Caracas best known journalists.

This picture may be real after all!

Chavez today on his nationwide TV address on the evils of capitalism and the extinction of life in Mars :

“Capitalism makes democracy impossible. Capitalism makes social justice impossible. If we don’t change this system, the world is going to end. The eternal existence of our planet is not guaranteed. Look at other planets. In Mars there was water. It’s possible they will soon find remains of living beings. Who knows how many years ago there was life on Mars. Mars is very similar to Earth. It rotates around the sun almost the same as Earth. It’s very likely that there was life on Mars. It’s possible that the Martians couldn’t keep life going on their planet.”

     “Old Karl Marx was right. Capitalism, monopolies, the exploitation of man by man, Karl Marx’s theory was correct. We have to break this model of domination.’

Is he confusing Mars and the Soviet Union?

And if you have not visited Stig’s website to hear Chavez accusing the US of trying to assassinate him or the singing Generals, please do, just click here and enjoy (or be ashamed!)(You can try here too)

I second Daniel’s post. Venezuelans would prefer at this time if the Carter Center stayed away from our country. The role the Center played in the recall referendum, before and after it, left a very bitter taste in all of those like me, who are certain that the outcome was fraudulent. The category on the left called rr Studies is a testimony to the superficiality of the “studies” promoted by the Carter Center to explain away the possibility of fraud in the recall vote. Carter and the Carter Center did not demand that the CNE do the “hot audits” on August 16^th. that had been agreed on and agreed to terms that were unacceptable in the audits carried out afterwards. There are lies in the reports from the Carter Center, such as that the boxes containing the ballots never left their sight.

Thus, Venezuelans in the opposition think the Carter Center failed them completely by being superficial and actually helped in eliminating those “elements of balance and equilibrium” that it is asking for in its communiqué tonight. The time to act was then, not now. By now, the total control of the political structure in this country is in the hands of Chavez and his cohorts and there is nothing that the Carter Center can do. The current Electoral Board is by now composed of four pro-Chavez members out of five and we did not hear from the Carter Center when this was imposed using less than democratic means. There is no chance for a fair election in Venezuela anymore and this was all accomplished under the supervision of the Carter Center.

So please, help make elections fair in the US, but leave us alone, we would have done better without you last time! I never trusted the Carter Center, but many did, including too many leaders of our sorry opposition leadership and it is because of that that we are where we are today!

Stay away!

I second Daniel’s post. Venezuelans would prefer at this time if the Carter Center stayed away from our country. The role the Center played in the recall referendum, before and after it, left a very bitter taste in all of those like me, who are certain that the outcome was fraudulent. The category on the left called rr Studies is a testimony to the superficiality of the “studies” promoted by the Carter Center to explain away the possibility of fraud in the recall vote. Carter and the Carter Center did not demand that the CNE do the “hot audits” on August 16^th. that had been agreed on and agreed to terms that were unacceptable in the audits carried out afterwards. There are lies in the reports from the Carter Center, such as that the boxes containing the ballots never left their sight.

Thus, Venezuelans in the opposition think the Carter Center failed them completely by being superficial and actually helped in eliminating those “elements of balance and equilibrium” that it is asking for in its communiqué tonight. The time to act was then, not now. By now, the total control of the political structure in this country is in the hands of Chavez and his cohorts and there is nothing that the Carter Center can do. The current Electoral Board is by now composed of four pro-Chavez members out of five and we did not hear from the Carter Center when this was imposed using less than democratic means. There is no chance for a fair election in Venezuela anymore and this was all accomplished under the supervision of the Carter Center.

So please, help make elections fair in the US, but leave us alone, we would have done better without you last time! I never trusted the Carter Center, but many did, including too many leaders of our sorry opposition leadership and it is because of that that we are where we are today!

Stay away!

The Venezuelan Ministry of Information has started an aggressive campaign to demonstrate that the US media has started a media war against Venezuela. What is perhaps most remarkable about the reaction by Minister Izarra and his Ministry is that you could simply apply all of the charges he makes to the style of the Venezuelan Government during the last few years. In producing this document, it appears as if they may be more upset at someone stealing their playbook, than anything else. As first pointed out by Quico in the comments this morning when he rightly questioned my other choice for “Quote of the day” Minister Izarra actually said yesterday:

“We analyzed what is the use of pseudo reporting techniques to lie, advance half truths, confuse, exaggerate, fake sources, distort facts, and unfairly utilize anonymity”

Hey! Sounds like something out of the Chavista playbook! Izarra is the leading expert on it, nothing to analyze really, just jealousy! They may even think they invented these techniques by now!

In fact, the reason why I did not use any of this as “Quote of the Day” was that the whole thing is quote long and complicated and a story on itself, with dozens of quotes.  How about this, for example:

“This new attack appears to be oriented at delegitimizing the democratic efforts being advanced by the people and the Government to democratically propel the changes towards the political, economic and social change of our country”

I particularly like the use of “the people” before the Government and the use of “economic progress” in the text. How is that for lying or for talking about something they could care less about!

But I particularly like the part about “Reiteration” the so called “Goebbels effect” by which things are repeated over and over until they believe it is true. Hey! Isn’t that what Chavismo is all about? Maybe Izarra could do similar studies about the lies of this Government on the four top priorities in Chavez’s campaign in 1998: Poverty, crime, corruption and participative democracy.

But there are so many others, like the lie by the US saying that there is an autocracy here. After all, autocracy means absolute and controlling power, supremacy. Apparently Izarra was too principled in April 2002, but left those same principles at the private TV station he used to work at, the moment he left it.  Chavez IS an autocrat and to pretend to say that someone is falsely accusing him of that is idiotic or as Goebbelian as the charges he is trying to deflect. In fact, as idiotic as saying the US is trying to kill Chavez, but that is another article and story altogether.

Then there are the “false” charges that Chavez is protecting terrorism (We forgot Rodrigo Granda or the Bolivarian Congress already!) or starting an arms race. How could anyone accuse the Venezuelan Government of that, when it has “only” committed US$ 2 billion in the last two months, to buy weapons as people go hungry and are now homeless by the floods? Naw! This is all in Bush’s or Dr. Rice’s head, a silly paranoia which has no basis on reality!

Then there is that absurd charge by Fox News, that Hugo Chavez loaded the Supreme Court or jailed Capriles Radonsky or has control over the oil profits of the country. Naw! False! False! False! Just read how Bandes “disappeared” US$ 2 billion from the Governments coffers and accounting and nobody knows where it may be. Control? Naw!

Note how everything is done in chunks of US$ 2 billion at a time.

The whole defense is almost sophomoric, the quotes so correct that they may make you laugh, saying that they are criticizing them unfairly. But this is no laughing matter. This is what Venezuelans have been facing during the last few years. From the illegality of the Constituent Assembly and its election to the cheating at the recall referendum, it is the Chavistas that have been experts at manipulating external opinion and promoting the lies of this fake revolution.  They now try to apply their style to the wide coverage of Chavez’ behavior in the last few months by the foreign press. They know the techniques by heart, they are experts!

The Venezuelan Ministry of Information has started an aggressive campaign to demonstrate that the US media has started a media war against Venezuela. What is perhaps most remarkable about the reaction by Minister Izarra and his Ministry is that you could simply apply all of the charges he makes to the style of the Venezuelan Government during the last few years. In producing this document, it appears as if they may be more upset at someone stealing their playbook, than anything else. As first pointed out by Quico in the comments this morning when he rightly questioned my other choice for “Quote of the day” Minister Izarra actually said yesterday:

“We analyzed what is the use of pseudo reporting techniques to lie, advance half truths, confuse, exaggerate, fake sources, distort facts, and unfairly utilize anonymity”

Hey! Sounds like something out of the Chavista playbook! Izarra is the leading expert on it, nothing to analyze really, just jealousy! They may even think they invented these techniques by now!

In fact, the reason why I did not use any of this as “Quote of the Day” was that the whole thing is quote long and complicated and a story on itself, with dozens of quotes.  How about this, for example:

“This new attack appears to be oriented at delegitimizing the democratic efforts being advanced by the people and the Government to democratically propel the changes towards the political, economic and social change of our country”

I particularly like the use of “the people” before the Government and the use of “economic progress” in the text. How is that for lying or for talking about something they could care less about!

But I particularly like the part about “Reiteration” the so called “Goebbels effect” by which things are repeated over and over until they believe it is true. Hey! Isn’t that what Chavismo is all about? Maybe Izarra could do similar studies about the lies of this Government on the four top priorities in Chavez’s campaign in 1998: Poverty, crime, corruption and participative democracy.

But there are so many others, like the lie by the US saying that there is an autocracy here. After all, autocracy means absolute and controlling power, supremacy. Apparently Izarra was too principled in April 2002, but left those same principles at the private TV station he used to work at, the moment he left it.  Chavez IS an autocrat and to pretend to say that someone is falsely accusing him of that is idiotic or as Goebbelian as the charges he is trying to deflect. In fact, as idiotic as saying the US is trying to kill Chavez, but that is another article and story altogether.

Then there are the “false” charges that Chavez is protecting terrorism (We forgot Rodrigo Granda or the Bolivarian Congress already!) or starting an arms race. How could anyone accuse the Venezuelan Government of that, when it has “only” committed US$ 2 billion in the last two months, to buy weapons as people go hungry and are now homeless by the floods? Naw! This is all in Bush’s or Dr. Rice’s head, a silly paranoia which has no basis on reality!

Then there is that absurd charge by Fox News, that Hugo Chavez loaded the Supreme Court or jailed Capriles Radonsky or has control over the oil profits of the country. Naw! False! False! False! Just read how Bandes “disappeared” US$ 2 billion from the Governments coffers and accounting and nobody knows where it may be. Control? Naw!

Note how everything is done in chunks of US$ 2 billion at a time.

The whole defense is almost sophomoric, the quotes so correct that they may make you laugh, saying that they are criticizing them unfairly. But this is no laughing matter. This is what Venezuelans have been facing during the last few years. From the illegality of the Constituent Assembly and its election to the cheating at the recall referendum, it is the Chavistas that have been experts at manipulating external opinion and promoting the lies of this fake revolution.  They now try to apply their style to the wide coverage of Chavez’ behavior in the last few months by the foreign press. They know the techniques by heart, they are experts!