The Devil's Excrement

Disclaimer:
The following post does not attempt to spread, diffuse or distribute its
contents. While this post was written
while the author may have been legally considered to be in Venezuela, its
contents are hosted, stored and accessed in a foreign country. Anyone that
believes that reading it violates the CNE regulations towards the Presidential
campaign, should abstain from reading it, enjoying it, understanding it, distributing
it and/or diffusing it. The post itself does not judge or imply a value on any
presidential candidate and/or its supporters; it is simply an intellectual
exercise on the meaning of the new CNE regulations. The author is not
responsible for the contents of the comments generated by this post.

There were
these two great ads this weekend in national newspapers by the branch of Big
Brother at the Electoral Board (CNE), telling us what we can or not do or say
during the upcoming Presidential campaign. Over the weekend the ad dealt with the
do’s and don’t’s, which I read with some interest, particularly faced with
such difficult questions as the fact that the regulations forbid having
electoral advertising “that promotes the exaltation of political hate”.

Now, given
that the word hate means, according
to the dictionary “intense animosity or dislike”, this is certainly one
that could be tricky to comply with, but which clearly could lead to many cheap
and easy jokes. I mean, loving your political opponent is not exactly the norm,
so where do you draw the line between strongly opposing and “promoting the
exaltation of political hate”. Do you have to say “Our Dear and beloved
President which we hope to unseat, and then you begin to blast his incompetent Government? (UUps!)

Another
example may be if I give you the pictures below, with the headline “Hugo
Chavez, love him or leave him or get rid of him”, could I be accused of promoting animosity or
dislike? Or abstention?:

I guess it
would be all in the eyes of the beholder, no?

I guess,
only as an example, that maybe I would be violating the regulations if I post
these two pictures:

With a
caption that said: “Hugo Chavez the day he had more than 200 innocent Venezuelans
killed and Hugo Chavez, 14 years later enjoying more happy times” This may
be ruled as going against his “honor”. Or would it? Can you dishonor someone by
telling the truth?

But by
now, you may be wondering what this has to do with my blog? Why am I concerned
or wondering about this at all? Am I planning to campaign for or against
someone?

Well,
today the “companion”
ad appeared in major newspapers and down below, it says very clearly:

“There
will be sanctions, in the case of (…long list of cases)…The diffusion of
messages distributed through the Internet….”with a sanction of 200 tax units
(equals to Bs. 548,000 or some US$ 2,500, in 2006). Now, this really grabbed my
attention.

First
of
all, this one is sort of difficult to understand and interpret in
detail. All of the Internet? Does the CNE have such powers? What
if I am not in Venezuela?
If I have a blog, am distributing its contents it? i.e. Am I delivering it?
Spreading it? Or diffusing it? Umm, hard to tell, particularly about the
diffusing. It seems I am indeed diffusing my content, no? But what if my blog is
abroad (which it is) and I do the post abroad (which I do sometimes). Does it
apply? Hard to tell, even if revolutionary justice can be quite creative about
finding its enemies guilty, even when they are not. Will they ask Interpol to send me back to pay the 200 tax units?

The
curious thing about all of this is that between now and Dec. 3d., Chavez will continue to be able
to hold his Sunday program “Alo Presidente” according to the same regulations
and the decision of the “independent” CNE (no hate implied!). If he follows the
pattern of the last five years, during his long broadcast hours he will surely attempt
against the honor, privacy, dignity or reputation of people, promote the
exaltation of ethnical, religious, gender or political hate, promote abstention,
use images of children (or even use real ones!), use the national and regional
symbols or those of the heroes of Venezuela, will name people and will use
public funds in promoting himself and his candidacy.

This
text
is a carbon copy of the regulation (I left out cruelty to animlas or
soemhing like that) and includes 90% of what the regulations say
you can’t do…but…

…the CNE
will say nothing to him…but this blogger may get into trouble because of this
post alone.

This entry was posted on August 7, 2006 at 10:42 pm and is filed under Venezuela.