Archive for October 15th, 2007

Getting something for nothing for revolutionaries in Bolivia

October 15, 2007
And speaking of non-democratic sayings, how about Chavez, so sensitive to comments about Venezuela from abroad, calling yesterday
for a guerrilla war with machine guns if the opposition in Bolivia gets
rid of Evo Morales as President. That is, if the opposition does to
Evo, exactly what Evo did to the opposition…It´s that ¨democratic-Chavista¨double standard¨agian that we have seen so many times.

But what is interesting of Chavez’ threat is who will be holding the machine guns and go to Bolivia?

—First, it can’t be the opposition; they may join the other side.

—Second,
you could send the reservists. After all they are already armed with
their AK’s, supposedly trained and even getting a salary.

—Finally,
there is another option, the one I like most, that they send all of
those that registered for Chavez’ new party PSUV, because they were
thinking they were getting something for nothing by joining, it would
seem poetic justice, if they got to be part of guerilla warfare in
Bolivia, to emulate their beloved Che Guevara. This way they will get a
first hand look what revolutions are really about. They would get their $5,000 in Cadivi foreign currency just for volunteering!

The
one person you can be sure will never show up in Bolivia is Chavez
himself, unless they build him a replica of the Military Museum for him
to hide in…

You have to love the bluffing revolution…

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Another disgraceful day for democracy in Venezuela

October 15, 2007

Such is the state of the country’s democracy that not even the
National Assembly is capable of either giving or guaranteeing the
rights of the people in its own events.

Today a group of students showed up
to the meeting at Caracas’s major theatre to “openly” discuss the
proposed Constitutional Reform. They were initially told that they
could not go in because there was no space inside, which turned out to
be a major lie. Then, they were finally allowed in, which proved they
simply did not want them there. While the various articles were read,
the students applauded or booed, according to whether they agreed with
them or not. But when the now controversial Art. 337 was read, which
would eliminate due process or the right of information when a state of
exception is declared, the students booed in loudly and in unison. At
this point they were aggressively and violently attacked and forced to
leave the locale where these pseudo-democratic discussions were taking
place, showing not only what a sham the whole process is, but also what
fascists Chavismo has as leaders in the National Assembly.

Of
course, as usual, the cynical President of the National Assembly tried
to turn it around, calling the students “coup plotters” and fascists in
an attempt to hide her own acts in being unwilling and incapable of
guaranteeing the most basic democratic rights to Venezuelans. Because
we know where the fascists and coup plotters and murderers are, and
they are all in the Government.

Today, was another clear example of that…as they took advantage of it to also attack representatives of the media.

This
clearly shows hat this Government is not willing to discuss the
proposed Constitutional reform with anyone but those that fully support
and back the Government and thus will back whatever is proposed. Much
like the way they bypass the rule of law, they want to go through these
motions of “discussions” and “presentations” so that they can argue
that this improvised and illegal reform of the Constitution has been
amply discussed with the population. Instead, they prove once again
that this is simply an illegal sham to allow Chavez’ wish to hold the
Presidency of the country indefinitely.

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Another non-democratic surprise is sneaked into the Constitutional reform

October 15, 2007

The most surprising thing about the
new proposal by Chavismo to suddenly insert into the proposed
Constitutional reform, the removal of due process and the right of
information whenever a state of exception were to be declared, is that
anyone was surprised by it.
 
The whole project of
the reform has been mired by illegalities, manipulation and the lack of
scruples that characterizes the robolution. From the fact that the
reform modifies fundamental principles of the Constitution, simply by
defying Venezuela as a socialist state is a very fundamental change
which would require a Constituent Assembly, to now sneaking into it,”
new” and “improved” facets, proves how the reform is being used to
please the autocrat and his comrades, and now to introduce without much
discussion concepts which will help solidify the autocracy with legal
instruments.
 
It was simply cynical of the President of the Assembly to argue
that these mechanisms would stop conspirators and couspters, a s if
people have forgotten how Chavez forced a nationwide “cadena” in 2002,
while people were being killed in the streets, attempting to illegally
withhold from the people the same right of information that he now
wants to be able to remove anytime that he unilaterally deems it
necessary.
 
The same way that the proposed reform
is unilaterally being manipulated at each step as the revolutionaries
find they want to redefined what they wish to do, irrespective of
whether it is legal or not or whether it can even be done.
 
Thus,
what began as an illegal and rigid change in the Constitution continues
to be illegal but all of a sudden Chavismo wants to introduce new
reforms, after the project was already discussed twice. These reforms
are major, thus by law, the whole project should have to be sent for a
new first discussion, but this would upset the timetable established by
the autocrat of having it approved before year’s end.
 
Similarly
the early rigidity that it was a single proposal to be considered as a
unit has now been forgotten, while retaining the desired rigidity on
how it will be approved as a unit by the “people”, all in the name of
democracy.
 
And indeed these are very dangerous
changes being inserted into the Venezuelan Constitution, but this is
nothing new, so why be surprised by it? The whole proposal is aimed at
concentrating more power on the autocrat, diminishing democratic rights
and insuring that Chavez can bend the country’s economic future into
his ill defined, unknown and certainly to be disastrous XXIst. Century
Socialism. Disastrous, because when you leave aside economic knowledge,
innovate without any basis and concentrate all decisions in the hands
of an ignorant autocrat that thinks he knows everything, nothing good can come
out at the end.
 
And thus we will go from
surprise to surprise between now and the Constitutional referendum,
after which there will be newer, better and improved surprises that
should at last wake up those that still think this is a democracy or
private property rights will be respected.

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