So, I went away for four days for a family event and not much changed in that time, as expected. Chavez is still traveling as the country falls apart. He feels no need to be here, as power failures not only occur, but repeat many times a week. And while we have shortages of corn, Chavez offers Syria some of our own, and while we import gasoline, Chavez offers Iran some of that too. He is such a generous guy!
But we all know that this is not generosity, this is much like what is going in Venice, part of the show, the same tragicomedy Venezuelans have been watching for years. We have all heard about employment programs, housing programs, food self-sufficiency, lower inflation and our hate for the US. But underemployment keeps increasing, the housing programs have been a failure, food production has gone down, inflation has become “structural” and we keep exporting oil to our enemies. Simply put, the revolution is just another show, what is important is to say that we will export corn to Syria and gasoline to Iran, the rest, is simply immaterial and will all be forgotten.The show must go on!
Forgotten like all of the other promises of the revolution, the shutdown of TV and radio stations, the murder of protesters, the firing of 20,000 oil workers. Forgotten like the thousands that die murdered just because Chavez could care less about crime and the like. Or like the fact that Chavez has been in power for more than ten years, so that using the excuse that something is “structural” should no longer have any validity.
But nobody asks if Oliver Stone got paid by Chavez to make the documentary about him (or Chomsky’s trip for that matter) or whether the three jets and fifty bodyguards that follow Chavez around can be justified in a country with such high poverty levels. (But heck, we pay for Zelaya’s jet, why not Chavez’?)
Unfortunately for us, people just don’t pay attention to detail and Chavez and his cronies everywhere know how to manipulate the media and the revolutionary spirit of the ignorant. It is very romantic to hear that Chavez will replicate Iran’s nuclear efforts in Venezuela. We will just wonder who they will do it with? Will they revive Argentina’s effort under Richter who promised Peron “bottled nuclear energy” Or will we begin importing Iranians and North Korean’s to satsify Chavez’s ego?
And since those that know about oil are not interested in our heavy crude fields, we give them away to country’s as clueless in oil as we are nuclear energy, like Belarus or Vietnam, so they can get their training wheels in Venezuela, just when we will be needing more oil production to survive.
But this is not about survival, this is about the show. The show, the Hugo Chavez show, must simply go on! At any cost! So, I may go away for four days or four months, but nothing will have changed. All older projects and announcements are forgotten both by Chavez and his cheerleaders. It is the new announcements that matter, whether they are made in Teheran, Damascus, Venice or Caracas. And these in turn will be forgotten when new announcements are made later, in order to create a new show.
As Hugo Chavez told his Minister of Finance long time ago, it does not matter if there is money or not, if it gets done or not. Chavze lives for these annuncements. He only lives for the show.
And the show must go on!
The Devil's Excrement 
September 10, 2009 at 1:07 pm
For those of you who wish to leave dear Mr. Stone a grateful “up yours”, um, I mean “thank you”, his website is http://oliverstone.com/. There isn’t anything on there just yet about this particular documentary, but I left my comment under the entry about “Wall Street”.
Saludos!
September 10, 2009 at 8:39 am
Andorra freezes bank accounts of people related to Chavez:
http://www.noticias24.com/actualidad/noticia/84268/andorra-congela-cuentas-bancarias-de-personas-del-entorno-de-chavez/
http://www.diariandorra.ad/noticies/view.php?ID=12839
We need names! and then it’ll EPIC
September 10, 2009 at 8:17 am
Roberto:
The news about the murders is very scarce. No one wants to talk about it. Apparently the Czech guy was the first one shot according to one report. He was identified as a business owner but no one has said which business. It’s all very strange but with what has been going on lately here you would have to guess that it’s about drugs.
firepigette & Deanna:
Margarita is still, after all is said & done, a great place to live if you are on a fixed income of hard currency. It’s still very inexpensive & relatively safe. My wife & I frequent out of the way restaurants on the weekends with not a bit of worry or fear. We are aware of our surroundings but that’s about it.
Most of the problems here are drug related & if you are not involved in that then you are reasonably safe. I’ve been here over 20 years & only encountered one problem in all that time.
What we are trying to do now is get ourselves into a situation where we can live for a few months each year in civilization – west coast of Canada or Florida – and the rest here.
September 10, 2009 at 6:00 am
Island Canuck: About 3 years ago, my oldest son went to Margarita, thinking of buying a little apartment as a vacation place. After talking to him about the situation in Venezuela, the fact that the government could take his place over at any time because of their communist/socialist plans, he decided to visit Puerto Rico instead, bought his apartment there and is perfectly happy about it. However, we still have a house in the Litoral Central and I had hoped to eventually retire there, but every year I put off the big move, waiting for the departure/demise of Chavez, whichever comes first. I’ve been waiting for the past 10 years and am losing patience and hope, although I still go to Venezuela yearly to visit my retirement place (which by the way, has the name of “Mi Refugio”). I know that with my dollar pension and SS, I could live very comfortably in Venezuela, but the lack of essential services (especially medical) and high insecurity has made me hesitant.
September 10, 2009 at 4:38 am
Island Canuck: Here’s the 4pm siren and wailing deal
http://www.eluniversal.com/2009/09/10/sucgc_art_asesinan-a-juez-mili_1564209.shtml
Given the hoohah that is springing up in Tachira plus the reporting about “paracos” on our soil, you have to wonder how this ties in to the story of this military judge from Tachira getting whacked at the beach.
September 9, 2009 at 1:09 pm
But just like any other show, if the ratings decline far enough, it will be cancelled. Chavez’s ego will eventually bring out the hook.
September 9, 2009 at 9:21 am
Island Canuck,
I totally understand.I was going to retire in Margarita, near the cero Guayamuri where I still have land today.This land many years ago was destined for a Safari Zoo, but things fell through and someone gave me a small parcel as a gift.Soon I will give it away because I know now that I will probably be dead before I can use it.
It is very hard to move at a certain age.I did, but it has been extremely hard on me.Here in USA there is just way too much competition for jobs.I have had to use a great deal of creativity to create a new profession and live by my wits so to speak….but it CAN be done, and you would grow by doing it.
But on the other hand if I had been totally needed in Venezuela I would have stayed no matter what…but that was not my case.
As for Margarita, I have the insider scoop on it, and from what I gather it is fast becoming a danger spot.
Anyway good luck to you…I am sure there are many who are in your boat now.I certainly feel your pain.
September 9, 2009 at 8:56 am
“But this is not about survival, this is about the show.”
Oh, but it is about survival, because that is the very purpose of the show. Just not the survival you were referring to. Though I suppose you could argue that Chavez wishes to survive in power simply to extend the show. Which is the means and which is the end, I don’t know, but I don’t believe it matters. Because a better Venezuela is not an end in the process.
September 9, 2009 at 8:41 am
For the record Miguel, I did send an email to Chomsky and Wilpert asking who had paid the trip. Predictably, none of them answered.
In the course of a follow up I did on some of Wilpert’s claims I found out that he does not work in Brooklyn College, as he alleged in communications to HRW, but as adjunct professor for some workers’ education program.
September 9, 2009 at 7:43 am
My original plan, like many people from the northern countries, was to emigrate to a warm paradise where I could live out my years in peace enjoying the sun & a tropical island.
Here is the reality of one day – yesterday.
At 4.45 the electricity went out for 3 hours & 10 minutes. We sat in the dark as the batteries of our emergency lighting slowly ran out. It was then back to candles & sweating in the September heat & humidity.
At 4 pm sirens were wailing all over our area at the north end of the island. Apparently gunmen entered the pool area of a local “hotel” & murdered 4 people – reasons still unknown. The investigating police had problems because, of course, there was no electricity & they had to work in the dark.
Our DSL Internet service from CANTV has been failing since last Thursday & when you call them there is a recording saying “oops, there is a problem” however they give no info on when it will be repaired.
We have been trying to get all our Seguros Social up to date & after months of difficulties in getting info due to failures in the computer system of SS we were informed that we must pay an amount. We issued a cheque for deposit to their account. When the cheque was deposited it wouldn’t go through because – Ta,Da – SS had changed all the systems & forgotten or neglected to inform the regional office.
We now have to start over. How this will affect an employee who just gave birth we, along with 1000’s of other businesses, do not know. We are no longer in the system.
So here is the reality of “Living in Paradise”. Would I leave. How? Everything I have is invested here over many years. Selling is a mute point because of the political environment there is virtually no real estate market. Also all our Venezuelan family is here.
It would be hard to leave and, at my age, very difficult to find work outside Venezuela. Who wants to go back to working again anyway 🙂
I have no regrets being here. I worry for my godson who is 15 & for the other young people of our family who are graduating with engineers degrees. What is their future in this country?
So here we stay – for better or worse. It is very frustrating not being able to do anything to change the course of what is happening when you know in your heart & from a lifetime of experience that it is destroying everything.
September 9, 2009 at 4:48 am
Now the curious thing is that we had Noam chomsky recently and now this pathetic Stone is making big time propaganda. It seems chavistas are doing a new wave of PR with certain “key” figures.
The Stone thing was planned long ago as Stone went to Venezuela last year, but still I wonder if they have more in petto: perhaps some Saramago? A big present and hug to RodrĂguez Zapatero? Something that will help the battered Spanish economy? (no matter it comes from a poor country)
I wrote in my Spanish blog about an article in a Russian online newspaper.
Lukashenko thanked Hugo really for “his finance present” and for the joint oil operation
http://desarrollosostenibleparavenezuela.blogspot.com/2009/09/alguien-se-esta-riendo-de-ti.html
I want to know more about that wee present. Luka also saw to it that Hugo was received again by two Belorussian beauties. Last time he was there
he showed his interest, from 00:00:23
September 9, 2009 at 2:17 am
Who cares, the bottom line is that people beleve in Stone.
The saddest part is that he has been thoughing lines like: The world needs more Chavez’s, people that do what they say.
What a joke!!! If he did 10% of what he said, at least something would have changed (and not rotten) in the country in the last 10 years.
September 9, 2009 at 1:04 am
We know others have gotten Chavez funding, like Danny Glover.
September 8, 2009 at 10:46 pm
in the end it does not matter … just assume yes. the financing mechanisms are probably legal and complex
September 8, 2009 at 10:15 pm
I have no idea, people suggest he is being funded by Chavez, but nothing is transparent here.
September 8, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Was Stone paid for this by Chavez or freinds?