There is no question that Hugo Chavez is a great communicator. Except that he tends to focus on the “new”, the “promise”, the empty future that has never arrived in the last eleven years. Never on accomplishments, management, real things.
Since his party lost the Parliamentary election, Chavez has undertaken a double strategy of pushing forward his revolution and promising grandiose projects or plans for the future.
The first is easy to do, take over Venoco, owned by the Bolibourgeois clan that facilitated Hugo sending suitcases full of cash to help Cristina Kirchner’s campaign. Or Fertinitro or many others, taking over is easy, you send the Army, the military and a hundred employees from Ministry X dressed with red shirts, you occupy the property and claim you have the people to run the company, facility or whatever.
Reality sinks in later, from PDVSA, to cattle ranches, to Arria’s Las Carolinas, things deteriorate, go downhill, are abandoned, become just another failure. Somehow the few things that run, sometimes, are those managed by imported Cubans.
But Hugo presses on. Despite his inability to build, manage or accomplish much, he does not seem to know what to offer. So, he has been recycling himself and his failed past:
-The first promise was a housing program. If there has been a gigantic failure of the robolution, it is housing. The Chavez administration has been unable to beat a single year of the Caldera administration, despite a factor of eight difference in oil prices. A parade of Chavez’ military buddies has walked through the Ministry of Housing and, year after a year, the goals are not only not met, but come not even close from being achieved. This week, Chavez announced another effort in housing. What is it, Plan #5 or #6? It does not matter, the number is large, The plan will supposedly get US$ 1.5 billion from PDVSA, except that PDVSA does not have the money and needs all it has for its own projects. Hard to believe it will come to anything.
-And all of a sudden Chavez revives his now forgotten Bolivarian Circles. Like so many Chavez projects, one day funding ceased and that was the end of that. But now Chavez revives them, except he wants to focus on brainwashing five year olds. Cool, if the adults don’t stick around when the money disappears, try the kids! Yeah, sure, ask any parent in Venezuela who sent his kids to Catholic schools. Best way to make an atheist out of you!
-And whenever Chavez feels his popularity dropping, he revives nuclear energy and all related buzz words, “peaceful uses”, “thermonuclear” a word he clearly does not understand, Venezuela will jump directly into fusion, imagine that! Never mind we have no Nuclear Physicists, never mind we can’t even build simple houses, never mind we can’t even provide electricity with relaibility, we are going into fusion directly. What an ignorant fool!
-And from Brazil comes reality check, Venezuela is being excluded from the Pernambuco refinery. Venezuela was going to contribute with money when oil was at $100, no money, no Venezuela. Because Venezuela had nothing to contribute technically, as its own refineries are really in trouble and a mess.
So, Hugo goes to Russia, Bielorussia, he is going to export coffee, never mind that Venezuela does not produce sufficient coffee now to satisfy ts own needs. And he is going to buy military equipment. And he will start a bank, he must think banks print money. Oh! They do, but only in here Venezuela! And he will defend the Fatherland. And talk, talk, talk…blah, blah blah…
That’s all it is…eleven years running….
The Devil's Excrement 
October 18, 2010 at 9:46 am
Kepler,
I agree that the oppos should be united and focus much more on the sectors where Chavismo is still strong.It is true that even if Chavez builds this reactor our concentrations should be on strengthening the opposition, and widening its influence.
I am also worried about this:
“the growing amount of Venezuelans being getting certain ‘training’ in Belarus and Russia (Iran?)”
It would be good to find out what this is about.Do you have any ideas?
October 18, 2010 at 9:28 am
sorry: I meant the payment will be make in oil, as far as I have seen.
Whatever it is: there is nothing anyone can do about it but keep an eye
on what the nuclear reactor is being used for.
There are other things that worry me more at this stage:
1) the growing amount of Venezuelans being getting certain ‘training’ in Belarus and Russia (Iran?)
2) the brainwashing that is still happening in our schools, in the countryside, in the slums
3) the selfishness of many oppo leaders that are not working across parties to counter-attack specially 2) and who think they firstly have to patent non-brainers as their “ideas” before they tell people in sectors C, D, E what they propose.
I have said it before: we could grow much more but to do that we have to spend more time and neuron power in areas of sectors C, D and E.
I have checked out those municipalities and they either have an abstention degree of < 1% (like in Cedeno, Monagas or Antonio Diaz, Delta) or they have a 10-20% higher abstention than the municipalities where we have a clear majority. If the leaders of UNT, PJ, PVZLA, AD, etc move their asses and go there, they will help to dismantle the Venezuelan version of the Iranian revolutionary thugs.
October 18, 2010 at 9:19 am
Kepler,
The Russians had no compunctions about building a nuclear reactor for Ahmadinejad who talks about wiping Israel off the map, so why shouldn’t they build one for Chavez?
In other words we need to make great distinctions between the needs of the people and the ” needs” of Chavez
October 18, 2010 at 9:14 am
Kepler,
I think there is a big difference in public housing, that will only benefit the’ pueblo’, and a nuclear plant that will benefit Chavez’s ego and power.
The Russians might get some money by just saying they will build it, like what happened with Belarus, but I doubt he would be paid the whole amount for a functional nuclear reactor. :
1.
I cannot imagine that Chavez would give the whole amount for a nuclear reactor ahead of time
2.
Chavez would be more motivated by the acquisition of what he can use to intimidate others than he would by what he can use to help others
Irrespective of whether Chavez goes to the next stage of acquiring nuclear weapons or not, just by getting the reactor , he will be able to cause unease and uncertainty which is his permanent goal
The Russians had no compunctions about building a nuclear reactor for Ahmadinejad who talks about wiping Israel off the map.
October 18, 2010 at 8:40 am
“1. if Russia is in it for the money, it will have to get billed before it can get any money”
Firepigette, we are talking about Venezuela, not Switzerland.
Belorussians have got at the very least (proven, proven, proven) 90 million dollars for saying they will build 5000 flats in Aragua in 2008.
I wrote about it. The whole thing stinks. Hugo is now announcing the same crap all over again, but this time the payment will be done in dollars.
Ruski give enough euros to the Diosdados and Chavez of this world and cash in most of it.
October 18, 2010 at 8:34 am
Ira,
1. if Russia is in it for the money, it will have to get billed before it can get any money
2.You cannot conclude that because something like a housing project was announced but didn’t get built ,that this might be a precedent for us to think that this project is not going to be built either. It’s more comparable to the Venezuelan satellite launched by the Chinese which also seemed absurd to many and totally unnecessary for a country like Venezuela but got priority because it gives Chavez a kick.
3. Chavez perceives this reactor as increasing his strategic power and ability to threaten his neighbors including the US.In this sense it is more similar to all the “unnecessary” and expensive military hardware he bought from Russia.
4. too many people out there do not see the forest for the trees until it is too late, which is why Chavez easily accumulates power
October 18, 2010 at 4:16 am
There are people here who actually think this thing is going to get built?
1) Chavez doesn’t give a crap about providing cheap, reliable power. He could do that NOW by just getting out of the way and letting the professionals, not the red shirts, do their thing.
2) In the west, Chavez hasn’t been in the news for a whole day and a half, so he needed SOMETHING controversial to put him there.
3) Russia is in it for the money, and Medvedev is laughing all the way to the bank.
October 17, 2010 at 11:46 am
To Kolya and others:
Being in it for the money is by itself more than a valid reason to build the nuclear reactor.
Russia’s need to” tweak” the nose of the US is because of the global competition it has engaged in. And Venezuela does not have to be a serious asset in this game but just another pawn.
If the Russians are in it for the money and Chavez for the prestige, I see no reason why this reactor will not be built, after all it is going to be built by the Russians not by the red shirts.
October 17, 2010 at 10:34 am
I think… and i hate to say this… but a paradigm shift has occurred and virtually everyone has missed it.
The balance has shifted…. and there is no way to tell what will happen next.
The event I’m referring to was the release and discovery of Stuxnet…. and it’s going to have profound (really, really profound) consequences for the entire world… because at a certain level of infrastructure…. everything is controlled by PLC’s… and that’s reality.
There were maybe a dozen people on this earth who could have written it… and now that it’s in the wild… it can be copied, modified and targeted at more specific and interesting targets than an Iranian nuclear reactor and a nuclear processing plant in Russia.
Every nation that has established a certain level of technology in their infrastructure is vulnerable… and Venezuela is no different. Suddenly… the political squabbles and personalities and arms purchases don’t mean a whole lot. There are now or will be very soon, groups of people who can shut down critical infrastructure at will… and I don’t see any solutions on the near horizon.
kinda scary to think about… but it’s true.
October 17, 2010 at 6:21 am
GWEH, your sources are agents/moles/whatever from Russia, from the US, from Israel and from China, right?
You said once or twice Chávez was over, there was a coup and Rodríguez (or was it Ramirez?) was taking over (was it the start of last year?). You said that as if you had some privileged information, as if you had gone directly to the sanctum sanctorum to get the information. And you are a Venezuelan-Venezuelan. And now you tell us your sources now are “rusos rojitos”. Perhaps you know some Russian emigré in a “think” tank or a Russian worker with a pint too much and need to brag.
Kolya is a native Russian speaker who has been following up Russian affairs since he was a child and he has done that with an open mind. He has been in touch with all sides for decades now (and I don’t mean just talking to his relatives). Unlike some Russian emigrés in the USA who kept a commie trauma that make them think any fart is a Russian-induced gas attack, Kolya can see things for what they are and he does not have to live off from spreading rumours.
Hugo is getting more weapons, he is having Venezuelan milicos get some second-hand military training in Minsk’ War Academy (not as good as what the PCV got from the Soviets up to mid 80s, stuff they used in 1989), he may be getting some technology for identifying potential clusters of “problematic people” from the Russians, but he already got similar technology from Chinese Haunwei.
It seems to me there is a huge corruption affair with the Belorussian flats that were (NOT) built in Venezuela in 2008 and will (not) be built now, there are loads of fishy business deals with oil that will make Boliburgueses still richer.
Sources? Plan Russian, Belorussian newspapers and just some Venezuelan engineers plus a couple of normal Ivan Ivanovich friends from Russia and Belarus. No need for 007 or Jason Bourne or Agent 86.
It’s about the money and some nose-tweaking.
By the way: Hugo is annoying the Russians a bit by giving cheap oil to Belarus, which would otherwise be in its knees vis-a-vis Russia.
October 16, 2010 at 10:11 pm
That’s not all. Chávez hopes to develop that housing program by stripping the rights of people. His government is already preparing a law for initiate expropriations in the cities (http://bit.ly/9p6kOZ). A housing program that means more abuses: that’s regrettable.
And here’s another point of view of Chávez’s trip. Foreign affairs experts believe that he seeks to reassert his power after the election results. http://bit.ly/9ojaeG
Follow us on: http://www.facebook.com/WhatsNextVenezuela
October 16, 2010 at 7:18 pm
Mis Fuentes son rusos rojitos. Can u spell Kremlin
October 16, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Kolya, tus Fuentes?
October 16, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Yo no post paja… Ruskies si tienen vzla en las miras. See runrunes
October 16, 2010 at 10:28 am
“As has been pointed our earlier, Cuba never modernized, or developed such a voracious appetite for energy as happened here. ”
I would not be so sure. By 1959 standards, Cuba looked pretty modern. Maybe it did not have industrial manufacture. But industrial agriculture and a services sector it did have.
October 16, 2010 at 7:26 am
Kolya’s right.
Juancho,
Venezuela and sophistication? The Sambil shopping centres are not a symbol of sophistication. Most Venezuelans do not have much of sophistication but for a mobile.
October 16, 2010 at 6:58 am
Man, a nuclear reactor, there’s serious money to be made building one of those, hell there’s even more money to be made planning to build one, or getting ready to plan to build one.
Sometimes I think Hugo is the bastard child of Milo Minderbinder and Eula Snopes.
October 16, 2010 at 4:05 am
Kepler wrote: “Don’t count on Venezuela’s economy to further deteriorate. Remember Cuba. Venezuela has much more to offer than Cuba.”
One cannot compare Venezuela to Cuba. As has been pointed our earlier, Cuba never modernized, or developed such a voracious appetite for energy as happened here. No nation has ever successfully reversed the march to moderinity, meaning, once a nation reaches a level of technical sophistication, there is no going back without the bottom falling out of country.
Now you have Chavez nationalizing things like mad. He owes in excess of eight billion per his past appropriations, and there’s no cash to pay that nut. But worse is the fact that the pilfered businesses have virtually all failed, and now that he’s nabbing companies from the argricultural sector, the coffers will be further strained as the need for exports increases.
Basically, what the economists are saying is that because we are NOT Cuba, but were until recently a kind of 2nd world country – with high technology, but far too many poor – we put strains on the economy, especially in energy consumption, that no other country in SA can remotely match. And the way the corruption has spiked and banking has tanked, the process is simply not sustainable. There’s going to be a fall here sometime, when the whole madness of the past dozen or so years asserts itself suddenly. It nearly happened with the Guri mess a few months ago – and the idea that situation was “managed” to allow nuclear development is strictly a howler according to everyone I know in that industry. Guri almost went under because of lack of basic maintainance.
So basically the idea that Chavez can bungle things so handsomely and that there will always be enough dinero, or that we will be propped up by the Chinesed or Russian for gas futures, are opinions that are not shared by many in the know. The Russians, for one, don’t trust Chavez for shit.
Juancho
October 15, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Russia is in it for the money and also to tweak the nose of the US, but this stuff should not be overblown. All countries want to expand their influence, but Russia is neither thinking of “taking over Venezuela”, nor is Russia thinking that Venezuela may become a serious geopolitical asset to her.
October 15, 2010 at 4:41 pm
And about the Nuclear Plant, I am not worry at all.
The Nuclear Plant is the most soundly way that find Chavez to take out some protagonist to Chile’s recue of the miners.
Chavez in their low emotional evolution soul, is jealous about the rescue, that is way they take a long journey to distil their show and jealousy, with the addition of a nuclear plant that will never built. That is why he was the unique human being that can put a “cadena” meanwhile Chile was finishing the recue.
October 15, 2010 at 4:29 pm
Firepigette, Kepler:
What I try to say is that is better us and opposition to do our homework to defeat Chavez in 2012.
Later, I can tell you it will be almost impossible, Venezuelan of all sectors but most sectors C, D, E are easy to be buy with few bsf. at barrel at 200$, most prefer easy money now than be convinced with that are better to their future find enjoy and self realization by doing a job (well paid); and convince them to contribute with good sense economics laws.
Believe me, the worst case scenario, is Chavez having the money to built a hallucinating mirage.
October 15, 2010 at 2:49 pm
GWEH:
I thought that was you, in the blue guayabera, on Mass Ave.!
You have to remember that if Chavez had done 50% of what he said he would do we’d be living almost in Switzerland at this point (except for the quasi dictatorial style of governing, of course).
For now, it’s pura paja de un pajuo de monte.
Even when they lay the first stone, it will still be pura paja. How many “abortos de proyecto” are laying around Venezuela?
That being said, there is no question but that Putin & co. would LOVE to put a nuclear reactor in Venezuela, if anything to make the US real nervous and gain more of a foothold in Venezuela.
October 15, 2010 at 2:36 pm
and I say this blocks away from the Russian Embassy in DC.
October 15, 2010 at 2:35 pm
so while this is all fiction today, it can be reality tomorrow. Never underestimate the Russians.
October 15, 2010 at 2:33 pm
Concerned, that’s way too out there! This reactor will never happen unless something big does down between Russia and USA. Go check out Igor Sechin… backgrounder: remember when the US Navy went into the Black Sea to help Georgia? That fuck-up (if you want to call it that) is what led many a Russian to Venezuela. Georgia for Venezuela in other words.
October 15, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Makes you wonder if the electrical crisis was allowed to develop to it’s current state of disrepair to support the end goal of Chavez getting a woody by going nuclear?
It is easy to blame incompetence for the lack of production because they are. But if there is no electrical crisis, there would be no reason to pursue nuclear energy at this time, sitting on one of the largest fossil fuel reserves presently discovered. Chavez knows that he can never be a credible threat or deterent without at least the hint of a bomb. Whether he would or could is debatable, but he can sure milk it for what it is worth.
October 15, 2010 at 1:05 pm
seeing is believing. But the Russians might be trying to measure the gringos before they continue down the path of taking over Venezuela. The man to watch is Igor Sechin…check him out.
October 15, 2010 at 11:53 am
Antonio,
We should focus on what WE can do. We need to communicate with people outside the A/B social areas. We need to be sure we cooperate now not just with united lists of candidates but with logistics (ideological we will always be varied, but as long as we are democratic and honest, that’s fine).
Then we need to be sure we don’t put dinosaurs or just incapable in the front
Take a look at the mess in Delta Amacuro:
http://problemasdeltanos.blogspot.com/2010/10/division-exclusion-triunfalismo-falta.html
It is Delta, but things are still similar in Cojedes, in Guárico, in Monagas, in Sucre, in Apure, in Barinas, in Portuguesa, in Trujillo, in Yaracuy, in Falcón, in Yaracuy and even in some places of Amazonas, Nueva Esparta, Carabobo, Tachira, Zulia, MERIDA, Vargas!
We cannot bet on prices going one way or the other.
Most of the people still not voting could be taken to our side…if WE DO OUR HOMEWORK.
October 15, 2010 at 10:15 am
Antonio,
High oil prices will definitely strengthen Chavez’s position but what we cannot count on is the opposite, that the relatively lower prices existing now will cause economic problems that will lead to his collapse.
October 15, 2010 at 8:00 am
Money maybe is not essential factor to stop Chavez, but it will be better defeat Chavez now in 2012 than later.
Some prospection tell that oil can be at 200 $ per barrel after 2013, so with this price will be harder to defeat him.
October 15, 2010 at 7:17 am
I agree with Kepler,
Money will not be the determining factor in the demise of Chavez’s regime
October 15, 2010 at 6:11 am
There will always be enough money for Chavistas. Chinese and to a lesser extent others will simply keep the regime alive to profit from Venezuela as long as they want.
Don’t count on Venezuela’s economy to further deteriorate. Remember Cuba. Venezuela has much more to offer than Cuba.
October 15, 2010 at 3:33 am
Remember that at this late stage, over a decade into a moronic political sham i.e., the rebolution, there is little if anything remaining in the public sector that has any real legitimacy, excepting medicine. Hats of tho those still running the county hospitals por nada.
Mirroring what Miguelito said earlier – the few appropriated entitles that still function are generally run by Cubans. Remember, nothing is remotely legitimate anymore, ergo, the Cubans are scamming, and it works like this. Most of the appropriate businesses still running are retail joints, meaning they have cash coming in as they sell things. The Cubans saw this, and being willing to do the actual work to get the places running, do so in order to skim the profits or just take them all (common).
The Red Shirts are too lazy or uneducated or undisciplined to actually work at something. They wait for a big “project,” the kind Miguel ran down like the coffee scam, the housing racket and so forth. There are big funds available for these things – or there was at one time – and the Red Shirts would simply pilfer all the B’s without having to do the work the Cubans are doing to keep an actual business running in order to steal from it.
The common thread, as it’s been explained to me, is that virtually anything that generates money in the public sector is going to be bled to extinction, and most any “plan” involving government funds to fuel it, will almost immediately go under because the red shirts cannot work a legitimate position, and once the funds are allocated, they are quickly purloined and nothing gets done.
The fact remains the ports still exist and stay open, mostly because private sector containers have to be bought off and the pimps running the ports make their dough that way. If there are government containers coming in, and no private sector dollars to pay off the dock and port authorities, those containers will entirely blown off resulting, for instance, in tons of rotten food. The red shirts are too lazy to steal the food, because then there would be the real work of trying to sell it. They just want pay off with no work involved.
Sooner than later the money won’t be there to pay off the dock folk; the containers won’t be off loaded because there’s no money in it for anyone, and the country will be in a real fix since so much of what sustains us now is imported.
JL
October 14, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Thanks Liz. The guy missed the point didn’t he. I was in a restaurant in eastern Ven and the TV was tuned to the rescue on CNNe.
October 14, 2010 at 9:40 pm
GB, yes, the man did a cadena… maybe out of jealousy
October 14, 2010 at 7:12 pm
loroferoz
With Hugo, you have to wonder how much of the obviously false he utters is faking and how much is honest self-delusion.
I vote for self-delusion.
October 14, 2010 at 5:00 pm
With Hugo, you have to wonder how much of the obviously false he utters is faking and how much is honest self-delusion.
Oh, he is a Revolutionary and a Socialist. Not computable.
October 14, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Miguel, I will use you as a medium to get votes for one of my favorites
literature websites, Letralia. This site REALLY deserves it. It was founded and it is maintained by a venezuelan writer.
Those who can vote, just click and then vote. Thanks.
http://premiofrida.org/spa/projects/view/249
October 14, 2010 at 2:57 pm
If it were not for chavez’s fear of dinosaurs living in the center of the earth, he would try to drill a hole through to China and use the “pheonix device” to retrieve potential voters. For sure if he would try this, PDVSA would drill for two years and surface somwhere around Puerto Ordaz, just slightly off the mark by thousands of miles.
October 14, 2010 at 2:53 pm
Hi Miguel,
I’m sure you must have misunderstood President Chávez. Surely what he actually meant was using nuclear fusion to generate electricity – part of a peaceful and eco-friendly strategy to free up more oil for export by converting all Venezuelan cars to electrical. Your problem is simply that you cannot see the big picture!
(Just kidding, amigo. It’s a pleasure to read your posts always – keep up the good work!)
J.
October 14, 2010 at 1:46 pm
OT: Is it true that Chavez when into cadena during the final moments of the Chilean rescue and spouting off negative comments about the rescue effort and Chile? He totally misses the point! What an arrogant prick!
October 14, 2010 at 11:08 am
Bill: “Can you imagine how the upper crust elite in Brazil talk about Chavez. What is the Portuguese word for clown?”
A little trivia, when the popular Mexican comedy “El Chavo del Ocho” was brought to Brazil, the titular character’s name was changed to “Chaves”.
So, in Brazil, the name “Chaves” is automatically associated with a bumbling infantile moron whose catch phrases include “es que no me tienen paciencia”, “si lo haaaaago….” and “fue sin querer queriendo”.
October 14, 2010 at 10:31 am
Bill, the portuguese word for clown is palhaço.
October 14, 2010 at 9:14 am
Miguel, Ira did hit your best summary of Chavez. Your conclusion is off-base. If only all Chavez did was “talk, talk, talk…” Instead, he’s been hard at work demolishing institutions, dividing the country, and much more. It would be hard enough to fix Venezuela if all he had done for 11 years was allow it to fall apart, but his efforts have accelerated the process and/or sabotaged (imposibilitado) the future rebuilding efforts.
October 14, 2010 at 9:10 am
An example, Coffee Plan: agricultural inversions to produce coffee in Venezuela 900.000.000 BsF \(9 with 8 ceros).
Results, importation of 550.000 quintales of coffee from Nicaragua, Brasil and Costa Rica.
Meanwhile, no trace of the money or production from the Coffee Plan, make your conclusions about where is the money.
About the miners Chilean rescue, and glad that finish well and this not happened in Venezuela, because they will stay bellow earth forever, and even nobody will know it, because control of communication medias.
October 14, 2010 at 8:02 am
And Deanna, Evo was even there!
I can’t believe the class that Pinera showed. I just hope he realizes that being nice only gets you so far with “that” bunch, and that he’s prepared to be tough as well.
October 14, 2010 at 5:12 am
Ira,
I also love the fact that Pinera stated that he was grateful for the help of the US, who was always first to come to the aid of Chile, from the earthquake to this mining incident. Evo and Chavez must have really loved that statement, since they’re always trying to run the US down!!!!
October 14, 2010 at 4:41 am
Hey, Miguel–your best piece ever! You really summed it all up beautifully.
————————————————–
There is no question that Hugo Chavez is a great communicator. Except that he tends to focus on the “new”, the “promise”, the empty future that has never arrived in the last eleven years. Never on accomplishments, management, real things.
—————————————————–
That’s Hugo in a nutshell!!!
By the way:
What do you think was going through his head and going on in his offices while this spectacular miners rescue was going on in Chile? I know he was jealous as hell, but knowing Chavez and his impulsive actions, he’s incapable of leaving it at that.
More important, this brought Pinera up 10 notches in the world’s eyes, and Pinera ain’t no Hugo fan!
I simply love it.
October 14, 2010 at 2:46 am
Metodex, you won’t have to worry about converting and going to Sunday mass, or confession. I’m granting you an indulgence because even if Chavez is not in office after 2012, he will still run the place, like Putin does in Russia.
With Chavez’s new found Iranian friend, chain reaction fission will probably precede fusion by quite some time in Venezuela.
Someone should tell Chavez that Brazil doesn’t need Venezuelan oil. Can you imagine how the upper crust elite in Brazil talk about Chavez. What is the Portuguese word for clown? They might screen some of his speeches in their private theaters to get some laughs.
October 14, 2010 at 12:11 am
Miguel, I just read where Saudi officials like oil priced in the $70-80 dollar range and plan on keeping it there.
Can you comment RE: the effects on Venezuela at that sustained price? (Here or perhaps in a new post.)
And buddy, I haven’t expressed my appreciation to you – for your (blogging) work – in a long time. So here goes: THANK YOU again for your leadership.
October 13, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Al: as my earlier post on crime shows, it depends on where and what you are, the poor and the rich share the crime, in between people are fine, look at the link.
My odds here in caracas are much worse than yours, stay…
October 13, 2010 at 10:41 pm
He is going to continue to devour his own, (Bolibourgeois). Veneco is a great example. You watch. If he continues to do this you are going to see a lot of the Bolibourgeois disappear and take their money with them. The institutions will continue to crumble. Stock up on canned goods and several can openers.
October 13, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Chavismo is improvisation. What a contrast with the example given by Chile.
My post:
http://cuentosintrascendentes.blogspot.com/2010/10/si-los-mineros-fueran-venezolanos.html
October 13, 2010 at 10:20 pm
looking for some advice here.
right now i’m an exchange student in san cristóbal. a safe city for venezuela. i can’t help but feel like somethings gonna happen in this country soon. think should i just get out?
October 13, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Hey miguel.I’ma tell ya something.
Im an atheist,agnostic,whatever you wanna call it.If Chavez loses in 2012 im going to start believing.I swear.
All these things you just mentioned just look kinda desperate.Like,going back to the “golden” days of the revolution with the bolivarian circles and shit.
I feel so confident now. All im hoping is for his ship to sink,for good,no comebacks or any of that bs.
Sink please.