(You! Assassin, opposition, counter revolutionary, with that Bazooka and all those weapons they wanted to kill me!)
Thanks to out friend Kepler, who has kept close record of it, Hugo Chavez has cried “murder” on his life a total of twenty two times.
Twenty two times in which our farcical President claims either an attempt, a close attempt or a plot to kill him. This time around it is even funnier because the claim is that opposition groups have gathered US$ 100 million to have him killed. He claims to have “reliable” information of this and even mentions that the President of Globovision Guillermo Machado is one of the people involved.
The problem is that none of this cases has ever found any one guilty, nobody has been tried and, Chavez never seems to formalize his claims to the Prosecutor. The closest he ever came to this, was when a man from El Salvador was deported to Cuba, the funny thing is that he left heavily guarded from Caracas in one plane and arrived without even handcuffs in Havana in a different one. (The opposition was also accused in that case, nobody was ever charged)
But think about it. US$ 100 million? Jeez, if it were true, he would be dead in the water. In a country where people pay a few thousand Bolivars to kill someone, the number is so outrageously high, it is clear he made it up on the fly.
It is all part of his egotistical mind. He has to call attention to him. He is copying Fidel’s playbook in every respect. Except Cuba is a mess and nobody has believe Fidel in a couple of deacdes when he claimed the US was about to invade Cuba or kill him and in that case, there were some real attempts long ago.
It’s all part of the show, he wants Zuluaga extradited not on this, but on hoarding cars, a strange criminal charge anywhere in the world but in crazy Chavez land. But to the public, the constant announcements are confusing and nobody ever remembers the exact details. To the pro-Chavez rank and file, Zuluaga is guilty as charged, Chavez says so and there has to be a reason why he left the country and the Government wants him. Period.
It’s all smoke and mirrors. Cheap propaganda that works somehow, except people start ignoring it. I hope it’s true that you can’t all the fool people, all the time and all that, it’s now almost twelve years and counting.
The Devil's Excrement 
November 23, 2010 at 3:40 pm
Roberto N,
Half Empty’s reference was a satire, or counter-quote, of Abraham Lincoln’s original quote. I don’t know the attribution of that one, but there have been many variations.
November 22, 2010 at 8:44 pm
Sorry, call me a romantic, I want him alive for the trials and the jail!
November 22, 2010 at 8:10 pm
I honestly think most people would do it for a lot less than 100 million!!! His head on a platter isn’t woth that much money
November 22, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Would this work: If you get a government paycheck, you lose the right to vote? Seems like it would make a difference to me.
November 21, 2010 at 4:14 pm
From what I can tell His Bolibabble is only noticed on even third rate news like Yahoo on a slow news day which of course is most Sundays. Checking Venezuelan press, they seem to have stopped reporting on Pollo Piquino and His weekly paranoia!
November 21, 2010 at 3:22 pm
“I would not use the word “varón”. Women can be as courageous if not more so than men.”
I was only quoting Alvaro Uribe’s direct injunction to Hugo Chavez.
Hugo has committed the gross mistake of using obviously false claims, supporting it with obviously false montages, and doing it repeatedly.
Deananash has also a good idea too. Message fatigue should be avoided, but constant pressure can be used, changing the specific topic. “Had Enough, yet?” is a good underlying, running theme for ex-chavistas and ni-nis. Not “enough” of a theoretical problem understood by economists and constitutionalists. But of real fear and uncertainty of your life and wellbeing. Of being mistreated by the rojo rojitos. Of not reaching the end of month with the wage. Of waking up at the wee hours to get to work because the roads and Metro are done for. Of returning home at night (again, traffic and the Metro) with fear of being stripped of shoes, wages and life in a minute. Of owning a real home turning into a dream for lottery winners and government honchos only. Etc., etc. etc.
All the while you can present images of our President and cronies, all with armed guards that double as valets from the army and police, next year model, armored SUVs (not one, several in convoy even for lower officials), their homes and Cartier watches. All the while a Venezuelan on foot, without a cop to call a kilometer round, is being murdered for a cheap watch. While some kid catches a bullet for being in the wrong spot at the wrong moment.
November 21, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Just one word: Egomaniac
November 21, 2010 at 12:24 pm
The little Hugo that cried “Wolf”! x22 official threats and I’d think if he uses this in the official press to wield his emotional crutch, he’s used it hundreds more in casual conversation.
November 21, 2010 at 10:04 am
In the defunct Soviet Union, high ranking communists often spoke of sabotage (when something went wrong with the economy), or assassination attempts (when things went really bad). Stalin was good at it; Castro just followed the example. Chavez, however, exaggerates. The best one I remember was when he claimed that some babalaos had taken a contract job on him (lucky for Chavez that witchcraft doesn’t work like that).
These prophesies can be self-fulfilling, as in the case of Joe Stalin. It has been said that Khrushchev was told by Beria that he had given Stalin an overdose of warfarin. The official cause of death was a brain haemorrhage, thus the warfarin claim. Neither the Empire nor Russian Tsarist oligarchs are velieved to have been involved.
I don’t know if Beria did it for cash, for power, or “for the good of the country”, but in our case there can be only one possible incentive. And Chavez knows which one it is.
November 21, 2010 at 9:56 am
loroferoz is right, you have to mock Chavez. The “three strikes” campaign was a perfect example.
It should have been followed up with another, then another.
And what would tie it all together would be a “Had Enough, yet?” type of umbrella. Or perhaps, “The revolution is killing us!”
One period (two weeks?) could focus on the crime rate.
The next period, the lack of houses built.
The next, where all the money has gone.
And so on…
November 21, 2010 at 9:02 am
Chavez dreams and crazy people dream with him.I like Bob Dylan’s quote the best:
Talkin’ World War III Blues, last verse:
Well, now time passed and now it seems
Everybody’s having them dreams.
Everybody sees themselves walkin’ around with no one else.
Half of the people can be part right all of the time,
Some of the people can be all right part of the time,
But all of the people can’t be all right all of the time.
I think Abraham Lincoln said that.
“I’ll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours.”
I said that.
November 21, 2010 at 8:36 am
I would not use the word “varón”. Women can be as courageous if not more so than men. But it is true: Hugo is a coward. I have said a million times the alternative forces should challenge him also to a real debate and call him a coward, a silly coward, for hiding behind his pawns.
November 21, 2010 at 7:47 am
“And while Chávez claims every so many months that people are trying to kill him, Venezuelans have to endure the highest murder rate of South America – twice that of the second worst country, Colombia.”
Now this is something worth pointing out. A good propaganda campaign should remind this to Venezuelans constantly. That the Colombian President, public officials elected or not, political candidates are in real, constant danger from Hugo’s buddies in the guerrilla, paramilitaries and drug traffickers, and THEY DO NOT WHINE UNDULY. Just to suggest that our “President” is a sissy, a crybaby, a narcissist and a con man. “SEA VARON!”, allright.
November 21, 2010 at 7:14 am
This is too delicious to resist. Ready?
I’d take his continual harping as a suggestion.
November 21, 2010 at 6:11 am
Half Empty:
That was Abraham Lincoln:
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
Not sure if Hunter S. Thompson belongs in the same category, even though he did write some awesome political satire.
November 21, 2010 at 5:25 am
Miguel, I think the list is not exhaustive at all. I’d see that as a selection, although it contains some of the most announced intentos de microcidio.
There are topics gallore that could make Chávez look pretty ridiculous if Venezuelan journalists kept record of them. Imagine trying to mindmap the cabinet changes during Hugo’s tenure, or corruption deals by Boliburgueses.
And while Chávez claims every so many months that people are trying to kill him, Venezuelans have to endure the highest murder rate of South America – twice that of the second worst country, Colombia.
November 21, 2010 at 3:43 am
I hope it’s true that you can’t all the fool people, all the time and all that,
A great American (Hunter Thompson? Ambrose Bierce?) said you can’t fool all the people all of the time, but you can fool half the people all the time and usually that sufices.
November 20, 2010 at 11:37 pm
Fixed, same problem, I have to get used to the new way of putting links in wordpress, it automatically inserts http://, so if you dont remove it you double it.
November 20, 2010 at 11:13 pm
OK, I just used IE, and the link still doesn’t show up.
November 20, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Miguel, the ND link isn’t showing up for me. I’m using Google Chrome, so I’ll try another browser right now.
November 20, 2010 at 10:57 pm
Thanks and sorry, the new version of adding links in wordpress is different…
November 20, 2010 at 10:54 pm
The Kepler link as an extra http// in it.