You have to wonder where some of the Chavista “leaders” get their ideas. Reading the daily newspapers of Venezuela is truly a veritable Ripley “Believe It or Not” adventure into harebrained ideas. Today Chavismo was quite generous in its outpouring of ideas that would amaze anyone.
First it was the President of the National Assembly Fernando Soto Rojas. Fresh from telling us last week that there is no separation of powers in Venezuela and Chavez has a say on everything, he calls and tells us that:
“The Lybian conflcit is seen by Venezuela as a political opportunity to project Chavez image both within and outside the country and attempt to avoid a defeat in the upcoming presidential elections”
He even says that Chavez PSUV party “approved” a plan to position Chavez’ image in the context of the Middle East crisis.
“We need a worldwide political victory to win the Presidency in 2012”
Jeez, where do I start on the venerable (by age) Soto’s words? First, he is recognizing that the number don’t look very good despite the affable Jesse Chacon telling us today Chavez would win running away. Second, Chavez, Soto and the party appear to be more involved with worldwide politics than doing something for the people or perhaps they realize the people are so pissed (See this video for example) that there is little they can do for them that would change their opinion. But more importantly, political issues continue to dominate what the party and Chavez discuss. The strategy is to position Chavez in some international conflict because the task of doing something nationally looks sort of difficult at this time. Too much time has been wasted on politics, rather than doing something.
And then, today’s El Nacional where Soto’s words were quoted, aslo has a strong statement by none other than Minister of Feeding Carlos Osorio.Osprio says that wheat imports will be centralized by the Government, so that there are no excess imports that have to be sold to other countries (read Colombia). Osorio added: “We can’t continue with this vision of teh private sector and capitalism of seeing foodstuffs as a business”
As if this was not enough, Osorio said that all purchasers must be made from countries who are “allies” of Venezuela
Where does one start? First I would love to see the list of “allies”. It would be interesting to make it public. The fewer the providers, the more expensive importing stuff will be, but that does not seem to matter anyway, after all, we have the highest inflation in the world, there is nobody left to beat.
Second, this “import only what is necessary: simply does not work. This is what leads to shortages and the problem with the stuff sold to other countries is not because there is an excess, but because it is cheaper in Venezuela, where purchases are mad at the subsidized rate of Bs. 4.3 per US$ and the price of wheat flour is subsidized. But what is hard for me to figure out is where does this guy get the idea of excesses? There have been two or three shortages of wheat flour in the last two months.
But what I really wonder is if this guy knows what “capitalism” and the private sector have done, for example, in Brazil in terms of food, not only producing cheap foodstuffs but making Brazil a powerhouse producer for the world. And ot was the private sector, not the Government who did it.
It is incredible how these guys use their home made “wisdom” to make up political and economic models that are known to have failed, while failing to even study or look at the successful ones. Chile and Brazil would be a good place for them to start with. But I know, I know, it’s hopeless.
Note added: Well, according to the Association of Wheat Workers, the “excess” supply will not last until the end of march.
The Devil's Excrement 
March 14, 2011 at 9:58 pm
I wonder if tleon buys his groceries in a normal country?
March 14, 2011 at 2:16 pm
tleon:
Your translating skills suck, big time.
Sod off!
March 14, 2011 at 1:49 pm
Qué montón de perdedores para este puesto. Ustedes en su mayor parte son más tontos que una caja de piedras Chevez ha cabreado en.
March 14, 2011 at 10:37 am
Petroleo al Pueblo, en effectivo! Eso tumba chavismo, reactiva la economia de mercado, reduce corrupción, aumenta eficiencia, elimina pobreza, reduce inequidad, y lleva a Venezuela a la vanguardia social/capitalista.
—
March 14, 2011 at 8:33 am
Of course, Chavismo may be defeated due to his unmatched ability to destroy everything in his path.
But, unless something is done for the poor, they will inevitably hear the siren song of hope twenty years from now, or thirty, in the next “revolution”.
To me, the only successful Opposition leader is the one who attacks and reduces poverty, and thereby diminishes the constituency for the next Hugo.
March 14, 2011 at 7:48 am
Deananash,
I think we agree. I don’t mind harsh words about Venezuelans.
It is about trying to make sense how we can move from where we are. We need to make a distinction between Chavez officials and hard-core Chavistas on one side -beyond redemption- and Chavez-voters-out-of complete-ignorance plus the very large amount of non-voters. We need to make that difference even if it is out of self-interest, it is the only way we can start to understand the groups we can motivate.
Actually: abstention in other poor areas in higher than in Los Guayos. It is about 40% in many other municipios. Our lot just expect them “not to vote” instead of expecting them to go to vote for our candidates.
Look: I know some people are doing a rather decent job like Capriles. But then: many fail to realise how the demographics in Venezuela work.
Most people do live in cities in Venezuela but “city” is not, unlike what we urbanites often say “Caracas only” (or Caracas-Maracaibo-Valencia).
Most people live outside those three cities.
What do they know about productivity? What do they know about anything? Of course, Venezuela has the big extra problem of the petrodollars.
March 14, 2011 at 6:55 am
Kepler, good points all, and some are downright great, such as the last one. How can you want to “represent” the people if you don’t know them?
My words came across as harsh, and it wasn’t my point. I care about the poor, and not just with my words, I walk the talk. I work with the very poor – poorer than Venezuela (in the Philippines), and before that, for 6+ years in China (no longer that poor).
That said, for me, the TOUGHEST part about helping the poor is to get them to let you. The second hardest? Getting the government and useless NGO’s out of the way. (Please note the qualifier “useless” – there are lots of good NGO’s.)
Poverty itself is actually a fairly simple problem today: increase your productivity to increase your wealth. And even that is easy to do, when you sell only mangoes on the street. Just have a chat with the coconut vendor, split your inventory, and spread out. They might not sell twice as much, but they’ll surely sell (read produce) more.
March 14, 2011 at 3:17 am
I wonder what Osorio did before being “intendente de silos”.
Does anyone know if he is another Llanero? I really would love to know that.
Guys:
I don’t think most people are idiots, but they are indeed ignorant.
There are quite some with a complete distorted vision of the world. And they grow up in resentment towards “the rest that keeps them poor”. Still, there are others that are approachable and that are more than willing to move forward…if they get a clear option and are not treated like rubbish.
Actually, many of us are deeply ignorant precisely of what image of the world and what problems a large part of Venezuela’s population has.
I remember how a very good friend of mine, one of the cleverest guys I have seen and a former student of Miguel, was telling me about the things he was learning from the “señora que nos plancha” about how life was for her.
Most Venezuelans have never been abroad. Their image of what it is about comes from detective films, from Die Hard, from VTV or Venevision.
Remember: 70% of the population does not have cable or Internet in Venezuela. That is much less than in many other South American countries. Even if they did: you know how one can get hooked to just one stream of thought in Internet: those who believe Elvis is alive or those who believe in conspiracy X.
Take Los Guayos. Abstention in that area is 33%, higher than the 29% in oppos areas. 52,02% voted for PSUV. I know lots of people there, all oppos. But they know lots of Chavistas.
If you drive the Panamericana, you can get to that area in 10 minutes.
It is not even like Petare or El Valle. It is flat.
You can drive there from where Borges’s family and the governor of Carabobo live in just 30 minutes. If you drive through, you arrive in a few minutes to the International Airport Michelena (Valencia’s airport).
Los Guayos was a poor but neat town when I was a baby. It is an ugly city now with lots of slums growing around the old city centre. Most of those newcomers are people who come from the Llanos or further away. They live in another world.
The opposition has not been there since 2008, when they were present for a few minutes at the plaza Bolívar (and admittedly, they were attacked by some Chavistas).
There were 85.989 possible voters for 2010 there. It’s the most densely populated municipio in Carabobo but there are similar ones.
The governor, oppo and all, good will, is surrounded by people who have no idea what life is in Southern Valencia or in other poor areas. His family, the Salas Feo, have even two parties, as one is not enough.
In other regions we have AD dinosaurs. Are Chavistas worse? Certainly, much more…but they have the petrodollars now. We need to look for other mechanisms.
We need to understand what the others know or think they know and we need to present options to that.
I want to attach a GPS to the ten top leaders of the 5 top oppo parties and see how many places they visit in Venezuela.
Do they think they have to become THE candidate for the top job to move their asses?
March 14, 2011 at 12:57 am
Roy is right, and not just because it’s one of the things I’ve been saying for many years.
The poor, they truly want equality and since they know that they can’t compete to achieve a semblance of it, they settle for second best: destroying what others have created, also known as bringing others down.
March 13, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Miguel,
You might as well have stopped at “Where do I start?”. Only the most stupid and ignorant would buy into such utter BS. And, even amongst the rank and file of Chavismo, (the heavy-weight champions of “stupid and ignorant) I don’t think many are truly buying it, even though they will pretend to for the cameras.
As CarlosElio implied, Chavismo’s real goal is not to succeed in improving their own lot, so much as bringing “los burgueses” or “los esqualidos” down to their level. They do this knowing (deep down) that it will hurt them too, but their desire to bring down their perceived enemy or oppressor outweighs any other consideration, including their own future and well-being. So, it goes beyond merely “stupid and ignorant”.
March 13, 2011 at 10:58 pm
It seems that there is still no whiskey shortage in Venezuela!
Food, at least grains, are traded on the international market just like oil. Unless your buying contaminated food there are no deals and the rest of the world is looking for a deal too right now.
As far as Libya, this seems more like a threat to Venezuelans. Unfortunately, when People Power fails and the government uses military force, you have what you see, Civil War. Chavez has not been buying people and weapons for nothing. How diplomatic to make the world safer for dictatorships!
BTW most Venezuelans are not Hugoistas (jaja) , they are just trying to survive any way they can.
March 13, 2011 at 10:11 pm
There are two things that challenge reason: First, the absurdity (Miguel called it “wisdom” with well-deserve quotation marks) of the chavez regime, and, second, the fact that so many people follow the man and support his craziness.
The madness of crowds has been documented before (http://bit.ly/4FHkp1), but I have not found a satisfactory explanation. In this blog, often times, when one of the commentators puzzles over the collective madness of millions of chavistas, another quickly explains it with self-serving pseudo-explanations such as “they are ignorant and stupid” (leaving the corollary “but I am not”) to be understood, hence the self-serving nature of such explanations.
The problem is that unless we understand what drives millions of chavistas to support the absurd, we will be condemned to have a delusional guy in power.
March 13, 2011 at 9:56 pm
It is not wisdom at all, just plain unadulterated ideology, the bane of civilization and progress. Wish all the rest of Venezuela’s politicians abandoned it too, for something called science, which is the discovery of what works or not. Anything over 50% results might have something behind it. The rest forget it! 90+ predictable results, that’s something hot. Communism has 0% results in over 50 countries and Socialism with over 100 countries, still relies on free enterprise to do the heavy lifting. So much for ideologies!!
March 13, 2011 at 9:36 pm
“But I know, I know, it’s hopeless..”
Sad but true. Demasiada ignorancia en este pobre pueblo