Observations focused on the problems of an underdeveloped country, Venezuela, with some serendipity about the world (orchids, techs, science, investments, politics) at large. A famous Venezuelan, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, referred to oil as the devil's excrement. For countries, easy wealth appears indeed to be the sure path to failure. Venezuela might be a clear example of that.
Unknown FeedThis little known video from April 15th. 2002 shows how much the truth was distorted. In it Chavez says he told Lucas Rincon “I have accepted abandoning the position(of President) if conditions are met…”
So, he was resigning, the conditions were met, nobody was harmed or hurt…
Changing history is Chavez’ main expertise…
The Devil's Excrement 
April 21, 2011 at 7:39 am
Kepler,
I did not say that the average city dweller lives in Caracas, so it’s not a fact that I think so. I just used Caracas as an example, not as a proposal, you can see for yourself.
I agree that the cash transfer will initially be viewed as Mi Negra, heck even readers here still think it’s the same thing, and the more conditions added the more it will seem so, and the more it will be so. It’s because of the comparison to Mi Negra that I insist on the importance of keeping it simple and focusing on the single message, over and over. We must make sure people get what it is with no mixed understanding. Unconditional would help.
I believe that going door to door is the most effective, as chavez knows better than most. That does not mean, as you imply, that viral marketing does not work in Venezuela. And cash handouts work, too, as chavez also knows, and is now doing with la tarjeta del buen vivir, which he is purposely letting people think is the same as a Mi Negra. Do we have the money time and manpower for door to door? If we do, I’m all for it. Door to door would be ideal. Just because I believe viral would work, does not mean I’m saying don’t do door to door. I don’t know why the pushback.
Also, when I talk about making it a focus platform, I’m including, as I’ve mentioned, testing and getting ready so that come election it can be kickstarted. The DIEX and bank people of the interior will tell their friends and families about the cash transfers that they are starting to get trained for it. Even when they doubt, they will believe when they see the software working, the sample cards being tested, and the seriousness with which it is all being treated.
Heck if the opposition get required signatures, they could force a national referendum, getting CNE to help in the advertising of the whole thing, while forcing it as a law, to boot.
There are many ways, Kepler, use your experiences, observations and education to see the many ways it can be applied towards the success of this, instead of what seems as a discounting of my experiences, observations and education. This is our only chance against chavez, especially now with the growing money machine.
Regarding your “It’s Venezuela. VE-NE-ZUE-LA!” You may be underestimating Venezuelans. I make a distinction between Venezuela and Venezuelans: Venezuela may be backwards, but I don’t think Venezuelans are, especially not the ones from the interior. Tell them you want to give them the natural resource money; they’ll know a good thing when they see it.
Give them their money; it’s long overdue.
—
April 20, 2011 at 9:19 am
Torres,
The fact you think Caracas is where THE average city dweller lives shows you still don’t understand what Hugo Chavez understood many years ago and why we are so weak.
Caracas is the largest city, but it is neither the average nor the mean city. The average city is Guacara, Guanare, Calabozo, MaturĂn. You MUST get there. That’s the minimum, the absolute minimum. Those are NOT remote “aldeas”. Those are average cities, no matter how “urgh” they are to you.
And we must get there. From there I understand ideas can spread to real villages, as Parapara. But you must make act of presence in the main 30 cities. I would say: don’t even bother with Caracas or Valencia. Instead of 20 events in Caracas, do 1 in 20 cities with more than 100 thousand and less than one million inhabitants and all of Venezuela will find out
April 20, 2011 at 8:49 am
Torres,
Do you live in Venezuela? I don’t. I live in Europe. Still, sometimes I wonder what is going on with people in main cities.
Do you remember Mi Negra?
Your unconditional cash distribution card will be viewed as another Mi Negra. And you know what? I am not against it, on the contrary. I just know how things work once you get 10 kilometres away from the Panamericana.
It’s a different world and Chavismo has an amazing propaganda machinery.
Did you know a huge amount of people in FalcĂłn and the Llanos thought the opposition would demand immediate payment of debts from farmers?
That is what the Propagandamaschine was churning to the people there.
We need to go there, we need to show up there, in real. Forget about viral marketing. It’s Venezuela. VE-NE-ZUE-LA!
Viral my foot.
April 20, 2011 at 8:23 am
Kepler: “I happen to have lots of relatives in those secondary cities.”
Most Venezuela city dwellers will be very few degrees away from people in remote areas. If you have a viral sell, you don’t need to access them directly; you just need word to get to them. That’s the purpose of having an offer so simple, so powerful that people will let the others know. If you were giving away motorhomes and only announced it in Caracas, do you think the people in “the main towns in Guárico, in Anzoátegui, in Monagas – galore -, in Sucre.” wouldn’t hear about it and come pick theirs up?
Unconditional Cash Distribution. Start giving out the cards. Start printing out drafts of the laws. Start naming those who will be in charge of getting it done. Start having the banks make statements that they are ready to process the distributions. Start having test runs and publishing the results of the testing. Send the message that it will get done, and done well, and done quickly, if elected.
The Yanomami will hear about it, no doubt.
—
April 20, 2011 at 3:33 am
Let’s remember something: we often fail to see how much each group sticks just to “their own” even in the XXI century.
I have a little poll for Venezuelan readers of the English/German blog about where they were born.
Distrito Federal: 26%
Zulia=8%
Carabobo=8%
The results are still too few. Still, I’m almost sure the zulianos come from Maracaibo and the carabobenos from Valencia.
In reality, those regions account for these voters:
DF: 8%
Zulia:12%
Carabobo:7%
Of course, birth place and residence are two different matters, but you catch the trend.
In my Spanish blog most readers are from Venezuela and read from Venezuela, unlike the first one. I see the locations. Even if the coast region is clearly the most populated, it’s incredible how underrepresented the Llanos (Llanos orientales) are and also the secondary cities around Caracas and Valencia, where vast amount of people live.
I happen to have lots of relatives in those secondary cities. Only during the last 2-3 weeks do candidates from the opposition go there, if they ever do. Chavistas? They do it all the time. And in fact: the extreme commies were penetrating many of those areas many years ago, when I was a child.
The following is a link to a machine translated article from the Soviet (yes, Soviet) Vokrug Sveta. The translation sucks but it gives you some idea.
The article is the recount from a Soviet journalist visiting Venezuela in 1983.
The place is a slum in Caracas.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vokrugsveta.ru%2Fvs%2Farticle%2F2016%2F&sl=ru&tl=en&hl=&ie=UTF-8
And now: they were not just doing it in Caracas and not just in Valencia or Maracaibo. They were penetrating the main towns in Guárico, in Anzoátegui, in Monagas – galore -, in Sucre.
Who has done something similar? Only the Adecos, with less of ideology and just old demagoguery…which doesn’t work anymore if you do not have the petrodollars.
Somehow the alternative forces have to break in.
And we cannot go there only after the candidate has been elected.
Venezuelans from the oppo cannot keep just talking to their peers online or on their street. They need to ponder: can I reach someone else? can we try to work in such a way that we now don’t try to reach all just the one person? (as now they ARE going to the barrios in Caracas and keep going there without realising there is more to gain going beyond)
April 19, 2011 at 5:17 pm
Let’s mock him then. It’s not really that difficult since he gives us tons of reasons:
April 19, 2011 at 12:48 pm
So for a few days I’ve been pondering about what to comment on this post.
11 years after the events that led to Chavez’s resignation, and come back from La Orchila and then from his cell in Fuerte Tiuna, still everybody remembers he did resign (chavistas, ni-nis, oppos, etc.). But, so what? Chavez himself will never accept publicly that he did resign, and in the following 11 years it didn’t make any difference in Venezuela’s extremely precarious prospects.
I didn’t even want to watch the video. I’m sure I’ll get instant stomach ache as soon as I start watching. What we should concentrate on is the 2012 elections. Yes, I’ve said (and many other people have as well) Chavez’s plan is not to loose those elections. And, needless to say, the opposition has been outsmarted and outspent over and over. But for now, those elections are the chance at hand to get rid of him, and right now I’m not even thinking on a next opportunity if the opposition looses.
April 19, 2011 at 10:15 am
Deananash,
We have cute girls here as well 🙂
Seriously: I have told them also about the flash mobs. But the notification has to go differently, normal emailing and mobile communication is a no go. Believe it or not, Chavistas tap a lot of people – using Chinese technology, which is not top but then people don’t really pay too much attention to the trails. So: for certain things, the oppo needs to go Osama: low-tech. That doesn’t mean it excludes high-tech, but that only to document things.
There is one crucial thing as well: we cannot pop up in Calabozo or MaturĂn Upon Guarapiche out of the blue, with just sifrinos de Caracas (or from my city) without having firstly studied the area – securitywise, myth-wise, for its local concerns, etc and without having locals.
There are a couple of core beliefs we need to announce: non-violence and PLURALISM, a definite no to ideological idiocies and we want a developed nation, not a banana republic.
April 19, 2011 at 5:12 am
I agree with Kepler….the whole thing should be set up without much central planning – I dare say, independently operating cells. The “master” plan should be a guide, but the actual implementation should be kept secret until executed (pun not intended).
These should be very analogous to FLASH MOB actions. Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ3d3KigPQM
And this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY
Then there is the “instant” party-on-a-subway car kind of thing (google it). The actions don’t have to be negative, per se. They do have to MOCK him. And they should be fairly well spaced out. For example, never more than 1 at a time in any given city. Ideally, a city would have one event every two days.
April 19, 2011 at 2:15 am
Venezuelan alternative forces should follow very closely the complains from those groups.
And then they should strike there, with very fast actions that avoid getting the Chavista thugs on them: distributing flyers, showing big posters in key places THERE (i.e. key intersection in Calabozo, key avenue in MaturĂn, city centre of Guacara) about why the government spends so many billion BOLIVARES in Russian/Spanish weapons instead of building those houses IN GUACARA, instead of providing for a decent hospital in Southern Valencia (there is not even one hospital just for 500 000 people there, there is the CHET, a general hospital for 1 million people).
That’s what the opposition should be doing.
April 19, 2011 at 2:04 am
NO OTPOR. Firstly: they expect us to do so. Those students copying with excesive detail the actions taken by that group in Serbia did not show much creativity when doing so…when they got out of the role of going around with white hands they did better.
They seemed too much “we do as that US manual says”. And Chavistas know it and they tell people in the semi-rural areas and in the poor areas that in ways.
There is another thing: we have to take into account there are felt differences between most people in the opposition and those on the other side.
How can we talk, what messages do we need to bring to people in Guacara, Guanare, Calabozo or MaturĂn? Most Venezuelans live in places like that.
April 18, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Harping on what Chavez said back then is as futile as the “Birthers” in the U.S. trying claim Obama isn’t the President because he isn’t a U.S. citizen.
Deananash’s comments are much more productive, and Otpor’s blueprint should be considered to be Phase II of the 2012 election. Meanwhile, a daily dose of mockery should help make Chavez continue making mistakes.
April 18, 2011 at 12:11 pm
So much for overthrowing the thug Chavez and letting him see the light of another day.
April 18, 2011 at 10:59 am
One sarcastic pitch could be the message that Chavez isn’t really trying to turn Venezuela into Cuba – because even in Cuba, Raul Castro is promoting term limits.
April 17, 2011 at 7:06 pm
oh yeah, the umpire is wearing a red T-shirt, and Fidel is in the stands, cheering wildly.
*memories of Weil’s cartoon with Hugo at the football goal line, while 50% is covered with bricks. / it was posted at Daniel’s site.
April 17, 2011 at 6:50 pm
And of course, deananash, remind everyone that he’s had a compliant National Assembly most of the time, and that’s why he requested and got Ley Habilitante, tried Reforma once and got Reeleccion indefinida later. He needed all that.
To produce the present Utopia that is Venezuela… All those houses. All that safety for citizens. All that prosperity!
April 17, 2011 at 6:29 pm
You nailed it, Marc.
April 17, 2011 at 2:51 pm
*The camera focus is on the pitcher’s mound…
The pitcher throws the ball, the batter swings, misses, the byline mentions the first Chavez election…
The pitcher throws the ball, the batter watches it sail by, the byline mentions the new constitution… (rain clouds in the distance..)
The pitcher throws the ball, the batter swings, misses, the byline mentions the second Chavez elecion…
The pitcher throws the ball, the batter watches it sail by, the byline mentions the next election…
The pitcher throws the ball, the batter watches it sail by, the constitutional amendment allowing unrestricted re-election is in the approaching storm clouds…
The pitcher throws the ball, the batter winds up to swing, the camera turns to the batter and it’s…? who is it? do you trust this batter? it’s a full house!
this is the swing that counts folks!!
*music in the background…
April 17, 2011 at 2:36 pm
“… Y en ultima instancia de mi familia…” That is to say, for Chavez, sycophants, and his detail come before family. Classy!
April 17, 2011 at 1:20 pm
stop trying to look so deep,cause it’s not that deep.
He’s an actor,a liar and a genius.
Now,not much of a president or anything else
April 17, 2011 at 11:00 am
The oppo should make a carefully crafted schedule. For example, once each month, they should traverse to a vacant piece of land and LAUD Chavez for the public housing that he built there. NOT. They can do this in different provinces, one time for each year, and just once per month. That’s so the people will be reminded every 30 days of Chavez’s horrific performance.
So, March will represent the year 2,000; April 2001, etc…and a march (with as much media as possible) to a vacant lot…
Ditto for the expropriated farms.
Get creative and get started…..
When the baseball season opens next year, celebrate it with 3 Strike Chavez day….surely you get the idea.
This will drive Chavez nuts. The one thing I know about him is that with his ego, he believes half the shit he shovels. He truly believes he is someone ‘special’, and in a good way. Show him he’s not.
Too much material…electricity shortages…CANTV…food shortages.
April 17, 2011 at 10:45 am
Ready to mock! Send directions
April 17, 2011 at 9:40 am
Finally, a professional has written about what I’ve been proposing as a way to get rid El Supremo II. “One of Otpor’s insights was that the most effective weapon against dictators isn’t bombs or fiery speeches. It’s mockery. Otpor activists once put Milosevic’s picture on a barrel that they rolled down the street, inviting people to hit it with a bat.”
I remember last writing about this tactic when the “3 strikes” campaign was going viral.
You’ll definitely want to read the whole N.Y. Times article – http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/opinion/17kristof.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB – and also click on the link to Gene Sharp’s Guide to toppling despots: http://www.aeinstein.org/organizations/org/FDTD.pdf
Oh, and there’s SO MUCH to mock him about. One could easily lay out a schedule and create literally 2-300 different daily activities, from the primary through the election.
April 17, 2011 at 9:21 am
Chavez will follow the example of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, changing History at HIS convenience. Today in the news says that Daniel Ortega is already in the History books in the Nicaraguan schools, like nica’s Simon Bolivar, the liberator from Somoza dictatorship, the news note came in count from the decision of Nicaraguan “Constitutional” Court that rule against its own constitution to permit Daniel Ortega run from another term. An in Europe nobody doubts that will win because Daniel has all public power to his will.
So Daniel Ortega is advanced Chavez’s pupil and “protégée”.
April 17, 2011 at 7:58 am
I guess it’s just a matter of time for Pyg to show up & tell us that this was not really what he said. It’s just a CIA montage to make Chavez look bad.
April 16, 2011 at 10:15 pm
Funny, I was just thinking this morning, as I was opening the blog, how every day for the past 6 years or so, I open it with the hope of reading that Chavez has passed on to his eternal reward. No such luck.
And today, I just caught a glimpse of the title, Chavez…Resign, and my heart jumped.
Here’s what I know: It takes a lot more than hope and luck to rid yourself of a cancer.
April 16, 2011 at 9:47 pm
Hmmmm…has anyone heard this?: Liar, liar, pants on fire! I’m not so sure that he’s bipolar, although that’s entirely possible. I think that he’s all that, but to add to that, he’s also schizophrenic.
April 16, 2011 at 9:12 pm
It proves that you cannot trust the cuban medical treatment of bipolar disorder….
Well-treated bipolars could be cute….
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/catherine-zeta-jones-reveals-shes-bipolar/story?id=13366854