I was reading Carlos Blanco’s Tiempo de Palabra in El Universal this morning and agreed with his concept that Venezuela has no Government by now. For those that don’t speak Spanish, here is the main paragraph:
“There is not even a Government. If you look carefully, Venezuela is a country without government. There are several reasons for this curious event. One reason is that Chavez stripped the act of governing of its administrative connotation. This dimension means setting goals and objectives, budget, compliance assessment and other nuisances which have little to do with being heroic, in which there are no Chimborazos or Negro Primeros, but that shape key aspects of the act of governing. Instead of administration, there is a televised speech, and that is the main instrument of government: the government is what Chavez says, in a decade we have seen that it is a deceitful rhetoric, but capable of shaping a story, and in recent months it has added the paroxysm, which is a product of the visceral ailments that afflict them.”
No sooner had I read this, which has a lot to do with Daniel video posts (One and Two) on how Chavez has turned the country into one of beggars, when confirmation of Carlos Blanco’s accurate description became quite pertinent. And reamarkably, this conformation came from none other than Hugo Chavez himself.
Chavez had not held his Sunday program Alo Presidente since April of last year and only eight programs were held at all year in 2011, a reflection that his ailments began much earlier than we have been told. But worried about his popularity, Chavez decided to start them again and hold them as long as his illness allows him. Except that it did not start well today. Despite millions spent in Telesur and VTV, in buying equipment, training personnel to promote the revolution, the program had technical difficulties and the images and the voice were intermittent at the beginning and and Hugo Chavez was not happy and his own voice came through quite clearly in his criticism of his Government, with Chavez thinking he was off the air:
Chavez: “A begining with lots of accidents for Alo Presidente. They don’t plan their “vaina” (shit?) well. Andres goes one way, Felicia is going another way, I don’t have a General Staff..”
If something as simple as TV broadcast has problems, imagine a complex project.
And when the program got off the ground, it was exactly what Blanco described: Chavez claiming the Oil Belt would create 300,000 jobs this year alone, that production will go to 3.5 million barrels a day, saying he will create a Mision “Knowledge” and “Work” that will create three million jobs in seven years and asking why should he be responsible for the crime problem”
None of this will come to fruition. In six months, if he is around, Chavez will not mention oil production or jobs, or will simply say the goals were met, even if he and everyone knows that it is all lies. After all, not one additional barrel of oil has yet to be produced from any of the dozens of announcements made by Chavez since he became President thirteen years ago. And you would think that with the money generated by the increase in oil prices since then, that would have been the easiest accomplishment.
But Chavez has destroyed the structure of Government. And any time someone has shown ability he has either moved it to another position, either thinking that the person was becoming powerful or popular or in his belief that an expert in one area will easily transfer his abilities to any other one.
So we live in an anarchists’ dream, a State with no structure. A State led by media appearances, empty words of goals and accomplishments. However, it is also an insatiable State, and here the anarchists dream ends, fed by ever rising oil prices. In 2011, the Venezuelan oil basket was up by 39.5%, postponing any serious adjustment of the economy and together with the irresponsible fiscal spending, allowing the Government to cover up and hide, the terrible effect of a dysfunctional and essentially non-exiting Government.
The Devil's Excrement 