The Devil's Excrement

I have been trying not to write posts when I read some news of something happening in Venezuela and rather try to think about things longer, but I can’t fail to mention the fascist show that Diosdado Cabello presided over in the National Assembly yesterday.

The contents are almost irrelevant. To raise all of that fuzz about Primero Justicia and corruption in that party, only to end up accusing unknown members of even other parties and involving amounts that would not even be sufficient to pay for any of the watches Diosdado wears every day, is simply and absolutely ridiculous.

But what worries me, is the style that is being used. The power of the State media is used to raise issues days in advance, creating a supposed scandal, but giving no details about it. Then, when the moment comes, Diosdado becomes more like a Judge, using illegally obtained phone conversations, checks and papers and, before he is done, he is already issuing a guilty verdict, when nothing has been investigated or demonstrated.

These are corruption cases supposedly involving a few thousand dollar,s on the same day that one of the most serious economic firms in the country denounces that more than US$ 15 billion in fake imports took place in Venezuela in 2012 and on the same session that the Assembly refused to even discuss the Bs. 300 million check found in the hands of a former Iranian Finance Minister (More on both of these tomorrow)

But this seems to be the style of the new rulers of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro and Diosdado Cabello. Both are increasingly fascist and intolerant, making accusations out of thin air and each acting like the top man, both campaigning and speaking aggressively at every turn. They are “united”, but each has taken his own way, holding court, politicking, but neither doing their job, as the country drifts with nobody in charge.

And to me this indicates a level of insecurity that bodes badly for the country. As Chavez’ silence has now extended to 58 days, there is no clear leader, Maduro and Cabello are both jockeying for power, by trying to imitate their former boss (Maduro aggressive, Cabello back in military garb), whom they know will never return to give a speech, let alone to power.

And it is only going to get worse from here. These guys are willing to run over anyone to preserve power. And to do that, they don´t mind buying out or indicting Deputies, so that Chavismo can have the two thirds majority it needs to name the Comptroller, Justices of the Supreme Court and members of the Electoral Board.

This will only get worse, as the two leading figures in Chavismo try to out-fascistize each other. And once their all mighty deity is gone, it will become a free for all, “gangland style”, with others, mostly former military that hail from Tachira and Zulia,  getting involved. The all out fight within Chavismo will likely become like April 11th. but in slow motion. Everyone jockeying for position, everyone trying to come out on top and nobody knowing who is friend or foe, except for the tribe that needs to be eliminated: that of the opposition.

The opposition should try to stay out of it, except the attacks will be relentless and increase in their intensity and levels of fascist provocation, like the sorry spectacle at the National Assembly yesterday. But expect jailings, wiretaps, accusations and limitations in the ability of the opposition to set up a viable candidacy.

Things will get much, much worse, before they get any better. So, watch your back and be careful…

Chavismo was celebrating today 21 years of the bloody coup in which some irresponsible military officers led innocent soldiers into an adventure which ended up with the killing of innocent soldiers and civilians that day and to fourteen years of backwardness for Venezuela. And to this day, these people without scruples, who are not democrats, continue to defend their one-way vision of the world, like fascist General Alcala Cordones in Sunday´s El Nacional, when he appeals to “ethics” to justify the coup in 1992 and says without any qualms:

“The interest that are behind each action justify them or not..”

There you have it, a complete empty philosophy in one sentence, if I think it ,or do it, it is fine, because I am right and special, if others think it or do it, it is wrong, because they are against me”

And thus, General Alcala Cordones, who I have the honor of having been tear gassed by, by him and his fascist comrades long ago in Mariperez, says with a straight face there is no corruption in Venezuela (please hold the laughter!) and everything about this “revolution” has been positive. That is how much self-criticism  and retrospection there is in this brain-dead revolution. “Everything” has been positive in the most corrupt period in Venezuela’s history, fourteen years in which sovereignty has been sold off to Cuba and other “friendly” countries, fourteen years in which homicides have quintupled out of indifference and incompetence, fourteen years in which Venezuela has been thrown back into the sure road to under-development, in which despite the biggest oil bonanza in the country´s history, poverty has barely budged and mismanagement has distorted the economy, to the point that the road back will be tough, if not impossible.

Not that things were peachy before. By 1992, I had become pessimistic about the ability of our political system to invest in education, science and technology to really push Venezuela into the future, the XXth. century at the time, and we are already into the next one. What I never imagined was that what was in store for us, was orders of magnitude worse, degrading our educational system and destroying what little good science and technology we had. To me, what happened at PDVSA’s science and technology institute INTEVEP, was simply scientific genocide and IVIC, Venezuela’s formerly world renowned science institute has been reduced to almost memories and lots of revolutionary BS.

And then we come to what most PSF’s and religious Chavistas fail to understand. Oil exports in US dollars have gone up by a factor of six per capita in the fourteen years since Chavez took over. Yes, six times bigger. Think about it, for every barrel of oil  per citizen, Venezuela is getting six times more dollars than before. That is a lot of money. Despite that, Chavistas still have a hard time arguing that Chavez has been good for even the most basic measure of the the “people’s” success: Poverty.

I remember how the same Chavistas used to argue that “poverty” was just an index. That the “improvements” in poverty were just cosmetic changes in the numbers. But they arrived and became exquisite numerologists, taking the game to a new level of sophistication and lies. Poverty is indeed more than just numbers. But that is a game where Chavismo loses right off the bat, because, as Luis Pedro España shows in his book, Chavismo has been a failure in terms of infrastructure, nutrition, hygiene and even health, when you take into account that Barrio Adentro paid attention to first contact primary health care, while ignoring the more important secondary aspects which existed in the Venezuelans hospitals.

But Chavismo quickly learned to play with numbers. Poverty is numerically determined by how many people are above the poverty level. This level is determined by comparing the “income” of a typical family with the basic “basket” of goods. Up to the year 2000, this basic “basket” was calculated by the Venezuelan Central Bank. At the time, the National Institute for Statistics (INE) decided to start calculating its own basic basket, basically because the Central Bank was being too independent. (Read Realistic!)

Change the denominator and things will look so much better.

It also decided at the time, to “add” the benefit of Chavez’ “Misiones”. Fair enough, but up to 1998, there were Government benefits called something else, such as the “almuerzo escolar” and the “vaso de leche”, and even the “modulos de los barrios”, which were not given any weight in the “poverty” index.

So, the Government claims that the level of poverty is 32% today, versus 49% when it got to power. But it uses INE’s basic basket of Bs. 1,835 per family of 5.2 people, while CENDAS calculates that same basket for five is currently at over double that at Bs. 3,887. On top io that there is the added “Misiones” value. Try to normalize all that, and you get that today’s poverty level is likely to be above 50%, despite the FACTOR OF SIX INCREASE IN INCOME PER CAPITA IN US DOLLARS from oil that the Government has enjoyed.

It is immaterial whether it is 45% or 55%, the point is that Chavismo had a chance to really change things. Really redistribute the oil windfall. But it did not. It has to fake the numbers.

Which is why Diosdado has to wrap himself around military and patriotic symbols today, because he knows that they have accomplished nothing beyond elevating Hugo Chavez to the category of a new deity, which neither him nor fake VP Maduro can aspire to. Thus, he has to display symbols, including, dressing like a military officer, which he is not, and stealing those from the opposition in the form of Capriles’ hat:

Trying to recreate or imitate their former boss, which has been missing in action for over 55 days, without a tweet, a beep or a whimper.

Which simply shows that there is nothing to celebrate, nothing to show for all their “work”, except their own attempt to be admired and exalted beyond their worth and abilities. Abilities which they may have had or developed, but their deity forced them to conceal behind his charisma and forbid them to even attempt to rise above him. And thus, today they find themselves sunk in the same mediocrity, with nothing to celebrate twenty years after they first failed and fourteen years of continuous failure, where only the symbols and the symbolism have succeeded and after sinking Venezuela in the most perverse road to failure that anyone could have imagined.