After three weeks of repression, fifteen dead, at least 60 reported tortured and more than eight hundred detained, including opposition leaders and reporters, the Venezuelan students have at least shown the world what little respect the Maduro administration has for the human and civil rights of the people. Venezuela has seen similar repression before during Chavismo’s rule, but never has it been compressed in such a short period of time. Or taped, photographed and videoed so extensively. By now, it is clear around the world, how prevalent repression, censorship and violence are under Chavismo. Maduro talks peace and repproachment with the opposition, the day after calling an opposition lady a prostitute and the day before the most repressive use of force in Caracas. Maduro decides to give two days of vacation ahead of the four-day Carnival break, in the hope or belief that by next Wednesday people may have forgotten what he has done.
How little people learn from history! In fact, Hugo Chávez believed the same thing in March 2002 when the Easter week vacation arrived. He thought the protests would subside and all the insults and repression of the previous days would be forgotten. He was gone four days after Easter Sunday, only to return due to the stupidity of those that did not follow Constitutionality after he resigned due to the deaths of April 11th. 2002.
The problem is that this victory by the students has by now become a paradox. Venezuela represents the paradox that in the twenty first Century, as those that were repressed in the twentieth century become Government, Human Rights and Democratic Rights have become less important around the world.
It is an amazing turn of events. I remember the era in which Virela and Pinochet were despicable figures who governed Argentina and Chile. It was beyond my comprehension how famous physicist Antonio Misetich, who had returned to live in Argentina to find his missing sister, could also be disappeared jut like that. Or how Juan Jose Giambiagi, a Nobel class scientist who later became my friend, would emigrate to Brazil and the Argentinian Government cheered. Venezuela was a recipient of the emigration of this era. We heard the stories, we could not believe that this was happening in what were once thriving democracies.
But today many of the same countries are run by those that were persecuted and their silence is deafening. Argentina ignores what is happening for ideological reasons, Colombia for commercial ones, Chile because it is in a transition, but I do not expect much from Bachelet. But the real surprise all these years has been how morally empty Brazil’s left is. You can not lead a region when you behave like that. It will come back to haunt them one day. They have also forgotten history. Sadly, they seem to think or feel that repression is a thing of the past in their respective countries. They think they have the institutions to withstand anything. Think again. Chile was the strongest democracy in Latin America in the sixties. Venezuela took its place. And we know how both turned out.
And that is what makes me pessimistic about the future. Not of Venezuela. Of the whole region. When you hear repeatedly that Maduro was elected (Was he?) from those that are leaders of their respective countries. When they so conveniently ignored that the audits promised to them never took place, you have to wonder what concept of democracy they have in their minds.
And while they are many decent people expressing their outrage at Maduro’s repression and discrimination of those that oppose him, it seems that they are few and far between. And few are powerful. The international media knows by now. Some countries like Panama have stood up on the right side of humanity. But unfortunately, Panama is one of the exceptions.
The rest simply prefer to ignore it.
And I do not expect anyone to come in and intervene in Venezuela, nor do I want them too. Cuba is here already, we should just kick them out.
But I do expect people who call themselves leaders to express their outrage at a Government brutally repressing its people, killing some of them, torturing kids for doing what is a Constitutional right under the Constitution proposed and approved by the party in power. And institutions like the OAS, who have decided not to say much, should also raise their voice. Not only against repression, but about the silencing of the media, the censorship of the Internet and the jailing of opposition figures. Otherwise, they will soon lose their right to even exist.
Because the other paradox is that as the students have continued their protests, the Government has become even more violent. Protests are not going to stop and the current handling of them will only increase their intensity. And the death toll will rise. It is the Government that has all of the tools to stop this, but so far, it has not budged an inch, pushing forward at every step.
And I think the students have won the international media war. And their battle will continue, but nobody knows where it will end.
With an economy in shambles, scarcity increasing and Maduro acting like their is no urgency to attend economic problems, the protests can only add participants.
And those that think that these are middle class protests should think again. It was San Cristobal that initiated the protests and in that city it is a proportion much larger than the middle class that is participating actively in the daily protests. An in Caracas, Caricuao, Petare and Catia have taken part, even if they have pressure not to do so. And I have been in Altamira and talked to the students, anyone that thinks they are just middle class, should visit with them.
My theory is that some in Government are undermining Maduro to have an excuse to replace him from within. But what do I know.
Much like 2002 or the Ukraine today, these protests have unforeseen consequences and ends, Some “tenientico” , for example, can get the wrong idea. Why not? If Chávez tried it, why can’t he?
That is not only part of the paradox, but is also part of Venezuela’s current tragedy.
The Devil's Excrement 
March 27, 2014 at 10:01 pm
Hello, i think that i saw you visited my website thus i
came to “return the favor”.I am trying to find things to enhance my website!I suppose its ok to use
a few of your ideas!!
March 5, 2014 at 8:16 pm
RT anchor resigns on-air (these are Eva Golinger’s coworkers)
March 6, 2014 at 7:44 pm
Eva: entre los que temen la verdad.
March 5, 2014 at 7:53 pm
Staring at our empty supermarket shelves,
sent me on a visual tour of a chinese one.
It is in Wuhan China, Hubei , I think.
Very representative of the proletariat kind
of place that peppers the city with goods.
March 5, 2014 at 7:04 pm
Viva Panama !!!
Buscando America by Ruben Blades.
Te estoy buscando América
y temo no encontrarte,
tus huellas se han perdido entre la oscuridad.
Te estoy llamando América
pero no me respondes,
te han desaparecido, los que temen la verdad.
Envueltos entre sombras,
negamos lo que es cierto,
mientras no haya justicia,
jamas tendremos paz.
Viviendo dictaduras,
te busco y no te encuentro,
tu torturado cuerpo,
no saben donde está.
March 5, 2014 at 5:04 pm
The Palmetto bug broke diplomatic relations with Panama.
Hay una campaña de EEUU, en conchupancia con un presidente lacayo (…) se trata del presidente de Panamá (Ricardo Martinelli”, dijo Maduro y anunció la ruptura de relaciones políticas, económicas y comerciales.
Leer más en: http://www.ultimasnoticias.com.ve/noticias/actualidad/politica/maduro-rompe-relaciones-politicas-y-economicas-con.aspx#ixzz2v81KpuGy
March 5, 2014 at 5:16 pm
Déjà vu …
El más largo y reciente toque
de queda oficial
vivido en Venezuela,
se extendió por diez días
desde el 28 de febrero de 1989.
Fue derivado de una conmoción interna.
La terapia de choque utilizada por
el gabinete del entonces presidente causó
desasosiego, desabastecimiento,
desempleo e inflación en muy corto tiempo.
March 4, 2014 at 12:13 pm
OT – I just visited the OAS website and posted this comment.
“I just visited your website to understand what the Organization of American States stands for.
On your opening website page, a section called “About the OAS” defines what OAS was set up to do.
WHO WE ARE
The Organization was established in order to achieve among its member states—as stipulated in Article 1 of the Charter—”an order of peace and justice, to promote their solidarity, to strengthen their collaboration, and to defend their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and their independence.”
The Organization uses a four-pronged approach to effectively implement its essential purposes, based on its main pillars: democracy, human rights, security, and development.
WHAT WE DO
The OAS uses a four-pronged approach to effectively implement its essential purposes. The Organization’s four main pillars––democracy, human rights, security, and development––support each other and are intertwined through political dialogue, inclusiveness, cooperation, and legal and follow-up instruments that provide the OAS with the tools to maximize its work in the Hemisphere.
‘WHO WE ARE and WHAT WE DO” pretty much describes what the organization focus should be, but the OAS has been tip-toeing around the Venezuelean protests. It is pretty obvious that human rights have been trampled on by that government, the National Guard, Police and motorcycle thugs have been shooting at, torturing and harassing the protestors, but yet the OAS is silent. In case you haven’t noticed, maybe because of the government media blackout, this is NOT a democracy.
These protesters are looking to the OAS for help, but all they are getting is spin. Is the OAS just another organization that has no bite, just barks?”
This is just another way of forcing the OAS into action.
March 4, 2014 at 12:11 am
I honestly think the only solution is secession. Let them have their Bolivarian Republic in their own side of the country, and let us live with liberty and democracy in our own territory.
March 3, 2014 at 8:15 pm
A scoffer seeks wisdom and finds none, …
Re: Elías Jaua, acusó hoy a medios de comunicación nacionales e internacionales de llevar a cabo una “guerra psicológica” contra su país, cuyo objetivo es el derrocamiento del gobierno de Nicolás Maduro
March 3, 2014 at 9:11 pm
I always had a soft spot for her [Angela Zago]-
March 3, 2014 at 11:53 am
Video of protestors in Caracas, marching from Las Mercedes and Bello Monte to Chacaito square. March 2nd 2014.
March 3, 2014 at 11:09 am
[…] an update on the situation here on the shores of the “Sea of happiness”. This blogger’s first paragraph sums it up quite well: (certain words are edited out for security […]
March 3, 2014 at 10:53 am
WHERE PROTESTS END
Posted by JON LEE ANDERSON, The New Yorker.
It is an age of protest and volatility. In the face of entrenched authoritarian governments, ineffectual parliaments, and insufficient rule of law, chronic instability is becoming the norm. First it was Egypt and Libya and Syria, and, in the past few days, it has been Ukraine and Venezuela—and Turkey and Thailand, too. In most of these cases, protesters and police do battle as in some extended Kabuki drama, without apparent conclusion. The protest movement in Thailand is like the tides: it ebbs and flows but is unending, and the collective force that it leaves behind is both amorphous and binding.
In each place, the formula is pretty much the same: demonstrators take to the streets by the thousands to decry varying degrees of corruption, insecurity, and a lack of democratic transparency—all justifiable citizens’ complaints. The response of the embattled leaders has been to objectify their opponents (calling them C.I.A.-bankrolled “fascists” in the case of Ukraine and Venezuela, and “terrorists” in the case of Egypt, Libya, and Syria), to hunker down and fight back, and in some cases, to unleash terror. Their logic is that short, sharp bursts of violence will atomize the opposition, frightening protesters to such a degree that they will give up and go home.
Continue reading:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2014/02/where-protests-end.html
March 3, 2014 at 10:49 am
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/23/violent-protest-no-help-venezuela
winning the propaganda war ? yesterday I would have agree,but today I am doubting
March 3, 2014 at 4:18 am
It is interesting that a common factor in three South American countries with currently stable economies was/is the use of DAILY INDEXING or correcção monetária: in Chile, Colombia and Brazil.
About SA as seen by an outsider: Too much politics and too little business. Are there no Jews in Latin America?
March 3, 2014 at 4:30 am
Of course, there are a number of them N.
The problem is the “rest ” of them.
In fact South America is quite advanced when you look at what might have been. The reality is the population is of predominantly African/Arab origin. (Some describe the latter as Spanish, or something similar). Although things aren’t looking too good at the moment Venezuela, for example, is not a Syria or Sudan. So look on the plus side as things should be a lot worse.
March 7, 2014 at 9:31 am
Sure, Argentina or Ukraine are in shambles right now because the people are predominantly African/Arab! Have you seen how African/Arab the surnames of the current and former Economy Ministers of Argentina sound? Kiciloff, Capitanich, Lorenzino, Boudou, Lousteau, Miceli, Peirano, Lavagna, Lenicov, Murphy, Frigeri! Sure, you can see that all of them have roots in Somalia! That explains why the Argentina is screwed!
March 2, 2014 at 10:30 pm
“After three weeks of repression, fifteen dead, at least 60 reported tortured and more than eight hundred detained”… Venezuela went on holidays.
There, fixed it for you. Sorry and all that. Caracas Chronicles hasn’t posted since Friday, El Universal is reporting the Oscars, El Chigüire has been shocked for 2 weeks or so, there’s nobody out there, and nobody takes Danny boy seriously anyway. Everyone’s at the beach.
March 2, 2014 at 11:40 pm
And the two that were killed today were on vacation?
March 3, 2014 at 11:02 am
False !!!
http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/140302/estudiantes-se-hicieron-sentir-en-toda-la-ciudad
http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/140302/tachira-acudio-masivamente-al-llamado-de-los-estudiantes
http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/protestas-en-venezuela/140302/protestas-se-trasladaron-a-zonas-populares-de-maracay
http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/protestas-en-venezuela/140302/poliaragua-reprimio-protesta-pacifica-en-la-colonia-tovar
March 3, 2014 at 11:22 am
MO:
What means “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” ?
In replying to FrankPintor, I just wrote a single word: “False”, the rest are only links to El Universal.
March 3, 2014 at 11:42 am
When a comment has too many hyperlinks, wordpress thinks it may be spam and sends it to me for moderation.
March 6, 2014 at 8:38 pm
Speak for yourself. I like Daniel’s posts. Quite a bit, in fact.
March 2, 2014 at 6:12 pm
Reblogged this on danmillerinpanama and commented:
After noting the general tendency of Latin American nations, excepting Panama, to oppose Chavista-Maduro repressions, the post observes,
Daniel, writing today as usual from Venezuela, posted an article about why some of the most wretched of the poor may not be protesting.
During World War II, I was a young boy and lived with my parents in Philadelphia, Pa. I remember the lines, which were not as long as those shown in the video at Daniel’s linked article. If one saw a line, it was common to wait in it even without knowing what might be for sale at the end of the wait. A milkman, driving a horse-drawn wagon (gasoline was severely rationed), delivered milk to our door. There was always sufficient food at a local farmers’ market to get by. Not so now in Venezuela.
March 2, 2014 at 5:51 pm
I wished the tupamaros spread to those countries that support Maduro (or keep silent) and they with guns and everything keep terrorizing them. Will they still support Maduro? In fact, if this Venezuelan spring does not make fall the regime, I foresee the influence of Castro-Chavismo to probably spread to all Latinamerica. I hope I am wrong anyway.
March 2, 2014 at 12:40 pm
To say that an elected government is valid hold no water if it violates its constitution! The list of violations is staggering. That other governments in the region condone these actions sez much about their respect for their constitutions.
Constitutions are what keep us civil. Violate it and the people have the right to enforce it by whatever means. Marching is about the most civil protest possible. It must continue until 70% or so of Venezuelans are in the street.
March 2, 2014 at 3:26 pm
This is what pisses me off to no end:
How are these valid elections, when state workers are forced to vote Chavista or lose their jobs? Not to mention the hijacking of state resources and funds to campaign for Chavismo, and bribe those poor shmucks to vote that way? Not to mention invalid legal prosecutions of opponents?
March 2, 2014 at 11:07 am
Re: My theory is that some in Government are undermining Maduro to have an excuse to replace him from within. But what do I know.
Yepp. Justicia keeps releasing detainees, even slapping wrists to a few overzealous GNBs.
Cracks, no better call it , cutting away from central controls..
March 2, 2014 at 10:31 am
M-Astera, I know you mentioned it just as a BTW, but the fact is that there is no historical reason for Cuba to apply a statehood in Venezuela. Historically, we are much much closer to Colombia, Panamá, Perú and Ecuador…even Curazao.
The friendship with Cuba is truly a friendship with the cuban people that came more than 50 years ago to Venezuela fleeing Castro’s regime. The current friendship does not exist, except in the minds of the daughters and sons of old guerrileros of the 60’s, that are now in power.
This is why no matter how hard the chavismo tries, the cuban model will not succeed.
March 2, 2014 at 11:52 am
Bruni-
I wrote that with a joking tone, but it was my true conclusion after long thought. Cuba needs Venezuela, for its wealth of resources and the ability to create wealth from those resources. Venezuela does *not* need Cuba. Yet, because Chavez was arguably the Castros’ greatest success so far, Venezuela at this point is facing Cuban control and the attempt to impose Cuban rule and a Castro-style Trotskyist government. 21st Century feudalism. The attempt is in full swing right now, and has been since Hugo’s death at the hands of Cuban surgeons (Dec 2012?).
I fully agree that it won’t work in Venezuela, for reasons beginning with the character (or lack of such) of the Venezuelan people. But the attempt is being made, by those of evil motive, and people are being beaten and gassed and shot and dying right now.
Right now, Venezuela has not only a tie to an earlier generation of Cuban immigrants, fleeing Castro, but now a whole new generation of Cuban “immigrants” who grew up under Castro. Do you think the new Cubans wish to go back to their little island and watch ’56 Chevys drive by while fantasizing about their monthly chicken that the government may or may not come through with? Not a chance. They have seen the city and they are not going back to the farm willingly.
Because the Cuban colonization and takeover of Venezuela is not going to work, I’m proposing a peaceful and, I would say, logical solution. Cuba will not be allowed to own Venezuela, or control it, but they could be a new state, which would allow almost endless reconciliation and bring much happiness to ordinary people from Havana to Miami to Caracas. Economically it could be a very smart move as well.
March 2, 2014 at 3:43 pm
I think Cuba should become the 51st U.S. state, and let Venezuela stay independent.
Can you imagine the investment dollars pouring into Cuba if it was an American state?
March 4, 2014 at 12:32 pm
Ira calm down, you’re babbling
March 6, 2014 at 5:31 am
And your post was totally irrelevant.
March 2, 2014 at 2:21 pm
The friendship with Cuba is truly a friendship with the cuban people that came more than 50 years ago to Venezuela fleeing Castro’s regime.
When I was working in Maracaibo I knew the daughter of a Cuban refugee. Her father was an entrepreneur- cement IIRC. I wonder if Isabel Allende knew any Cuban refugees during her years of refuge in Caracas, .
The topic of Chile and Cuba reminds me of Roberto Ampuero’s Nuestros años Verde Olivo, a fascinating memoir.
Ampuero was a member of Communist Youth during the Allende years in Chile. After the coup, he fled to East Germany. There he fell in love with a Cuban whose father belonged to Castro’s nomenklatura. After some years in Cuba, he falls out of love with Fidelismo, and finagles an invitation to East Germany. After democracy returned to Chile, he returned. He learned that dictatorship, whether from a Pinochet or a Castro, was an abomination.
March 2, 2014 at 6:32 pm
Well, I wouldn’t put Pinochet and Castro on the same level, and the circumstances of their takeover were quite different: in Chile you had the start of a civil war, a president bent on imposing socialism/communism despite having been elected with 36% of the votes (1% more than the runner up), Cuban military with AK 47 patrolling the corridors of the central bank and East Germans funneling arms into the country to make it the beach head of international communism in South America.
No question that the junta (and its opponents) committed atrocities, but at least the military put up a referendum which was not rigged, they lost it and they relinquished power. I have yet to see that from the Castros.
March 3, 2014 at 10:45 am
Well, you forgot to tell that the military put up a referendum “just” after 25,000 killed, 10,000 disappeared and 17 years of dictatorship.
It doesn`t matter who is above or below when Castro and Pinochet are made of the same shit…
March 3, 2014 at 12:33 pm
As the saying goes, you are entitled to your opinion- here Castro vs. Pinochet- but not to your own facts. Your numbers are not correct. From the Rettig Report:
The report determined that 2,279 persons were killed for political reasons. This figure included 957 disappeared after arrest and 164 “victims of political violence”, a figure that included police officers and others killed by left-wing extremists.
In 641 cases, the commission could not conclusively determine that the person was killed for political reasons. It found 508 cases that were beyond its mandate, and that in 449 cases, no information beyond the name of a disappeared person could be determined.
Get your facts straight, please.
March 3, 2014 at 4:40 pm
The order of magnitude of your numbers is correct.
March 2, 2014 at 9:55 pm
Noel, I would agree that the circumstances were different. Pinochet left by losing a plebiscite he called for- the 1988 NO vote. No such plebiscites or elections for Castro. Moreover, Pinochet could point out that there was legislative support for the coup, as shown by the Resolution of August 22,1973.
I was merely quoting Roberto Ampuero. For someone who was once a member of Communist Youth, that is quite a change in attitude. It is now behind a paywall, but I have read an article Ampuero wrote where he pointed out the myriad misdoings of the Allende government.
Ampuero has written a number of books. Judging by the Verde Olivo book, he is a pretty good author.
March 3, 2014 at 11:34 am
Understood.
March 2, 2014 at 10:04 am
Miguel, I think you are right on. Yes, I do think that Brazil has lost, at least for the moment, any legitimate aspiration to lead South America, and yes, its tacit complicity in Venezuela will cost it at some point in the future.
I firmly believe that if FH Cardoso were president today, Brazil would behave quite differently, but one doesn’t rewrite history. It is ironic that in his autobiography, FHC confidently states that another Cuba is not likely, even in Venezuela, because the economic cost would be too high and even Chavez realizes that; unfortunately, that argument only works with rational, non ideological men, like FHC.
I don’t know if I am as pessimistic on the whole South American region because the economic chaos in Venezuela is a deterrent to voters elsewhere should they be tempted to vote for somebody like Petro in Colombia and somebody further to the left in Brazil.
The one worrying sign to me is that democracy depends on alternance in power, and so far, oppositions in Brazil, Colombia and Argentina don’t have strong candidates to do that.
March 2, 2014 at 1:10 pm
Noel: That was the standard view when Chavez got elected apfrom people like Cardoso and Petkoff, who overlapped at Cendes in Caracas and were the traditional left in Venezuela. They were all caught up in the belief that Chavez and his cohorts were rational and had scruples of any sort. Time has unfortunately proven the wrong.
March 2, 2014 at 9:49 am
Once we start seeing some chavistas distance themselves from this mess, we’ll know is having a real impact. Vielma Mora is an example, but was brought back into the fold shortly.
March 2, 2014 at 9:02 am
But today many of the same countries are run by those that were persecuted and their silence is deafening. Argentina ignores what is happening for ideological reasons, Colombia for commercial ones, Chile because it is in a transition, but I do not expect much from Bachelet. But the real surprise all these years has been how morally empty Brazil’s left is
Most of us are surprised. However, I doubt that V.S. Naipaul, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, is surprised. In 1972, Naipaul visited Argentina and wrote about his visit in The Corpse at the Iron Gate. This was written four years before the military deposed Isabel Perón and intensified the Dirty War. When Naipaul wrote the article in 1972 the Dirty War- and guerrilla action in Argentina- was just simmering . By 1976 the Dirty War, when Isabel Perón was deposed, the Dirty War was in full boil.
The leftists that Naipaul interviewed had a very plastic attitude towards torture: Depende de quién sea torturado. According to those two leftists Naipaul interviewed, torture was good if our guys do it, bad if the police do it against us. Which doesn’t sound very different from the military gorilas’ point of view. Sounds to me as if a lot of the guerrillas and guerilla supporters were brothers under the skin to the right wing torturing military gorilas’.
After reading what Naipaul had presciently written, years before the Dirty War peaked, it is not difficult to conclude that one reason why former guerrillas, once in power, did not protest political repression coming from the left is that the repression gene was imbedded as deeply in some guerillas and guerilla supporters as it was in the miltary gorilas the left was fighting against.
What’s that old saying, “There are no enemies on the left?” After all, Maduro is one of us. So how can we protest what he does? Solidarity forever, as the old lefty marching song said. Later on, Solidarity and Lech Walesa in Poland gave a new twist to the old leftist chestnut.
[At the same time, Naipaul made some comments about Argentina which were utter nonsense- such as claiming that Argentine women were uneducated. As long as Naipaul let his interviewees talk, and drew conclusions from what they said, he did fine. When he made sweeping generalizations not backed by conversations, he often fell flat on his feet.]
March 2, 2014 at 10:24 am
That was an excellent post! For many people with leftist feelings, particularly those in the news media, it is difficult to criticize a movement with which they have so much sympathy. The thinking goes something like this, “They say the right things. Their hearts are in the right places. They mean well. It’s all for a good and worthy cause. They just got off track a bit. If only they’d done ‘X’ instead of ‘Y’ (the Heinz Dieterich defense).” Everything is forgivable provided you mouth the right words…..Again, excellent post!
March 2, 2014 at 1:06 pm
Wow! Boludo, what a comment! Should make a post out of it! Thanks!
March 2, 2014 at 2:04 pm
Thank you, Miguel. Naipaul’s prescient article also leads one to make a different conclusion about the Dirty War, about the the 1970s- that low down dirty decade in Argentina’s history. There was a madness that pervaded the military that decade- torturing and killing people for no better reason than being in a detainee’s address book. From Naipaul’s article, I conclude that madness affected not just the military, but a wide swath of Argentine society. For example, you could find torture advocates both among the “right” and the “left.”
Naipaul uncovered a further example of lunacy,or at least of irrational thinking, in an aristocrat-born Third World Peronista Priest Naipaul met.
A priest who sees “liberation of the human spirit” in totalitarian regimes- that is sheer madness. Nor is his view of economics- eschewing economic growth while protesting poverty- any more rational.
In a New York Review article two decades later, Naipaul converses with a former leftist who had been one of this particular Third World Peronista Priest’s followers. The priest turns out to be Father Mujica, who became a guerrilla and was later killed in a clash with police. It turns out that this muddle-headed thinking had consequences, as it led the priest to become first a fan of totalitarianism, and then a guerrilla, and later a dead guerilla.
The madness in Argentina in the 1970s was by no means confined to the military, It was a society-wide breakdown, in many ways.
Miguel, I realize this is not directly on the topic of Venezuela, but insofar that it touches on the breakdown of a society in South America, it is a relevant rant.
March 2, 2014 at 1:04 am
My advice is to not put any faith in Jimmy Carter, he loves dictators.
March 2, 2014 at 3:41 pm
Without a doubt the worst American President since Herbert Hoover.
If you didn’t live in the states through the Carter years, you haven’t LIVED!
March 2, 2014 at 12:59 am
If Brazil doesn’t act like the leader that it thinks it is, and soon, then Brazil has to be forced to do the right thing. The World Cup Games are the key to this. The international media will be focused on this event. And Brazil needs for it to go smoothly. Otherwise, this wannabe leader of SA will face a media nightmare.
Brazil already has a strong protest element in place. Incredibly and unfortunately for the soccer world, a nation, which was not ready to hold this type of venue, was selected. And the chaos in their neighboring country is just an additional worry for Brazil’s World Cup.
Thusly, it would seem reasonable to expect that dictator Maduro will promise his Brazilian friends that he will shortly put his fiefdom in order. The mere thought that Venezuelans alongside Brazilians could be protesting the Cup, must be frightening to Dilma. Maduro must do his dirty work now.
The opposition in Venezuela has the opportunity to use this major world event to save lives. Venezuelan lives. While they do not have the physical power of Maduro’s regime, they have what Maduro doesn’t, intellectual power. With this they can then perform an indirect attack on this illegal president.
March 2, 2014 at 3:27 pm
The rumors of Brazil’s ascendancy in the world are HIGHLY exaggerated.
March 2, 2014 at 12:06 am
After much thought, I have concluded that Cuba should apply for statehood under the Venezuelan constitution. That would work out nicely for the vast majority of Cubans and Venezuelans. Imagine having a Venezuelan state that close to Miami! The only people who wouldn’t be happy with this are Raul and Fidel Castro and their sycophants, puppets, and wannabes.
March 1, 2014 at 11:48 pm
Miguel, soy un fiel lector tuyo, por lo que te invito a que le eches un ojo a mi blog: elegoista.com. Apreciaría mucho cualquier sugerencia o consejo. Muchas gracias!