The Devil's Excrement

Chavez’ attack on the La Marqueseña farm is not simply a
coincidence. Whenyou compare that farm to
many of the larger properties, it is a fairly active farm which does not reach the
10,000 hectares that the Government had targeted for expropriation and had all
of the certifications required as an active farm.

But you
see, Chavez is emotionally linked to the La Marqueseña farm through his great
grandfather Pedro Perez Delgado “Maisanta”. I was going to write about it today
and some of the details were published by Agustin
Blanco Muñoz in today’s El Universal and I will add others.

Maisanta
was a farm hand at La Marqueseña and became the second in command of guerilla
leader Jose de Jesus Gonzalez “El Agachado”, who was one of the followers of
Ezequiel Zamora, another Chavez idol. The other well known follower of El
Agachado was Joaquin Crespo, who helps open the way for Cipriano Castro’s
election as President. It is Castro who names Maisanta as Military and Civil
Chief of Chavez’ home town of Sabaneta
and gives him right to the farm where he used to work, La Marqueseña. Thus,
Chavez great grandfather was the supposed owner of that farm early in this century.

When
Cipriano Castro is overthrown by Gomez, Maisanta quickly changes sides and
becomes part of Gomez’ military. But in 1914 Maisanta joins a coup attempt
against Gomez and joins the guerrilla. Gomez expropriated La Marqueseña from
Maisanta at that time. Maisanta spent years in the guerrillas until he was
captured and died in jail. Supposedly he was one of those that died because
they were unwittingly fed ground glass daily in their food.

According
to Chavez long time girlfriend Herma Marksman, who was with Chavez until a year
and a half after the 1992 coup attempt, Chávez always talked about getting back
the La Marqueseña farm, “because those lands belonged to his great grandfather”.
Chavez also talked about “rescuing” the image of his grandfather who appears in
the history books as a cattle robber, bloody guerrilla leader who would change sides
whenever necessary. Marksman says that Chavez believed that Maisanta was a
fighter for the weak and not the mean and bloody character that historians says
he was.

Now, the
owners of La Marqueseña claim they purchased the farm from the Government after
that date and Chavez has suggested that his great grandfather owned the land. But
the truth is that since 1821, when all lands were expropriated by the
Venezuelan Government, there is no transfer of the land until the Azpurua family
bought it from the Government. Maisanta’s ownership was characteristic of the
time, Castro just “gave” it to him without any transfer of property.

Thus,
I
write this as Chavez is broadcasting his Sunday program from la
Marqueseña telling
people not to allow hate to be brought into their lives, when the only
one that
is full of hate and hang ups is the President himself, who clings to a
past for
this country and himself that will never return. Venezuela is no longer
the rural country of Maisanta or Chavez’ childhood and few of the
87% of its inhabitants who live in cities have no interest in
returning to the land.

Well, Chavez the XIVth., the Pluto King of Little Venice was legislating again (by susbcription) yesterday when he gave us this new piece of his wisdom:

“All land is the property of the state..those that have title have “some rights”…”

Whatever happened to Article 115 of the Constitution which clearly states:
“The right to porperty is guaranteed. All persons have the right to
use, enjoy, make the most of and dipose of their property. Property
would be subject to the conditions, restrictions and obligations that
the law establishes with the public good or general interest as its
end. Only for reasons of public interest or social use by a firm
sentence and opportune payment of compensentation can the expropriation
of any type of property be declared.”

To me it sounds like it is the other way around, you own the land and the state may have the right to expropriate under certain conditions.. But hey, he is the law!

I must say it gives me a sense of satisfaction when the press in the US
blasts Jimmy Carter, more so if they remind him of his system failure
in the Venezuelan recall vote, as well as his flirting with
totalitarian leaders over the years. An excerpt from the Editorial in Investor’s Business Daily:

“But then we’ve known that. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize
winner, has traveled abroad for years as an official observer,
habitually legitimizing the elections of dictators and other unsavory
characters, most recently Hugo Chavez last year in Venezuela.”

I just love it!

If you think Chavez is tough and intolerant with his
enemies, he has always been worse when it comes time to get back at his friends
and staunch supporters Chavez is not only intolerant, a trait from his military
background, but simply has to have absolute and total loyalty, which has led me
to coin the term the “Chavez praying mantis effect”, he simply eats his own,
once they have done the job for him. There is a long list of those that have been
eaten by Chavez of which Miquilena, Arias Cardenas, Urdaneta, Uson and Rosendo
are just but a few.

This week the effect was back and with a vengeance, demonstrating
that Chavez ahs no loyalties than to himself and that he is as intolerant and ruthless
as they get.

While there were incidents involving Luis Tascon, promoter
and executor of the infamous Tascon fascist list, Lina Ron, the fiery and aggressive
communal leader who has defended Chavze at every step and union leader Ramon
Machuca for joining a protest against Chavez, no case has had the resonance and
impact of TV announcer Walter Martinez, which Tal Cual has dubbed “Waltergate”.

Martinez
is a veteran TV reporter and announcer who sided with Chávez in 1998 and had
become prominent in the Government TV station VTV. Martinez has been a rapid promoter of the revolution
and Chavez via his program “Dossier”. Everything was fine and dandy until this
week Martinez charged
that there were too many people betting at “Chavismo without Chávez” and that he
had proof that there were Government officials who wore red berets in order to make
a buck. This did not set well with the Minister of Information and
Communication Pimentel who took him off the air and reportedly was told that he
would not go back on the air until he provided the proof.

This has led to rallies in favor of Martinez outside the TV stations
headquarters, graffiti in his support all over the walls of the station and constant
crowds and chanting almost every hour of the day. Two TV announcers from the TV
channel were removed from their jobs fir refusing to read a communiqué asking Martinez to make his accusations to the Prosecutor’s
office and Martinez
also had to stop his radio program. But Martinez,
who says he is a solider of the revolution, did not get the backing he expected
from the President. Showing how much the President pays attention to the minutiae
of politics, the President himself called a TV program where he attacked Martinez rather than defend
him. Chavez defended Martinez’
suspension saying “people have to be humble and not let themselves be driven by
their effort to be protagonists”. With that, it was clear that Martinez was dispensable. You just don’t accuse
this “pure” revolution of corruption. Chavez will do nothing against it because
it helps him achieve his political goals.

Thus, the soldier of the revolution awaiting for
orders from the Supreme being found today himself without support, victim of
the revolution and the corruption that surrounds it and may be eating it from
within.

Savage
Socialism by Teodoro Petkoff in Tal Cual

When
Chavez placed in orbit his concept of “socialism for the XXIst. Century”, after
a number of years of his frenetic political relationship with Cuba, he could
not help but awaken in some Venezuelans-including many of his supporters among
the common people-the strong apprehension that his idea about the matter approximates
to what exists in Cuba. When the everyday Venezuelan hears the word “socialism”
he inevitably associates the term with Cuba
and with the USSR and not
with Sweden.
Nobody knows better the negative weight of the anti-communist prejudices than
the democratic people on the left and how much it costs to dissipate the
equating that many people make between totalitarian dictatorships like the
soviet and the Cuban ones and socialism. .

Unfortunately,
if in a game of word associations you say “socialism”, the other responds
without thinking “Cuba”.
And Cuba,
with its long life-time dictatorship, which has already lasted 46 years and
with its overwhelming economic and social failure, no longer gets anyone enthusiastic
about it. Nobody in good mental health, unless he is a fanatic that does not reason,
could look to Cuba
for a project for social change of an advanced nature. In fact, Chavez himself has
been forced, once in a while, to say that neither the USSR nor Cuba are models to be copied. But
words can do little in the face of facts and what is being perceived is that
the relationship with the island is so close that it seems that it is in Cuba that Chavez
is thinking when he speaks of “socialism”.

But as if
this was not enough, in his most recent speeches he is adding fuel to the fire,
when he gets involved in the rugged paths of socio-economic digressions. As if
the famous polemic in Cuba, between “moral incentives” and “material incentives“
for the workers, as mechanisms to stimulate production, had not been resolved
by reality, in favor of those like, against those like Che Guevara, held that
need for the second option. Chavez now pretends that members of coops forget
about earnings, because “production can not become part of the mercantile
bloodstream” but that earnings have to be devoted to pay society back, “even
with donations”. If these criteria whose ingenious faith matches well the ignorance
that they are impregnated with, imposed themselves, coops would go straight to
bankruptcy and the ruin of its members.

When
Chavez complains about collective bargaining and of those union leaders “ that
are looking for a few bucks” as well as the exaggerated salary demands of the
state companies, he suggests the idea (of which Lenin laughed at in his time)
that the working class, that is revolutionary in itself, can not have contradictions
with his state employer and that in the name of the revolution, unions should
represent the state and not the workers. “XXIst Century socialism“ supposes
then, as far as we can see, the elimination of autonomous unions and the
absolute subordination of the workers movement to the designs of the state, the
Government and the party. That is the way it was in the USSR that is the way it is in Cuba and, is that what Chavez is proposing for Venezuela?

There are reasons
to be concerned. Will the pro-Chavez union leaders of the UNT reflect on this?

Hugo Chavez today:

“For those that do not want to collaborate, we will apply the law and we will take everything away from them”

Can it be any clearer than that?

Huguito
the XIVth., The Pluto King of Little Venice and adjacent territories, continued
proving that his rule shines across all powers as he continued to legislate, rule,
govern, meddle, pontificate, lie and change his mind about any issue that his
meandering mind may like.

But
Huguito’s topic for the week was his continued attack on private property,
profits, capitalism and in general the promotion of monastic values which, he
of course does not practice. Flying in his US$ 85 million Airbus, wearing Lanvin
suits, Cartier watches and Disney underwear, Huguito called for his
“co-management” social companies to be non-profit, told workers that that they
should not aspire to be rich and that having two of anything was bad. All of
this from the 100 suit man, including a dozen military uniforms with ranks he
never achieved and the three dozen fancy watch man. But hey, we have exceptions
in XXIst. Century Socialism, particularly if we are talking about the all-wise,
all-wavering, egotist, fascist, autocrat, the Pluto King himself.

And
he
scolded the Mayors for not expropriating urban lands, forgetting that
he has
yet to eliminate the right to private property in the Constitution. Oh
yes! He does not control two thirds of the assembly yet, but wait till
December, Jorgito the snake will take care of that. And he said
that he would cancel mining concessions issued in previous Governments,
but
immediately said that the Government would operate the Las Cristinas
gold mine,
a concession graciously awarded to Canadian concern Crystallex, you
guessed it,
under Huguito’s Government itself. But this is what is so wonderful
about the
Pluto King. You never know when he will wake up with a wonderful new,
improved
and better idea to screw an enemy, or a friend for that matter. His
only true
friend and trusted confidant is the Pluto King himself. And his economy ignorance and improvisation is unlimited.

And since
he had not attacked the gringos since leaving the Bronx, sans two Cuban-adopted Venezuelan bodyguards who decided to try
their luck in Bush’s land, he blasted Verizon-controlled-phone-company CANTV
warning that if they did not pay retired workers what the Supreme Court had
ordered, he would apply to them the “acid and sword” of the law, no matter how
powerful they thought they were. Of course, the Supreme Court has made no such
ruling, it simply ruled in the workers favor and asked a lower Court to
establish damages. Moreover, CANTV may yet appeal the decision. But you see,
for Huguito or you may call him Pluto, these are just the details, the law
moves too slow, even if it rules the way he wants. He is after all, the law. He
is the King, He is Huguito, the Pluto King of Little Venice.

All day in radio talk shows the news of the contents of the Carter-Baker report on
elections caused hilarity, anger and spite against the former US President. I
had read about it early this morning in PMBcomments, but
was surprised by its absence in any of the news media today. But radio talk
shows were having a ball at quoting straight from the report. This one
generated anger:

-Congress should pass a law requiring
that all voting machines be equipped with a voter-verifiable paper audit trail
and, consistent with HAVA, be fully accessible
to voters with disabilities. This is especially important for direct recording
electronic (DRE) machines for four reasons:(a) to increase citizens’ confidence
that their vote will be counted accurately, (b) to allow for a recount, (c) to
provide a backup in cases of loss of votes due to computer malfunction, and (d)
to test — through a random selection of machines — whether the paper result is
the same as the electronic result.

While this one generated
laughter:

-To undertake the new responsibilities recommended by this report and to build
confidence in the administration of elections, Congress and the states should
reconstitute election management institutions on a nonpartisan basis to make
them more independent and effective. U.S. Election Assistance Commission
members and each state’s chief elections officer should be selected and be expected to act in a nonpartisan manner,
and the institutions should have sufficient funding for research and training
and to conduct the best elections possible. We believe the time has come to
take politics as much as possible out of the institutions of election
administration and to make these institutions nonpartisan.

This one made people wonder if it was the same Jimmy Carter that came to Venezuela to
oversee the recall vote:

–States should adopt unambiguous procedures
to reconcile any disparity between the electronic ballot tally and the paper
ballot tally.The Commission strongly recommends that states determine well in
advance of elections which will be the ballot of record.

While this one led them to conclude it had to be a different guy:

-State and local election authorities should publicly
test all types of voting machines before, during, and after Election Day and
allow public observation of zero machine counts at the start of Election Day and
the machine certification process.

And how about this one, where was Carter last year in August 14th.? He
certainly did not have this access and neither did even the members of the
Electoral Board that were not pro-Chavez.

-All legitimate domestic and international election observers should be
granted unrestricted access to the election process, provided that they accept
election rules, do not interfere with the electoral process, and respect the
secrecy of the ballot. Such observers should apply for accreditation, which
should allow them to visit any polling station in any state and to view all
parts of the election process, including the testing of voting equipment, the
processing of absentee ballots, and the vote count.

It was indeed weird to hear all these
wise remarks from the same guy that certified the results of the Venezuela
recall last year, without any of the above conditions being met at all. In fact
NONE of the above was even closely satisfied.

But that’s Jimmy for you.

It
was a day of protests in Venezuela today, curiously none of it organized by
the so-called opposition, but by various groups with grievances against the
Government. Chavez was hit hard by the protests as three different groups blocked
the access to the headquarters of the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana. Chavze
went there to “hand out” Government loans to the Venalum corporation, one of
the Government owned aluminum companies that is now under management by its
personnel. Chavez had to be taken by helicopter to the plant as the
roads around Ciudad Guayana collapsed.

There were
nominally four different groups protesting independently. Steel workers were
protesting that they have not been paid the dividends on the shares of Sidor
that they own, despite the promises by the Minister of Basic Industries that
they would be paid. Separately, workers of the aluminum industry who can not
work due to work related injuries also held a protest. The third group was
composed of Venalum and Alcasa’s retired personnel asking for speed in the decision
on an injunction they requested 40 days ago. Finally, there were protests over the
problems with water supply to the homes in the area.

Separately
there were protests in Caracas
by medical doctors against the health bill being considered by the National
Assembly and in Vargas state by street vendors who were protesting mistreatment
by the police.

But none
of this seemed to affect Chavze who
gave a fiery speech, telling the Governors and Mayors to expropriate any
empty lots in the cities that are not being used. Chavez said that they should
stop the practice of buying urban land and letting it simply sit there in order
to sell it later at a higher price. Chávez also attacked the private sector
saying that those that don’t like his policies should “go to Miami” leaving their plants and machinery
behind. He backed the seizure of a farm which he claims is owned by the
Government while the owners claim otherwise and said he would hold his Sunday
program from that farm next Sunday. He also said he had until the year 2030 to
convince people of the advantages of socialism. Curiously, he suggested that he
was a “new” convert to the concept of socialism, which was not clarified.

For the
last two and a half years it has been very difficult to get a passport in Venezuela,
between inefficiency and the Tascon list, which banned everyone who signed the
recall petition from getting a passport via “regular” means to a shortage of
the precious books, getting a new passport has been essentially Hell. Add to
that the paranoia of Venezuelans who dislike Chavez and you had lots of people
applying, paying and otherwise doing any necessary pirouette to get a valid
Bolivarian passport.

This
created a virtuous corruption cyrcle that allowed anyone willing to pay up to
one million bolivars (US$ 465) to get a passport, although prices ranged
somewhere below that around Bs. 600 to 700 thousand. Some refused to pay;
others could not, creating a huge backlog.

Then the
scandal over the Tascon list hit the international political circle, Chavez
said bury the list and the ID office ordered what it thought were sufficient
passports to satisfy demand. Except that they misjudged the backlog and the
fears and some 400,000 Venezuelans applied to get the much coveted document.

The Head
of the ID office a while back blamed the problem on the people of course. Saying
that people were irresponsibly requesting passports which they did not need,
doing what has become commonplace in the Chávez administration: blame someone
else, but never take responsibility.

Then last
week, the same official announced that beginning this week, Venezuelans would
be able to apply for a passport via the Internet, but they would be penalized.Under
regular circumstances, this would have not raised any noise, but
nothing is
regular in this country these days, the announcement of a penalty was
seen as a
threat against freedom and a plan to limit the movements of
Venezuelans. Moreover, the penalty would not be a fine, but the
“deactivation”of your passport, suggesting some form of movement
control.

Is that
the intention? I don’t know. It is very difficult to tell. We have learned not
to trust this Government in the last seven years. My personal feeling is that
this is only idiocy at work, but I have been wrong and naïve before.