The Devil's Excrement

Well, despite the new, new Chavez attempt, today the President named
his new Minister of Finance, proving that little has changed. Chavez
named Ali Rodriguez Araque, whose only qualification for the position
is his total and absolute loyalty to Chavez and his revolutionary
credentials. At a time that Venezuela needs more than ever someone with
knowledge of macroeconomics, Chavez names a lawyer, a former guerrilla
fighter who was still in the mountains when there was no armed fight in
Venezuela in 1963.

Rodriguez Araque, who is a lawyer, became a Deputy of the old Congress
in the 90’s, where he specialized in oil Law. He has served as Minister
of Energy, President of PDVSA (where he presided over the firing of
20,000 people and beagn the destruction of the country’s oil industry)
and was Foreign Minister. When he got sick, he was named Ambassador of
Venezuela to Cuba.

About the only good thing I can say for him is that he will not
participate in the corruption of the sale of bonds and notes to those
friendly to the Government as he has no interest in getting rich. Thus,
I expect the sale of bonds and structured notes to the banks to stop,
which will make the swap rate go up for a while until he can figure out
a different way of selling dollars into the parallel market. The
nomination is unfortunate, as inflation continues to roar ahead and
distortions are being sustained only by the high oil prices. Rodriguez
Araque does not have the knowledge to manage the country’s economy at a
time that it requires strong measures.

So much for “change”. Rodriguez Araque is as radical, conniving and left-wing as they get.He will be there plotting from day one and his ignorance on economi matters is bad news for Venezuela.

This week we saw the completion
of the introduction of Hugo Chavez 6.0 a more user friendly, gentler beta
version of the well-known Hugo Chavez system. The new version is, like all
previous even numbered versions, an attempt to remove some of the
confrontational issues of the odd numbered versions. However, as all other
previous even versions, this one is likely to be short-lived and replaced by a
more robust and intransigent version.

When I started this blog almost six years ago, I was not sure where this was going to go, sort of assumed most of the readers would get here via salon.com and never gave much thought to getting the domain names. In fact, I remember even thinking that nobody would ever want to type something like http://www.devilexcrement.com to get to my blog anyway.

Over the years, people have asked and I really never thought much about it. Then last week, while traveling I thought of checking if the names were available or someone had kidnapped them to hold them for ransom. But lo and behold there they were, available for purchase. So, a little late, but almost at blazing Internet speed, starting today you no longer have to google “excrement” to find me (I am at #4 after Wikipedia and dictionaries), but can simply click it in there at devilexcrement and devilsexcrement just in case you try it with or without an “s”.

Thanks to the bro for his help.

Remember the Venezuelan National Guardsman captured in Colombia with 40,000 bullets for the FARC’s AK-47 rifles?

In yet another flip-flop and about face in policy, Hugo Chavez called
today for the FARC guerrillas to give up their fight after forty years
of death and destruction in Colombia. Chavez’ statement represent a
remarkable shift in policy by  the Venezuelan President who enraged
many in the region, including Colombia’s Government, by asking last
Fall that the FARC be recognized as a “legitimate insurgent force”.
Moreover, the Venezuelan President called on the FARC to give up all of
the hostages in their hands in exchange for…

Nothing.

After months of trying to negotiate that the Colombian Government clear
an area of that country for the rebels in exchange for a handful of
hostages.

This represents a remarkable about face which closes Chavez’ attempt to
get recognition by negotiating with the FARC the release of the
hostages, which in the end turned out to be not only a gigantic
failure, but seems to have been used by the Colombian Government to
track down and destroy the main leaders of the guerilla movement, as
barely three of the hostages have been released and Ingrid Betancourt
remains in captivity.

For Chavez it is a risky call, likely driven by the content of Reyes’
computer. Risky, because the FARC seems to be in disarray and it is
likely that it will be difficult to achieve a consensus on Chavez’
request. But he could come out of all this smelling better if
Betancourt is finally liberated.

Chavez involved himself in the FARC/hostage negotiations thinking that
it may lead to the Nobel Peace Prize, but he underestimated Uribe’s
understanding of the FARC and his determination to destroy the group.
Meanwhile, the FARC has always had a convergent but parallel agenda to
Chavez and never trusted him completely instead using him for their own
purposes. This led to many failures and few rewards for Chavez as Uribe
stood back and used the extra noise surrounding Chavez’ negotiations to
track down the FARC leaders.

The flip flop represents the fourth one in one week, as Chavez seems to
be using polls and Reyes’ computers to redefine himself in surprising
fashion. As Pedro Mario Burelli said, Chavez seems to be running away
at full speed from Hugo Chavez in a sign that he is worried about his
standing, both nationally and internationally.

Internationally, it is hard to believe that the information in Reyes
computer will not come out to tell us the true story of Chavez’ tight
realtionship with the FARC. Nationally, it may hold back Chavez in
terms of what Bills he may enact under the umbrella of the Enabling
Bill that expires in mid July. Most likely, Chavez will look for the
National Assembly to extend that Law, so that he can use it to push his personal political project after the November elections.

It is part of the clueless nature of this fake
revolution that after a Bill is conceived, drafted and executed by Hugo
Chavez under the umbrella of the Enabling Bill, his servile collaborators
all defend the Bill, telling us in grandiose and pompous words why it was
necessary and indispensable and how the law does not violate the rights of
anybody.

But can you get anymore bizarre than the autocrat himself
coming out and saying he can not defend the undefensible…

Can they
be any more incompetent and inefficient than that?

I mean, who wrote the Bill? Why did Chavez sign it into Law? Or even, did he sign into Law or is he
so far removed from the day to day operations of Government that some of
his close collaborators wrote it and executed without his
knowledge?

And after none other than his Minister of Justice
defended the Bill, Chavez comes out and says “The Law is bad…we made a
mistake”

To say nothing of the blind and dumb followers who
attempted to convince their readers (if any) that the Bills was necessary and had
merits and how the stupid opposition human rights defenders, bloggers and
the like were utterly lost in the face of the wisdom emanated from the
Bolivarian Presidential Palace.

Can they be more stupid than that?

It
now seems to be that my thinking and that of my fellow bloggers,
politicians and writers is closer to Chavez’ thinking than the stupid
Chavista herd, who hails, follows and defends anything the autocrat may say
and suggest.

And they have have never looked as stupid and empty
headed as today, proving how idiotic their worship of the fake
revolutionary is.

Because the oxymoronic “intelligence” Bill in the
end simply shows the lack of intellectual depth and consistency of the
stupid Bolivarian revolution, which ten years after being in power is still
searching for definition and direction and bows under the pressure and
criticism of national and international opinion.

Because nothing
seems to be going well for it lately. From the capitalistic decision to charge for
broadcasting the revolutions messiah, to lowering public transportation
fares, to the intelligence Bill, everything is labeled an error, not by us
in the opposition, but by the creators of the ideas.

Sadly, it is
not that they have changed their minds, but it is simply that after ten
years in powers the same brainless and superficial yes men surround an Hugo
Chavez looking for direction, but reacting to every flip and flop of his
dwindling popularity. Meanwhile his supporters act like the deaf and dumb
pinball wizards of yesteryear, cheering the verbosity and errors of the
autocrat, acting like the religious fanatics they have become.

So
now we have a commission to review the new intelligence Bill, for which
there was no commission, or discussion as established in Article 211 of the
Bolivarian Constitution, which calls for the citizens to be consulted in
the process of creation of formation of laws.

But in the end the
truth is that Chavez believes in neither the representative democracy that
he has spent so much time destroying, nor the participative democracy that
he spends all his time ignoring.
Because once again, he shows that
he only believes in Hugo Chavez and whatever his whims and desires may be
on any giving day.

Even if he changes his mind the next day, calling
it an error. In fact, the whole revolution is just a gigantic error, which
has troubles getting even the most basic things right.

The Head of the Venezuelan Intelligence Police
(DISIP), in the face of the outcry over the new “intelligence” Bill issued
by the Chavez thuggish Government, defended the Bill and its provisions
that force Venezuelans to become informants, using this wonderful argument
which reveals how this guy’s brain has no concept of what a democracy is
and I quote word by word this jerk’s words:

“Rangel Silva (The Head
of DISIP) disqualified those that say the Law will create “informers”,
because, according to him, DISIP already has a wide network of
collaborators that informs it, among other things, of everything candidates
do, both pro-Chavez and opposition”

There you have it imbecile
PSF’s, try to defend that one!

I am still traveling but friends always keep me informed of
the most up to the minute news.

You have to love it when the
Minister of Interior and Justice in charge of police and on the enforcement
of the new “intelligence” Bill is called a thug by Investors Business Daily
(), however IBD will never have to buy a used car
from the man anyway.

But when old reliable Der Spiegel tells us that
the FARC thinks that Rodriguez Chacin is a “real badass” that was
seeking such “humanitarian” and “caring” aid aid from the FARC such
as explosives, ambushes and the like, it really makes you proud to be part
of this glorious country with such a gentle and generous Government
()

Acc
ording to Der Spiegel:

The interior minister — described by FARC as
“a real badass” — was
apparently so impressed by the guerillas that he asked them for
assistance in training Venezuelan militias. “Rodríguez Chacín asked
about possible ways in which we could share our knowledge of guerilla
war,” Marquez wrote on Nov. 14, 2007 in an e-mail to Reyes. According
to the message, the Venezuelans were seeking information about “modes
of operation, explosives, camps in the jungle, preparing ambushes,
logistics and mobility … Everything that would be required to react
appropriately to a US invasion.”

What is never clear is if these
techniques were being sought to fight the outrageous crime levels the
Chavez Government has allowed in Venezuela, or to have the Chavez
Government fight its own citizens some day.

Hope we never find
out.