The Devil's Excrement

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.

A
week or so ago, Ricardo Bello wrote an article entitled “XXIst. Century
Fascism” in which he described Britt’s “criteria” for fascism and
applied it to you know who. I was going to translate it, but once I
found the original Britt article on the web I decided to just give you
“food for thought” not only about the criteria but about the
similarities between right wing and left wong fasciscm. In any case,
here it is, I am sure we all have different opinions about the ones
that apply here or in the US. But this is a blog about Venezuela,
what’s your count (mine is 12) for our dear Government?

Fascism
Anyone? by Laurence
W. Britt

The
following article is from Free
Inquiry magazine, Volume 23, Number 2.

Free
Inquiry readers
may pause to read the “Affirmations of Humanism: A Statement of Principles” on
the inside cover of the magazine. To a secular humanist, these principles seem
so logical, so right, so crucial. Yet, there is one archetypal political
philosophy that is anathema to almost all of these principles. It is fascism.
And fascism’s principles are wafting in the air today, surreptitiously
masquerading as something else, challenging everything we stand for. The cliché
that people and nations learn from history is not only overused, but also
overestimated; often we fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong
conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm.

We are
two-and-a-half generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, although
constant reminders jog the consciousness. German and Italian fascism form the
historical models that define this twisted political worldview. Although they
no longer exist, this worldview and the characteristics of these models have
been imitated by protofascist regimes at various times in the twentieth
century. Both the original German and Italian models and the later protofascist
regimes show remarkably similar characteristics. Although many scholars
question any direct connection among these regimes, few can dispute their
visual similarities.

Beyond the
visual, even a cursory study of these fascist and protofascist regimes reveals
the absolutely striking convergence of their modus operandi. This, of
course, is not a revelation to the informed political observer, but it is
sometimes useful in the interests of perspective to restate obvious facts and
in so doing shed needed light on current circumstances.

For the
purpose of this perspective, I will consider the following regimes: Nazi
Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain,
Salazar’s Portugal,
Papadopoulos’s Greece,
Pinochet’s Chile, and
Suharto’s Indonesia.
To be sure, they constitute a mixed bag of national identities, cultures,
developmental levels, and history. But they all followed the fascist or
protofascist model in obtaining, expanding, and maintaining power. Further, all
these regimes have been overthrown, so a more or less complete picture of their
basic characteristics and abuses is possible.

Analysis
of these seven regimes reveals fourteen common threads that link them in
recognizable patterns of national behavior and abuse of power. These basic
characteristics are more prevalent and intense in some regimes than in others,
but they all share at least some level of similarity.

1. Powerful and continuing
expressions of nationalism.
From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins,
the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself
and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans,
pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this
nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that
often bordered on xenophobia.

2. Disdain for the importance of
human rights.
The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance
to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of
propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by
marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious,
the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

3. Identification of
enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of
scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems,
to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled
directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were
usually effective. Often the regimes would incite “spontaneous” acts against
the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic
and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other
religions, secularists, homosexuals, and “terrorists.” Active opponents of
these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

4. The supremacy of the
military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military
and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share
of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs
were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used
whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and
increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

5. Rampant sexism. Beyond the simple fact that the
political elite and the national culture were male-dominated, these regimes
inevitably viewed women as second-class citizens. They were adamantly
anti-abortion and also homophobic. These attitudes were usually codified in
Draconian laws that enjoyed strong support by the orthodox religion of the
country, thus lending the regime cover for its abuses.

6. A controlled mass media. Under some of the regimes, the mass media were
under strict direct control and could be relied upon never to stray from the
party line. Other regimes exercised more subtle power to ensure media
orthodoxy. Methods included the control of licensing and access to resources,
economic pressure, appeals to patriotism, and implied threats. The leaders of
the mass media were often politically compatible with the power elite. The
result was usually success in keeping the general public unaware of the
regimes’ excesses.

7. Obsession with national
security.
Inevitably, a national security apparatus was under direct control of the
ruling elite. It was usually an instrument of oppression, operating in secret
and beyond any constraints. Its actions were justified under the rubric of
protecting “national security,” and questioning its activities was portrayed as
unpatriotic or even treasonous.

8. Religion and ruling elite
tied together.
Unlike communist regimes, the fascist and protofascist regimes were never
proclaimed as godless by their opponents. In fact, most of the regimes attached
themselves to the predominant religion of the country and chose to portray
themselves as militant defenders of that religion. The fact that the ruling
elite’s behavior was incompatible with the precepts of the religion was
generally swept under the rug. Propaganda kept up the illusion that the ruling
elites were defenders of the faith and opponents of the “godless.” A perception
was manufactured that opposing the power elite was tantamount to an attack on
religion.

9. Power of corporations
protected.
Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability
of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The
ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military
production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social
control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political
elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the
repression of “have-not” citizens.

10. Power of labor suppressed or
eliminated. Since organized labor was seen as
the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling
elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless.
The poor formed an underclass, viewed with suspicion or outright contempt.
Under some regimes, being poor was considered akin to a vice.

11. Disdain and suppression of
intellectuals and the arts.
Intellectuals and the inherent freedom of ideas and expression associated with
them were anathema to these regimes. Intellectual and academic freedom were
considered subversive to national security and the patriotic ideal.
Universities were tightly controlled; politically unreliable faculty harassed
or eliminated. Unorthodox ideas or expressions of dissent were strongly
attacked, silenced, or crushed. To these regimes, art and literature should
serve the national interest or they had no right to exist.

12. Obsession with crime and
punishment.
Most of these
regimes maintained Draconian systems of criminal justice with huge prison
populations. The police were often glorified and had almost unchecked power,
leading to rampant abuse. “Normal”
and political crime were often merged into trumped-up criminal charges and
sometimes used against political opponents of the regime. Fear, and hatred, of
criminals or “traitors” was often promoted among the population as an excuse
for more police power.

13. Rampant cronyism and
corruption.
Those in business
circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich
themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive
financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain
the benefit of government favoritism. Members of the power elite were in a
position to obtain vast wealth from other sources as well: for example, by
stealing national resources. With the national security apparatus under control
and the media muzzled, this corruption was largely unconstrained and not well
understood by the general population.

14. Fraudulent elections. Elections in the form of
plebiscites or public opinion polls were usually bogus. When actual elections
with candidates were held, they would usually be perverted by the power elite
to get the desired result. Common methods included maintaining control of the
election machinery, intimidating and disenfranchising opposition voters,
destroying or disallowing legal votes, and, as a last resort, turning to a
judiciary beholden to the power elite.

Does any
of this ring alarm bells? Of course not. After all, this is America,
officially a democracy with the rule of law, a constitution, a free press,
honest elections, and a well-informed public constantly being put on guard
against evils. Historical comparisons like these are just exercises in verbal
gymnastics. Maybe, maybe not.

(I have changed
the post, since someone pointed out in the comments that Borges
proposed giving Bs. 2 million per family, not per person as I believed)

Right
before I left last week, I called the proposal by Primero Justicia’s Presidential
candidate Julio Borges, to distribute 25% of the oil income directly to all
Venezuelans irresponsible. This generated a large number of comments, such that
the limit per post of the software of the blog was exceeded. Some people
actually liked the proposal, others agreed with me. But there was more to my
objection which required a full post and I was traveling (actually, I write
this as I fly back) and had no time to explain all of my objections in detail.

First of
all, I have always expressed here that I firmly believe that the highest
responsibility in the country is that of the those in Government. They are
supposed to be the protectors of the law and the rights of the people. Below
that level are the politicians who aspire to lead the country in the future or
question what the Government does. Borges is in such a position, he is the only
leader of an opposition party to have announced he is a candidate, as such, I
feel that he has a special responsibility to all of us or at least to those he
thinks may vote for him.

No
proposal exists in a vacuum. One of the toughest jobs of any Government
official is how to decide whether to spend money here instead of there. In
countries with more political accountability than in Venezuela, many times politicians that
propose programs have to say where the money will come from and are, in many
cases, forced to give explicit detail of how they plan to fund such programs
and their cost is. Unfortunately, this does not happen in Venezuela, does
not happen now and never happened before.

Few
Governments in our modern history have acted responsibly in this sense. We have
a social security system that is not funded and currently costs US$ 1 billion a
year to pay minimum salary to all those that have retired, we have universities
that use half of their budget to pay retired professors and employees, some of
whom retire after only 25 years of work and we have new programs (Yes, I am
talking “misiones”) where nurses have not been paid in the last six months. But
it has never been the style of our Governments to calculate how something will
be funded or even if there is funding for it. Promise and you shall reap
political benefits and that seems like the only thing that matters.

Thus, a
candidate making a bold proposal should at least have thought it through.
Someone that aspires to become a President of Venezuela the least he or she
should do is to do the homework, ask basic questions and figure out some basic
numbers, before venturing a proposal. Obviously Julio Borges did not do it,
much like what Chavez does when he proposes something and has no clue as to
whether there are or not funds for it.

The proposal and its basic numbers

Let’s look
at what Borges proposed (El
Nacional, Friday September 9^th, page A6, by subscription only). He
stated that we should distribute 25% of oil income directly to all Venezuelans,
which would give each family Bs. 2,000,000 per year directly to their pocket.
Well, to begin with, the math is absolutely wrong. If I say, for the sake of
the argument, that we are talking about Bs. 2.1 million per person, just to
make it an even US$ 1,000 per person, then Borges is talking about distributing
US$ 5 billion per year to the people.

Budget US$
33 billion (from 2005 budget)
GDP US$
106 billion (Approximately)
GDP per
capita US$ 4,240 per inhabitant
Oil
Revenues US$ 49 billion
Oil Income US$ 23 billion

The proposal and its impact

But let’s
assume we could do it. If we could distribute 25% of oil income directly (25%
of US$ 23 billion), it would come out to US$ 230 per year per individual
according to my numbers. Assume a family of four on average; we are talking
$920 per year per family or US$ 77 per month per family. Given that the basic
“food basket” for a family of four is, according to the Government, US$ 200,
this would only provide 38% of the basic needs of a family each month. Thus,
the impact would be skewed, because you will be giving a small amount of money
to those in the higher strata of the population, which they don’t need, and not
giving enough to those that really need it.

But then,
you have to balance things, the Government is providing an important subsidy
already via the Mercal markets, so is this instead of or in addition to? We
just don’t know. By the way, since we are on the subject, to me Mercal is just
too inefficient and corrupt. Its prices should be lower given the fact that it
is non-profit, pays no custom duties and uses the military for transport and
storage. Thus, somebody is getting mighty rich indeed at our expense. I also
think that Mercal resorts to imports too often; it is just more expedient and
hides commissions better. It is the usual non transparent corrupt solution at
its best. I prefer direct subsidies like school meals and milk programs.

But
there
are no details on the proposal it was a shoot from the hip idea without
any
thought or understanding. Not very promising for a Presidential
candidate. Where would the US$ 5 billion come from? What budget item
would be cut? Venezuela’s budget is quite rigid. Inefficient, but
rigid.

The Proposal and its philosophy

Additionally,
the proposal perpetuates the long standing history of telling the people that the
state will provide for them, without knowing where the money will come from and
compromising the future of those Venezuelans that have not been born yet. It
represents demagoguery at its best. I can not support that. We need to elect
decent and responsible leaders if we are going to go anywhere in the future as
a country.

The
proposal is irresponsible because it is based on high oil prices and not on any
measure of importance or impact of the program. Suppose you approve it and
tomorrow the price of oil goes down? You will distribute 25% of oil income at
the expense of what? Where will you cut the budget? Some will suffer while
others get money they don’t need. Borges has said nothing about this. You could
propose something like: when oil income is above x you will distribute half of
what is above this level directly to the people and the other half will be
saved. But that was the same spirit of the Macroeconomic stabilization Fund
that Chavez completely spent in 2002 and has now been revived with total
discretion on the part of the National Assembly to decide on when to use it or
not. Some savings!

A simpler alternative

Thus, I
see nothing but an irresponsible and very ill conceived proposal by Julio
Borges which changes little in the way the country has been and is being run. I
still think that creating a trust for all Venezuelans which will borrow to
invest in all new oil projects is the best way to go. Ownership will be for
life, can not be sold, transferred or given away. All profits from the fund
will be distributed yearly to all the owners. People will be able to borrow
from the trust at prevailing interest rates up to their equity. Each year the
number of owners would go up as more people are born than die. Ownership may be
converted to an annuity after sixty years of age by returning ownership to the
trust itself.

Or
something like that…but hey! I am not running.

On September 14, 2005, Chavez presented the candidates of his party for
the next National Assembly. The election will take place in December of
this year. The National Assembly is currently slightly dominated by the
Chavistas so that they can pass the laws as they wish (remember the
“porque nos da la gana” of Iris Varela? (El Nacional, June 22, 2005,
A2)). However, a much more important majority is necessary to reform
the 1999 Bolivarian Constitution. According to article 343, 2/3 of the
votes of the National Assembly are needed . That is why the December
election for the members of the National Assembly is so critical.

In his speech, Chavez told his candidates that he wanted that, by January 5, 2006, right after the December elections, they start working on major Constitutional changes.

Why? And which changes are needed?

Moreover, how come the government official page (the MINCI) does not mention Chavez constitutional request to his candidates when reporting the same event?

Given that the December election is so critical, why not openly discuss the changes before the election? What is Chavez hiding?

Over the years, Venezuela has had many Constitutions.
Typically every “caudillo” aiming to stay in power, would modify the
Constitution accordingly and pass it as his own to tailor-made his
political needs while providing a veneer of legitimacy. Notably among
them, was Juan Vicente Gomez, a tough dictator that stayed in power from 1908 until his death in 1935 . He ordered at least seven changes to the Constitution and was quite successful in his quest for absolute power.

The
first Constitution of the Democratic era was passed in 1961. It defined
presidential terms of 5 years. To reinforce the democratic rule and to
make sure that the classical Venezuelan “caudillos” would not eternize
themselves in power, the writers of the 1961 Constitution stated that a
president could not run for re-election right away. At least ten years
had to elapse from the end of a presidential term before that president
would be allowed to run again. That rule, so necessary in a country
that had lived through dozens of takeovers, was systematically
respected by all the leaders of the democratic era.

Then came
Chavez. First, on February 4, 1992, after years of conspiring, he tried
to overturn by force the Constitutional mandate of Carlos Andres Perez.

Later,
when he was elected president in 1998, he was swore in on what he
called the “moribunda” (the dying Constitution). He immediately started
a campaign to create a Constitutional Assembly to be able to pass a new
Constitution tailor-made according to his wishes. The Constitutional
Assembly, whose mandate was only to write the new Constitution,
illegally took over all the legislative powers of the Congress, that
had an opposition majority.

In the end, all Chavez’s wishes were
included in the Constitution proposed by the Constitutional Assembly
that was to be approved by Referendum on December 15, 1999.

There
was one particular wish that was very important for Chavez. Instead of
the non-renewable 5 year term stated in the 1961 Constitution, the new
president would have a 6 year term, renewable for one more term. This
would give Chavez 12 years. But, the deal was even better! The Chavez
controlled Constitutional Assembly illegally dissolved the elected
Congress and did not respect the transitory period that had to take
place before the new Supreme Court judges and government figures could
be nominated.

Therefore, right after winning the 1999
Constitutional referendum and in the midst of the confusion and sadness
created by the 1999 Vargas tragedy, Chavez was able to change the Court
and all the government figures without any wait, giving him more power
than any other President before him in modern Venezuela history.

A sweet deal.

I
hope that the occasional reader now understands why Chavez was so keen
to ask the poor people of Venezuela to get out and vote in the
Referendum to ratify his Constitutional project on December 15, 1999
instead of declaring right away the State of Emergency. (please refer to my post).

You may also wonder why Chavez has been in power since 1998 if the new
Constitution was passed in 1999 and, according to the last one, there
was no immediate re-election. In fact, even though Chavez was elected
under the old rule, a complacent Supreme Court allowed him to run for
President in 2000 for a 6 year renewable period. Therefore, Venezuela
has been under the rule of Chavez for seven years. This is more than
any other president in modern Venezuela history….except, of course,
Juan Vicente Gomez, the good old dictator that stayed in power more
than 27 years thanks, among other things, to his changes in the
Constitution.

Now, after 7 years of unprecedented concentration
of powers and total control, Chavez has started again a campaign to
change the Constitution. A Constitution that was tailor-made for him
and that reflected every one of his wishes.

Why is he pushing now for a Constitutional reform? Why is his 1999 Constitution not good enough?

And more importantly, What are the changes that you want to make, Mr. Chavez?

Why haven’t you told us yet?

We
can guess. We can guess that Chavez, as a military man and a good ol’
Venezuelan caudillo is thirsty for even more power and control.

So now Venezuelans have two clear paths in front of them. To let go, or to fight back.

This time there are no excuses. They have been clearly warned by Chavez himself.

Jorge Arena.