The Devil's Excrement

This article from Elizabeth Araujo in today’s Tal Cual should be called History Backwards or the History that never was, but beautifully makes the point of what is so wrong about what is happening in Venezuela

Rewriting History by Elizabeth Araujo

I saw on TV Lazaro Forero and Henry Vivas shooting against the crowd on April 11th. 2002.

 Remember Venevision showing the video that went around the world and served as a key piece in Judge Anabel Rodriguez qualifying without delay the charges against these police Captains for homicide. I just can not forget that afternoon when then Governor Mendoza, desperate, called on his cell phone one of his Mayors and asked him to invite the barrios so that they would come down with stones, guns and sticks in order to defend the counter revolution, and that night general Rosendo, in a cheap CIA trick, addressed the nation to inform that given the events of the day they had asked the President to reign, which eh had accepted.

I remember how William Lara and Diosdado Cabello stood, unarmed, in Avenida Urdaneta, challenging the coupsters and none of those cowards dared touch them; as certain as Jose Vicente Rangel swore the next day to El Nacional, that he would not recognize the fascist Government and he would be taken dead from his home, before surrendering.

That we know. It is them, civil society, that marches destroying on its path the kiosks and ornaments at the squares. I have seen Julio Borges burping with a beer in his hand, Pompeyo laughing at the Editors, recommending to them that they stick their media in their pockets, Gerardo Blyde changing at will the internal regulations of the National Assembly to approve bills ordered by Bush and I am sure that opposition youngsters go at night to the barrios to spread the garbage in the streets and make Freddy Bernal’s management impossible.

What can you do with the people that invented the Fort Mara fire, the secret meetings with FARC, that places people in the 23 de Enero buildings and shoots against the Metropolitan Police to blame the pacifist NGO the Tupamaros. Those that send criminals to hit Deputy Rafael Marin with an iron beam and then say Lina Ron sent them; that disguise themselves in Mision Robinson t shirts and destroy the Columbus statue, that incite their own to invade farms and buildings and then accuse them of being Chavistas, that hit militants of the process in Bolivar square or insult TV reporters to tell the world that in Venezuela there is no freedom of speech. These are the facts that we have to preserve in the memory of the new generations so that they know their reality and don’t back down to the mediatic inventions in their insistence for confusing the most important facts of this nascent revolution.

This article from Elizabeth Araujo in today’s Tal Cual should be called History Backwards or the History that never was, but beautifully makes the point of what is so wrong about what is happening in Venezuela

Rewriting History by Elizabeth Araujo

I saw on TV Lazaro Forero and Henry Vivas shooting against the crowd on April 11th. 2002.

 Remember Venevision showing the video that went around the world and served as a key piece in Judge Anabel Rodriguez qualifying without delay the charges against these police Captains for homicide. I just can not forget that afternoon when then Governor Mendoza, desperate, called on his cell phone one of his Mayors and asked him to invite the barrios so that they would come down with stones, guns and sticks in order to defend the counter revolution, and that night general Rosendo, in a cheap CIA trick, addressed the nation to inform that given the events of the day they had asked the President to reign, which eh had accepted.

I remember how William Lara and Diosdado Cabello stood, unarmed, in Avenida Urdaneta, challenging the coupsters and none of those cowards dared touch them; as certain as Jose Vicente Rangel swore the next day to El Nacional, that he would not recognize the fascist Government and he would be taken dead from his home, before surrendering.

That we know. It is them, civil society, that marches destroying on its path the kiosks and ornaments at the squares. I have seen Julio Borges burping with a beer in his hand, Pompeyo laughing at the Editors, recommending to them that they stick their media in their pockets, Gerardo Blyde changing at will the internal regulations of the National Assembly to approve bills ordered by Bush and I am sure that opposition youngsters go at night to the barrios to spread the garbage in the streets and make Freddy Bernal’s management impossible.

What can you do with the people that invented the Fort Mara fire, the secret meetings with FARC, that places people in the 23 de Enero buildings and shoots against the Metropolitan Police to blame the pacifist NGO the Tupamaros. Those that send criminals to hit Deputy Rafael Marin with an iron beam and then say Lina Ron sent them; that disguise themselves in Mision Robinson t shirts and destroy the Columbus statue, that incite their own to invade farms and buildings and then accuse them of being Chavistas, that hit militants of the process in Bolivar square or insult TV reporters to tell the world that in Venezuela there is no freedom of speech. These are the facts that we have to preserve in the memory of the new generations so that they know their reality and don’t back down to the mediatic inventions in their insistence for confusing the most important facts of this nascent revolution.

This article from Elizabeth Araujo in today’s Tal Cual should be called History Backwards or the History that never was, but beautifully makes the point of what is so wrong about what is happening in Venezuela

Rewriting History by Elizabeth Araujo

I saw on TV Lazaro Forero and Henry Vivas shooting against the crowd on April 11th. 2002.

 Remember Venevision showing the video that went around the world and served as a key piece in Judge Anabel Rodriguez qualifying without delay the charges against these police Captains for homicide. I just can not forget that afternoon when then Governor Mendoza, desperate, called on his cell phone one of his Mayors and asked him to invite the barrios so that they would come down with stones, guns and sticks in order to defend the counter revolution, and that night general Rosendo, in a cheap CIA trick, addressed the nation to inform that given the events of the day they had asked the President to reign, which eh had accepted.

I remember how William Lara and Diosdado Cabello stood, unarmed, in Avenida Urdaneta, challenging the coupsters and none of those cowards dared touch them; as certain as Jose Vicente Rangel swore the next day to El Nacional, that he would not recognize the fascist Government and he would be taken dead from his home, before surrendering.

That we know. It is them, civil society, that marches destroying on its path the kiosks and ornaments at the squares. I have seen Julio Borges burping with a beer in his hand, Pompeyo laughing at the Editors, recommending to them that they stick their media in their pockets, Gerardo Blyde changing at will the internal regulations of the National Assembly to approve bills ordered by Bush and I am sure that opposition youngsters go at night to the barrios to spread the garbage in the streets and make Freddy Bernal’s management impossible.

What can you do with the people that invented the Fort Mara fire, the secret meetings with FARC, that places people in the 23 de Enero buildings and shoots against the Metropolitan Police to blame the pacifist NGO the Tupamaros. Those that send criminals to hit Deputy Rafael Marin with an iron beam and then say Lina Ron sent them; that disguise themselves in Mision Robinson t shirts and destroy the Columbus statue, that incite their own to invade farms and buildings and then accuse them of being Chavistas, that hit militants of the process in Bolivar square or insult TV reporters to tell the world that in Venezuela there is no freedom of speech. These are the facts that we have to preserve in the memory of the new generations so that they know their reality and don’t back down to the mediatic inventions in their insistence for confusing the most important facts of this nascent revolution.

The return of Nelson Merentes to the Ministry of Finance demonstrates clearly the empty words of the Chavez revolution. While opposition members are indicted for minor infractions, such as removing road signs illegally, Chavez appoints again to that position one of the few Venezuelans that has been found guilty of violating the anti-corruption law called the “Law for the protection of the public assets”. Indeed Merentes was found guilty of numerous violations of that law by the pro-Chávez National Assembly when it investigated the “missing” funds (somewhere between 2 and 6 billion US$) of the macroeconomic stabilization fund (FIEM). But of course, you need a Prosecutor to accuse and the current one will never accuse one of his own, with so many easy targets in the opposition to harass.

Interestingly enough, Merentes was also part of the first accusations by the then pro-Chavez press against a Chavista figure when he was accused in 1999 of using funds from the technology and science fund of Universidad Central de Venezuela to buy jewels for his employees. The now Minister of Finance defended the actions as being parts of the “perks” of working for that fund. I love revolutionary logic!

The return of Nelson Merentes to the Ministry of Finance demonstrates clearly the empty words of the Chavez revolution. While opposition members are indicted for minor infractions, such as removing road signs illegally, Chavez appoints again to that position one of the few Venezuelans that has been found guilty of violating the anti-corruption law called the “Law for the protection of the public assets”. Indeed Merentes was found guilty of numerous violations of that law by the pro-Chávez National Assembly when it investigated the “missing” funds (somewhere between 2 and 6 billion US$) of the macroeconomic stabilization fund (FIEM). But of course, you need a Prosecutor to accuse and the current one will never accuse one of his own, with so many easy targets in the opposition to harass.

Interestingly enough, Merentes was also part of the first accusations by the then pro-Chavez press against a Chavista figure when he was accused in 1999 of using funds from the technology and science fund of Universidad Central de Venezuela to buy jewels for his employees. The now Minister of Finance defended the actions as being parts of the “perks” of working for that fund. I love revolutionary logic!

I guess soon I will have to find out whether the Web is considered to be private or public. You see, the distinction may become very important soon in the quickie fix up that our illustrious National Assembly is doing on the Penal Code. Rather than expect for the full revision of the code, our emblematic revolutionaries decided to patch it up to make sure that political opposition can be wiped out.

Whether my blog is considered public or private is very important according to today’s Tal Cual Editorial. If private, if I were to offend Hugo Chavez, I would be punished with prison between 6 and 30 months, half of that if the offense was “light” (Which is not defined). But, and here is the key to my question, the punishment would be increased by a third if the offense was made in public.

Of course, what is an offense? If Chavez says something stupid and I say so, is that an offense? What if he lies and I point it out? Is that offensive too? What if I accuse him of doing something illegal? Guilty? Is calling the letter he wrote to Carlos the Jackal, a love letter, an offense? Is calling him a murderer an offense? Is publishing a picture of him blowing a kiss to Fidel Castro, an offense too? What if I quote someone else calling Chavez a clown? Is that an offense too?

Then we come to the question of private versus public. What is private? Since the legislators took the trouble to define the additional penalty for a public offense, it means they have something in mind about what constitutes a private offense. If I tell Jimmy Carter in private that Chavez lied to him and Carter says it at a press conference. Am I in trouble? What if Carter tells Chavez privately what I said, guilty too?

What if I say he looks fat, like he does (see Tal Cual’s cover today). Go to jail without passing go and collecting 200? Or if I laugh in my blog at these jerky pictures of Chavez in Rio, where he pretended to be exercizing, with heavy sox, headbands and wristbands? He looks like such a fat clown! Should I go to jail for saying that?

By the way, I have to wonder who will be the enforcer for this. Honorable judge Mikael Moreno? Or will it be the People’s Ombudsman, who has so little to do because the revolution has been so successful at eliminating poverty, crime or corruption? Maybe they can appoint the El LLaguno shooters, after all, they have been certified as being innocent, something few Venezuelans can claim. Maybe they can bring back to the country some of those retired Generals living in mansions in Miami and have them serve the revolution once more. No, wait, I am sure that among the 15,000 Cubans in the country they can spare a few to check on violations of this article of the law. Who better qualified and trained that someone that grew up spying on his own family and friends to enforce the law?

I guess for now, I will keep the blog public. If I ever feel the need to make it private, I will rename it the “The Secret Devil’s Excrement”, making it a secret organization or logia, inviting everyone of you (including the Chavistas), and nobody else, to be a lifetime member. This way, my defense will be that my offenses against the President could not be defined either as private or public, they were simply secret. And that my friends, is not contemplated in the Bill at all, which according to revolutionary logic will mean that I will always be innocent, even if guilty.

I guess soon I will have to find out whether the Web is considered to be private or public. You see, the distinction may become very important soon in the quickie fix up that our illustrious National Assembly is doing on the Penal Code. Rather than expect for the full revision of the code, our emblematic revolutionaries decided to patch it up to make sure that political opposition can be wiped out.

Whether my blog is considered public or private is very important according to today’s Tal Cual Editorial. If private, if I were to offend Hugo Chavez, I would be punished with prison between 6 and 30 months, half of that if the offense was “light” (Which is not defined). But, and here is the key to my question, the punishment would be increased by a third if the offense was made in public.

Of course, what is an offense? If Chavez says something stupid and I say so, is that an offense? What if he lies and I point it out? Is that offensive too? What if I accuse him of doing something illegal? Guilty? Is calling the letter he wrote to Carlos the Jackal, a love letter, an offense? Is calling him a murderer an offense? Is publishing a picture of him blowing a kiss to Fidel Castro, an offense too? What if I quote someone else calling Chavez a clown? Is that an offense too?

Then we come to the question of private versus public. What is private? Since the legislators took the trouble to define the additional penalty for a public offense, it means they have something in mind about what constitutes a private offense. If I tell Jimmy Carter in private that Chavez lied to him and Carter says it at a press conference. Am I in trouble? What if Carter tells Chavez privately what I said, guilty too?

What if I say he looks fat, like he does (see Tal Cual’s cover today). Go to jail without passing go and collecting 200? Or if I laugh in my blog at these jerky pictures of Chavez in Rio, where he pretended to be exercizing, with heavy sox, headbands and wristbands? He looks like such a fat clown! Should I go to jail for saying that?

By the way, I have to wonder who will be the enforcer for this. Honorable judge Mikael Moreno? Or will it be the People’s Ombudsman, who has so little to do because the revolution has been so successful at eliminating poverty, crime or corruption? Maybe they can appoint the El LLaguno shooters, after all, they have been certified as being innocent, something few Venezuelans can claim. Maybe they can bring back to the country some of those retired Generals living in mansions in Miami and have them serve the revolution once more. No, wait, I am sure that among the 15,000 Cubans in the country they can spare a few to check on violations of this article of the law. Who better qualified and trained that someone that grew up spying on his own family and friends to enforce the law?

I guess for now, I will keep the blog public. If I ever feel the need to make it private, I will rename it the “The Secret Devil’s Excrement”, making it a secret organization or logia, inviting everyone of you (including the Chavistas), and nobody else, to be a lifetime member. This way, my defense will be that my offenses against the President could not be defined either as private or public, they were simply secret. And that my friends, is not contemplated in the Bill at all, which according to revolutionary logic will mean that I will always be innocent, even if guilty.

Now that one has to apply self-censorship, it is good to quote an article that says essentially whta I would have said, Petkoff on Nobrega’s departurre and good riddance to Nobrega!

Did he leave, did they make him leave, or was it the other way around? by Teodoro Petkoff

Without pain and without much glory, almost as a side story, in a speech that had a different purpose, Tobias Nobrega was kicked out of the Ministry of Finance.

But, was he really kicked out or he forced his way out?

Because it is difficult to imagine how Nobrega could commit the ingenuity of announcing the date of the next devaluation. You never do that and least of all on the part of the Minister that manages the money. Did he do it on purpose? It is not harebrained to think so. He knew he was condemned and that is why his closest collaborators had already left. It is said that Giordani, who had been after him since a while back, had proof of the manipulations made from the Finance Ministry. A number of foreign banks complained of the assignation by finger pointing (nobreguiano) of the last bond issue, the assignment of which was anything but an auction. Of the previous bond issues, there were many tales floating around. In Tal Cual we occupied our rime with some of them. Nobody paid us any attention, of course. The purchase of buildings by the ministry left a long tail of treachery that was punctually noted by this evening paper. Nobody paid attention to us. On top of that, it is obvious that for the foreign exchange speculators; Nobrega’s infidelity from New York made it possible for them to milk a beautiful profit. Retirement fund? But Chávez can not complain: He had the Minister of Finance that he deserved.

Now that one has to apply self-censorship, it is good to quote an article that says essentially whta I would have said, Petkoff on Nobrega’s departurre and good riddance to Nobrega!

Did he leave, did they make him leave, or was it the other way around? by Teodoro Petkoff

Without pain and without much glory, almost as a side story, in a speech that had a different purpose, Tobias Nobrega was kicked out of the Ministry of Finance.

But, was he really kicked out or he forced his way out?

Because it is difficult to imagine how Nobrega could commit the ingenuity of announcing the date of the next devaluation. You never do that and least of all on the part of the Minister that manages the money. Did he do it on purpose? It is not harebrained to think so. He knew he was condemned and that is why his closest collaborators had already left. It is said that Giordani, who had been after him since a while back, had proof of the manipulations made from the Finance Ministry. A number of foreign banks complained of the assignation by finger pointing (nobreguiano) of the last bond issue, the assignment of which was anything but an auction. Of the previous bond issues, there were many tales floating around. In Tal Cual we occupied our rime with some of them. Nobody paid us any attention, of course. The purchase of buildings by the ministry left a long tail of treachery that was punctually noted by this evening paper. Nobody paid attention to us. On top of that, it is obvious that for the foreign exchange speculators; Nobrega’s infidelity from New York made it possible for them to milk a beautiful profit. Retirement fund? But Chávez can not complain: He had the Minister of Finance that he deserved.

This kid Weil is really a genius, how does he get this out of the box ideas?

Dear Santa: Bring me a bike next year, it is dangerous to visti Venezuela now, many people are killed and are put in jail. Bless me and I love you. pedrito.