Observations focused on the problems of an underdeveloped country, Venezuela, with some serendipity about the world (orchids, techs, science, investments, politics) at large. A famous Venezuelan, Juan Pablo Perez Alfonzo, referred to oil as the devil's excrement. For countries, easy wealth appears indeed to be the sure path to failure. Venezuela might be a clear example of that.
I was a little shocked by this ad in yesterday’s El Universal of a company touting a door for your home that is claimed to be “Anti-Kalashnikov”. When companies play with peoples’ fears this way, you know we have a very serious crime problem. (I mean, can’t they open a hole through the wall next to the door with the same rifle?). I understand most armored cars in Caracas can not stop the bullets of an AK-47 Kalashnikov rifle, but if you are worried, you can shield your home from them now.
Another sign of progress brought to you by the Bolivarian revolution.
The ability to lie and twist is legendary for the Chavista revolution. From illiteracy to oil production, facts are changed, twisted and massaged in order to fit what Chavez and the Government want to say they achieved, even if complete lies have to be said.
The latest is the new euphemism the Government has found for what constitutes building a new home. Given that the country’s problem is the shortage of housing, estimated at over 2.5 million housing units, a new home should be a newly built unit, until Chavez decided he wanted to build 150,000 housing units in 2011.
It was an impossible task from a Government that has never built more than 80,000 housing units in one year and given the fact that his “Mision Vivienda” was announced in April. But by the end of the year Chavez was talking about completing 94% of the goal and the year ended with an official number of 146,714 units built by the Government.
The number has been repeated so many times, that it has become the truth, even if nobody believes it. But this week, Minister of Oil and Energy Rafael Ramirez explained the “miracle”, Chavismo simply changed the definition. How? It now includes among new housing units built all rancho (shacks)”substitutions”.And it says that a whopping 45% of all the “new” units, were actually “substitutions”.
From what I have been able to understand, a “substitution” is the definition for a rancho (the type of elementary housing you see in the hills of Caracas) that has been upgraded in the materials that are used in its construction. Which means we have no idea what it really means.
Which also implies that we have no clue what it really meant when the Government claims to have built only 80, 692 new housing units, its best number in thirteen years, but still above other estimates.
So, maybe next time you drive by a barrio, look up and if you see a freshly painted rancho, you are seeing one such “substitution”. Not much change beyond that.
Another way of hiding the revolutions inability to do anything, just change the definition and the goal has been accomplished and Chavez is certainly pleased.
Well, Maria Corina Machado was not content with her good performance on Friday and comes back to stick her finger in Hugo Chavez’ eyes with this wonderful, clear and succinct statement of why it is a “grave political error, a show of the lack of respect for Venezuela’s Armed Forces and a provocation” on Chavez’ part to name General Rangel Silva Minister of Defense.
Maria Corina then lists her very clear objections:
-General Rangel Silva’s administrative performance in previous positions has been put into question.
-There have been accusations and indications internationally about presumed links between irregular groups, this has to be cleared up.
-As a Venezuelan it is unacceptable, it is a mockery to the people of Venezuela for a General to say that he does not plan to recognize the will of the majority by their votes in the most important elections of the country’s history.
What will Hugo say this time: You have called me a provocateur!
To which she could answer, No Mr. President in this case, I am the provocateur!
During Chavez’ last State of the Union address, I heard him say that he was not in favor of Diosdado Cabello becoming Head of the National Assembly, that he favored Soto Rojas for a second year in the Assembly’s Presidency, but that “discussions” led to Diosdado being named.
Say what?
Is that a Freudian slip, a parapraxis, a manifestation that Hugo is no longer Hugo?
Isn’t he the all powerful, all-mighty, who decides even whether there will be a devaluation? (Yes, there wasn’t one, but it was recommended)
So, Hugo, can you tell us who supported Diosdado? Was it the same people that supported Rangel Silva? Clearly you and the Cubans lost, but can you tell us something more? What is going in Chavismo when the anti-Cuban, pro-business, pro-shady deals faction wins?
Hugo Chavez has a mind of his own. He goes on TV and tells lies and stories just as if they were facts, sometimes lying about things a President should not even know about. Case in point is housing, Hugo needed housing built for his Mision Vivienda, in the absence of sufficient housing units built, he started making up numbers, claiming by the end of 2011 that 92% of the 150,000 promised housing units had been built. Experts do not even believe half of that was built as the program did not even begin until April.
But his ability to spew out high quality BS was clear when talking about the Miami consul Livia Acosta, who was expelled from the US after being taped by Spanish broadcaster Univision plotting with Cuban and Iranian buddies to cyber attack US nuclear power plants.
Chavez publicly confirmed the expulsion, but then went into imaginary overdrive, saying that Venezuelan intelligence sources new the action was coming and thus Mrs. Acosta left the US in Dec. 15th. and was already in Venezuela.
Except that…
Mrs. Acosta herself in a radio program said this week that she was in Miami on January 9th. when the expulsion order came through and immediately left the country, contradicting Chavez’ imaginary tale of Venezuelan intelligence being ahead of the game.
In fact, it appears that this was more of a problem of lack of communication within Chavez’ Government (Surprise, surprise!) Reportedly, the US Government had informed Foreign Minister Maduro of the upcoming broadcast and revelations to allow the Venezuelan Government to withdraw Acosta quietly. Except that Maduro not only decided not to remove her from her post, but failed to inform the boss.
Meanwhile Mrs. Acosta (shown above) is back in Caracas after her meteoric rise in Venezuela’s diplomatic circles. She went from being a member of Chavez’ Bolivarian Circles, to being trained as an intelligence office in Cuba, to being a member of Venezuela’s intelligence service SEBIN (where apparently anyone can check if they have your ID number if you are an employee of the country’s intelligence service!!) to Consul in Miami in eight years.
I wanted to write something about the grotesque visit to Venezuela by the the small man from Iran, but felt that I had little to add to the sad spectacle of Chavez calling the Iranian Dictator someone Venezuelans are supposed to have common ground with. But then I read this satire by the always hilarious and poignant Chigüire Bipolar and figured translating that post to English would tell very simply how absurd and incongruous the whole spectacle of the sick-fat man from Caracas hugging and praising the tiny-intolerant man from Teheran. Thanks to the Chigüire for the permission to do so.
Yesterday, President Hugo Chavez gathered his ministers to request from them that they make feel at home his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The occasion was used by the Minister for the People’s Power for Women, Nancy Perez, to volunteer to be stoned by the distinguished visitor.
“Good afternoon, colleagues, my name is Nancy Perez and I am Minister for Women. Yes, just what you are hearing, I am not pulling your leg. You mean, you did not know there was a Ministry of Women! You never received the Official Gazette? ” said Minister Perez, as a way to break the ice. “Well, seriously, as a representative of Venezuelan women, for me personally it would be an honor to offer myself so that such a distinguished visitor may bury me in the ground up to my neck and stone me to his full pleasure. He can throw acid in my face, he can order me to wear a veil if he likes it, you know what they say:Eyes that can’t see, heart that stops beating because they beat the shit out of it” commented the Minister while she pointed out the parts of her face where it hurts the least to be hit with sharp stones.
“The Iranian president can also whip me if I bend down and he can see my thong, he can have all my skirts destroyed, as well as my low cut blouses and my open sandals. If gentleman Mahmud is Chavez’ distinguished visitor, then Venezuelan women become obedient and submissive, the way President Ahmadinejad likes it” said Perez, moments before calling the CH store in Sambil to ask if by any chance they had any red burkas.
After convincing his 55 colleagues that her ministry was not a joke, Minister Pérez ended her speech: “Our ministry, responsible for ensuring the dignity of women and gender equality, is pleased to receive this champion of the struggle for the rights of the macho, the male, the man and the boy. We declare our joy throughout the country, and therefore encourage women of our country not to leave their homes during the visit of the Iranian President, to remain silent in front of their husbands and boyfriends and indulge them in everything. Yes, everything. Even if it is degrading, disgusting and violates their rights. And please, do not come out with your revealing clothes, lest they awaken the libido of some representative from Iran and we may have to cut your little hands. The occasion demands it”
I was reading Carlos Blanco’s Tiempo de Palabra in El Universal this morning and agreed with his concept that Venezuela has no Government by now. For those that don’t speak Spanish, here is the main paragraph:
“There is not even a Government. If you look carefully, Venezuela is a country without government. There are several reasons for this curious event. One reason is that Chavez stripped the act of governing of its administrative connotation. This dimension means setting goals and objectives, budget, compliance assessment and other nuisances which have little to do with being heroic, in which there are no Chimborazos or Negro Primeros, but that shape key aspects of the act of governing. Instead of administration, there is a televised speech, and that is the main instrument of government: the government is what Chavez says, in a decade we have seen that it is a deceitful rhetoric, but capable of shaping a story, and in recent months it has added the paroxysm, which is a product of the visceral ailments that afflict them.”
No sooner had I read this, which has a lot to do with Daniel video posts (One and Two) on how Chavez has turned the country into one of beggars, when confirmation of Carlos Blanco’s accurate description became quite pertinent. And reamarkably, this conformation came from none other than Hugo Chavez himself.
Chavez had not held his Sunday program Alo Presidente since April of last year and only eight programs were held at all year in 2011, a reflection that his ailments began much earlier than we have been told. But worried about his popularity, Chavez decided to start them again and hold them as long as his illness allows him. Except that it did not start well today. Despite millions spent in Telesur and VTV, in buying equipment, training personnel to promote the revolution, the program had technical difficulties and the images and the voice were intermittent at the beginning and and Hugo Chavez was not happy and his own voice came through quite clearly in his criticism of his Government, with Chavez thinking he was off the air:
Chavez: “A begining with lots of accidents for Alo Presidente. They don’t plan their “vaina” (shit?) well. Andres goes one way, Felicia is going another way, I don’t have a General Staff..”
If something as simple as TV broadcast has problems, imagine a complex project.
And when the program got off the ground, it was exactly what Blanco described: Chavez claiming the Oil Belt would create 300,000 jobs this year alone, that production will go to 3.5 million barrels a day, saying he will create a Mision “Knowledge” and “Work” that will create three million jobs in seven years and asking why should he be responsible for the crime problem”
None of this will come to fruition. In six months, if he is around, Chavez will not mention oil production or jobs, or will simply say the goals were met, even if he and everyone knows that it is all lies. After all, not one additional barrel of oil has yet to be produced from any of the dozens of announcements made by Chavez since he became President thirteen years ago. And you would think that with the money generated by the increase in oil prices since then, that would have been the easiest accomplishment.
But Chavez has destroyed the structure of Government. And any time someone has shown ability he has either moved it to another position, either thinking that the person was becoming powerful or popular or in his belief that an expert in one area will easily transfer his abilities to any other one.
So we live in an anarchists’ dream, a State with no structure. A State led by media appearances, empty words of goals and accomplishments. However, it is also an insatiable State, and here the anarchists dream ends, fed by ever rising oil prices. In 2011, the Venezuelan oil basket was up by 39.5%, postponing any serious adjustment of the economy and together with the irresponsible fiscal spending, allowing the Government to cover up and hide, the terrible effect of a dysfunctional and essentially non-exiting Government.
While Hugo Chavez has patted himself on the back for working through Christmas, I am not sure he has really worked. The problem is that he calls talking, work. One of the dangers of talking too much is, however, that you may say absurd things as you try to entertain and distract the country from its problems. Many things he says are things that would make you laugh anywhere, but in Venezuela we have practically heard it all, from Chavez saying that men never walked on the moon, to inventing the number of housing units that have been built in the last year.
But Hugo clearly wants to close the year with a new bang in entertainment prowess. First, in a ceremony (see picture above) that looked taken out of a communist country in the 50’s, Chavez thanked his Russian friends for allowing Venezuela to have the strongest military power in its history, as if this was some sort of achievement or due to hard work and not thanks to all of the oil billions misspent in weapons, rather than on people. And the Russians, of course, have laughed all the way to the bank, with all of the stuff Hugo has purchased.
And to insure that we are all awed with is intellect, Hugo then begins speculating about the strange coincidence that four Presidents in Latin America contracted cancer roughly at the same time. Never mind that Lula was no longer President when he got his. Or that each of the cancers is different and in a different part of the body. Chavez’ perceptive mind has noted the coincidence and like everything, he wants to pin it down on the old USA, the source of all our problems, including, I guess, his terrible and ineffective Government.
And after saying he has learned to administer the resources of the country better, not bad after being thirteen years on the job, we learn that after more than 1,000 expropriations and nationalizations and eighteen cases in arbitration at the World bank’s ICSID, the Government has now issued two decrees creating advisory councils to deal with both. These advisory councils have, as their main goals, such things as “respecting the constitutional rights of people”, which have been violated right and left since Chavez began expropriations eight years ago. They would also establish mechanisms to determine the fair price to pay for expropriated properties. They would also advise on new expropriations that they feel like doing. It would also create, don’t laugh, a registry of all expropriations, because clearly the Government has no clue as to what it has taken over on the orders of the man who “has learned to admiisiter the country’s resources better”
And the Advisory Council on Arbitration is even funnier, more so given the fact that the Government itself has been saying some of these processes are close to being decided upon. But this new body will determine “strategies for the planning and coordination that State institutions have to follow to defend the country in front of foreign institutions, particularly those of arbitration”
Of course, this is all the work of the new Attorney General, Carlos Escarra, who is no dummy and realizes, a bit late, how illegal and arbitrary most expropriations have been and how the defense of the country’s position in arbitration panels has been carried out on a case by case basis and managed by various institutions. This could all be turned back, were PSUV to lose the next Presidential election, due to the myriad violations of the Venezuelan Constitution involved.
But maybe, just maybe, one day Chavez will learn that administering those resources better, should have involved appointing people who know that they are doing and not the mad whirlwind rotation of 180 Ministers (134 different people) that have “helped” him run the country in the last thirteen years.
And maybe, just maybe, if he stopped talking all the time, he could accomplish something.
Above is the message that most Venezuelans got on Christmas Day from Hugo Chavez (including me, I got it early on the 24th., as you can see above), it says: “Each December, we have victoriously celebrated our unstoppable march towards the Good and Pretty Fatherland…Full of happiness, justice (sic) and social equality. Merry Christmas, partners (comrades?). Hugo Chavez.
People have noted that the message is abusive, it is after all spam, much like Chavez’ forced “cadenas” where everyone is forced to listen or turn the TV off since nothing else is on. There is also the question of who paid for it. Did Chavez force the message on the telecom operators? Is the list freely available to anyone like that? Is this a violation of privacy? A waste of resources?
We will never know. What we do know is that if this had been sent by an opposition politician, Chavez and the government would have raised hell over the issue.
You can also complain about the message, not only about the use of the term “compañero” without the “ñ”, this could have been avoided choosing a better word, like venezolano, ciudadano and the like. The message is also quite partisan, as half the population does not celebrate Chavez “unstoppable march” to wherever he thinks he is taking us .
But what I want to point out and note, is that the message is quite effective. First of all, it has a high impact, as it is received by most Venezuelans, as cell phone penetration is over 100% by now (Operators do not subtract cancelled lines from their numbers). But more importantly, people are impressed that Chavez sent them a message. Of course your average opposition person does not like it, but I talked to a few people, not pro-Chavez, some who once supported him, who actually appreciated the message and told me about it not as a complaint, but more like: How about that message from Chavez!
So, much like many of the moves that Chavez makes, he got his money’s worth (or ours for that matter) sending a message that in the end earned him more goodwill with his supporters or prospective supporters, even if it was wasted on most of us who will never vote for the revolution.
Note added: The SMS was indeed a “cadena” that was sent free at the request of the Government.
The Mercosur Summit ended three days ago. Everyone left. The question is: Where in the world is Hugo Chavez?
There was no “arrival” of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. No announcement. No shots or video of the President arriving. Nobody has seen him since.
So, where is he? And is this anyway to run a country?
He is likely in Cuba getting treatment. He went to Uruguay not only to try to get Venezuela admitted as a full member of Mercosur, but also as a way of going to Cuba via the back door.
We will likely “hear” from him on Christmas Day, but unless he returns before Sunday or he left a video, we are unlikely to see the Venezuelan President until next week after treatment.
Some doctors had predicted this trip, but as most things surrounding Chavez, we may never know.
The Devil's Excrement 