Maybe someone can explain the NASA rocket shot in the video. This guy has started campaigning and the media blitz is on!
The Devil's Excrement
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.
-
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
Blogroll
-
The Devil's Excrement 
May 15, 2011 at 5:26 am
NorskDiv,
They are rubbish.
If you are an illegal street vendor or a pirate taxi driver (no taxes paid, no social security, you do it or you starve), you are counted as someone with a job.
About 45-50% of Venezuelans (according to INE) are on that level. In some states it is higher. These people live worse than someone on the dole in Europe. They would be counted as unemployed.
And then there are those getting some kind of “scholarship”.
Somewhere in the INE stats I saw some time ago something about the broad “work categories”. Like a third of the population was working – supposedly – on transportation or similar jobs and a fourth on “others”.
May 15, 2011 at 4:37 am
Hey, just wondering if you could look at the Venezuela unemployment statistics. I don’t speak Spanish, but they just don’t pass the smell test. The INE website lists so many people who join the working age labor force as not seeking a job, this seems odd. Are the unemployment stats fudged, or what? I mean, if they aren’t, the rate is quite an accomplishment for Chavez.
May 14, 2011 at 9:27 am
Miguel, your post, and the disturbing video, prompted me to write a post on my own.
For those that read me, here it is:
http://cuentosintrascendentes.blogspot.com/2011/05/para-siempre.html
May 14, 2011 at 6:44 am
Deanna,
If I did not have a job that do not allow me to do this I would do it.
Kepler,
Any time that I go to Venezuela i try to help in an small scale…thanks for the idea.
May 14, 2011 at 6:41 am
So much to work with – for starters, and to answer your question, how about the failed satellite?
The way to hit Chavez is to mock him, NONSTOP. Isn’t he a serial womanizer? If so, then that certainly explains all the besos in this commercial. You could just edit out all the other stuff and title the besos as Chavez looking for his next hook-up. Don’t worry about not having TV access – you can use YouTube to get your message to its intended recipients.
[NOTE: Your target isn’t the Chavez base, but rather, Chavez himself. You want to push him to reveal himself to all as the monster that he really is.]
May 14, 2011 at 6:29 am
María,
Perhaps you can get in touch with some organisation like the Catholic church and ask them how to help in a very concrete project for children.
Imagine you can give 50 dollars a year for them to spend on books.
Imagine you can find 50 expats in the US who do the same. It’s not much but that is something…and perhaps others join.
Amazingly, it is harder than I thought. Globovision, which surely has money to pay for the government fines they got, managed to get in a jiffy money from upper-middle class Venezuelans to pay for said fines.
The government of Miranda has had a hell of a trouble trying to find 110 000 dollars to pay for a OECD-organised testing that we need to find out how far Venezuelan pupils are from the rest of the world
(I helped a bit in setting up the OECD with Miranda to do the test, they carried out the test, the Bando Andino de Fomento promised them to pay for it and then the Chávez regime pressurized the BAF not to give the money in spite of written promise…Chavismo does not want to pay because if it does, the OECD will then publish the results and they will be hard for Venezuela, even if they will be a big big big big big eye opener for a lot of people).
May 14, 2011 at 6:11 am
One thing they got right in the video is that Chavez wants to be presidente para sieeempreeeeeeee.
May 14, 2011 at 5:47 am
Maria, for you to help, you would have to go back to Venezuela and maybe do some volunteer work with Capriles Radonsky or MCM.
May 14, 2011 at 5:35 am
Kepler,
You are correct. There are many people in Venezuela that are racist/clasista and I can understand the “resentimiento social” that the behaviour has created since the last century. So, the problem in Venezuela is very complex… those well to do- racist/clasista Venezuelans need to understand that they are as guilty of intolerance as those that call everybody with a different view than theirs “escualido” and “lacayo del Imperio”.
I strongly believe than education ( for everybody! and not only academic) is the key, but how we can start? I have lived outside Venezuela for a very long time, but I would love to help!
May 14, 2011 at 5:26 am
Effective. The guy who did this piece (of propaganda) deserves commendation. Goebbels and the guys who turned the Che into a folk hero must be recognized for their abilities. Had Pinochet and Videla had guys like these, they too would appear on T-shirts.
However, my (classical) liberal and (not the GOP) republican soul churn, roil and seethe.
Because it takes some really BIG gonads and no scruples to turn a cheerful love song, about freely given mutual loyalty and love into a paean for FASCISM. For the kind of spineless, irrational attachment that could make grown men and woman act like needy one-year-olds. For the kind of sick dependence that make some Venezuelans say cruelly about the rest that this is a fatherless and father-figure-less country of abused children, abused mothers and concubines who might actually like being beaten regularly.
I really hope Ilan Chester does NOT approve of this. And I hope that Venezuelans do NOT fall for this. Not again, please. Or Venezuela might be written off and end up like Lybia or Cuba.
Even the old Adecos and Copeyanos look nice by comparison. Whatever they might have been… at least they stayed out of proposing eternal dependence on a SINGLE PERSON, like they saw happening in their time, in the worst-off places of Africa and the Middle East.
May 14, 2011 at 4:32 am
María,
There is one thing one can do: show respect and at least a bit of social commitment.
Last time I was in Venezuela I heard a couple of times yacht owners talking about those “monos” who are now populating Morrocoy. Their yachts were larger than those of the Dutch queen or Spanish king. I don’t know where they got the money but if I judge by some people I know, it was not because they had a clever idea or worked harder than those monos but because they or – more likely their parents – happened to be close to the petro-tit at one time or the other – some casa importadora selling at completely overpriced levels, whatever, not really very productive.
I saw Venezuelans buying anything in the Sambiles as if there were no tomorrow (admittedly, that was 2 years ago). At the same time I talked to some people from my former basic school – in a poor sector and asked about the price for books. It’s mental: while in the US and most of Europe pupils can use books from school, in most places in Venezuela average parents would theoretically need to give a month’s salary to pay for that.
Is there something we can do, no matter what the current government does now?
Etc.
We won’t change a Chávez. We don’t want to. We do need to take away people from listening his discourse.
I have never heard so many words referring to the “riff raff” as in Venezuela.
That creates resentment.
May 13, 2011 at 7:23 pm
1. I would never vote for somebody, just because he can kiss and hug a lot of kids…I guess I am not the typical Venezuelans. People should elect a President the same way that they will choose to a cardiologist if they suffer heart disease…the best one, and not because the person talks like me or looks like me.
2. I will describe Chavez as a “resentido social” (maybe in addition to bipolar), and he is playing the race/social status card just to create a common enemy among his followers. Sadly, I think their is not medication to regulate the “resentidos sociales”
3. I hope Ilan sue the bastard that added his song to the video…if not my 80 year old mother is going to have a heart attach when she finds out that Ilan is chavista!
4. Is this video on the air in VTV ?
May 13, 2011 at 5:54 pm
Kepler,
Yes it seems that he has this push pull- ambivalence towards Caucasians-Like a love/ hate thing going on.He is a bundle of contradictions.He wants to trust, yet he is suspicious.He is likeable and endearing, yet mean and hateful.This ricochet from one state to the next gives him a great deal of anxiety i am sure.He can be baffling and frustrating because his emotional states and attitudes are so contradictory.
While he seeks the approval of those who are important to him, he simultaneously resists being in a position of inferiority.He is probably fearful that others will try to trick him or take advantage of him.When conflicts arise, it seems he can be highly confrontational and even belligerent, hiding his inner feelings of weakness.
Maybe he has a hard time with people who are different from himself which could explain his obsession with race.I also see something similar in both Chavez and Mugabe.Maybe the Europeans represent authority to Chavez, which he both admires and hates at the same time.Again ambivalence.
Studies show that bipolar disorder runs in families, but I think how the personality develops is partially in our own hands ( our personal wills ) and how we choose to process our experiences;so I suppose that in the end it is always a mixture of causes: biological, experiential and personal decision.
I mean all of us experience rejection but how we react must be some combination of brain chemistry and personal will.Bipolar can usually be very controllable if the person is willing to medicate properly, but people often love the high level of energy and power they feel in a manic state.
Sometimes I wish I had a touch of this “magic” myself 😉 but unfortunately inherited low energy.
May 13, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Thanks, Firepigette. Very interesting.
Now, what I see from a non-psychological point of view is that he has a trauma with race and ethnicity. There are lots of people who are darker or more “Indian” than he is (including lots of my relatives) and who do not have that resentment. I read in Wikipedia (based on some book and El País) that when he was a young man he was rejected by a girl and he decided to cut off the head of a dead donkey and put it in front of her house. I wonder if he coult not deal with some things like that.
I am reading a book about several countries of Africa now, very good, and there is a chapter about Zimbabwe and Chávez’s pal there, Mugabe. There are certain patterns that seem common, like his need to be accepted by some people abroad and then his increasing rejection, hatred towards those who reflect those countries abroad.
So I wonder: there is something in his brain that made him process certain bad things in life like big trauma and from there things go down the drain, etc.
May 13, 2011 at 4:42 pm
I agree with 100% firepigette.
The other problem with bipolar disorder is the medicine that treat it does not work properly with alcohol, reduce in patient capacity to answer to stimulus, can not answer properly to coordination activities and problems.
May 13, 2011 at 4:41 pm
He seems obsessed with personal power.My impression is that he feels threatened.
Disagree, he want’s to be the beloved Hero. He really likes people and wants to be liked in return, and will do anything to get that response. He’s crazy dangerous.
May 13, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Kepler,
I have not heard a diagnosis of Schizophrenia for him before.
I have never met him in person though I do know 2 people who are very close to him( one who is naive with a good heart, and the other extremely sociopathic).My impression of the sociopath is that he uses Chavez for his own ends.The other one is an idealist.
I also have a close friend who is a qualified psychiatrist/diagnostician who gets all the insider gossip about him.My Dr. friend told me that Chavez was bipolar years ago and like many bi-polars sometimes refused to take his medicine and ended up in a straight jacket.In the manic phase of a bipolar disorder people often exhibit many of the signs and symptoms of pathological narcissism(excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, prestige and vanity).
But studies have suggested a number of points of phenomenological and biological overlap between the affective lability( emotional instability) criterion of borderline personality disorder and the extremely rapid cycling bipolar disorders..so it is hard to say.The borderline can also get temporary, paranoid psychotic breaks, but the episodes don’t last that long.Paranoia can be a part of both disorders( bipolar, and borderline).
You can see in the video clip his delusions of grandeur, which could be a part of the manic phase of bipolar disorder that seems to be pretty continuous with him.He needs to feel himself on top of the world, superior, and in control, maybe to ward off underlying insecurity and paranoid feelings which keep creeping in.The blustering aggression looks like” attack- before- someone -else-attacks- me” kind of thing.
He seems obsessed with personal power.My impression is that he feels threatened.
May 13, 2011 at 2:58 pm
Identity and nation building through imagery rather than the written word, in the Chavez years, has been, as Bruni says, nothing short of genial. Chavez knows who his constituents are, and to them his message has to be presented in the only effective format: visually.
May 13, 2011 at 2:50 pm
Wasn’t it made illegal in this government to use children in campaign ads? So I guess this isn’t a campaign ad.
—
May 13, 2011 at 2:02 pm
The clip is wonderful. The images, the sound, the message. Whoever had the idea of using Ilan Chester’s theme is a marketing genius.
The question is if Ilan’s authors right were violated, in which case he should sue the goverment and the party. If not, I am quite mad with Ilan: you do not hand out such a message to a dictator.
May 13, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Some serious sources says he is bipolar . Another source says he needs sometimes lithium carbonate intravenous to make fast affect.
May 13, 2011 at 1:00 pm
firepigette,
I have read Hugo is a psychopath, he has schizophenia, he is narcisistic, etc.
I wonder: is there really some serious study about his personality? I think anyone trying to study him needs also to know the Venezuelan culture, just to distinguish between general culture and his thing.
I was wondering about his obsession with this
0:59-1:30
May 13, 2011 at 12:12 pm
Really this comment has relation with the post: “It’s easy to register for Mision Vivienda, just give us your fingerprint first” May 8, 2011.
CNE make its move, they approved modifications in the vote systems, now the fingerprint machine will be connected as peripheral to the machine vote. They only miss to say that the secret of the vote will be guaranteed by the Cubans through the fiber optic cable connected to La Habana.
May 13, 2011 at 12:12 pm
The “NASA rocket shot” in the video is in fact the Chinese rocket which launched the Simón Bolívar satellite into orbit back in 2008 to take Venezuela into the space age. 😦
Yep – reelection campign underway but Chavez will not have a chance against someone of Radonsky’s pedogree if he can win the primary. I prefer MCM myself – much more inteliigent and rational.
May 13, 2011 at 12:07 pm
I guess the formal period for campaigning is approved and this is to be expected. I also guess the musical artist was well compensated.
May 13, 2011 at 11:47 am
Is Ilan now “rojo rojito”?
If it turns out he is I will even stop my work, go home, and burn all the CDs (about 3) I have of him… He’ll be automatically banned, for life, off of my home.
Along the same lines, Silvio and Pablo were banned, in my home, quite a few years ago. I didn’t quite have the guts of “burning their CDs”, but I just don’t feel like listening their stuff anymore, and so their pro-Fidel music just sits there, on a shelf, unplayed…
May 13, 2011 at 11:44 am
To sue, sorry.
May 13, 2011 at 11:40 am
Agree with Kepler. Ilan should sue. Doubt if was authorized….Ilan has talked against el ornitorrico de sabaneta…
http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/n128234.html
May 13, 2011 at 11:12 am
I want Ilan Chester to suit the bloke who is using his song.
May 13, 2011 at 10:56 am
People tend to vote with their emotions, not with a rational idea of the facts.THIS IS WELL DOCUMENTED, and true in all countries.It is human nature .
Ultimately what Chavez does or does not do will not be the great determining factor, because as we all know, great and eternal love conquers all! :)At least he will be greatly boosted by this love campaign….it gives him a fighting chance.
The other peculiar thing about voting is that we tend to vote for the people who most represent what we feel we are lacking inside us….At least there is a strong tendency towards this….I think we can all agree that Chavez is definitely lacking in love, though this is what he most espouses.
Love of the underdog, my foot!!!
Love and respect are the 2 biggies went it comes voting time, and most of us like to be seen in a certain light even though we do not have the qualities we vote for.
What a sad and sorry situation.Self deception on all fronts.