From Cuba, Vice-President (maybe) Nicolas Maduro tells the country that President Hugo Chávez is in delicate condition and has had “new” complications from a respiratory infection.
If part of the truth is being told, things must not be looking up. Meanwhile, the Vice-President is not in Venezuela and has left a spurious and illegal Vice-President in charge.
Que Dios nos agarre confesados de esta marabunta. Jan. 5th. becomes now the day to watch.
The Devil's Excrement 
January 2, 2013 at 11:05 am
international media reporting last breaths
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255939/Hugo-Chavez-kept-alive-life-support-cancer-surgery.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
January 1, 2013 at 5:15 am
Macbeth:
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Macbeth Act 5, scene 5, 19–28
December 31, 2012 at 9:27 pm
Todavia no hay pollo.
Matter of fact there has been nothing but pork in the meat department at the nearby Central Madeirense since before Christmas. No sugar and no coffee either. It’s not that unusual for the stores to be out of those things for a few weeks a couple of times a year, but I’m wondering if this might be more than a temporary shortage. I’m wondering if the distribution system is breaking down without Chavez to threaten and keep them at least somewhat in line.
The commodities may have been sold elsewhere, with several parties pocketing the money, or sending it offshore. Or perhaps the advance planning didn’t happen; it takes some foresight and planning to produce enough chicken, sugar, arepa flour, coffee etc to feed Venezuela day to day.
I’m sure there are plenty of rats getting ready to leave in a hot second if the SS Robolucion starts sinking, or even looking like it might. Some of those rats may have decided to take the money and run rather than spend it on feeding the people. This is all pure speculation on my part.
December 31, 2012 at 11:56 pm
Probably a combination of that and the fact that foreign exchange reserves are at fourth world levels. A lack of consumer goods is the symptom of an out of whack exchange rate, importers can’t get any money so suppliers stop shipping as previous debts were not paid yet.
http://www.eluniversal.com/economia/121231/venezuelas-international-reserves-drop-usd-373-billion-in-2012
January 2, 2013 at 3:46 am
NorskeDiv-
Except that the out of stock items, coffee, sugar, chicken etc are all price controlled and/or government subsidized items, and most of them are produced in Venezuela. There doesn’t seem to be any shortage of imported goods.
December 31, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Indeed Miguel, you were the very first and I’ll be happy and proud if your blog closes this long and winding road.
December 31, 2012 at 7:52 pm
yup Miguel! Thanks for the blog! and Happy 2013!
December 31, 2012 at 7:49 pm
Bocaranda o no Bocaranda, the Devil said it first and early
http://devilsexcrement.com/2011/05/29/
December 31, 2012 at 7:21 pm
Journalists Casto Ocando and Bocaranda at full steam for the last hour with regular tweets reporting people crying at Habana’s CIMEQ. Yes, unconfirmed news but with an intensity and regularity I’ve never seen before. The activity is such that they are bringing the Noticiero Digital portal down with so many user accesses.
December 31, 2012 at 7:17 pm
Is it me or these thugs sound like Pentecostals on steroids?
January 1, 2013 at 12:36 pm
Kepler Your showing your prejudices.
January 1, 2013 at 2:22 pm
There are between 3 and 5 million Pentecostals in Venezuela and as many as 500 million worldwide. It is doubtful that the opposition can triumph without including them in the movement. Your elitist attitude against this group is hardly helpful in developing a new coalition that can win.
January 1, 2013 at 2:50 pm
I stand by what I said. And I know where most of them stand when it comes to voting: most Pentecostals in Venezuela are Chavistas, even if there are such and such, just like most of them tend to vote conservative in the USA, although there race has a big component as well.
This supports what I just wrote but it is not from there that i know that:
http://www.pewforum.org/Palin-VP-Nomination-Puts-Pentecostalism-in-the-Spotlight.aspx
t’s not me who has to change their voting habits. It’s them.
By the way: most Baptists vote oppo in Venezuela and you know that.
These are facts, not prejudices.
January 1, 2013 at 3:38 pm
Speaking of facts , not prejudices, most Baptists are not Pentecostals. But speaking of prejudices, how acceptable would your headline be if it read “these thugs sound like Catholics on steroids”? Or perhaps “these thugs sound like Jews on steroids” Prejudices are blinding things. I’m a Pentecostal and my Venezuelan friends are Pentecostals for the most part. Venezuelan Pentecostals are well aware that the burguesia considers them persona non-gratis in opposition politics. Your actitud clarifys the issue. The non- burguesia has two horrors “Que horror a la Oligarchia”, lo anterior y lo actual. With regularity it is discussed the humanism,superior attitude, elitism, and anti-Christian Bias of the burguesia. Your comments illustrate this well.
January 2, 2013 at 3:02 am
I was not saying Baptists are Pentecostals AT ALL. I am very clear these are two different groups and within each structures are very independent, unlike what happens with Catholics or Jehova witnesses (whom no one else considers Christians). I have been to their services, by the way…in a couple of cases because I had to attend to weddings and in part out of curiosity.
I was just mentioning how all these groups do tend to have clear political preferences, even if we speak of tendencies. Most committed Catholics in Venezuela are oppo, specially if they had a strong connection with their local priests (but those who do, admittedly, tend to be people either better off or in charge of something at their community).
The higher ranks of the Catholic church and the high classes in Venezuela did have strong links, so they still keep them. Of course, among low level priests there was more commitment to the poor.
Lots poor had a strong connection with brujos and mal de ojo and stuff like that. And many have switched those for Pentecostalism and other believes.
Most Baptists in Venezuela tend to have a higher formal education than Pentecostals. So: if you meet a physician in Venezuela who is evangelical, chances are he is Baptist rather than Pentecostals. I am aware there is unlike in the Catholic church a lot of independence from church to church within the Pentecostals and Baptists. There is a huge variance among Baptists Pentecostals, Catholics, etc, but in general Baptists tend to take a more literal interpretation of the Bible than Catholics at this point (if Catholics read the Bible at all, which most seldom do).
And Pentecostals top them all when it comes to literal reading of the Bible and rejection of science. Do you really know what “burguesía” means? I am not a part of it. As for my comparison: it holds: Pentecostals often go bananas with “speaking in tongues” (tongues which are just gibberish) and having seizures out of “excitement because the Espíritu Santo is here”. They would never go into a debate about scientific things, they would never want to look at what archaeology and other sciences tell us about what really happened there and then, just like Chavistas would never look at historical proven points or economic realities, they really react like Chavistas. Creationism is strongest among Pentecostals, just like Bolivarianism among Chavistas.
By the way: Baptists who were oppo tended to look more sympathetic with the start of the “War on Terror” than other groups. Things changed since then, of course.
All these groups sprouted from gringo visits to Venezuela, even if, due to the independent nature of evangelical groups, they took their own course in Venezuela.
If you analyse here Muslims you will see most conservative Muslims going fully for tertiary education tend to take any subject that is not biology-related or politically-charged (within a Western institution). They go for mathematics or computer science rather than bio-engineering. They abhor having to deal with naked bodies, even if they are of a frog, or to deal with evolution.
Politics and religion do have some common features and originsand one is often used to further aims in the other.
January 2, 2013 at 3:03 am
And that was the end of the discussion from my part.
December 31, 2012 at 5:23 pm
Shaw: You are such a parody of a PSF, it’s hilarious. Talking about bourgeois media, when it was the stupid, incompetent “revolutionary and socialist” Cuabn medicine that did him in. You are really pathetic. And on top of that you like right wing, bourgeois, corrupt Diosdado. Way to go!
December 31, 2012 at 6:09 pm
Ironic that PSFs are so very uppity.
In a similar vein, I’d ask: What will folks who have the recessive gene of mental illness do? Now that they don’t have Chávez as their standard-bearer.
December 31, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Kepler, you do see the world in somber tones! Sure every country tries to get the best deal it can, but that doesn’t mean that one should not believe in human values, or that these have no place in politics or government.
On the right, Reagan did carry out a foreign policy based both on American interests and values and was quite successful. In domestic policy, whether one agrees or not with him, he tried to revitalize the economy based on what he deeply believed.
On the left, take the case of FH Cardoso who reformed the Brazilian economy and lead an effective as well as principled foreign policy.
I think that there is no positive or long lasting policy unless it is based on values, which doesn’t mean that one has to be an innocent either.
December 31, 2012 at 10:00 am
Capriles vs Maduro, if new electiones were upon us.
December 31, 2012 at 11:10 am
I think that so close after the demise of Chavez, Capriles would have no chance. What Venezuela needs is the equivalent of Boris Yeltsin, a working class man who believes in economic and political freedom.
December 31, 2012 at 11:59 am
As long as he is not such a drunkard and so naive as to think “economic freedom” means “one way free trade” as no one has ever implemented with success and that economic change can be introduced without minding the whole particularities of a nation and without educating the people of that nation…
Russia was literally raped in the nineties. That’s one of the reasons – together with very low oil prices – that enabled Putin to do what he is doing now.
Of all the guys who are shown here, guess who is in power now?
Vladimir in Moscow, Luka in Minsk.
December 31, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Sure some people got filthy rich and Yeltsin had a drinking problem, although that was also a cover for a more serious cardiac disease, but the middle class saw its standard of living rise to this day. And Russia’s problems were, geographically and politically,on a much larger scale than Venezuela.
My point is that whether dealing with decades of communism or years of Chavismo, the best antidote to demagoguery and populism is someone who rose from poverty and with whom people can relate and trust.
December 31, 2012 at 1:06 pm
Noel, I agree we need someone from “the people”. But it seems you are not aware of 1) how class distribution was in the Soviet Union and 2) what percentage of people really saw their standard of living increase.
Venezuela is incredibly dependent on oil and oil prices. If the guy and the team in power do not have the skills to communicate and not to let themselves put into a difficult position by outside powers – whatever they might be – there is a regime change in no time.
Due to the oil cycle we have see so far, we would need really a lot of work, management skills, national-minded (not to be confused with nationalistic) attitudes in order to remain in power if we were to get into power in the near to middle future.
Most people in Russia now do not see neither Gorbachov nor Yeltsin in a positive light.
December 31, 2012 at 1:45 pm
I have some knowledge of class distribution in Russia.
I do agree with you regarding the need for management skills, national-minded attitudes etc.
I dont think that the next leader should worry too much about outside powers; look at Uribe in Colombia who took on the FARC and ELN despite howls from Europe and “intellectuals”; he had 70% backing in Colombia, which is what counted.
As to how history will judge Yeltsin, time will tell, but I think it wil be kinder than you may think.
Happy New Year 2013!
December 31, 2012 at 2:05 pm
Noel, I am not talking about “Europe and intellectuals” only. It seems you come from the right, I don’t know if US-bond or not.
I don’t see a single region emanating most of “the evil”.
I don’t believe in the Lord of the Rings.
Russia during Yeltsin times was conked out by many factors – national but also the predatory ones from such as the West intervening in a place in disarray.
I believe a little bit in Realpolitik when it comes to economic reality.
Every single major country is there to do a killing, ever single one of them and that does not mean “free trade”. They employ nasty unfair methods and they only use free trade and such mechanisms if forced to.
That includes the EU, China, the US, etc.
December 31, 2012 at 7:45 pm
This is exactly what Miguel said two or three posts ago
December 31, 2012 at 9:56 am
Where’s Rudy?
December 31, 2012 at 9:37 am
I dont believe for a minute he had any meaningful conversation with Chavez
December 31, 2012 at 7:44 pm
In my opinion, the only thing that makes sense is that they’re scrambling (improvising) because the patient is “loosing ground” (one nice way of putting it) quickly and on one side there’s probably no clear plan/path (which would be unlikely given that Fidel, I’m sure, is strategizing away) and on the other side (more likely) Diosdado (who’s far from Fidel’s best choice), I’m sure, is “como caiman en boca ‘e ca~o” waiting for his turn. They (Fidel/Maduro) are, in other words, scrambling around Diosdado (trying to avoid him being the next “Big Guy”). If this is all true, the real mud slinging may have already started, as my 7 year old kid says: “for reals”. But, this is all “elucubraciones”. We won’t know for sure WTF is going on until there’s hard proof Mi Comandante is “no longer with us”.
December 31, 2012 at 9:33 am
I like the “proof of life” newspaper to show what day the recording was made. That’s the best they can do. If he talked to Chavez, why not a photo of him smiling from bed? Even a photo shopped smile would work. A newspaper accompanied with a body if far more effective.
December 31, 2012 at 4:29 am
“…chavez was walking, talking and doing exercises!”
It is more likely that he was ‘hobbling, gurgling and stretching to reach a bed pan.’
December 31, 2012 at 3:56 am
And Maduro said that chavez was walking, talking and doing exercises! Was that all a lie??
And nobody cares that he was lying?
December 31, 2012 at 9:13 am
“Was that all a lie??”
Is he Chavista?
December 31, 2012 at 3:39 am
The curious thing is that Maduro says “insuficiencia respiratoria ya conocidas” We knew all these details before? what the f…?? We know all these from twits and rumors from Dr. Marquina, Bocaranda and others…
December 31, 2012 at 4:29 am
Exactly.
December 31, 2012 at 11:36 am
The pulmonary infection was officially informed by them not Marquina.
December 31, 2012 at 12:41 am
Sorry. I must have missed something. What happens on 5 Jan.?
December 31, 2012 at 3:33 am
National Assembly 1st session and its president is named.
December 31, 2012 at 9:04 am
Thanks. Turn your back for just one moment, and you are hopelessly behind. Venezuelan politics…
December 30, 2012 at 11:47 pm
Crazy to still be guessing on the actual condition of Presidente Chavez. Wikileaks had some interesting dross about a Russian and Cuban medical teams arguing over treatment plans and how the Ruskies were left this time around to try and reverse the damage the Cuban sawbones did on his last surgery. But while we’re still guessing, this last talk about “complications” is telling.
December 30, 2012 at 10:30 pm
My guess is someone with no personal power and loyal. Soto or Eckout.
December 30, 2012 at 9:17 pm
Now Jan 5th. becomes much more interesting than Jan. 10th.
December 30, 2012 at 9:42 pm
Please don’t say we risk getting Diosdado as president of V? I can cope with Maduro or even Chávez, but Diosdado is really too much. I find his school bullying-style repulsive.
December 30, 2012 at 9:45 pm
If he is ratified on Jan 5th. (which I doubt) he could be President for a year.
December 30, 2012 at 10:28 pm
So who could be in the running?
December 31, 2012 at 2:14 pm
“I find his school bullying-style repulsive,” Stig H. says, forgetting that the vulgarity of the Oppos is phenomenal.
Maduro is gonna need a slugger in that seat to straigthen out big-mouth and foul-mouth and uppity people. Cabello is a good fit.
And you know what? After Jan.5, Cabello is gonna be The Man. Yeah, The Man.
The AN decides when and where and whether an oath before the AN is taken.
The AN authorizes the supreme court to designate a medical board to examine the president looking for a permanent physical or mental disability.
The AN declares when and if there has been an abandonmen of the office by the president
Cabello takes presidential power if Chavez doesn’t show for the oath which doesn’t have to administered Jan. 10 unless the AN — or, in other words, unless Cabello — wants it on Jan.10.
The bourgeois media and other demons will bite Cabello — or whoever gets the seat — more than they bite Maduro after Jan. 5. In a way, Jan. 5 is key to Jan.10. Maduro depends on that seat.
December 31, 2012 at 3:27 pm
Your misconceptions about these people are truly flabbergasting, you have no clue what you are talking about.
December 31, 2012 at 10:06 pm
The distance between your talk and reality is what flabbergast you.
January 1, 2013 at 11:39 am
Neither Cabello nor Maduro are men anyone can trust. If they had been men, and had loved Hugo that much, they would have told him to do the sensible thing one year ago: Seek the best treatment possible and treat himself as a first priority.
As for vulgarity, no opposition leader has said that Hugo Chavez smells of formaldehyde, and might he find Satan a good companion. No, that was said by Hugo Chavez and ministers of dying and dead persons.
January 1, 2013 at 11:34 am
I would like the bullies to do one bit of bullying yet. Economic adjustments without consulting anyone. And then to be booted out of Venezuela.
December 30, 2012 at 9:15 pm
TIMES OF UNCERTAINTY … So Chavez talk to Maduro? I just don’t believe it … And, will they tell the true if Chavez dies? I don’t think so unless they are force to.
December 30, 2012 at 8:33 pm
Was that speech recorded in a bunker?
December 30, 2012 at 11:53 pm
That is the new unfinished concrete East Germany TV station look. They didn’t want their TV stations to easily fall to counter – revolutionaries.
January 1, 2013 at 11:32 am
What counts is the state of mind. And these folks DO possess a bunker mentality no doubt shared with and probably inherited from their Cuban masters.