Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Same news, different day So is any of this "new" news, or just the same stuff, just a different day: --Dialogue.- The VP calls for dialogue, Chavez calls for dialogue of ideas, the Foreign Minister calls for dialogue. After the killings on April 11th. 2002, didn’t these guys have a dialogue and the only thing ever to come out of it was the “Truth Committee” which never met? And wasn’t there a negotiation table with the supervision of the OAS and nothing ever came out of that? And wasn’t there a dialogue to agree on basic things that would be done by the Electoral Board on August 11th. 2004 and as I recall none of this was done, including the hot audits and the transmission only after the vote was completed? So, who is the dialogue with? Same guys, different Ministries! --Conspiracies to destabilize Venezuela.- The Deputies were back today. No bazookas this time around, it would look funny. But more illegal tapes of personal conversation between people. Apparently, when you are a Deputy in the Venezuelan revolution you can violate the law and people’s rights and nothing happens. They weave a net of conspiracies by tying a Miami based activist close to the exiled military, to a US Congresswoman who is mostly known for her human rights work, but their intelligence is so good they can’t even get the name of the Congress woman from the Democratic Party right. (Her name is not Ileana Rosset it is Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. From there they go to the CIA, OAS, George Bush, the US embassy, Globovision and whatever. Of course at the center of all this, is that Congresswoman Ros-Lehtinen was going to destabilize Venezuela… Her plan is awful, maquiavelic, even mean; she is going to denounce the Chavez Government for human richest violations! Just imagine! What gall! To use such a low class strategy. As if human righst were important! How could she? Watch out Amnesty International and HRW, you better switch fields. --Political Prisoners. Carlos Ortega, that oligarchic head of the confederation of unions, is sentenced to 15 years in prison for leading a strike that Chavez confessed in nationwide TV that he provoked in order to purge PDVSA. But who cares, the revolution loves to punish so that others are afraid. There are many political prisoners, but those sentenced to jail terms so far, are only three: General Uson, a soldier of humble origins who rose to General and served Chavez well in the Office of the Budget and the Ministry of Finance, but on Aril 11th. he could not stand idle in the face of the killings and resigned. (He had an incredible vantage point over the killings from the top floor of the Ministry. He saw who started it all, turned the perking lot of the Ministry into a makeshift hospital and then resigned) General Alfonso Martinez: The retired General of the National Guard, at the time the highest ranking General of the NG, another man of very humble origins. In his testimony in the National Assembly after April 2002, Martinez spoke expressing the highest standards of respect for human rights I have ever heard any Venezuelan military officer speak about in my life. But just think, had Lt. Hugo Chavez been treated with the same vengeance and hate by the political system he claims to hate so much after his bloody coup in 1992, in which over 200 innocent people were killed, and given 15 years in jail, he would be coming out of jail in two years. Rule of Law? Democracy?Independent Judiciary? Yeah! Yeah 11:35:56 PM    comment []

Free markets, corruption and the revolution team up to help you get a passport How about this ad in Mercado Libre (The Latin American Ebay)! For years, even before the Tascon list, there were intermediaries that would “help you” get a passport for a price. The price obviously went up after the Tascon list and this year the Government announced with great fanfare that a new "high tech" online system would be in place to get your Venezuelan passport: You would download a form online, submit it and then on a certain day you would show up, pay fees, stamp your fingerprints and sign it and you would have your brand new passport. Everything would be efficient and corruption would be wiped out (Not very egalitarian either, in a country with low Internet penetration). Except that… --The system did not work well for the first few days. --Once it started working, you had to get up early enough (3 AM, 4AM) to get one of the limited forms available, if available at all, as Anamar told us. Thus, getting the form was next to impossible and once again, no passport. But now, thanks to the benefits of free markets, corruption and modern technology, you have this, an online auction for one of the limited forms (With even a Buy it now feature!): Yes! You can either participate in the auction for a form to get a passport with an initial price of Bs. 85,000 or simply "Pay it now"! for ”only” Bs. 100,000, you can and I quote: “This is your opportunity... leave it on our hands… we will get the form for you legally (??) through the system… for only Bs. 85,000. We are very responsible law professionals…(oxymoron?) Consider that the request forms are only available on Monday and Tuesday and are subject to the availability or not of the online system . You will fill a form with your data that you will have to send me via e-mail, data that we will use in the “preparation” of the form. We are not responsible for wrong data, that is why you fill it out, similarly we only verify data such as Name, Last name, ID number, birth date and sex, because the system already has them, if there were errors we will let you know. Make your offer if you are interested and ask all of the questions you want. We accept five requests for each day (Monday and Tuesday), that is, 10 per week. 100% responsible (bold not mine!) I have gotten the appointment for public servants, their partners, to complete sections graduating from high school and their teachers without any problems, with experience since the online system began." (You can pay with Visa, MasterCard or Mercadopago (like Paypal). The people offering the service have provided a good service to 124 of 125 clients and are amply recommended!) Imagine that, the corruption of the revolution allows free market practices to thrive. Does Closdobaldo know about this? Does he care? Unfortunately, this takes away business from the poorer "analog" intermediaries to professional (oligarchs by definition) digital intermediaries, who have the contacts and the Internet access. So much for helping the less well to do! The pretty revolution never ceases to amaze us! (Thanks to Milagros in Megaresistencia for the tip) 8:31:38 PM    comment []