catching up some in my reading on the latest scandals which all involve revolutionaries who want to live well, while some other revolutionaries stand in line for hours to buy a pound of milk. I could imagine the vice president saying the equivalent of cuchi-cuchi to the guys filling up his wallet after he signed contracts for finger printing machines. I could imagine Carreño saying cuchi cuchi to his wife when she gave him his Louis Vuitton ties with Gucchi loafers for no other reason but her having enough money now to splurge at any mall she wishes to.Rayma is the cartoonist from EL Universal that I seldom use in spite of her utter brilliance because, like Zapata El Nacional, she is too Venezuelan for outside people to get it, contrary to Weil who seems some times to draw his cartoon for the foreign crowd. But this week Rayma gave three cartoons in a row that deserve ample distribution, allowing me to make up some of my neglect. The first one of course is the one above making allusion to the incident where interior minister Pedro Carroña, ooops!, Carreño was caught off base about his wearing a LouisVuitton tie (1). He should have known that Venezuelan female journalists are well versed on fashion and thus speaking of socialism and equality and impossible reconciliation with the NO country while you
wear a Louis Vuitton, well, it sounds phony. Which explains the second cartoon here, with the LV on Che beret. Surely if the Che had worn any fashion design in his days (Hermes was big then, to name a reference) he would not have amounted to much. By not using brand names and toughening it up in jungles he became a logo himself, which is more than can be said from ANY of the bolivarian revolutionaries that we have had to put up with for the last 9 years.One thing about being late in blogging on these matters due to end of year extra workload and Internet problems is that it sort of pays off: I just need to mention other people work. I have found three resources. A fabulous article form Alex Beech who had to wait for a year to be dragged back at her blog to write. I suppose that the intensity of the ridicule was irresistible for her to write about. Then there is a great gossipy compilation from Feathers who details all these socialists heroes ties (as in relationships, not only ties) and how they are linked to the government (very cuchi cuchi if you ask me). To narrate the new details about the Maletagate which is causing a lot of grief in Buenos Aires, and much less for the time being in Venezuela where all the crooks are out of reach from the Venezuelan judicial system (too bad that judges in Miami cannot be bought or pressured as easily than in Caracas, as Kaufman and Co. must be meditating these days) El Universal felt the need for a general compilation page web for all matters pertaining to bags full of money, brand name or not.
I think never as this week we have seen the true miserable nature of the bolivarian revolution, how it spoils all what it touches and how accidentally it reminds us that Peronism was always Peronismo. Cristina K., botox and all, cannot put the blame on the US judicial system even in the spectacularly infamous way her chief of staff, Fernandez, is trying to do, and thus possibly wrecking the US Argentinian relationship for the full term of Cristina K. All because Peronismo was too corrupt to put a stop to it when it had a chance last August. In fact, the incredible tone of that article indicates more than anything that there is guilt in Argentina that needs to be hidden. In a normal country with a normal president, such a letter would have never been allowed for publication. I suppose that the right hand of Cristina K. like many a Venezuelan revolutionary such as Maduro who showed Argentinians how to dodge the issue for their respective hoi poloi (the thinking world? they have long ago ceased to try to impress) will obtain this nifty medal of Rayma for the true robber cum revolutionary: the keys of a nice BMW to put their Vuitton bags full of Gucci shoes in. Meanwhile, Cristina K. who was thought to be more of a maven in the foreign policy field than her husband, well, now we know it was not true.Plus ça change et plus c'est la même chose.
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1) video here, long but with the whole story, zip to minute 7:25 for the Gucci moment. But the whole video is worth watching as it includes precious footage of Chavez insulting his own supporters in his infantile bitterness or a minister admitting that after 9 years of revolution Venezuela imports still 95% of its junk while displaying his total ignorance of the state of the country. then again Pedro Carroña, ooops, Carreño, was the one of the secret cameras in Direct TV decoders for the CIA to spy on all Venezuelans.....
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