We had in very recent days a direct threat to state take over of some media on the flimsiest of excuses; a clear desire to put the country on an international conflict, wished by Chavez only; and yesterday the official announcement that thought crimes are about to become a day to day reality (this blogger is refusing to think how that will affect him since the Internet will become the main source of news once that crime thought law is enacted).
This Friday we got a few examples on how these chavista decisions are going to affect our future, in chilly ways. In no particular order.
Diosdado Cabello closes TV and radio stations
The promised deed happened: defeated Miranda governor, notorious corrupt minister of Chavez and apparently the second in command after Chavez today decided to do his master biding and closed 34 private radio stations. The excuses are mostly ridiculous, since apparently if you have a radio license and you die the government claims to be allowed to regain on the act your license, and too bad for the tools you thought to leave to your heirs, the people that worked for you or the debts your station might have had. Because we all know from experience that Chavez cannot be bothered with such trivia.
Of course the government in an utmost act of cynicism made it perfectly clear why it was closing the stations: one of the victims is the Belfort Group, owner of ONLY 5 radio stations in 5 different markets, and whose crime was to transmit a portion of the noted Globovision talk show, Alo Ciudadano. There you have it, the talk show most damaging to chavista pretensions, Alo Cidadano directed by Leopoldo Castillo, was the target for which all of these flimsy excuses were invented.
And more are promised as chavista media does not title "34 radio stations closed" as opposition media titles, they do "first 34 stations closed" That is, the objective as far as chavistas know is that enough radio stations will be closed until the government ones dominate the airwaves once and for all. See, chavismo "esta claro".
To be continued for sure, the more so when today Diosdado Cabello also said this, echoing and defending yesterday attack by Luisa Ortega: "Freedom of expression is not the most sacred freedom". If any of my readers, chavista or not, does not understand what is going on yet, please, let me know.
A new electoral law is voted, and chavismo will only need a relative majority to control at least 2/3 of the Nazional Assembly (that without counting the other electoral fraud)
I will dedicate a major post on the new electoral law, as I was waiting to see the final version beofre I do the electoral analysis that many readers have come to expect from me. However I need to include this comment today because of the timing, that the law gets its second reading on the day after Ortega made her infamous speech and on the day Diosdado starts closing radio stations.
It is clear, no? How is the opposition going to do an electoral campaign if it does not have access to the radio station talk shows? Because at election time all sorts of serious studies have established that opposition has only a minimal access to state media and only in the few weeks before elections when observers hang around. Heck, thsi is even mentioned in international observers reports on Venezuela elections.
Thus keep it clear in your mind, the new electoral law, the closing of media and the additional attacks on private property are designed to make sure that the opposition has neither the means nor the accesses it needs to have its massage out. And let's not forget the possibility of banning folks from running for office simple through and administrative decision: "charges" have been presented against Ledezma at the comptroller office. Thus as Ledezma star rises after his recent successes chavismo is getting ready to simply forbid him to run for election.
You may continue watching for further type of electoral fraud, the more Chavez polls numbers tank, at least as long as we can keep making polls.
Chavista "private enterprise" bosses are breaking up with Colombia
There is always the need for comic relief satisfied no matter how threatening chavismo tries to be.
All these measures woudl not be enough or woudl not be necessary were it not for the amount of people that are willing to subject themselves to such arbitrariness. After all plenty of Germans knew about concentration camps and did not lose any sleep over that. Today a group of Venezuelans showed to us what is the type of future society that Chaevz is preparing, a world of silent cowards a sycophantic profiteers. And brazenly shameless of course, maybe for our tropical nature.
As you know chavismo has been diligently trying to split apart Venezuelan society since it reached power. It has been an "ours against theirs" since I can remember with Chavez. As such it was only natural that chavismo, this XXI century socialism of nationalization and state intervention, would still take the time to create a totally artificial confederation of private enterprises. There were enough to sign for that, of course, namely all of those in need of official contracts to live off as a way to hide their inefficiency and lack of international class, or because the state is their natural client so they can be partially excused I suppose. Thus was born EMPREVEN to try to annul FEDECAMARAS who still remains the rump foundation of what it used to be, not because people are afraid to belong to FEDECAMARAS, but because everyday there is less and less private business available and able to join.
Guess what? EMPREVEN decided to break with Colombia today, probably the first case in history of a capitalist refusing to sell the rope to the one willing to hang him (OK, OK, I am forcing the cliche!). According to them there is no problem replacing Colombia, prices will increase but that is a small price to pay for the respect of Venezuelan laws and punish warmonger Uribe. And other such delicious ly sycophancies that any businessman should know better than express, even if he supports Chavez by ideology....
There is always the opportunist in such circumstances and the president of Fedeindustria had no problem to say that Venezuela could manufacture what is imported from Colombia provided financing is available. Why did they not produce it before? What was stopping them? I mean, the cynicism in indirectly asking money to Chavez is just staggering.....
Meanwhile real businessmen such as nationalized Swiss cement maker Holcim are refusing to deal with what the government is willing to offer: they will go to arbitration. Money matters always make for interesting "To be continued".
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I am sure were to keep digging for more example I could add a few gems to this entry, but I trust that you all get the point: Chaevz is starting to harvest the benefits of the amoral society he has been trying to set since 1999.
And it is just starting.
-The end-