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-UE
Comments
A very large portion of high school was me thinking none of my friends really cared about me. It wasn't until the latter parts of Senior year to now where I started to learn who was really my friend. Some of it was just my paranoia, but some of it was not.
I think by the end of my school years, I basically ran out of people I could remotely care about there.
So, this is more or less how the elections went:
On October we had regular presidential elections, Chávez vs. Capriles. Chávez played the agressive role while Capriles played the passive role. As usual, government advantages. There were a bunch of issues with the new machine voting thing that benefited Chávez, but whatever, Capriles accepted his loss (55% vs. 45% or something). This was criticized.
On December, Chávez embarked to La Habana for his treatment, but not before asking the populace to vote for Maduro in case he died.
The officialists had Maduro do some mini-campaign during early 2013 but whatever, nothing big, and the promises made during the last elections weren't followed upon. By now there's lots of blackouts throughout the country, food and medicine shortages, homicide rates are higher than ever (currently 5th in the world), and the ever-present problem of corruption.
On March 5 the president dies, there's some controversy because there's inconsistency in a bunch of things said by officialists and that we simply don't know exactly what happened to him (what kind of cancer did he have? what were his operations for?). Also, the officialists' stance is that his cancer was inoculated by the US.
So there's this huge, and I mean huge, mourning queue thing at Caracas and everyone is invited. Maduro says they're going to embalm the president. They don't.
By now Chávez is getting all sort of exaltations and semi-religious worship, it's actually kind of eerie. Oh, and the reason a South American pope was elected was because Chávez asked God to.
Anyhows, Maduro's strategy this elections become mention Chávez as much as possible, remind people that he succeeded you, remind people how awesome Chávez was, Chávez Chávez Chávez Chávez. Meanwhile the state is using all its airtime and employees to promote Maduro as Chavez' successor; when he wins, he has to win by a landslide and secure his legacy. A bunch of higher-ups openly declare their loyalty to Chávez and stuff (this isn't legal).
So now Capriles has another shot at being prez, but the polls show that he has a 16% disadvantage against Maduro, and that's before he's using the vast bulk of government advantages available to him, and he hasn't organized anything yet, so he has to make a decision.
Decision made, Capriles is the new candidate, and he now makes his strategy clear: Maduro, I'm going to fuck up your shit.
He also mentions the Chávez-didn't-die-on-March-5 thing, this backfires when Chávez' daughter takes offence.
Anyhows, he starts acting like Chávez himself (and makes sure not to insult his memory), all yelly and with rallying cries for his followers and stuff, and makes it known that Maduro is not Chávez, but is instead the group of undeserved higher-ups (now called the "plugged ones") who Chávez himself called inefficient, and are the reason of the above problems and the devaluation, plus all those unfulfilled promises, that Maduro hasn't governed anything and was simply a suckup sent abroad (specially to Cuba) to do stuff and be a lackey, and doesn't know much about Venezuela itself.
Much of the campaign is more or less Maduro proving Capriles right. Maduro eliminates one of our two currency control schemes and makes one based on biddings that practically only large companies can bid in (hurray for socialism), he plays the Cuban anthem on an unrelated event on national TV, he fails basic Venezuelan geography multiple times during speeches and at one point gets a geography book thrown at him, all the while repeatedly calling Capriles silly names (and at various points implying he's gay) and acting like the class clown during speeches, but lacking the acting ability to not look pathetic.
Also, he said Chávez revealed to him as a lil' birdie and they communicated through chirps (instant meme). If you've ever wanted to see a president chirp, see here.
Capriles capitalizes on all that, mocking the shit out of his blunders and showing just how unfit he is for president, all the while reminding people of what state his group left the country in.
So now, Maduro has to start promising actual shit. He blames the country's electrical problems and food shortages on opposition sabotage (despite these problems existing beforehand), sets soldiers to guard power stations, makes a bunch of missions (social projects) in quick succession to fix them and, among them, is an "Efficiency or Nothing Mission" to fix cases of mismanagement and corruption on state companies not faring well (basically all of them, many of which were just fine before they were expropriated), more-or-less admiting that the birdie's government hadn't been all that good and that he'd spent 14 years doing nothing about it.
Capriles let his listeners know all this, assured the populace that he would continue missions, and would finance all this by stop giving money away to countries we have no business with (specially Cuba, he also said he'd give Cuban medics working here Venezuelan citizenship
), and spread a message of unity among Venezuelans, regardless of political affiliation, to fight against a system set to secure power among a few plugged ones. While at it, he reassures listeners that they musn't feel intimidated or blackmailed (because your vote is secret), and instructs on how electoral witnesses are to act to prevent fraud, and emphatizes these as the key to making a difference. By this time he's getting massive attendance at speeches, and the first time a poll puts him at an advantage.
Now Maduro is showing desperation, he makes up that the opposition is working with Salvatorean paramilitaries or something (which is conveniently a country they have issues with) to cause the above problems, including increasing homicide rates and stuff, and that they want to kill him, and something about how Capriles wouldn't recognize results, from a recorded conversation between a mole and Capriles' driver, who didn't say that anyways. He also became threatening during speeches, stating that chavists voting for Capriles are to be found out, that everyone should vote for him or "don't complain later", and something about an aboriginal curse upon those who don't vote for him or something, I dunno, I stopped watching his speeches at this point.
At some point it was found that the officialists had access to the BIOS password for voting machines. The National Electoral Council's president didn't give a shit, but apparently this didn't mean they could change votes or anything, only disable machines (which is still an useful trick during voting, but whatever) so the opposition reassured the populace that their vote was safe. It seems they were right.
So the campaign ended the 11th, which happens to be the anniversary for the coup against the birdie (gee, good going guys, you even made me like him for a while) and the government made sure you remember it.
You aren't allowed to do any more campaigning afterwards, so Capriles played basketball on TV. Meanwhile Maduro did more campaigning, this was denounced, and the National Electoral Council's president didn't give a shit.
This campaign continued even throughout the elections, and there were reports of thugs on motorcycles threatening voters, voting centers being closed due to longlasting technical problems, officialist concentrations nearby voting centers, proselitizing like whoa, all of these against electoral rules, and the National Electoral Council's president didn't give a shit.
And when ballots were supposed to be closed, Capriles warned against something, and instructed witnesses not to leave their posts and make sure all audits were done correctly. Or something, I'm still not sure what happened.
So here we are, Maduro barely wins with 50.66% vs. 49.07%, a vast difference from what he started with and with pretty much everything going for him. Keep in mind that votes are counted only until there's a winner, and that votes abroad are counted last (and the vast majority of them are oppository), so the difference is even less than that. So here we are.
All in all, in five weeks Maduro almost single-handedly loses one of the easiest and most biased elections officialists have had, and Capriles has shown us how to beat the system.
TL;DR: Our president talks to birds.
Mang, I don't even know what to say anymore.
Whatever happens next, you guys are fucked.
Considering how you've supported Chávez and Maduro (same thing) before, I find that post infuriating.
Chavez's reign was far, far from something to be put upon a pedestal. State socialism is unsustainable in the long run, and I have serious doubts that Chavez would have had the strength to go beyond that phase. I'm not sure if I would even consider him a true socialist. But at the very least, he shielded the people of Venezuela from American imperialism and bourgeois exploitation, and showed the world that something other than blind submission is possible. Many of my party comrades tend to heavily idealize both Chavez and Maduro, but I like to take a more critical stance.
I had doubts about Maduro to begin with, but your latest post has only cemented my opinion that he is a total loon. I support him only as a mean of delaying the inevitable (the traitor Capriles or one of his ilk taking power), in hope that a more reasonable leftist leader will eventually replace him. But that doesn't seem very likely.
Traitor or not, Capriles seems like the better leader here. He does not talk to birdies, for one thing.
If anything, he's made us more susceptible to American (and Chinese) imperialism by making us more dependant on our oil export to these countries.
And instead being exploited by the state, making sure there's a good electoral base depending on the state for jobs and housing so as to vote and proselitize against its own independency.
If anything, he's shown the world just how badly that can go.
Well, I want anybody who can make the country stay afloat and maybe, just maybe, progress. Their ideology is secondary.
I feel this is critical. You will find few people more in support of socialist ideals than myself, but the most important thing is that quality of life is safeguarded or improved as much as possible. After all, ideology alone can't make policies work, and socialism doesn't need another two-faced representative to damage the perception of the good things it can actually bring to the world.
I'd take a compassionate, honest capitalist over Maduro any day of the week. I support socialism because I believe that it has the most potential in terms of leading towards egalitarian social and economic conditions; in any case where it acts counter to that, then there's no point to propping it up. Leftist ideals and ideology, on their own, aren't the end themselves. They're a set of tools and, when used correctly, may one day provide us a better world.
Started watching Portlandia, and it's glorious.
edit: you might've seen it, but I felt like posting it, 'cause it just came to my mind and it's hilarious.
Thanks for the insight into Venezuelan politics, Stormtroper.
And now I'm confusing Stormtroper and Ironweaver.
If only tea-partiers understood this.
bravo stormtroper
now run from south america mang
come to canada
we got poutine
i thought russha had poutine
no rusia has putin
we have a thing where we dip french fries in cheese and steak sauce
it is the treat of the gods
man
how can someone have so much shit-taste
People find that far more acceptable than not liking its taste
Putin was indeed delicious. He tasted like chicken.
see that's because he is a gigantic cock
And how would you know what cock tastes like, hm?
(it feels so wrong to make these jokes)
i'unno. i never ate putin
To taste it, cock needs to be put in
Jeez. I have nothing to say but that I wish you luck and safety.
Thankfully, Venezuela does not have a Supreme Leader, or Revolutionary Guard, or Basij militia.
Then again, it might have other things.
It has the Socialist Party