Chavez in Venezuela
Venezuela is an extreme example of media being forced into “the tank with the incumbent”. “Under decades-old legislation designed to allow the government to communicate during a national emergency, the president is legally empowered to comandeer the airwaves on every TV channel and every radio broadcaster simultaneously, whenever he wants, for as long as he wants. ”
The government doesn’t have to pay for these so-called “cadena” (chain) broadcasts, or even give TV stations any advanced notice that one is coming and, as you probably guessed, cadenas are also often top-heavy with campaign themes. Such cadenas have taken up an average of 30 minutes per day since the official launch of the campaign on July 1.
And that’s not all. In the last six years, the Chávez government has made it an explicit goal to achieve “communication and information hegemony”, at once multiplying the number of state-owned media outlets and cracking down on critical broadcasters. Much of the state media is relentlessly propagandistic in the Soviet mold—just hour after hour of government boosterism and harsh, vitriolic attacks on the opposition. The remaining independent broadcasters, by contrast, are largely neutered: stepping on any of several never-clearly-spelled-out red lines can bring on heavy fines, serious harrassment or even a station closure. And so private news broadcasts are as anodyne as public ones are propagandistic.
But if they control the narrative, the vertical and the horizontal, Chavez’s current weakness is also a lesson in the law of diminishing propaganda returns. Lie enough and even when you tell the truth the broadcast is believed to be a lie. The state media has in consequence lost its credibility. Thus, despite his narrative advantages Chavez looks set to lose this election. Reality has beaten illusion. Chavez, who came to power promising to fundamentally transform Venezuela, who has been touting the need for ‘fairness’ from the beginning is being challenged by the average Venezuelan family who is now fairly hungry.
Why a single mom in the barrio dealing with constant power outages and water service interruptions, double-digit inflation and out of control crime is meant to care about universal equilibrium is never quite spelled out. Fourteen years on, he has little to say about “the concerns of people like you,” to use the hoary old polling cliché. Political power has clearly robbed him of his populist touch.
But the bigger problem for Chávez is that, while he remains personally well liked by most Venezuelans and fanatically adored by a not inconsiderable minority, even his most die-hard supporters realize his government stinks.
The government Chávez has built is a monumental fiasco. Corrupt, bureaucratic, opaque and wedded to unworkable ideological certainties, the chavista state is top-heavy with cronies and arbitrageurs who talk about the beauty of socialism all morning and siphon off the profits of crooked deals into off-shore bank accounts all afternoon. Today, it amounts to a sprawling bureaucracy that simply doesn’t have the resources to make good on the ideological checks the president spends his days writing.
If the situation in Venezuela sounds vaguely familiar to American readers it shouldn’t because any similarity between Hugo Chavez and any other political project both past and current is purely coincidental. The question pundits are asking now is: if Chavez loses, will he leave office? Ian James at the Associated Press reports:
CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — President Hugo Chavez’s crusade to transform Venezuela into a socialist state, which has bitterly divided the nation, was put to the stiffest electoral test of his nearly 14 years in power on Sunday in a closely fought presidential election. …
“We will recognize the results, whatever they are,” Chavez told reporters after casting his vote in Caracas.
Chavez was greeted at the polling center by American actor Danny Glover and Guatemalan Nobel Peace Prize laureate Rigoberta Menchu. He said he was pleased to see a “massive turnout.”
The stakes, James writes, ‘couldn’t be higher’. If Chavez loses “an abrupt foreign policy shift can be expected, including halting preferential oil deals with allies such as Cuba, along with a loosening of state economic controls and an increase in private investment. A tense transition would likely follow until the January inauguration because Chavez’s political machine thoroughly controls the wheels of government.”
Well if Chavez won’t leave after he loses he’ll leave eventually. He must. A Chavez loss in Venezuela would confirm what the history of the 20th century has time and again suggested: that an authoritarian ideology never loses to advocates of common life, as conservatives might be called. And yet they lose.
As political opponents conservatives are too amateurish and inept. They don’t lie enough. They don’t conspire enough. They have to work their day-jobs. But in the end the professional socialists always lose to the amateurs. Without fail. Why?
Because power outages, food shortages, unemployment, high gas prices and pure entropy ultimately defeat any combination of media, entrenched bureaucracy and political machinery. Ultimately the facts burn through the propaganda and then the rottenness is revealed.
All that conservatives have ever accomplished through history is speed the process up of awakening by explaining to anyone who will listen why the paradise on earth project is failing. They succeed by pointing out the obvious; that there is no substitute for growing food, manufacturing goods, producing energy and generally living life instead of dreaming it. That’s not to say that conservatism is useless only that it cannot work without reality on its side.
You can fight Romney, but can you fight God? You can fight Republican talking points, but can you lower the gas prices? Or if you object to the word ‘God’, try the words ‘facts’, ‘prices’ or ‘arithmetic’. Nobody ever won against arithmetic. Not even Hugo Chavez with Venezuelan oil behind him. Tolkien captured this idea in one of the most memorable passages in The Return of the King.
Far above the Ephel Duath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.
We will bear the Ring, though we do not know the way.
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Sam could see the star, but the orcs who were out hunting Sam and Frodo–the big soldier Uruk and the little sniffer–would they even look?
We’ve plenty of orcs today (the older they get, the more orcish they look; think of Hillary). For whatever reason, they don’t “live life instead of dreaming it”, they steal it. It is passing strange, evil is; and LOTR is great in part because it is an extended contemplation by a literal survivor of the battle that created the Dead Marshes on evil, what it is, why it is, how it works, whether it is an absence of good (classical Christian theology) or an active counter-power to good.
All I can do is thank God that I look upward still, and see the star. I thank God I’m made that way.
As for poor, wretched Venezuela, Chavez is an orc, (of a lower order than the sniffer, that’s for sure). How does Morgorth STILL breed ‘em after all this time? Anyway, I’m amazed they’re still having elections at all.
Note: “If Chavez wins “an abrupt foreign policy shift can be expected, including halting preferential oil deals with allies such as Cuba…”; shouldn’t that be “If Chavez doesn’t win…”?
An Préachán
i thought the press said hugo was on his death bed, a few months ago? does he even really have cancer, did the real chavez die already?
what does it matter who gets elected there, it’s the same country with the same people. if not this chavez, then another chavez, but always a chavez.
danny glover is a thoroughly disgusting individaul, as is mr penn. what in the world motivates them to support such tyrants?
The stakes, James writes, ‘couldn’t be higher’. If Chavez wins “an abrupt foreign policy shift can be expected, including halting preferential oil deals with allies such as Cuba, along with a loosening of state economic controls and an increase in private investment. A tense transition would likely follow until the January inauguration because Chavez’s political machine thoroughly controls the wheels of government.”
Er, I believe you meant, “If Capriles wins.” If Chavez wins, Venezuela will continue its current foreign policy. Cuba will keep its preferential oil treatment, etc.
And with gas prices in Cali-zuela skyrocketing, soon only Glover, Penn, and the other Mouths of Sauron will be the only ones who can afford it.
Mr. Romney… go West, good man, go west. Don’t set up shop there. But a stop in the Central Valley (see if Paul Rodriguez might be willing to host, he knows the score there), and at a gas station in suburban LA could work wonders far beyond Cali-zuela. (“Like what you see America? Vote Obama, and it’s coming your way!”) Forget the Bay Area, you have no business to conduct in Isenguard.
#3 Thanks for spotting the typo.
An Préachán 1,
Caught the typo.
Dinosaurs rarely go quietly into the night. The wonder is that the Soviets did not take the world with them.
Deleted
4. Andrew X
It is a good idea for Romney to go to California, if only to freak out Obama.
BB – Illinois too, same reason. Keep ‘em off balance.
Every front needs a face. I wouldn’t doubt if Glover, Penn, and Moore are paid for their services directly from Langley VA. The more their movies tank, the more they earn off the taxpayer.
No diminishing returns there… Gives it a new meaning almost.
Come to think of it, the Scientology cast hasn’t had many blockbusters lately. Hmmm…
Chavez and various strong man variants of the Bolivarian ilk are not unusual for Venezuela. The oddity is the tie between the South American “election” and the one here.
The media here is in thrall to the Regime out of fealty, not enforced “cadena” compulsion. Instead of 30 minute blocks a day, Buraq Hussein has the voluntary application of the propaganda talents of the entire mainstream media, minus some dissent from FOX. He does have the ability to take over all broadcasts, however, if he chooses to use Executive Orders.
The parallel continues. The honesty of the election and vote counting under Chavez are open to question. The situation here with phantom voters, multiple voters, ACORN, the Necro-American vote, and the obliquitous habit of Democrat election officials to store extra boxes of marked ballots willy-nilly across the landscape against a time of need, like a gray squirrel preparing for a hard winter; could reasonably tempt a suspicious soul to have qualms about the legitimacy of the results.
Chavez says “We will recognize the results, whatever they are,”. “Recognition” and abiding by those results are not necessarily congruent. The recognition may be limited to acknowledging the need for condign measures. A significant part of our country has reservations about the cognitive powers of our current Chief Executive in a similar circumstances.
One wonders if the White House chef will be serving Pabellón criollo and Chivo en coco on November 7.
Subotai Bahadur
It could always be argued that Chavez and his government would have succeeded if it had not been made to fail. If everyone had done his job as he was supposed to, if some people were willing to work more and get paid less so that others could not work at all, if neigboring countries had allowed him to meddle in their affairs without complaint, if the USA had not been such a pain for him. If, if, if… It’s all always somebody else’s fault, just like someone else we know.
But of course that’s always true of everything. Try to fly by flapping your arms and it’s gravity’s fault when you fail. Try to survive by eating excrement sandwiches and it’s the germs fault you get sick. And try to impose your will on someone else and it’s not your fault that there are people who are better at building weapons and using them.
Human beings are no less a natural force, no less a fact of life, than gravity and germs. If you are a good communist and run into capitalists that are better at just about everything than you are and use that competance to destroy you or simply refuse to cooperate, well, them’s the breaks, Hugo. Suck it up, roll over and die.
“10. Baobo
Every front needs a face. I wouldn’t doubt if Glover, Penn, and Moore are paid for their services directly from Langley VA. The more their movies tank, the more they earn off the taxpayer.” Wouldn’t be the first or the last time the Agency employed outright Lefties, much like the FBI’s habit of putting white supremacists on the payroll ala Hal Turner of The Turner Diaries notoriety.
And with regards to Commandante Hugo, I’m glad he’s finally going to lose an election – maybe. I just wish some of the folks who’ve been working to topple him for years would stop playing tit for tat games, inviting Ahmed Zakayev to the Oslo Freedom Forum and certain public orgy filmmakers as well. I understand the Chavistas shot your mama Mr. Halvorssen but don’t get in bed with terrorist funders and freaks to get back at the Kremlins, even if the Demintern wants you to play ball.
And just a reminder of the stakes, the Orinoco belt might have more hydrocarbons than all of the Athabasca tar sands and a good portion of the Green River oil shale field between Colorado, Wyoming and Utah COMBINED.
RWE- It’s all about labels and scapegoating. Also translators have their own interests in mind. If they want to hold a job, then punks must become “dissidents”, first responders are “armed state security forces”, and so forth.
Not Joe- “Henrique Capriles”… a likely name. Meet the new boss.
From Fausta’s blog.
We have reached the blatant stuff. What next?
#16 Blast From the Past
“We have reached the blatant stuff. What next?”
Next, in about a month, it will be our turn. After we vote, and vote we must; we have an Oath to consider.
Subotai Bahadur
@#17 :
Who will be the one to let slip that they had the results of the US Election in advance?
Rahm Emanuel?
Tina Brown?
Robert Gibbs?
George Stephanopolous?
Whoopi Goldberg?
Al Sharpton?
Martin Bashir?
Fareed Zakaria?
Jeremiah Wright?
Muhammad Morsi?
Recep Tayyip Erdogan?
I’m thinking Erdogan.
13. Not Uncle Joe & “10. Baobo
“Every front needs a face. I wouldn’t doubt if Glover, Penn, and Moore are paid for their services directly from Langley VA. The more their movies tank, the more they earn off the taxpayer.”
Wouldn’t be the first or the last time the Agency employed outright Lefties, much like the FBI’s habit of putting white supremacists on the payroll ala Hal Turner of The Turner Diaries notoriety.
While I wouldn’t completely discount their ideological proclivities as a factor in their solidarity with Comrade Hugo, I suspect there’s a more mundane quid pro quo involved with these celebrity types’ affinity for Chavez: he’s probably one of their major drug suppliers. In exchange for the occasional fly-in by private jet and personal appearance/endorsement Hugo insures their jets return loaded with some tokens of his appreciation.
And of course, these folks being the “right kind” of celebrities, with the right kind of friends, I doubt their planes and baggage receive the same type of scrutiny that a Rush Limbaugh type would receive…
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“Because power outages, food shortages, unemployment, high gas prices and pure entropy ultimately defeat any combination of media, entrenched bureaucracy and political machinery.”
Perhaps Frank Kellog, Aristade Briand, and Norman Angell were right: a highly technological society requires internal and external peace, because only with peace can the roads, electricity, web, water, et. al. function. This integration limits the depredations politicians inflict on their societies.