Is Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador another Chavez?

Andres Manuel Chávez Frias or Hugo Rafael Lopez Obrador?
By Gustavo Coronel



The information about Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, one of the Mexican presidential candidates, reveals a personality that has so many points of coincidence with that of Hugo Chavez Frias, the Venezuelan strongman, that I wonder if there exists, somewhere, a manufacturing site where people like them are being mass produced to take over political power in the western hemisphere. Ollanta Humala, the recently defeated Peruvian candidate also seems to be built with the help of the basic blueprint while Nestor Kirchner of Argentina and Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua share many of the same characteristics.

Lopez Obrador and Chavez are both provincial and parochial. Lopez Obrador comes from the state of Tabasco and prides himself in not having a passport since "the best foreign policy is the domestic policy." He confesses that, even moving from his native state to the plateau of Mexico City, put a strain in his adaptive capacities. "The culture is very different," he complains. Chavez comes from the state of Barinas, where people walk around in alpargatas (crude sandals), eat meat on skews and are prone to recite cheap romantic poetry about the plains, the inclement sun and the white herons. Although he has learned to travel abroad and overdoes it, he remains a small town boy, handling his relations with kings and presidents in the same manner he would handle an outing with his boyhood friends. His rhetoric is full of quotes from tacky poems and he does not shy away from breaking into songs on national TV.

Lopez Obrador likes baseball and played baseball. Chavez played baseball and tried to become a professional player but, unfortunately for the country, did not have enough talent. Lopez Obrador's favorite subjects seem to be Tabasco and baseball. Chavez's favorite topics are baseball and Barinas, where his grandfather Maisanta is now famous due to the myths Chavez has created.

Lopez Obrador has been a populist governor. Chavez has been a populist president. They both prefer handouts to structural solutions to poverty since these take too much time. As Governor of the Federal District Lopez Obrador instituted a bonus of 700 pesos per month to all residents over 70 years old. In Venezuela Hugo Chavez literally throws money at the poor, in an effort to keep them believing that "big daddy" is going to take care of them forever. As a result, both in the Federal District of Mexico and in Venezuela poverty has actually increased and real, stable, tax-paying employment has been replaced by an ever growing informal economy.

When confronted with political dissidence both react in the same manner. Chavez dismisses opposition leaders as escualidos, "oligarchs," "traitors," "the rich white boys," and frijolitos (after the name of the horse of his 1998 adversary Henrique Salas). Lopez Obrador talks about political adversaries as los de arriba (the upper class), the "rich," the "exquisite" and other terms such as picudos (big mouths) and finolis (effetes). Any popular protest against them, they will claim, has been organized by the extreme Right or by the CIA. Both are prone to use racist terms against their adversaries: the white, the rich, the well to do, the pirruris (blond).

Neither Lopez Obrador nor Chavez favor transparency in government. They use national money as if it were theirs, to achieve their own political objectives. Chavez has stopped accounting to the people on how he spends Venezuelan money and decides arbitrarily and viscerally to give away billions of dollars to his favorite ideological allies: Castro, Morales and Kirchner. Lopez Obrador does not handle that kind of money but he resisted the Law of Transparency instituted by Vicente Fox and made it impossible to operate in his dominions. Some of his collaborators have been filmed taking bribes. Chavez's close circle is full of hyper-corruption since there are no controls, no accountability and no formal administrative procedures in the chaotic regime.

Violence is no big deal in their eyes. Chavez is responsible for the death of many innocent Venezuelan citizens during his bloody military coup of 1992 against the democratically elected president Carlos Andres Perez. Lopez Obrador is reported to favor the traditional manners of behavior based on ignorance, including violence, to the application of the Mexican law. He has been quoted as saying: "A Law which is not just is simply no good. The law was made for man, not the man for the law," suggesting that he is the one who decides about the usefulness of the law. He is reported to have a "Marxist concept of the law, as a tool of the bourgeoisie to dominate the proletariat."

Both have gone on record as claiming they are above the law. Chavez publicly instructed his Ministers not to abide by the rulings of the Supreme Tribunal of Justice whenever these rulings were not in line with the revolution and, in fact, some of the decisions made by that tribunal were simply ignored by his regime. Lopez Obrador has also publicly rebelled against judicial decisions, saying that the courts cannot be above "popular sovereignty" and saying that he would go to prison before accepting those decisions.

They are both autocratic and do not believe in checks and balances. They share a messianic approach to the exercise of power and promote the popular belief that they are put there by the divine providence and constitute the champions of the poor and the dispossessed. Both have been close to the Catholic Church in their early years and have now become bitterly anti-clerical. Lopez Obrador says: "I am a mystic, I am in the hands of my people." Chavez says: "I am a piece of straw in the winds of the revolution."

They promote social and political polarization as a tool to consolidate their political power. In doing this they sow hate among the people and fail one of the fundamental duties of political leaders, which is bringing society together and not tearing it apart.

In the early 1980's Lopez Obrador became the organizer of PRI, the official political party, in his native Tabasco. He created a communist type of organization that was rejected by other local leaders, including Governor Enrique Gonzalez Pedrero, as "reflecting a Cuban type of organization." "We are not in Cuba," admonished Gonzalez, who went on to dismiss him.

They both love and promote gigantic mass mobilizations, as long as they are in their support. Chavez, of course, has already used extreme force to repress popular marches against him and Lopez Obrador has gone on record to say that "this country does not move forward with elections but with mass mobilizations," establishing a theory of permanent social mobilization as a means to gain his political objectives.

Enrique Krauze, the author of an excellent profile of Lopez Obrador ("El mesías tropical," June 2006, Letras Libres) that I have used to base much of my comparison between the two men, says that the main problem with Lopez Obrador is … Lopez Obrador. I have also come to the conclusion that the main problem with Hugo Chavez is … Hugo Chavez. These men carry their best friends and worst enemies inside. Krauze says that Lopez Obrador "does not represent the modern Left but the authoritarian Left." The same applies to Chavez. They are not pragmatic but obsessed with ideology. As such they are incapable of recognizing their errors and will persist in committing them ad infinitum. In some ways they remind me of the definition of madness offered by Albert Einstein. Madness, he said, is "the incessant repetition of the same actions, always expecting a different result."

Lopez Obrador will not succeed in establishing an authoritarian regime in Mexico, even if he wins the election. That country is too imbricate with the US economically, socially and politically, for this to happen. It is too close to the US geographically and otherwise. In addition, Mexico is already in a stage of economic and political evolution that will make such pretensions impossible. The country is too big and already too decentralized.

In Venezuela conditions are slightly different but Chavez is having a hard time imposing a Cuban style regime. Venezuela, used to say one of our 19th-century dictators, is "like a dry animal skin. You step on it on one side and the other side jumps up." In spite of the enormous oil wealth being pilfered in propaganda-oriented social programs and in creating paid, artificial support all over the world for the ill defined "Socialist" revolution, Chavez is not moving forward but, like a crab, manages one step forward and another step backwards or, at best, sideways. He wins Bolivia and loses Peru. He wins Iran and loses Brazil. He wins Kirchner, or does he really? He loses Uruguay. They love him at the TransAfrica Forum but dismiss him as a clown in the European Union. All in all, not so good and, meanwhile, the money from oil is being spent at such a rapid pace that the Venezuelan Central Bank is now technically broke. Can readers imagine a Central Bank going broke?

Hugo Rafael Lopez Obrador or Andres Manuel Chavez Frias? You take your pick. It does not really make much difference!

© 2006 Gustavo Coronel

About Gustavo Coronel.

Evo says NO to Chavez...

Good for Evo Morales, the new president of Bolivia. As many of you know, President Chavez of Venezuela, along with Castro, supported Morales to Bolivia's presidency. Of course, in hopes of him to become the puppet of Castro and Chavez. But, little did Chavez know that Mr. Morales, with his soft and educated manners apparently is not playing the game that Chavez wan't him to play. In a note from Spain's El Mundo, yesterday Chavez asked Morales to delay the meeting of the CAN (Andean Community of Nations), which Morales presides. But he didn't accept el loco's manouver, bhuahahah... The meeting, in fact, was in order to look for better relations of those nations with the US. Morales also accepted Pres. Toledo (Peru) (Chavez hates him) to serve as vice president (vacant post left by Chavez, when in a temper tamtrum decided that Venezuela wasn't going to belong to that org anymore). This is the good bye letter that doofus Chavez sent to the Andean Community. Needless to say, Bolivia is not following this approach at all, but asking his friends Colombia and Peru to help him to get in good terms with the USA. Bolivia needs this client. We all need to do good business relationship with the biggest market of the region. But of course, you know guys why this idiot Chavez is behaving like a spoiled brat, right?

Chavez thought that his depart from the CAN would crumble it to dust, but seems the CAN works better without him (like everything else, Chavez's is a bully so anything works better without him).

Good for them! The exit of Venezuela to the Andean Community is only Venezuela's lost.

Link of this news in spanish here.

We have many people critising but we have not got ANY DOERS... what are you?

Some visitor named Larry (Tucker?) from London, with a Hunt-esque speech (maybe is the brit incarnation of our dear friend), let this comment in an old post written on May, 17.

He says:

"Hi man,

Are you a Venezuelan? If so, I have another question for you, do you love Venezuela? if your both answers are yes.. Would you please tell me or perhaps tell us, what can you do to make Venezuela a better place, obviously, I am talking about the whole country and the Venezuelan, i.e, poor + rich, educated + non-educated, well, you know, what I mean....
The thing is that, I am not with Mr Chavez, however, I have seen some poor people getting a good deal of benefits out of this new oil boom, which I think, it is alright.. Nevertheles, I am not quite sure why Mr Chavez is spending the Venezuelans money in other countries, such as Bolivia. As far as I understand, Venezuela has been buying bonus from the Argentinian international debt in exchange for agricultural technology, which I think, it is fine.
I am now working in an University in the UK developing new sources of energy, i.e, possible subtitutes of hydrocarbons, I will be taking this experience and knowledge back to Venezuela (by the way , I have not used any Venezuelan funds to support myself here). I also know, maybe another 15 Venezuelans Phds (Docors) who are getting some sort of formation to take back to the country.
Once again, I would like to ask you, what would you do to help Venezuela? We have many people critising but we have not got ANY DOERS... what are you?

Larry
p.s: I will be checking your blog every day to read the comments put here.
Larry | 06.13.06 - 8:09 am | # "

This was my reply:

"Larry,

Thanks for stopping by. Chavez government is very corrupt. He has taken over all the institutions of the country and manages it with his friends as a mafia. I am happy you are visiting my blog so you can understand that the guy is not precisely Robin Hood. I wonder if you know about those corruption scandals Larry? Do you? Please answer me.

You see from London some good amount of Venezuelan people getting a good deal of benefits. I, as an educated Venezuelan who lived for 28 years there, see a dictator giving leftovers to a much needed extremely poor and uneducated population. Moreover, if one of those needed folks dare to politically dissent to the madness of King Hugo I, one are inmediatly cut off of this aid, as if Chavez is doing these poor fellows a favor. You know, we independenced from monarchy many years ago. Why? Why these people have to be content with leftovers when Venezuela right now is getting so much money from oil? Venezuela's oil money is as theirs as Chavez. Don't they deserve better?

On a final note, you say: "We have many people critising but we have not got ANY DOERS... what are you?"

I said: "What do you think? I don't live in Venezuela anymore, I moved out of there long before Chavez's arrrival. I can perfectly turn my eye blind to what's happening there and concentrate to live my life without worrying about Venezuela's fate. After all, it really doesn't affect me personally. But I choose to let the world know from these humble blog the reality of Chavez's revolution of corruption. I mean, is not much, but I feel that a lot of people, like you, very far away from Venezuela, are very interested but also very ignorant about the situation there. So that's what I do, show those little gansterlike practices that people like you, either by ignorance or blindness choose to conveniently not to mention when talking about Hugo Chavez.

Cheers,
feathers | Homepage | 06.13.06 - 11:20 am | # "

Chavez commercialize politically with the misery of the much needed in Venezuela. What else should I do but to criticize this criminal act? What else should I do?

Larry, we Venezuelans voted for Chavez as a new, fresh choice who was going to eliminate the corruption of previous governments (I didn't vote for him though, I didn't fall under his spell). Nevertheless, he got a 58.6 % the first time he was elected in 1999. Little has he done to this respect. And this is very important, since you cannot have a sound government with high levels of corruption. What do you think about this post Larry? And there's more. Believe me, if I could do more about this than put it on this blog I would do it. But I have no intention to run for political office though. I prefer to be the watch dog.

And we haven't talk about Venezuela's electoral process yet. This should be in my opinion the only thing we Venezuelans should be worrying about these days. Shouldn't we must be completed obsessed on auditing the country's electoral lists and ask for manual voting procedures? What do you think?

About the elections: read here, and here. (The later is a very good first step against the fascist behavior of the Chavista regime against the electoral process). What do you think about the Chavista electoral council blocking any attempt to audit the electoral registry?

" Nevertheles, I am not quite sure why Mr Chavez is spending the Venezuelans money in other countries, such as Bolivia. "

I am not quite sure either why Chavez is spending OUR Venezuelan money in Bolivia when is so much to do in Venezuela. Other than buy political support from Evo Morales, I don't know and I don't approve either. He thinks he owns Bolivia now. Funny, he have criticed Bush like crazy in the past for the U.S. interventional policies in domestic affairs of other countries, and that's the first thing he does when he has a chance. What do you think about this?

"As far as I understand, Venezuela has been buying bonus from the Argentinian international debt in exchange for agricultural technology, which I think, it is fine."

I don' t think this is a good thing. Venezuela doesn't need to spend 500 millions of dollars in Argentinian debt in exchange of foreign technology. He can spend this money directly onto Venezuelan agricultors and Venezuelan agricultural technology.

Larry, your question is very important, so I decided to make it a post so people can think about what others things we can do to save Venezuela from the madness of dictator Hugo I. Feel free to answer Larry in the comment section - nobody leave me comments anymore :(

No money, no honey...

Net neutrality was only a nice dream like all justice and equality dreams... not only we have to worry about censorship coming from authoritarian regimes like China and Cuba, but now we have to worry about the broadbands companies deciding for us what "channels" we should see with preferrence. Seems that some websites will have broadband preferrence over others, that is according to how much money you can pay. Uhmmmm....

"A significant number of Internet content and service companies, including the chief executives from Amazon.com, Google, Microsoft, eBay and Yahoo, are concerned that by creating a fast lane for those willing to pay for priority content, broadband operators would also foster a slower lane in which services may be compromised to encourage a switch to the more profitable tier.

(...) Democratic representative Edward Markey said his amendment was a bid to "prevent companies from setting up road blocks" on the Internet."

From 'Internet Neutrality' Amendment Rejected by House Committee.

"Rep Ed Markey, the Massachusetts Democrat behind the net neutrality amendment, said: "The future Sergey Brins, the future Marc Andreessens, of Netscape and Google... are going to have to pay taxes [to broadband providers]." This vote will change "the internet for the rest of eternity," he warned." From Net neutrality slain.

This is why I think we live in the disinformation age, in despise of we believe we have so much information available... it's not true, what is only available is what they want of to see. Coming back to the diabolical wikipedia illusion of information database. Everybody can write their own allucination of the accounts and leave it on wikipedia for future generations to deceive.

"Rep Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, said: "I want a vibrant internet just like they do. Our disagreement is about how to achieve that. They say let the government dictate it... I urge my colleagues to reject government regulation of the internet." From Net neutrality slain.

Yeah, but leave it to broadband providers like AT&T and Verizon? C'mon. Who is going to compete with them, ah? I though the world was gonna be ruled by Starbuck's Coffee from a top office in Seattle, WA. But no... seems that we have to bend to the broadband companies now. Don't you think this monsters have too much of information power? AT&T was dismanteled one or two years ago and they have started buying companies again. Well, I don't know too much about this, so I am just giving my opinion from what the little info I have read.

I don't think this is good news. Very dissapointing.

More on this:

House Rejects Net Neutrality.

Foes unite in battle over net neutrality.

The Sultan Elephant

A friend sent us this wonderful link



Creepy and beautiful at the same time...

Friday...

Blogger seems to work well. I have run of comments and dinner recipes... Actually this is not true, I want to talk about Al Zarqawi's dead, about Nick Berg's dad reaction, about the electoral council in Venezuela doing as their wish like we live in under the rule of a King, about Alek Boyd's suing the mayor of London, (cool!) etc, etc... But I am sure that many of you already have read about it. What else is new in the world? Well, Feathers have spent a lot of time taking care of her little patio. Bought a little orange tree and a lemon one, plus a lot of herbs. Repotting plants is a hard task! Specially if they weight like an elephant.

In any case, Friday is an excellent day for all of you Jesus lovers, to meditate a little about his life when he was around this planet of wackos. I've found out this two videos from this blog, which I think some of you might be interested in watch and meditate (or pray) today about the Christ's death, and all the significance that his love has for us. Remeber he die on a Friday...



Note: If you are not a catholic and doesn't undertand meditation and pray, please don't watch the following video because it's bloody. What we did to poor Jesus.



Consecration to The Sacred Heart of Jesus by Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque

I give myself and consecrate to the Sacred Heart of our Lord Jesus Christ, my person and my life, my actions, pains and sufferings, so that I may be unwilling to make use of any part of my being other than to honor, love and glorify the Sacred Heart. This is my unchanging purpose, namely, to be all His, and to do all things for the love of Him, at the same time renouncing with all my heart whatever is displeasing to Him. I therefore take You, O Sacred heart, to be the only object of my love, the guardian of my life, my assurance of salvation, the remedy of my weakness and inconstancy, the atonement for all the faults of my life and my sure refuge at the hour of death.
Be then, O Heart of goodness, my justification before God the Father, and turn away from me the strokes of his righteous anger. O Heart of love, I put all my confidence in You, for I fear everything from my own wickedness and frailty, but I hope for all things from Your goodness and bounty.
Remove from me all that can displease You or resist Your holy will; let your pure love imprint Your image so deeply upon my heart, that I shall never be able to forget You or to be separated from You.
May I obtain from all Your loving kindness the grace of having my name written in Your Heart, for in You I desire to place all my happiness and glory, living and dying in bondage to You.
Amen.

Alma de Cristo

Alma de Cristo, santifícame.
Cuerpo de Cristo, sálvame.
Sangre de Cristo, embriágame.
Agua del costado de Cristo, lávame.
Pasión de Cristo, confórtame.
¡Oh, buen Jesús!, óyeme.
Dentro de tus llagas, escóndeme.
No permitas que me aparte de Ti.
Del maligno enemigo, defiéndeme.
En la hora de mi muerte, llámame.
Y mándame ir a Ti.
Para que con tus santos te alabe.
Por los siglos de los siglos. Amén.

God bless,

Oops, seems that Garcia won...

Seems that Peru voters have put, once again, Alan Garcia in the Presidency.

It also seems that he got there with the help of... That's right. Who else? Hugo I. Oh well, ... Ollanta, next time try to get better "friends".

I feel sorry for Peruvians who had to choose between cancer and aids. In any case, I think the Garcia choice was better than the Humala one.

From Peru with love...

Due to censorship, Venezuelans are getting their dose of making fun of Chavez through our Peruvian friends who apparently are not too happy of Chavez sticking his nose in Peru's internal affairs...



I think Chavez works for Garcia... because he is not helping Ollanta at all, thanks God!

But, who shuts up this man loaded with money? Bush's favorite business partner?



They burned Judas at the end! Great!

Hugo Chaveta speaks again...

No comments... enjoy!

The best analysis of the US-Venezuelan relationships

So far...



The love-hate relationship of Chavez and Bush. It's all about selling the goods for good ol'american dollars.

Translation: Chavez: You are an alcoholic Mr. Danger (Bush), a cynic, an immoral etc... etc... (see the related video here)... Bush: Yeah, whatever, don't speak spanish so fill up the tank, boy. Exactlyyyy... that's the way you shut him up... Chavez talks BS but he won't ever stop selling oil to his imperialist buddy. What a joke. This is so pathetic.

Caminante no hay camino, se hace el camino al andar...

Caminante
XXIX
Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino, y nada mas;
Caminante, no hay camino;
se hace el camino al andar.
Al andar se hace camino
Y al volver la vista atras
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.
Caminante, no hay camino,
si no estelas en la mar.

XXXIV
Yo amo a Jesús, que nos dijo:
Cielo y tierra pasarán.
Cuando cielo y tierra pasen
mi palabra quedará.
¿Cuál fue, Jesús, tu palabra?
¿Amor? ¿Perdón? ¿Caridad?
Todas tus palabras fueron
una palabra: Velad.

XLIV
Todo pasa y todo queda,
pero lo nuestro es pasar,
pasar haciendo caminos,
caminos sobre la mar.

Antonio Machado y Ruiz. Proverbios y Cantares. (July 26, 1875 – February 22, 1939)

Walker
Walker, your footsteps
are the road, and nothing more.
Walker, there is no road,
the road is made by walking.
Walking you make the road,
and turning to look behind
you see the path you never
again will step upon.
Walker, there is no road,
only foam trails on the sea.

(Border of a Dream: Selected Poems of Antonio Machado, translated by Willis Barnstone)

I am amazed of how Machado's words are so much alive today than ever. Who didn't dream awake with Joan Manuel Serrat's interpretation of Machado's work?. Anyway, today, June 1st, 2006, is not Antonio Machado or Joan Manuel Serrat the ones who are making the road as they walk on it, but is a group of 3 brave Venezuelans who are writting history for future generations. They started a walk that lasted several days from Koblenz, Germany to Brussels, Belgium in order to call the attention to the European government in reference to the Venezuelan electoral problem. Click here to see the distance that these brave patriots are walking (not sure if this is the route, but this is the distance: 294 Km - approx. 183 Miles). This is what they (we) are asking for.

Today, they have arrived to Brussels and are in their way to making their mission accomplished by meeting with representatives of several European Union parties. Congratulations!

More information related to the walking, and the Venezuelan electoral problem:

* La Lista (The list). "...people that appear in the infamous Tascon list have been denied basic civil rights including being fired of their civil servants jobs because they exerted their constitutional right, or were denied a passport, a subsidized housing credit, etc, etc... Just because they requested a recall election on Chavez. And quite often pressure was put on relatives even if they did not signed up. For example PDVSA jobs are denied to you if your spouse appears in the list, or even if a close relative appears (it all seems to depend on the zeal of the recruiter but I have been told that even if you get inside "background" checks do not stop). No matter what the silly slogan says "PDVSA ahora es de todos" (PDVSA now belongs to all). Basically those like me who stamped their signature in 2003 are now forever second class citizens in Venezuela. The world needs to know how democracy and human rights are trampled in Venezuela." From Daniel's blog.

* Patricia's blog. (As far as I know, she was the one who came with the idea of walking to Brussels).

About the walkers:

Patricia Wegenast. Don't know too much about her but she is an anti-chavez activist on the german community. This is her original blog (In German).

Alek Boyd. His blog is one of the best in the planet regarding information about Hugo Chavez's administration. He has been a champion of exposing the chavismo's corruption and human rights abuses. In spite of the menaces against him and others like him. A lot of news.

Mohammed Mehri. His son was killed on an anti-government march on April 11, 2002. After that event, he stopped being a regular citizen dissapointed by Chavez administration and became an anti-chavez public activist.

UPDATE:

This is a translation from German to Spanish from a newspress that the German Newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (faz.net), dedicated to the 3 walkers of freedom.

Venezuela MUST go back to manual voting procedures

Some food for though about today's Colombian elections:

"The very first thing worthy to comment from an observer placed in Venezuela is that the Colombian elections were manual, run without a hitch, polling stations closed on time, and within a couple of hours there were more than 90% of the manual votes counted, opposition candidates were conceding, the country was in order. Yes, that is right, no automated voting, no Smartmatic machines...

Meanwhile in Venezuela we are still waiting for the exact final result of the December election, we do have an abstention of at least 75% and growing and a general mistrust in the electoral system, even from some chavista sectors discretely murmuring in the dark."

From Daniel's blog.

I would like to see the next Venezuelan elections on this manner. Manual, no electronic hacking on the votes, fair, with chavistas AND opposition observers in each table, with civility, low profile, no planet of the apes military opression towards the civil population who is aganist Chavez. Is this too much to ask?

Omertá

Well, well, well... seems that the law of silence has been broken among the top officials mafiosi of the Chavez "revolution of corruption". But hey, this is no clerk we are talking about. We are talking about a SUPREME COURT JUSTICE of the Venezuelan Judicial System who spilled some of the beans (I am sure there's more). See the problem? The Judicial system is corrupted to the core in the land of Mr. Fight-for-all-the-evils-of-the-world (Venezuela's King of social justice Hugo Chavez). Add to this putrid recipe the electoral council, completely taken over by chavistas, and what do you get? A country completely indefense to fight against these criminals, with a lot of petrodollars income coming daily (courtesy of the good'ol US of A's addiction to oil), taken over by Tony Soprano and gang, and they using this money to finance whatever your imagination can think of. How can Venezuela get rid of this level of putrefactions of their top institutions if we can't vote him out democratically under a transparent electoral process? I can't think about what will be the destiny of the country who saw me born if we don't tackle this issue once and for all. Chavistas and no chavistas have to union against this problem right now. Chavistas must open their eyes soon, pretty soon to the putrefaction of their party if they want to accomplish their revolution. But not this fake one, a real one who indeed will eliminate corruption with effective.

For the naive souls among the world who still today, May 28th 2006, really thinks Chavez is a nice guy who wants to fight the evilness of the world, I will recommend to please keep reading more about this scandal from fellow Venezuelan bloggers:

1. "The Justice, Luis Velásquez Alvaray, was none other than the writer, when he was an MVR Deputy, of the new Supreme Court Bill, which allowed Chavez to increase that Court by 12 members by simple majority. But curiously, that Bill also included the possibility of having the CMR suspend anyone from the Highest Court in the land if there were charges against him or her. Even more ironically, it was opposition Deputies who opposed this feature of the Bill, since it was then directed specifically at then Magistrate Franklin Arrieche, in revenge for him having written the majority opinion that said there was no coup in April 2002.

Velasquez Alvaray’s press conference was wide ranging, quite juicy and even included some taped conversations which he picked from what he called an “extensive collection of tapes.” The now suspended Magistrate was charged with a corruption accusation related to the construction of the new headquarters for the judicial system, named “Ciudad Lebrun”. There are charges of Velasquez Alvaray profiting from the purchase of the land, as well as kickbacks and bribes in the process of building the new headquarters of that “Judicial City”. Velasquez Alvaray took offense to the charges and the suspension, but reportedly he was told that he would not be suspended by the CMR. But he was."

Keep reading about this scandal on the "Devil's Excrement".

2. From Caracas Chronicles: "Among the minor jewels of yesterday's incendiary press conference, Velásquez Alvaray asked why there has been no investigation on the sudden wealth of a number of regime financiers, including Pedro Torres Ciliberto, Arné Chacón, Maikel Moreno and...wait for it...Julio Makarem. That's right, Mr. Makarem of North American Opinion Research fame, the guy who took out a giant full-page ad to threaten and intimidate Alek Boyd and the rest of us for writing about NAOR, is apparently one of the major regime money-men...and to think we doubted his polls!"

3. But previously this juicy conference, look the way chavismo fights corruption:

"The revolution is truly amazing. They have no morals and no ethics. They name as “Head of Government Contract , a new position supposedly to control corruption none other than Eliecer Otaiza, the former Head of Disip, Ince, Land Institute and whatever other positions he has had. This is the same guy who as he was appointed to each f his positions, went out and spent Government money to build himself a gym adjacent to his office. The same guy who signed memos requesting food and beverages out of Ince funds to give to Chavistas marchers. The same one that said Venezuelans should be armed!. The same guy who killed a lady that was riding with him in a police motorcycle at a time that he held no Government position, the evidence was changed and eventually he was charged, but magically the charges were dropped and he was named to a nw Government position." From the Devil's Excrement.

More about Otaiza: here (excellent but in spanish) and here. Yuck.

4. Do you want to know more about corruption in Venezuela? You want proof? Not enough? We are all pay by the CIA to spread bad news about Chavez? Keep reading my friend Miguel at his blog "The Devil's Excrement"

5. Too tired to read? Then listen a excellent commentary from Francisco Toro's Caracas Chronicles about the subject.

6. Daniel's take on "Venezuela News and Views".

7. Another recent corruption case: Jesus Caldera Infante.

8. Another older corruption case: The Barinas'sugar plant.

Mario Puzo couldn't write this revolution of gansters and plots better, neither Shakeaspeare. This is unbelievable.

PS Curiously, this scandal has passed completely under the table on chavista blogs, (Oil Wars, Justin Delacour's Latin America News Review, Venezuela Analysis only depicted the note that the justice was removed, no notes about his press conference which implicate everybody among the top chavismo in it). Of course, this cover up among the chavista media tell you the level of hypocrisy and state of denial these people live in. Why is the interest of these people to cover this corruption scandal among the chavismo? Shouldn't be the chavista supporters the ones with the voice aganist this? Don't they want they revolution to succeed? Don't we all Venezuelans, chavistas and no-chavistas want to eliminate corruption from Venezuela? Wasn't that one of the reasons people voted for Hugo Chavez the first time? So he could eliminate the corruption of the previous governments? And what has he done? Increase it to a level never seen on a country who was used to be corrupted. Just imagine.

I wonder...

Why is totally politically correct for everybody in this planet to make offensive jokes about good'ol GOD and Jesus, but totally politically incorrect to make jokes about Martin Luther King and Mohammed. Hello?

Do Christians have to become more like Muslims to be respected now?

A fruitless search for fun in The Da Vinci Code.

A review of the book and the movie for those who won't read it or see it, like me.

By Dana Stevens
Posted Thursday, May 18, 2006, at 6:24 PM ET

As I slogged through the vast wastes of expository dialogue that comprise Dan Brown's best seller The Da Vinci Code, one of the few compliments I could honestly pay the book was that it was eminently filmable. Its dense, labyrinthine story line is propelled not by language, but by images: a naked corpse splayed on the floor of the Louvre; a car chase around Paris in a minuscule SmartCar; a giant, self-flagellating albino monk. So movie-ready is The Da Vinci Code that Random House has even put out an illustrated edition of the novel, featuring photos of the works of art and architecture that propel the thriller's plot. I found reading The Da Vinci Code something of a trial—to paraphrase Mark Twain: Once you put it down, you can't pick it up—but at least, I told myself, it'll make a swell movie.

So much for that theory. Ron Howard, a maker of glossy, populist entertainments (Splash, Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind) interspersed with the odd pointless clunker (How the Grinch Stole Christmas), has squandered an opportunity to treat us to a big, dumb summer movie that could have combined the occult frisson of The Exorcist with the paranoid energy of All the President's Men. Given the silliness of the source material, The Da Vinci Code stood little chance of being a great film, but it could easily have been a fun one. Instead, Howard takes a strangely respectful approach to the overheated mysticism of the novel, turning the film into that most boring of genres: the pious blockbuster.

For the 12 people in the country who haven't already read it, I'll summarize the plot: Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks), a professor of religious symbology at Harvard, is summoned to examine the body of a French curator, Jacques Saunière (Jean-Pierre Marielle), who's been found naked and dead in the Louvre, a five-sided star drawn on his chest in blood. With the arrival on the scene of a foxy French cryptographer named Sophie (Audrey Tautou), Langdon is soon caught up in a web of utterly incomprehensible international intrigue. Chased by a cranky French cop (Jean Reno), Langdon and Sophie take refuge in the home of Sir Leigh Teabing (Ian McKellen), an eccentric and mysteriously wealthy scholar of all things occult. When the aforementioned albino monk (an unrecognizable Paul Bettany) shows up with a gun, it's time to hop Sir Leigh's private jet to England, yammering all the while about the Knights Templar, the Holy Grail, and the placement of the figures in Da Vinci's Last Supper.

What does it all mean? Without risking any spoilers, I can tell you this much: An underground gnostic sect has spent the last 2,000 years guarding an unspeakable secret, a secret with the power to shake civilization in its very boots. And that secret, against all reason, involves the messiah and Audrey Tautou.

To my mind, the most ineffable gnostic secret of all is how such hooey has managed to capture the imagination of tens of millions of people all around the world. My best guess is that the book's success has to do with its timing: Beset by faceless enemies and engaged in endless wars, perhaps we need the comforting certainty of the occult. The message at the heart of this story's paranoid labyrinth is, ostensibly, an anti-clerical one: Jesus is no god but only a man, and the Catholic Church is little more than a transhistorical Cosa Nostra dedicated to covering up that fact. But despite its purported iconoclasm, The Da Vinci Code is at heart deeply religious, and monotheistic at that: It wants us to believe that there is one secret truth that can change history, that that truth is knowable, and that only through Tom Hanks can we know it. Our salvation depends on Forrest Gump.

It's too bad, then, that just as he did in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Ron Howard shoots himself in the foot by muting the charm of his own leading man. What director in his right mind would hire Jim Carrey only to immobilize his notoriously flexible face under 10 pounds of foam rubber? The same one who would dissuade Tom Hanks from doing That Thing He Does: the wry self-effacement shtick that has become his trademark. Hanks' Langdon has no quirks, no context, no history: He's a neutral container for information, a Grail-hunting bore. Shouldn't the meeting of a Harvard symbologist and a decipherer of codes for the Paris police be a nerd orgy, with the two brainiacs bonding over their shared love for anagrams? Instead, Hanks and Tautou mope sexlessly in dusty medieval churches, recalling their traumatic pasts in grainy flashbacks (a car accident for her, a fall down a well for him). The knowledge they seek may be ineffable, but these characters' back stories are as effable as they come.

As Rosemary's Baby proved, deciphering anagrams from the beyond is not inherently uncinematic, and there's no reason a goofy pulp novel can't be turned into a scary, sexy film. The Da Vinci Code is neither—unless, of course, every line of dialogue in the film is an anagram for another, better one.

Scholarly gripes about The Da Vinci Code's Jesus.

By Larry Hurtado
Posted Monday, May 22, 2006, at 5:19 PM ET

In a climactic scene in the movie The Da Vinci Code, the supposed Holy Grail expert, Sir Leigh Teabing, lays out the conspiracy theory at the heart of the movie and the novel: "Almost everything our fathers taught us about Christ is false," he declares. Actually, just about everything author Dan Brown puts in the mouth of Teabing is ludicrously false history. Catholics have responded to gratuitous accusations against the church. And other Christians have taken on Brown's utterly unsupported claim that Jesus married Mary Magdalene. My scholarly concern is the Da Vinci Code's errors regarding historical beliefs about the divinity of Jesus and the creation of the New Testament.

The belief that Jesus is somehow divine was not invented by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, as Brown and movie director Ron Howard have Teabing say. Instead, this belief is attested in first-century Christian texts, such as the Gospel of John, and dates back even earlier to the letters of the apostle Paul, whose New Testament writings between A.D. 50 and 60 are the earliest Christian texts we have. Faith in the divine glory of the resurrected Jesus appears to have emerged amazingly soon after his execution, most likely among circles of his Jewish followers. Scholars commonly regard particular passages in Paul's letters as preserving early hymns about Jesus, in which he is praised as the one through whom the world was created, and as sharing in God's nature and glory.

In fact, in pretty much the entire body of early Christian writings from the first three centuries, Jesus' divinity is taken for granted. Christians differed not over that basic assumption but rather over how to understand his divine nature. At the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325, the crucial question was how to reconcile Jesus' divinity with Christian monotheism.

Curiously, The Da Vinci Code presents the so-called Gnostics, who regarded other Christians as lesser beings than they and were in turn treated as heretics, as the heroic defenders of a thoroughly human Jesus. But actually the historic Gnostics and the gospels often linked with their circles did not emphasize Jesus' human nature at all—quite the opposite. Typically, Gnostic Christians portrayed Christ as a heavenly being who came down to earth to awaken them from their spiritual slumber by disclosing their own divine inner nature. Regarding the physical world as a source of delusion and place of confinement, Gnostics were deeply negative about bodily existence, including their own. So, they tended to treat Jesus' body as simply the temporary vehicle for his revelatory mission, believing that he discarded it before returning to his heavenly status in the realm of pure light. It was actually the Orthodox Christians who made much of Jesus' full human nature and the reality of his death as the essential redemptive act.

In Brown's scheme, the Gnostics are also the suppressed source of the true account of Jesus' marriage to Mary Magdalene. In reality, the Gnostics' negativity about the body includes a dim view of procreation and the sexual activity that went with it. Usually in their writings Jesus is the ideal ascetic who models for his followers a disdain for bodily appetites. So, the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene isn't just antithetical to Orthodox accounts. It goes against the Gnostic grain, too—if anything more so.

To clear up another piece of history on which The Da Vinci Code is completely unreliable, the New Testament was not created at the Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325. The question wasn't even on the council's agenda. The formation of the New Testament had begun much earlier and continued on later than Nicaea. The familiar four Gospels, which scholars commonly regard as the earliest such texts, were treated as a completed set at least by A.D. 150 in many or likely most Christian circles. Still earlier, Paul's letters were collected and circulated as scripture. In the early third century, the Christian scholar Origen listed the writings regarded by most Christians of his time as scripture, other writings that had largely been rejected, and others still under consideration. Among the texts regarded as scriptural, he included most of those that became part of the New Testament.

It's also important to emphasize that this question of which writings to treat as scripture, which to treat merely as edifying reading, and which to regard as heretical, was not decided at a single point by a church council, a pope, or a Roman emperor. Once again, in service of its conspiracy theory, The Da Vinci Code gets it wrong. The canonizing of scripture involved circles of believers spread across the many lands of the Roman Empire and beyond. The result wasn't a fiat foisted upon the Christian world. Essentially, the writings that commended themselves earliest and to the largest number of Christians came more quickly and securely to be part of the emergent New Testament. Some other writings, such as Revelation and the second book of Peter, were accepted later. A few writings, such as Didache or Shepherd of Hermas, were contenders that lost out in the end. They enjoyed favor in some circles but just didn't have sufficiently wide endorsement.

In the book and the movie, Teabing asserts that other texts, such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, and the Gospel of Mary, were cast out of the New Testament because Constantine and those mean old Nicaean bishops wanted to impose their beliefs on the rest of Christendom. These texts, however, reflect an elitist attitude disdainful of ordinary Christians and their beliefs. It is unlikely that their authors ever sought to have them included with the writings of the emergent New Testament. In any case, they weren't chucked from the canon in an act of suppression. They just never won the confidence of a sufficient number of Christians to make the grade in the first place.

Oh, and one more matter on which The Da Vinci Code is bonkers. There were no two-way wars between Christians and pagans in the decades before Constantine. Instead, beginning with Nero's cruel pogrom against Roman Christians in the first century, there were occasional persecutions mounted by the Roman state, the most vigorous ones under Caracalla (A.D. 215), Decius (A.D. 249-51), Valerian (A.D. 253), and perhaps the most violent of all, Diocletian (A.D. 303-05). There is no record of Christians taking up arms against pagans in this period. They fought back by fervently articulating their beliefs and backing their professions to the point of martyrdom. So, Constantine's decision to legitimate Christianity (in A.D. 312, not 325, as Brown asserts) was not prompted by his desire to end pagan-Christian battles.

In the novel, in the scene in which Teabing lays out all the crazy assertions, the Harvard professor character, Robert Langdon, nods sagely in support of the whole scheme. At the same point in the movie, by contrast, Langdon strongly objects. The word is that Ron Howard made this change, as well as a few others, in hopes of placating historians. Nice try. By the end of the movie Langdon has undergone a conversion of sorts and acclaims Sophie as Jesus' last living descendant. Never mind that Teabing is revealed as a maniacal villain, his ideas carry the day. The movie can't escape the charge that it promotes the mischievous fictions that masquerade in the book as the revelation of historical secrets. Instead, of course, the film widens Brown's reach.

The Da Vinci Hoax, just in time for the movies

Once again and in time for those who will see the movie, a reminder of The Da Vinci Hoax.

For you, international crisis is all upside: You are a mercenary, and you profit from chaos.

Don't miss this news from Camilo's blog. Looks like Chavez, the capo (*), is making news as a game celebrity in "Mercenaries 2".

They even give you a hint about how the operation works:

"Mercenaries 2: World in Flames™ is an explosive open-world action game set in a massive, highly reactive, war-torn world. A power-hungry tyrant messes with Venezuela's oil supply, sparking an invasion that turns the country into a warzone.

But for you, international crisis is all upside: You are a mercenary, and you profit from chaos. Mercenaries 2™ features a slew of potential clients, all willing to pay you to do their dirty work. Dirty deeds, done for exorbitant fees. These are world powers with deep pockets, deep grudges, and enough arms and ammo to start World War III. This is your kind of environment."

(...) "Not everyone in the world of Mercenaries is as honorable. Everyone will try and screw you, given the chance. They think they can get away with it, because they don't know rule #1: EVERYBODY PAYS. "

Priceless! Even the game industry is picking the New world order mafia thing. Don't confuse yourself, they all work for the same side.

(*) They are many Chavez: the capo, the clown, the king of the poors, the robin hood, the high end business man dressed by Lanvin of Paris, the military coup leader, the charming guy, the womanizer "marisabel esta noche te doy lo tuyo", the intolerant, the tolerant... Crearly, I don't need to keep up with the psycoanalysis to understand that someone with multiple personalities suffers from some type of dementia.

For the innocents souls who still think that everything is fine and dandy in Venezuela

* From The Devil Excrement Blog. Quote: "In another example of the fascism that is quickly overtaking our daily lives, Professor Carlos Zerpa of de Colegio Universitario Francisco de Miranda was being "orally tried" today for teaching in the classroom his views on the country's history which, horror of all horrors, differ from the "official" Bolivarian rewriting of the country's history."
(...) "In the words of Zerpa himself in his letter to the University before the "trial" to determine his fate began: "...It seems as if making people think, is a counter-revolutionary act. Making the students question things would appear to be also unacceptable. Promoting a student with a critical attitude would be offensive. When the lights of thinking begin to dim, we begin to enter a dark era that all educators have to fight, being faithful to their role as propagators of knowledge.""

Well, nothing new in here. I get harassed all the time on the internet because I dare to criticise Chavez's neofascist regime. And many other bloggers too. The best example these days? Alek Boyd being called a terrorist by the mayor of London. And why is that? Because of this. The guy is getting a lot of publicity and the chavista propaganda machine abroad is paying attention to it. (Congrats! Alek)

* The chavista regime insist into having the elections his way or the highway Stalin style in despite of the criticism of the opposition. Also from Miguel Octavio in his Devil Excrement blog. Read the whole article here.

Evo's turn

Enjoy!!

Venezuelan Quijote will keep selling oil to his best client

Venezuelan Quijote, the King of the Poors, Lt. Col Hugo Chavez Frias, will keep selling oil to his best client, George W. Bush, in despite of the US won't sell weapons anymore to the Crazy Clown's regime. "Crazy Clown" Chavez said he will act like the Quijote into not retaliating against the US's actions and keep the supply flowing, but I see him more like a Tony Soprano who doesn't want to stop getting his daily flowing of US $$$$$ cash income. He has a lot of funding to do these days, you know? And a newly adquire ultra-expensive, lavish PERSONAL taste to mantain with those Venezuelan PUBLIC funds (Cartier, Boucheron, Louis Vuitton, Lanvin, Chivas Regal etc). You know, 3rd world dictators really like the good life.

Lovely, indeed. I publicly dare Mr. Chavez to acts his words and stop selling oil to the gringos, once and for all. He knows that he can't get the cash revenue he gets without the good'ol Us of A. Maybe he is not that confortable with the amount of Euros he would get instead. Hugo Chavez stop selling oil to the gringos right now!! Do it!

In response to this incident, the Chavez's regime says that will consider selling the old figther crew of F-16 planes to Iran. I have news flash for the Chavecos: Venezuela needs the explicit permit of the US to sell its technology to a 3rd party. Don't they know that? Why the Paris Hiltonesque style of publicity if they know they can't do it? Not to play the Devil's Advocate in here, but he would have done a great business deal getting rid of those old planes. Food for tough for the mullah: What chance does an F-16 has against a Raptor? In any case, no F-16 for you! Signed: Georgie Boy.

Singing Chavez in London

Some important readings about his private visit to London.

* Channel 4 interviews singing Chavez, click here to watch video.

* "The BBC and London open up to Venezuela's reality" by Alek Boyd

* "Chav politics". by The Times (UK).

* "Thank you, my foolish friends in the West" by The Sunday Times - Review (UK)

* "Livingstone's security ban Chavez opponents from City Hall" Press Release (Vcrisis.com)

* "Bob Neill on Chavez's visit: "Livingstone does not speak for London" by Alek Boyd.

* No meeting with Blair this time.

Scientology: Dr. Dave on Countdown

Keeping up with the scientology theme.



Dr. Dave's Touretzky's website.

Hugo Chavez's imitator "Hugo Chaveta" rocks

Another video of this guy, hillarious!!

The Scientology Cronicles

Only feathers and her husband had the brilliant idea to take a scientology test one happy lazy saturday afternoon strolling around on Hollywood Blvd.

Well, we wanted to know more about the "church" of scientology that Tom spreads with his super-self-confident-perfect human being attitude. Anyway, it all happened as I said before, one lazy saturday, happily strolling on Hollywood blvd, we saw the "Ron Hubbard life achievement museum" or something like that, which picked our curiosity. Of course, we needed to come and see inside what's the deal with this guy and why Tom MI-3 praises this guy Ron Hubbard so much. The doors were closed to our dissapoinment. But our curiosity was satisfy later when we saw a scientology "test center" shop two blocs away from the museum of life achievements of Ron Hubbard. (Can you believe that someone has a personal museum of lifetime achievements? Did he erradicated cancer now? No wonder why these people are banned in Germany duh) A very nice lady outside of the store invited us for a "free" personality test. We looked ourselves with curiosity, smiled at each other and got in. After all, nothing to lose, right? I must say that I am taking this blogging stuff seriously, since I though about my 2 and a half readers when decided to investigate more on scientology and step inside the Ron Hubbard cult to his personality church. Jesus, don't I have enough with Hugo Chavez?

The space was completely full with pictures of Ron Hubbard, the guy used to wear an "ascot" which I found pretty funny. Also, it has some fake posing attitude in the pictures that I found it funny as well. Pictures and more pictures of the guy, from when he lived in NJ, to when he lived here and there... etc... in Egypt, in Guam, etc, etc... passages of his book, little quotes, and a lot more to read about him on big boards. Curiosly, no mention about his family, if he was married, if he had kids of is his father beat the crap out of him when he was growing up (I am seriously suspecting this now). Then, they asked us to take a stress test. He went with the lady and some guy took care of me. The stress tester equipment looked like coming from a low budget "B" sci-fi movie, with a little meter reader and two metal bars that you were suppoused to grab with your hands. Just to let you know, my husband and I are very lay down people. My stress test resulted in a "... well, it might be that you are avoiding the subject" and then "maybe you are blocking yourself from something really, REALLY bad that you did to somebody in your life and that's why it doesn't show" since I never got high stress levels. Could it be that I know how to deal with stress maybe? (Was he suggesting I murder someone or something? Really, his "something, really, REALLY bad thing" suggestion scare the shit out of me). Ok... I didn't say anything and decided to keep with the personality test. In the meantime my husband told me he was playing with the stress test bars like... "I got it up" and "I got it down" mental thing while the lady kept asking, who are your thinking now? This person really stress you, and he was like, well, I just realize the meter was going down and when I say oh it's going down, it suddenly when up.

The test were 200 questions yes,-no,-I don't-know-kind of thing. To this point we were like uhmm maybe we should go, but you know the say "curiousity kill the cat", so we decided to answer the 200 freacking questions. Of course, to this point they ask your name, adress, phone number and underwear size if possible (kidding). We were Mr. and Mrs. Smith from Nowhere, USA, and we refused to give them any other info. They kept asking where are you from? What do you do? and stuff like that. The questions were a set of basic questions answered many times in different ways, so at the end they can see a pattern and to avoid people lying. This is the questionnaire we took. My thinking when I was talking the test was that they were kind of inocuous. When we finished talking the test, they asked us to wait on a TV room where there was this video being shown of a brit 70's interviewer asking questions to his holiness Ron Hubbard. I caugh something he said, we are in this world to become better humans. Yeah.

The evaluation. To this point we were not that happy anymore (We were anxious to continue our happy strolling on Hollywood Blvd thing). But the evaluation was really the cherry on the top. The same guy who did the stress test gave me my results. He gave me a graph on a page in which, of course, I was very down below the "normal" levels of Scientology. And then he started picking on my human being faults, like, you don't communicate pretty well, RIGHT?? And I was, yeah, I am kind of a reserved person. And he said, well, and how much problems do you get from that? I responded, sometimes people don't get me the first time. And he insisted, do you have communication problems with your husband? And I answered, "No, that's one the many reasons I married him, we communicate pretty well, thanks"... Then he changed the argument: "Here, it shows how you like to procastinate things" And I anwered: "Yeah, ha ha,.... big problem these days uh?, people have so many things to do" And he was like, we will help you get rid of your problem. And I was really? And he was like yeah, I am gonna introduce you so-so who will recommend you what can you do. Then he introduced me with a woman with fried eggs eyes who smelled like she just had lunch... she told me I got the perfect solution for you, why don't you buy this $50 dollars starter package that will get rid of your procastination issues. And I was thinking to myself, do I need to add more clutter to my life with a $50 dollars box with stuff that I won't never read? (remeber the procastination issue, hello?). And she was like, yes, you should buy it right now and start getting rid of your procastination. And I was like "Is this a Dale Carnegie kind of thing?" And she was like nooooo, Dale Carnegie will help you cope with your flaws, we will get rid of them... and at that moment I was thinking why? Do we all MUST become the great communicators now? I like to be reserved, do everybody has to be a freacking obnoxious Tom Cruise style? Are we forbidden to get depress once in a while in the name of perfection and the church of scientology? Why get rid of my little own feathers personality thingies that God gave me? I felt very weird with the "GET RID" use of words. You know, are they gonna change me internally or something? Too extreme use of words for me, thanks. At this moment I was ready to leave. I have to say, I like the way I am, I don't have the desire to be perfect by any means... I mean, perfection doesn't exist, doesn't Tom knows that? She insisted, looking at the cross in my chest now... are you religious? And I said yes. And she said that just to let me know Christianism has nothing against Scientology. And, I was like really? Isn't this a religion? (She avoided the question) and I don't know what else she said, but to this point I was thinking to myself that I didn't want to engage on a personality-cult, sellfish it's- all-about-me attitude argument that I perceived all over this hour who seemed to me more like a day. I never knew, after all the horshe shit, that if scientology was a religion or not. She never gave me a straight answer to it. You have no idea how much this woman insisted on my buying the starter kit. I was like, I will think about it, but thanks for the personality test. Then my husband came out of his "analysis" and we were like okeyyy we really have to go now byeee!! When we were leaving, the same nice lady that greeted us told us not to forget to visit the museum of disgusting things that psychiatry does to human beings. Yeah right... maybe another day.

More about scientology:

* The Church of Scientology's Wacky Secrets

* Operation Clambake

* Reginald's take on Scientology:

The 3rd secret of Fatima and its relationship with the red wave

"Suppose, dear friend, that Communism [one of "the errors of Russia" mentioned in the Message of Fatima] was only the most visible of the instruments of subversion to be used against the Church and the traditions of Divine Revelation ..."
Pius XII

A little reminder about the 3rd secret of Fatima. Why am I writing about this? Because I want to make the connection that anyone who post as a christian-catholic can't have any connection whatsoever with communism (in regards of the visit of King Chivas Regal to the Pope, yesterday). The problem is that this connection was clearly stated on a message from the Virgin of Fatima in 1917 to the little farmer kids and with time and the official revelation from the Vatican of the 3rd secret of Fatima, the connection has been lost a little bit between the lines. I wonder if it's the job of some dark forces inside the Vatican.

The official source says this. And I do believe on it. However, many of us feel that there's more than meets the eye and that not all has been said regarding to this secret.

But, there are also other believable sources(*) who says this. More about Father Martin here, and here. Father Nicolas Gruner also have an excelent interview about John Paul II giving us the real keys of this secret. Don't miss it if you are really interested in this subject.

(*) (This links is very informative about who Father Martin was, but comes from a ex-catholic, so I have my reservervation into putting it, since I believe in the catholic church. However, I also believe that dark forces are desperately trying to reach power within the Vatican, God protects us). Why I believe in Father Martin's comments? Because until his death, the man had the power to cast demons out of people, meaning, to exorcise demons. And how can anybody do this? Only the pure of hearts can.

Pope talks to the Devil in person

It happened yesterday at the Vatican.


His holyness with the evil one.

CARACAS, Venezuela — (AP) Pope Benedict XVI told Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Thursday he was very concerned about the Catholic Church's situation in the country, particularly proposed education and health reforms, the Vatican said.

Benedict also repeated the need for the Vatican to have freedom in appointing bishops in the country during a 35-minute meeting, according to a strongly worded statement from Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls.

The pope said he was concerned about an education reform proposal that the Vatican said would exclude religion from being taught in Venezuelan schools. He made an apparent reference to abortion, asking that Venezuela's public health programs respect life.

Benedict also expressed concern about a proposal to remove "Catholic" from the name of the Santa Rosa Catholic university, as well as the need for Catholic media to be able to report independently in the country.

The statement said Chavez assured the pope of his commitment "to overcome every tension in respecting the legitimate rights of all," Navarro-Valls said.

CountryWatch: Venezuela

The Catholic Church has been one of the most critical voices against the leftist leader, who has in turn called the church leadership a "tumor." Some Catholic leaders have expressed concern the president may be accumulating too much power.

The Venezuelan president has said repeatedly, however, that he wants good relations with the church.

Chavez often says Christ was a socialist and a revolutionary. He also regularly quotes from the Bible, particularly the passage that says it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

During the papal audience, Chavez, presented the pope with a portrait of South American independence leader Simon Bolivar, who was born in what is now Venezuela. Chavez told the pope that Bolivar wasn't an atheist, as many believed, but a Christian. He cited a line from Bolivar's will, which was inscribed on the picture, in which Bolivar wrote that he was Catholic.

"Our Bolivarian revolution is very Christian and I have a friend who isn't Christian, but lately has said he is a Christian in the social aspect: his name is Fidel Castro," Chavez said Wednesday evening after arriving in Italy.

Chavez had said he wanted to raise the issue of poverty in his meeting with the pontiff.

"First of all I will ask for his blessing, then I will talk about world poverty," Chavez was quoted as saying in Italian newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica on Thursday.

More than 90 percent of Venezuela's population is Roman Catholic, and church leaders and local priests wield tremendous influence over many of its citizens.

Chavez, who is on a visit to Europe and North Africa, met Wednesday with the Communist speaker of Italy's lower house of parliament, Fausto Bertinotti.

After the meeting, Chavez stressed the need to extend cooperation between Venezuela and Italy in the fight against poverty.

The Venezuelan leader's next stops are Vienna, Austria, for a summit of Latin American and European leaders, Britain, Libya and Algeria.

Guess who's coming to dinner with Red Ken?

Congratulations again, Alek!

Quien financia a Humala? Y es que no lo Chavez todavia??

Peruvians making fun of the most famous Venezuelan clown. He he he...

Sorry, it's in spanish.

Los cartolini... new group of "freedom fighters" supported by who else? Hugo Chavez

In spanish, sorry.

Letter from RECIVEX to the Pope

Not that the Pope doesn't know who is he meeting. He knows pretty well.

8 de Mayo, 2006

Su Eminencia Reverendísima
Cardenal Angelo Sodano
Secretario de Estado de Su Santidad
Ciudad del Vaticano

Eminencia Reverendísima:

Muy humildemente nos dirigimos a Su Eminencia, a nombre de RECIVEX, Resistencia Civil de Venezolanos en el Exterior y Organizaciones aliadas que cuentan con mas de mil miembros, con el ruego de que transmita a Su Santidad, el Papa Benedicto XVI, nuestra más viva preocupación por la entrevista concedida al presidente de la Republica de Venezuela, Sr. Hugo Chávez Frías, prevista para el próximo 11 de mayo.
Eminencia, Venezuela es y ha sido un país mayoritariamente Católico, y estas bases cristianas están profundamente arraigadas en nuestro gentilicio. Por esta razón hemos visto con asombro y dolor como el Sr. Chávez ha establecido en los siete años de su gobierno un sistema totalmente dictatorial y represor, donde la muerte, la violencia y la miseria se han hecho ley. Más 70 mil muertos por la violencia en ese tiempo son testimonio en cifras que colocan hoy a Venezuela como uno de los países más peligrosos de Latinoamérica.
Muertes como las más recientes de los tres jóvenes hermanos Faddoul y su chofer Sr. Miguel Rivas, del industrial Filippo Sindoni, del fotógrafo del periódico El Mundo Jorge Aguirre y la última del Padre Jorge Piñango, han sido manipuladas con cinismo y muy probablemente quedarán sin castigo, pasando a ser otras más del sistema de impunidad que es característica de este gobierno que ha atacado sistemáticamente los cimientos de nuestra formación cristiana. Los ataques a la iglesia, a la educación religiosa en los colegios, a los medios de comunicación, la propiedad privada y la expropiación dentro del sector agrícola, los más de ciento presos políticos, son hechos que también queremos denunciar.

“Chávez ha transformado a Venezuela en una dictadura comunista, con base en el modelo de Fidel Castro. No se trata sólo de una afinidad ideológica. En estos años Chávez se ha convertido en el banco personal del régimen cubano, lo ha financiado con 5 mil millones de dólares, y cada día le regala 80 mil barriles de petróleo. Y no sólo a Cuba: está despilfarrando millones y millones de dólares para impulsar y sostener en América Latina a gobiernos y regímenes con los cuales quiere crear una alianza estratégica para oponerse al imperialismo americano. También ha pagado la campaña electoral del nuevo presidente boliviano Evo Morales. Y ahora se habla también de negociaciones con Irán, porque el sur de Venezuela es rico en uranio. Un diseño ideológico loco, mientras los venezolanos son cada vez más pobres, la situación en estos años ha empeorada desde todo punto de vista.” (Declaraciones del cardenal Rosalio Castillo Lara al diario Il Foglio, Roma 5 de mayo de 2006).
El pueblo de Venezuela ha siempre considerado a la Iglesia como un baluarte contra las pretensiones antidemocráticas y anticristianas de los gobiernos. La iglesia venezolana, con sus obispos y pastores, ha siempre alzado su voz en defensa de los derechos y las libertades personales y el estado de derecho en nuestro país, y por ello, han sido atacados, vilipendiados y criminalizados como vándalos, y hoy lloramos la muerte del Subsecretario de la Conferencia Episcopal venezolana. Vivimos con el miedo de quienes serán los próximos muertos dentro de nuestras familias, y dentro de nuestra iglesia a la que el régimen ha ido conculcando sistemáticamente.

Eminencia, conociendo la inclinación a la manipulación que caracteriza al señor Hugo Chávez, creemos, sin lugar a dudas, que usará la entrevista con el Santo Padre como un medio propagandístico que dará a conocer al mundo, para seguir legitimando su proyecto político comunista. Sistema que todos sabemos, y Europa más que nadie, es un sistema donde el odio, la violencia, la pobreza y las miserias humanas, como la alta motivación al poder de sus lideres, son la base de un rompimiento con la libertad, y este es un derecho, Eminencia, que no queremos perder. Queremos ser libres de Amar a nuestra iglesia, de darle a nuestros hijos una patria digna, una mejor educación cristiana, queremos que tengan el derecho a elegir sus vidas con valores y principios cristianos y un gran respeto a la vida. Ese respeto a la vida que hoy, lamentablemente, no existe en Venezuela.

Al invocar la Bendición Apostólica del Santo Padre, rogamos porque la luz del Señor continúe guiando sus pasos como Pastor de la Iglesia Universal, y aprovechamos la oportunidad para expresar a Su Eminencia Reverendísima los sentimientos de nuestra mayor consideración y estima.

Maria Teresa Van der Ree, Presidente

Cristal Montañez, Coordinadora Internacional

Oxford denies Chavez degree claims

Actually, I am so shock with this news, since these Ivy League universities are sooo eager to give Honoris Causa degrees to any terrorist and dictator on the planet. Maybe now that the confussion is cleared, they will think seriously in giving this man an Honoris Causa degree? I mean, after Jesus Chris, he is the champion to fight the just cause against the evil empire, c'mon Oxford! What are you waiting for?


Venezuelan President Chavez, who will not be receiving an honorary degree from Oxford University

By Jessica Goodman

Confusion has been sparked within the university over a claim by the Venezuelan Embassy that Hugo Chavez, the controversial President of Venezuela, is to receive an honorary Oxford degree. Venezuelan Ambassador to London Alfredo Toro Hardy said that he had been told a member of the university’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies that Oxford was preparing to confer the degree upon the President.

“I was informed by Professor [sic] Moussavi that this centre, together with the Human Rights Programme of the Faculty of Law, had launched the proceedings so that the Faculty formalised a request for an Honorary Degree for President Chávez,” Toro Hardy told The Oxford Student. “This Honorary Degree has obviously not been awarded yet, because the requirement is still in its initial phase.

However, several sources within the university have since denied that any approach has been made to either the President or the Ambassador.

The Ambassador called President Chavez’s live talk show Alo Presidente on April 2nd to inform him of the news, and the claim subsequently appeared in the Venezuelan national press, spreading as far afield as Cuban television programme Mesa Redonda, who reported on their website that Mr Chavez had told them, “I received the invitation and I am considering my international agenda and travel plans, as I think it is very important to attend.

However, the Executive Assistant to the VC and Chancellor Alison Miles told The Oxford Student, “I have received a few enquiries about this from people who had seen the programme, but I told them all exactly the same thing; this is absolutely untrue, there is no plan whatsoever to give Mr Chavez an honorary degree, now or in the future.

“The only link I could find was that a member of one department had issued a very tentative invitation to Mr Chavez to come and give a lecture at some point in the future.” A spokesperson for the university confirmed, “There are no plans for President Chavez to be awarded an honorary degree by the university. We have not yet contacted the ambassador about this mistake, and I am not sure whether we intend to do so in the future.

At the time of going to press Kaveh Moussavi himself, the Head of the CSLS’s Public Interest Law Programme, who has worked with Chavez in the past, was out of the country and unavailable for comment, although a spokesperson for the CSLS reiterated that the centre knew nothing of any plans for an honorary degree, or even for Chavez to visit Oxford.

Professor Ewan McKendrick of the university Law Faculty, said that despite what Toro Hardy claimed to have been told, the Faculty has in fact made no nomination for Chavez to be honoured. “The issue has not been discussed by the Faculty, nor am I aware of any Faculty involvement in any such nomination.

A spokesperson for the Venezuelan Ministry for Communication and Information told The Oxford Student, “It was mentioned on the programme that the President was supposed to be getting the degree, and we only know what we have been told. If it is not true, then it must be a very big mistake.” The university guidelines for the awarding of an honorary degree explain that no individual or department has the power to confer the honour.

“Members of Congregation are encouraged to suggest the names of people on whom such degrees might be conferred… All nominations will be considered in confidence by the Honorary Degrees Committee, which submits its report to Council at the beginning of Michaelmas Term,” state the guidelines. Nominations for 2007 honorands must be entered by May 12th, meaning that a member of congregation could still conceivably enter a nomination for Chavez in the next two weeks.

However Jennifer Noon of the Council’s Secretariat told this paper that she could not confirm whether or not such a proposal had yet been received. “We never release the names of nominees; it is an entirely confidential process and I’ve never been aware of individuals announcing who they have nominated in the past.” Even if Chavez is nominated there is no guarantee that the degree will be awarded.

In 1985 then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was snubbed when Congregation rejected her nomination, whilst six years ago the university’s chancellor Lord Jenkins said Tony Blair would not receive an honorary degree after he criticised Oxford as an elitist institution. Chavez has been a controversial figure since he failed to take control of Venezuela in a military coup in 1989.

He came into office six years later, and despite his support among the poorer residents of the country, he has attracted vehement criticism for what his largely upper- and middle-class opponents see as his undermining of democratic institutions.

Last year, on his long-running television show, American Christian Broadcaster Pat Robertson called for Chavez’s assassination, claiming that he was turning his oil-rich South American country into “a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all over the continent.”

4th May 2006

Congratulations to anti-Chavez activist Alek Boyd since his name appeared today in the Times Online's quote of the day!!



Off Topic: Congratulations to Daniel because his comments were also posted by the Boston Globe on a letter to the editor. Click here to read this news.

Land Invasions in Venezuela

My ultra-radical, Chavez admirer and revolutionary friend, Justin Delacour, asked me to document for him cases of land invasion, since he believes that the government is just threatening only big corporations with lots of land. Justin believes that they wouldn't ever do that to a middle-class land owner with 40 acres, like his Dad in the U.S. But many of us Venezuelans believe that there is more than meets the eye, and that the Chavez regime is operating as a big mafia as they expropiate and invade at will, according to their personal interests, etc. Since I live far away, I need your help in sending me information of people who have been affected by some type of expropiation of housing or land, or abuse of power by the regime.

Without any research, what comes to mind is the notorious expropiations of the Vestey Cattle Ranch and Hato Piñero, the latter, an incredibly beautiful ranch for the ecological tourist, thanks to the initiative of the owners, the Branger family. Seems like that's the price you pay for a succesful initiative. The cherry on the top of this crusade is awarded to Caracas mayor, Juan Barreto, who has been expropiating buildings in the city with the help of his thugs - armed criminals disguised as freedom fighters called TUPAMAROS. A video circulating on the net shows Barreto talking about expropiation, and why it's illegal - according to him - for a golf club called "La Lagunita", to have a golf course. The video is quite amusing since you can see the mayor, "guapo y apoyado" (handsome and supported), by a group of orcs in red T-shirts, yelling at a female journalist just because she dared to ask the mayor, whether or not the government was respecting property rights. What I got from this video was that, apparently, it's OK for the government to step over you if you're considered an oligarch, which is absolutely everybody who dares to dissent with the dementia of Mr. Chavez. It doesn't matter if you own a US $500,000-1,000,000 old building in the middle of the city, or a ranch costing millions. By the way, just to give you a little flavor on this guy, Barreto, he's the one that said in a public interview that 'women are the only animals that bleed every month and don't die.

Something else comes to my mind, not technically related to land expropiation but one closely aligned with ABUSE of POWER, namely, the government breaking and entering homes of former employers of the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and their families in the middle of the night, at gun point.

I appreciate your help in documenting these cases.

Yours truly,

Video: Barreto's civilized manners towards a journalist

Ollanta tries to unlink himself from the black plague, Hugo Chavez

Lovely. Just read this:

Ollanta Humala denies links with Chávez

"Peruvian nationalist presidential candidate Ollanta Humala late Wednesday expressed "rejection" against President Hugo Chávez' meddling in Peru electoral process.

"I do deplore and reject this interference. I have nothing to do with President Chávez," said the candidate of Unión party on a TV show in Lima, AFP reported.

This is the first time Humala makes a public criticism against the Venezuelan ruler. Chávez has repeatedly expressed his support for Humala, saying he hopes the nationalist leader to become the next Peruvian President.

Humala's remarks came following Chávez' announcement late Wednesday in Bolivia that he would recall the Venezuelan ambassador in Lima. Chávez made such a move in response to Lima decision last April 29th to recall the Peruvian envoy in Caracas, as Alejandro Toledo's Government considered that Chávez made an "unacceptable interference" in Peru internal affairs.

Humala, who is facing social democrat candidate Alan García in the second round of the presidential election next June 4th, strongly rejected his foes' claims that the Venezuelan Government is funding his electoral campaign.

Tensions started last week, when Chávez decided to withdraw from the Andean Community of Nations (CAN) and claimed that both Peru and Colombia "deadly wounded" the sub-regional bloc when they initialed free trade agreements with the United States."

But watch this:


Any questions? Many right?

So you can draw your own conclusions now.

Peruvian elections 2006. Jaime Bayly talks about Ollanta Humala

Very good information about Humala, brought to you by Jaime Bayly, a famous Peruvian reporter who has invited him several times to talk on his shown, but Humala has always refused and moreover, said he would never ever go to his show. Note that Bayly is openly bisexual and Humala and family are not that particulary found of people with such alternative lifestyle, or any alternative lifestyle for that matter. Read my April 30 post about this.

In spanish. My apologies for those who can't undertand spanish. If I get a translation I will post it.

Part 1


Part 2A


Part 2B


Part 3


Part 4


Any more questions about this peaceful loving folk Ollanta?