I just hope the boys from Langley get it right when they oust this guy again.
Their TV stations there would have Chavez on live in a little box proclaiming, for instance, that the strike efforts were a failure, hoax and non-existant and the big picture would be a live roving camera going down the street showing just the opposite. It was really comical, if the stakes were not so grave. Or, he'd be saying only some local Caracas disruptions were happening, but the rest of the country was fine, and then the shots from elsewhere around the country showed him to be lieing again. Or, last week, that the petro strike wasn't affecting gas supplies in the country and that most every gas station was open, and there would be the cameras again showing it wasn't so. They do that all the time to him, it's so easy, he opens his mouth and the video rolls and shows the truth. In fact, one TV station in Caracas I'd watch has a regular nightly comedy section as the final segment of their news report called "Chavez vs Chavez" with Rocky movie theme music for the background as they show one clip of Chavez from the past making some declaration and then another, very recent, clip that is in direct contradiction to his earlier pronouncements.
His lies and deceptions have caught up to him and his active/vocal support has largely shrunk to only those with a vested interest in his power maintaining theirs or they are paid or bused or given free beer/food to come to his rallys. The second day of the strike the media there got a copy of the MVR notice that went out telling all the local party chieftans to send X number of drivers to Caracas to drive around town all day to make the traffic look normal to lesson the appearance that the strike was really happening! TV stations even interviewed some of the hired drivers from out of town that were being paid a couple bucks to drive around all day! This is the kind of stuff that goes on down there, but there are so many now against Chavez that inevitably somebody from inside catches wind of these type shenanigans and blows the whistle to the press.
It's amazing and only the USA media still parrots his and his supporters pronouncements without showing this dislocation from reality. Sentiment is very lopsided towards Anti-Chavez and contains a large cross-section of the culture there. This is not an evenly split respectable difference of opinion. It's a no-rules, anything goes, Chavez eager not to have his dynasty evaporate in the glare of reality. It's also why the opponets of his are not eager for another election, they know he'd cheat, they just want him to go!
-Shane
LOL! I hope so, too. That said, I really don't think we were particularly involved in last April's ouster attempt. I read an interview with one of the Venezuelan military officers who is now leading this one, and he said the thing he regretted most was taking Chavez' pistol away just when he was about to shoot himself after he had been driven out of Miraflores in April.
Now THAT's a mistake that won't be made again!