Tax Financed Terrorism

As I am preparing to debate between socialism and capitalism, the Chavez government has made one more of their interminable abuses.

for those who don't know, and how could you if no Venezuelan media can report this sort of acts, the car of Noticiero Digital's Chief Editor, Roger Santodomingo, exploded sometime this week. Even though the cause of the explosion is unclear, the threat letter received by his eight year old son (yes, an eight year old boy received a death threat in Venezuela) in which Roger was told to shut up or to be prepared to spare his son's life, kind of point towards the car not exploding by mere coincidence but somehow resembles a Mafia hit of those seen on TV, or a terrorist attacks like the ones we here happen every day in Iraq.

As is this story wasn't bad enough, we need to add the fact that our taxes and oil money, financed in a direct or indirect way this hit against a fellow Venezuelan. Thanks to the work of Mario Silva an his tv show: La hojilla (The razor blade), which fuels chavista followers with hate toward opposition figures with unfunded accusations and defamation, has been able to create this terrorist mindset on the mind of some individuals who decided Roger should be shut.

For more information on the story: http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200707060459

Again, another example of who freedom of expression works in Venezuela: You are free to think as I tell you, or else we will kill you...or threat your son.

The new classes

I believe is human nature to divide ourselves into groups. Apart from the physical appearances, we also create groups in several different traits like education, money, religion, political views, sports teams, etc.

This separations or distinctions are generally, or shouldn't be, harmful except when taken to extremes. I mean, I love telling Magallanes followers that their team sucks as much as I like telling Caraquistas that so does theirs (I've long been a Tiburones de la Guaira fan myself even though I don't follow Venezuelan Baseball that much anymore). It's also fun during World Cups how people side to any team even though our own is not playing. They paint their faces, where their flags and chant their songs as if they truly were their team. Of course this rivalries raised from sports sometime result in violence when mixed with alcohol or simple anger.

Then we have distinctions that fall on the vault of racism: the color of our skin, our religion, our heritage, our language, our political views, our education, our social status, etc. People tend to think that we should eradicate this distinctions and although I agree that we should have the same education and the opportunity for the same social status, things like religion, color, heritage etc, can't simply be changed and should just be respected and embraced as the elements that makes us different and simply more entertaining. Wouldn't life be pretty dull if we all looked or thinked the same?

The funny thing in Venezuela is that this distinctions are slowly fading away and a new clear distinctions is arising. this has to be with color; but not with the color of our skin our eyes or hair. It simply has to do with the color that you wear. Yes, as simply as that can sound, it is the only thing that is truly differentiating one group of venezuelans with the other.

If you wear red, or as the government say, you are Rojo, rojito, you are a free person. You are a free thinker liberated from the imperialist lies bestowed on us from centuries. If you wear red you are a patriot. You have the ability to receive government grants and help for education. You gain the ability to bid on government projects, as well as you become eligible for work in government jobs. On the other hand, if you decide to wear any other color you are suddenly a traitor. An imperialist pawn controlled by the US government. You loose absolutely all possible chance of bidding on any government project, working any government job or even enjoying the so called absolute gracious programs the government has set forth to better health and education.

This governemnt has done nothing except dividing Venezuela into the new classes: The Roja, Rojita and the, well, blue, yellow, green, black, brown, pink, etc etc that simply dares to think different.

Oh my

I've failed miserably at keeping up with this blog but the truth is that the main reason I started it, the RCTV story, is not as fresh as before anymore. I mean, even though the illegal closing of the station is still causing tremor and unrest, trying to disproof the lies of the government and it's followers is not as entertaining anymore, mainly because they have absolutely no valuable argument.

They repeat as parrots the same ideas: RCTV participated on a coup and if that had happened in the US the station would be close immediately and their owners sent to a firing squad or what not and that the government was nice and didn't send the station or owners to trial but waited for their license to expire to not renew it without any due process. We must remind our readers that by law, in Venezuela, if a station meets the requirements, it's license shall be automatically renewed. We have yet to see what requirements RCTV didn't meet and of course proof of guilt in their involvement on the coup.

I plan to keep this blog alive but I'm thinking I will swift it's content to try to understand why chavistas think that socialism will make their life betters. Ok, I mean people not tied with the government cause we all know who the new Oligarchy in Venezuela is, don't we?

I am not an economist not I'm an expert on either one of these socio-political systems. But as a person who tries to rationalize things, I will do my best in pointing the flaws or goods of each one of them in hope to start a debate with socialist and capitalists alike to see if indeed, this 21st century socialist is the solution of all of the Venezuelan's problems.