Tiranía y espectáculo: la deriva grotesca del chavismo en tiempos de Maduro

Sin carisma, la pareja Maduro - "Cilita" (como le dice su esposo) trata de presentarse como simpáticos revolucionarios, pero ya los venezolanos no le compran el disfraz. Su sustento propagandístico es el terror y la mentira. Lo analizo en @RunRunesWeb: https://runrun.es/opinion/564127/tirania-y-espectaculo-isaac-nahon-serfaty/

The poster wars

There is another war going on along the one Israel is fighting in Gaza against Hamas. It is a war, fortunately, without the loss of human lives that unfortunately is taking place in Gaza. But this war is revealing the mindset of a certain public opinion in several countries around the world. Videos circulate on social media of people walking through the streets destroying posters with photos of women, men, babies, girls, boys, grandmothers, young women, both Israelis and other nationalities, kidnapped by Hamas. The poster rippers behave with such fury that it seems that they are in a crusade for the “mental hygiene” of the world, which should not confront the reality according to which Palestinian terrorists took more than 240 hostages to use them as currency of exchange and blackmailing after the massacre of October 7 (fortunately some of them have been freed now, including Israeli and non-Israeli hostages). 

The poster campaign was created by two Israeli artists who were in New York for a three-month creative residency when war broke out. The initiative took flight and multiplied in several cities and several languages. It became a global movement, just as the war launched by the poster rippers is global. The scenes of dedicated anti-poster militants come from different cities in the United States and Europe. I saw posters torn down in the streets of Montevideo and Buenos Aires, on a recent trip I took to the south. Why do they do it? Although they do not give explanations when they are recorded at work, there is in the faces of these crusaders of the anti-Zionism (anti-Jews?) a conviction that they are doing what is right (I also saw posters explaining/justifying the massacre committed by Palestinian Islamists on October 7, like this pamphlet at the University of the Republic in Montevideo).

I can think of two explanations for so much anger against the papers stuck on walls and posts. One of them has to do with what they consider the fight against “Israeli propaganda”, a duty that they have imposed on themselves to erase everything that indicates that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are criminal organizations. They are the same ones who question that on October 7, Palestinian organizations perpetrated a pogrom against Jews and those who lived with them in kibbutzim, in Sderot and at the music festival, murdering, torturing and raping. They are those who argue whether or not it was really the 40 or so beheaded babies (the cynical calculation of horror), or those who say that there is no evidence that Palestinian terrorists have sexually assaulted young Jewish women. How are you going to believe Israel and the Jews? they ask as they go around the world destroying posters with the faces of the kidnapped people.

Who cares about Israeli hostages?

There is another explanation that is even more sinister. Israelis kidnapped? Who cares about 240 Israeli kidnapped if there are hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons? This is how they trivialize everything. Twelve hundred dead in Israeli territory on October 7? Already in Gaza there have been more than 12,000, according, of course, to figures from the very “credible” Hamas Ministry of Health. Jewish suffering? Nobody cares, because Gaza is the largest concentration camp in the world (one can doubt this statement by seeing the hospitals within the strip, hospitals being used as operations centres by Hamas, look well-built and equipped). But Israel is destroying Gaza, they will say. They prefer to forget that Hamas and Islamic Jihad dedicated themselves to building a network of tunnels under buildings, schools, hospitals, and that they used a good part of the resources they received from Qatar, Iran and other countries to manufacture rockets, obtain weapons and maintain a constant bombardment of Israeli cities and towns.

According to the arithmetic of poster rippers, the lives of Israelis and Jews are worth less than any other. According to them, the life of a “settler” (they use the same language by Hamas to refer to those murdered and kidnapped on Oct. 7) deserves to be obliterated if it is to end the oppression of the Palestinian people. Have they murdered civilians? They will say that many of them are reserve soldiers of the Israeli army, that the boys and girls will grow up and do their military service, and that the mothers and grandmothers gave birth to such “colonizing Zionists.”

One aspect that draws attention to this global crusade against paper posters is that it is taking place in the real world (on the streets, against printed materials), and not only on virtual social media and the Internet. It is as if print paper conveys powerfully what images on digital platforms cannot. What are poster destroyers afraid of? Why do people walking along avenues, university campuses and pedestrian streets should not see the faces of the Hamas terrorists' hostages? Because these hostages are no longer a simple numerical abstraction (240)? It bothers them that those are the faces mothers, grandmothers, children and babies? Or are they the living proof that Hamas and Islamic Jihad are death cults that have little regard for human lives, even those of the Palestinians themselves, whom they use as shields in their holy war?

The good thing about this poster war is that the masks of progressivism are falling. We have seen their faces thanks to those who have been in charge of documenting the dedicated paper destroyers on video. They are quite diverse: women, men, young and not so young, students, doctors and other professionals. The war in Gaza freed them from the hypocrisy of maintaining the friendly face of one who accepts everyone, very pro-diversity and inclusion. All well and good until it comes to Israel and the Jews. This war gave them the perfect excuse to use their sharp nails to tearing down posters in the streets, with such passion that each little piece of destroyed paper exudes the hatred that motivates them.

El súper héroe de cartón no puede quitarse el calamar de ser el villano

En el portal Runrunes publiqué un corto análisis sobre cómo el chavismo ve a la sociedad venezolana en su más reciente triquiñuela propagandística. Pueden leer el texto completo aquí: 

https://runrun.es/opinion/462466/superheroe-de-carton-por-isaac-nahon-serfaty/

La verdad silenciada: cuando los académicos mienten sobre la crisis en Venezuela

Un historiador que ignora y distorsiona los hechos ya no es un historiador; se convierte en un propagandista. Ese es el papel que jugó el profesor Miguel Tinker Salas en un reciente simposio organizado por la Universidad de Houston sobre la crisis en Venezuela. El evento, que tuvo lugar vía Zoom, se enfocó en las distintas facetas de las migraciones de venezolanos a países de Suramérica y el Caribe. Pueden leer mi crónica completa sobre este simposio haciendo clic aquí.

Sobre los daños colaterales de la plaga chavista-socialista en las mentes de derechas: dogmatismo e irracionalidad

Los venezolanos debemos abandonar los dogmatismos y
las pasiones inútiles para reconstruir la convivencia social

Uno de los daños causados por el chavismo es la estrechez mental de algunas personas que se identifican como de derechas. He escuchado dos cosas que revelan el estado de rigidez espiritual que ha causado en algunos venezolanos la plaga socialista-populista. Como una especie de reacción por extremos, como un espejo de opuestos, determinados voceros de la llamada derecha liberal, con la que comparto algunos principios, han dicho dos barbaridades que merecen acortarse y analizarse.

Justicia social: principios de la civilización

La primera es la que dice que la noción de justicia social sería una jugarreta socialista-comunista para promover la corrupción y la servidumbre. Niegan de un solo plumazo toda una tradición civilizatoria occidental que considera la justicia social como un principio regulador de la vida en sociedad. Basta citar algunos postulados del Levítico, libro de la Biblia, que presento aquí:

"...Y cuando segareis las mieses de vuestra tierra, no acabarás de segar el rincón de tu campo, ni espigarás tu tierra segada; ni tampoco rebuscarás tu viña, ni recogerás los granos caídos de tu viña; para el pobre y el extranjero los dejarás..."

"...No usarás extorsión para con tu prójimo, ni le robarás. El salario del jornalero no ha de quedar en tu poder hasta la mañana..."

"...No maldecirás al sordo, ni pondrás tropiezo delante del ciego..."

"...No harás injusticia en el juicio; no favorecerás al pobre ni complacerás al rico, sino que con justicia juzgarás a tu prójimo..."

"...No andarás chismeando entre tu pueblo: no desatiendas a la sangre de tu prójimo (cuando esté en peligro) ..."

"...No odiarás a tu hermano en tu corazón...No te vengarás, ni guardarás rencor contra los hijos de tu pueblo, sino que amarás a tu prójimo como a ti mismo..."

"...Y cuando morare algún extranjero contigo, en vuestra tierra, no lo engañéis. Como un nativo vuestro os ha de ser el extranjero que morare con vosotros, y le amarás como a ti mismo, porque extranjeros fuisteis en la tierra de Egipto..."

Son principios que encontramos en el cristianismo, en el islam, y también en otras religiones que no son de inspiración “abrahámica” (por Abraham, padre del monoteísmo) como el budismo o en filosofías como el confucianismo.

Es bueno destacar que la referencia es a la justicia y no a la caridad, que es más una virtud que ejercen las personas caritativas. La justicia social, noción que en el hebreo bíblico se expresa en la palabra tzedaká se refiere a lo justo y no simplemente a la inclinación a ser virtuoso. De hecho, mucha gente no es virtuosa ni caritativa. Por eso el principio de justicia no depende de las inclinaciones personales, sino de un valor que es tan universal como la libertad. Ser justo, y justo socialmente, es fundamental para la convivencia.

El capitalismo no es "natural"

La otra barbaridad que he escuchado de boca de estos puristas de derechas es que el capitalismo es “natural”. Esto merece que nos detengamos un momento en la noción de lo “natural”. Primero, hay que constatar que en este mundo civilizado en el que vivimos (civilizado en el sentido de civitas, de vida en la urbe) no hay ya casi nada que sea natural. Vivimos por, para y gracias a los artificios que hemos inventado los seres humanos, sobre todo las convenciones sociales y las tecnologías. Y uno de esos artificios es el capitalismo, una forma de organización social y económica que ha resultado más eficiente y productiva que otros artificios, como la planificación centralizada socialista, que fue un desastre económico y humano.

Pero decir que el capitalismo es “natural” es una tontería dogmática que ciega la razón y no permite que se aborde el debate público con sindéresis. El capitalismo es probablemente la forma de organización social y económica menos natural que existe, y de allí su fortaleza. No es porque el capitalismo responda a una naturaleza humana, sino porque es un artificio que es capaz de adaptarse y progresar, que ha podido superar una serie de obstáculos, incluyendo la competencia ideológica que alguna vez representó el comunismo. Si se quiere, el comunismo, como artificio ideológico y dogmático, estaba justamente condenado al fracaso por su incapacidad de adaptarse y reformarse. El capitalismo, que tiene como principio la libertad de acción individual, es el artificio económico (no natural) más eficaz que hasta ahora ha conocido el ser humano.

El artificio eje del capitalismo es el mercado, que es una convención humana que tiene sus reglas (“leyes” dicen los economistas) creadas y aceptadas por las personas con el fin de hacer transacciones de objetos, de servicios y de ideas. Este artificio responde a unas dinámicas (oferta y demanda), pero no es perfecto, es decir, produce a veces efectos que en lo moral, social y económico no son deseables para la convivencia social (por ejemplo: monopolios, oligopolios, cartelización de precios, competencia desleal, explotación de trabajadores, daños ambientales). Por eso, sin negar la centralidad del mercado como mecanismo “auto-regulador” de la actividad económica, existen modelos de organización socio-económica que han buscado un equilibrio entre mercado capitalista y justicia social. Pensamos, en primer lugar, en el modelo alemán de la post-guerra llamado economía social de mercado, pero podríamos citar otros como el mismo modelo japonés, el de los llamados Tigres asiáticos, los países nórdicos, en el que destaca Noruega, y tantos otros.

En Venezuela, y entre venezolanos, es muy difícil mantener un debate racional y desapasionado en estos días. La destrucción provocada por el chavismo en lo social, material, económico, político y moral ha dañado la capacidad de convivencia entre venezolanos que piensan diferente. El retorno de la democracia se logrará cuando entendamos que hay que abandonar los dogmatismos y las pasiones inútiles.

LYING ABOUT VENEZUELA IN OTTAWA: “VAMOS A CONTAR MENTIRAS”

Lascaris, the "star"
of the panel lying about Venezuela

From left to right: Ávalos, Lascaris, Saint-Vil and Peter:
preparing to lie about Venezuela

This Saturday, March 23rd, the group “Hand-off Venezuela” from Ottawa-Gatineau, with the support of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, organized a panel under the title “Manufacturing Consent to A Coup in Venezuela”. The panel was composed by the lawyer and journalist Dimitri Lascaris from Real News Network, Jean Saint-Vil, a Haitian-Canadian activist, and Laura Ávalos, a Canadian-Salvadorian who has been very active in the so-called “chavista” movement in Canada. The panel was moderated by Peter (I could not record his family name), who is the leader of the “Hand-Off Venezuela” in the Ottawa-Gatineau region.

The “star” of the event was Lascaris, who spent one week in Caracas from February 1st until the 8th. He acknowledged that he does not speak Spanish (he relied on a local fixer for the translation). He also said that he could not go to the shanty towns (the barrios) because of lack of security (the local fixer refused to go to the poor areas). He stayed at a four-star hotel in Altamira area, where all the international correspondents stayed. He claimed that he did not receive any payment from the Maduro regime, not even to cover his expenses to travel or while in Venezuela.

He gave some background information about the country that was – at least from the point of view of any objective observer – very biased. For example, he presented two photos of the members of the National Assembly: one with the members of the ruling party PSUV, and another showing the representatives from the democratic opposition forces. He said that it was clear that the photo from the PSUV showed the “majority” of Venezuelans who are coloured and mestizos, while the picture from the opposition showed mainly white people (i.e. the “minority” of Venezuelans).  Lascaris played the racial card many times during his presentation, implying always that the democratic movement against Chávez and Maduro was mainly composed of some kind of “white supremacists” trying to impose the interests of a minority to a large majority of coloured/mestizos/black Venezuelans.

The Haitian-Canadian Saint-Vil played exactly the same card, repeating ad-nauseam during his presentation that “white Venezuelans” were trying to destroy the “legacy of Hugo Chávez” that empowered black Venezuelans and helped them to overcome poverty and marginalization.

Coming back to Lascaris’ presentation, he repeated several of the lies of the Maduro propaganda: Guaidó is “self-proclaimed,”Maduro won a “fair election with 68% of the votes” in May 2018, the current economic crisis is mainly due to the “US embargo” and the fall of oil prices in the international market, that Venezuela has a wonderful constitution that protects the environment, the rights of the indigenous peoples, and all kinds of “chavista” fantasies. He attended a couple of demonstrations while in Caracas: one from the democratic forces in support of Guaidó, and another one in the Avenida Bolívar of those supporting Maduro. Lascaris said that he saw two peaceful demonstrations, that no police nor military blocked people of neither side, etc. He painted a picture of almost “Swiss order and peace”, forgetting to mention that the Maduro police and military killed 240 young men during the protests in 2017 and 2014, that they arrested more than 3000 people, almost 1000 civilians were the subject of “military trials” (something that is unconstitutional and violated their human rights).

Lascaris forgot to mention the 900 political prisoners who are currently in Venezuela jails without proper due judiciary process (a judicial power completely controlled by Maduro and his allies of the executive branch), the 300 military officers who are in jail because they expressed their disagreement with Chavez’s and Maduro’s policies that transformed the Armed Forces into a corrupt political party with weapons (some of these military have been the subject of torture as documented by recent videos showed in the Organization of America States). He also forgot to say something about the environmental devastation that is taking place right now in the south of Venezuela, in the so-called Arco Minero del Oricono (the Orinoco Mining Belt), with “legal” and illegal  exploitation of gold, coltan and diamond in disregard of any universal standard of ecological or human rights protection. He forgot to mention as well the killing of Amerindian Pemon people just a few weeks ago by the National Guard and the Maduro’s paramilitary called “colectivos.”

Lascaris claimed that he is an experienced journalist, but during his presentation, he showed lack of rigour and lack of basic journalistic skills. He said repeatedly that he was “not an expert in Venezuela,”but he did not do the basic job of a good journalist: check the facts about Venezuela, look at background information, do some research before going to the country, try to go beyond the stereotypical interviews and testimonials. He did not do anything that is required from a decent journalist. But he is not a journalist. He is a propagandist. That’s why he did not “know” about the killings of young opposition members in 2014 or 2017, he did not mention the killing of the Pemon people, he did not know that almost 4 million Venezuelans have fled the country because of poverty, diseases and starvation, he did not say a word about the destruction of the national oil company Pdvsa, or the massive corruption since Chávez was in power and continued under Maduro, and all the other facts that Lascaris did not find relevant during his short visit to Venezuela. Not even he mentioned, because he is not aware of it, I am sure, that union leaders from the government-owned corporations of Guayana in the south of Venezuela, have been murdered or jailed by the Maduro regime (and this panel was taking place in the building of a Canadian union and was supported by the public employees’ union). But I repeat: he is not a journalist, he is an agent of Maduro’s propaganda.

Regarding the other two presentations there is not much to say. Monsieur Saint-Vil made a parallel analysis between the situation in Haiti under Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Maduro. He played the racial card, talking about “black Venezuelans” (who supported Chávez and supposedly now support Maduro) being exploited by the “white opposition” (it seems that this guy never saw a picture of Guaidó and other opposition leaders, but they don’t care about the facts). Laura Ávalos, who tried to be “objective”, was not very well informed about the history of Venezuela or even recent facts. For example, she did not know that Venezuelan democracy played a pivotal role in the peace negotiations in El Salvador through the Contadora group in the 90s (her family is from El Salvador). She did not know either that the current Canadian aid of $55 million is going to help the Venezuelan refuges in Brazil who are in the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) camps located in Boavista. But she claimed that she was “very well informed” about the crisis in Venezuela. OK, yes I “believed” Laura.

Two additional comments about this particular event of lies about the crisis in Venezuela. First, the panel did not have any Venezuelan. They pretended to tell the “truth” about Venezuela without any Venezuelan in the panel. Fortunately, some Venezuelans were in the room to present the facts and debunk the lies of the panellists. Second, the racial card was played during the event until the extreme, including the hysterical position of some attendees who shout at me, because I have to “renounce to my white privilege” if I want to really understand what is happening in Venezuela. The person who came shouting at me with this “inverse racist” remark did not like that I responded to her in French (and she is French, according to her own confession). A truly surreal experience. A final note (more surreal). Don, a Canadian chavista activist, told me that he cannot believe at all that the “Cubans” have any influence in Venezuela, that they don’t control the military or have intelligence services in the country. That was the summit of craziness. That’s what ideology can do to your brain.

Dealing with the daily media dose of the grotesque

The video (originally recorded in 2005 and revealed in 2016) of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump’s dismissive remarks regarding women (Source: Washington Post)

We are living in an era of visual excesses driven by digital networks. Videos showing hostage beheadings by terrorists, a photograph of a model’s emaciated body to denounce anorexia in the fashion industry or, more recently, the image of a dying polar bear to call the attention to the consequences of climate change. These stories and images represent a kind of grotesque that claims to be accurate representations of our realities.

Continue reading here

My most recent book: Strategic Communication and Deformative Transparency

I am pleased to share with you the Preface of my recent book on Strategic Communication and Deformative Transparency. Persuasion in Politics, Propaganda and Public Health:

This is a photograph (Figure a) of Cyril Winter, an Ottawa-based anti- abortion activist. I took this photo on September 8, 2017. He was in front of the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights monument, during one of his usual one-man protests.

This photo summarizes the aim and scope of this book. The bottom panel’s image of body parts—of foetuses or babies, depending where you position yourself in the debate—is a clear display of grotesque transpar- ency. Its intent is stated in its text: “No censorship”. Its crudeness does not leave any room for euphemisms. Mr. Winter is not talking about “repro- ductive rights”, “medical procedures”, “the right to choose”, “interrupted pregnancy”, or even “pro-life”. He wants to shock the public by disclosing the concrete “truth”, or at least his truth.

At the heart of his message is an aesthetics of horror. It seems, how- ever, that the image of small, dismembered bodies was not enough for Mr. Winter. To emphasize this disclosure of a crude reality, he also added the baby doll hanging from his neck. This is a sign of over-production of meaning, where the grotesque and the kitschy tend to overlap. It also reveals an economy of the affects, done through the saturation of emotions based on the premise that overcoming “cognitive indifference” requires an aesthetic reflexivity, or an alternative path to “knowing” about an issue.

The photo also speaks to the tension between strategy and tactics. Mr. Winter was present at the monument as an individual without any insti- tutional affiliation. His means appeared to be quite limited, with no major strategic relevance. As with many cases in today’s digital sphere, however, he was introducing the transparently grotesque in the public space to disrupt and eventually call attention to it. His rationale was not that different from the old prescriptions of propaganda, though he was also facing a highly overcrowded and fragmented communication ecosystem, as illustrated by passers-by at the monument who were plugged into their mobile devices.

By putting on this display, Mr. Winter visually desecrated the sacred in order to defend what he thought is the “supreme good”: human life. We can assume he considered this a legitimate means to achieve his goal (that is, to end or limit abortion). Some may agree with him; others may find these images repulsive or an unethical manipulation of emotions. The majority of passers-by that day near the human rights monument were indifferent to Mr. Winter’s images and speech. The question remains: how far can some- one go to achieve their goals? What are the limits of the visible? This book is an attempt to answer these questions by looking into both the visible and invisible aspects of the strategy of the transparently grotesque.

You can read a preview of the book by clicking here

The propaganda sorcerers are back in the era of cyber-narcissism

The scandal surrounding the improper use of data by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook in the 2016 U.S. election is reminiscent of the old debates about propaganda and its ability to “violate the minds of the masses,” according to Sergei Tchakhotin, an expert in the study of Nazi propaganda.

Continue reading here.

El retorno de los brujos: propaganda, algoritmos afectivos y narcisismo cibernético

El escándalo alrededor del uso indebido de datos por parte de Cambridge Analytica y de Facebook en las elecciones de Estados Unidos recuerda los viejos debates sobre la propaganda y su capacidad de “violar las mentes de las masas” (le viole des foules), según la conocida expresión del estudioso del nazismo Sergei Tchakhotin. Decía Tchakhotin que las masas fueron objeto de una sofisticada maquinaria de manipulación que pudo, por medio del uso estratégico de la radio y del cine (los medios de masa del momento) y de grandes puestas en escena (los impresionantes desfiles y mítines del nazismo), tocar las fibras emocionales de los alemanes, sus "pulsiones básicas", en palabras del sociólogo ruso.

Leer más aquí.

Venezuela destruida

Esta es mi respuesta a María Páez Víctor, quien escribió en el Correo Canadiense de Toronto una apología de la dictadura de Nicolás Maduro.  La pueden leer haciendo click aquí.

Continuidad del horror: del esqueleto de Bolívar a los cuerpos carbonizados de Policarabobo

Hay continuidad visual entre la imagen del esqueleto de Simón Bolívar difundida por televisión el 15 de julio de 2010 y las terribles fotos de los cadáveres de las personas que murieron en la sede de la policía del Estado Carabobo. En el primer caso, Hugo Chávez quiso mostrar urbi et orbi la apertura del sarcófago que contenía los restos del Libertador, con la excusa de investigar las “verdaderas” causas de la muerte de Bolívar. En el caso más reciente, las imágenes documentan el horror de lo que se califica como la peor masacre carcelaria ocurrida en Venezuela. Aunque los dos eventos sean distintos en su génesis y motivaciones, ambos representan la degradación del estado de derecho, de las instituciones y de la sociedad. Y dicha degradación queda capturada en las grotescas imágenes de un esqueleto inerme y de unos cuerpos carbonizados, como si se tratara de un gran cuadro panorámico que resume el daño que el chavismo le ha hecho a la psiquis del venezolano. 

Leer más aquí.

Why Linda McQuaig is so wrong about Venezuela?

The article of Linda McQuaig about Venezuela is so wrong in so many ways. First, she distorts the facts to portray the Venezuelan tragedy as "a bitter class war, with millions of poor people committed to defending a revolution carried out in their name."  Second, she took sides to defend a corrupt and criminal regime, repeating the hollow rhetoric of Nicolás Maduro and his cronies about the "economic war against a nation" that does not exist. Actually, the only war is the one that the regime of Nicolas Maduro is waging against his own people.

But Linda McQuaig suffers from ideological blindness. She cannot see what is happening in Venezuela because she bought the arguments of Maduro to justify his wrongdoings. She forgot to mention that the policies of the Maduro regime - following the same populist prescriptions instituted by Hugo Chávez - have caused the free fall of the economy: deep recession in the last four years (minus 10 GDP this year), hyperinflation rising to three digits (expected to rise to 14,000 percent this year), maxi devaluation of the currency, and the destruction of the national oil company PDVSA.

She cannot see either that Venezuelans are living a truly humanitarian crisis. Hunger is a real problem. Malnutrition among the poor, particularly children, has been widely documented. Venezuelans are also dying or suffering because they don't have access to medication and basic medical services.

Linda McQuaig is blind to the reality that Venezuelans live under a violent and cruel regime. During four months of protests the Maduro regime murdered more than 100 people. Or that there are still almost 300 political prisoners, many of them civilians submitted, illegally, to trials in military courts. She did not say that the political police of the government, Sebin, does not comply with judges ordering the release of prisoners and extorts them and their families, asking for large sums of money in US dollars to "buy" their freedom. Or that the poor are enslaved through the CLAP system, a perverse program of social control through the distribution of food bags. She forgot to say that crime is out of control. More than 20 thousand people are murdered each year. Prisons have become the paradise of criminals, under the control of gang leaders, thanks to the complicity of government officials.

Linda McQuaig is so wrong about Venezuela that she does not know the history of the country. Chávez did not nationalize the oil industry, as she wrongfully wrote. The oil industry was nationalized in 1976 during the first government of Carlos Andrés Pérez. Nevertheless, this should be a "minor" detail for someone who dares to defend a regime that is the source of suffering and horror for millions of Venezuelans.

Cuéntame algo: ¿Quién tiene miedo?

Yo sí tengo miedo...

Este episodio de la serie Cuéntame algo se llama ¿Quién tiene miedo? Está inspirado en una pregunta retórica típica de los líderes populistas autoritarios.¿Quién dijo miedo?, gustan decir estos nefastos personajes al público que los escuchan casi hipnotizados. 

El tema musical genérico de la serie es mío. La música de fondo de este episodio es del disco Chronos de Ernesto Schmied y Fernando Marconi. Pueden escuchar el relato haciendo click aquí.

Las claves de la guerra psicológica

"...Esta guerra psicológica irá in crescendo. Un día nos venden la impresión que “bajaron” la guardia... pero otro nos dicen que nada cambiará, que todo está ya decidido..."

Hace cuatro años publiqué este artículo. Creo que lo planteado allí sigue muy vigente. El desánimo que sufren muchos venezolanos se explica, entre otras cosas, por una estrategia bien pensada e implementada que es típica de los regímenes totalitarios. Pueden leer el artículo aquí.

Sobre el sub-texto o lo implícito en la comunicación

El anuncio que hizo Nicolás Maduro sobre la extensión por decreto de la validez del billete de 100 bolívares hasta el 20 de enero, es un buen ejemplo para hacer un análisis de sub-texto o de lo implícito en la comunicación.

A Maduro se le ve contento informando sobre la medida, medida que, por cierto, según la constitución venezolana, debería tomar el BCV y no el presidente.

Pero al ver este clip de su intervención, uno puede de leer otro texto que dice más o menos lo siguiente:

"Somos unos estúpidos. Metimos la pata con el asunto de los billetes de 100. No lo podemos reconocer abiertamente, pero la pusimos. La forma en la que manejamos este tema causó un montón de problemas. Fue la chispa que encendió la pradera en Ciudad Bolívar, donde malandros aprovecharon para hacer su agosto en diciembre y saquearon un montón de locales comerciales. Pusimos a la gente a hacer colas kilométricas en los bancos y en las sedes del BCV. Generamos angustia entre los ciudadanos. Muchos fueron a devolver sus billetes y recibieron un certificado de pago con la promesa que su dinero sería depositado en sus cuentas o que recibirían el efectivo en el Banco de Venezuela. Ahora cargan con sus certificados como almas en pena, a ver cuándo el gobierno les devuelve su dinero. Todo esto es cierto, pero somos tan vivos, tan buenos, tan considerados, que ahora todo el mundo tranquilo, pues por nuestra gracia y consideración les damos la oportunidad de usar sus devaluados billetes de 100 bolívares hasta el 20 de enero. Por cierto, no se olviden que los malandros del régimen ya lavaron sus billetes de 100, los corruptos ya se metieron sus comisiones con los nuevos billetes que mandamos a hacer fuera, y con todos los negociados asociados con las vainas que se nos ocurren, incluyendo el Carnet de la Patria, y otros sistemas de control social para someter a un pueblo que ya da síntomas claros de sumisión por hambre, miedo y mero instinto de supervivencia".