Making Mountains ouf of Molehills

If there is one thing that is noteworthy about the Venezuelan opposition, and especially our clueless friends at Caracas Chronicles, it is their propensity to make a big deal out of nothing. For example, look at the big fuss they made last year about Venezuelan reserves being "double-spent" when they were transferred to the national development fund Fonden. Despite the fact that this was flat wrong, they went on to say it was going to create horrible inflation, there was going to be a huge shit storm that would bring the whole economy crashing down, and Chavez would have to resort to violence to maintain power. All of that, of course, was completely false, but it didn't stop our clueless friends from amassing a mountain of nonsense about it.

I can't help but notice that our friends are back at it again with their recent criticism of the Orinoco oil deals in Venezuela. Because of one small and completely insignificant detail, they have gone so far as to claim Chavez is "pimping out" Venezuela's oil and claimed the deals are worse than the semi-privatization scheme of the 1990's. But, once again, its much ado about nothing.

The insignificant molehill this time is that the foreign companies get to list their share of the oil reserves as an asset on their balance sheets. Anyone with any sense knows that this is insignificant. The reason it is insignificant is because the Venezuelan government still maintains majority (60%) control and ownership over all these deals. So what difference does it make that the foreign companies can list the oil as an asset when they don't even have control over it? Obviously, it makes no difference at all. But that doesn't stop our clueless friends from hyperventalating over it.

And the comparison to the 1990's deals is ludicrous. The current deals maintain Venezuelan control over all operations, require foreign companies to invest in technological upgrades, and royalties paid to Venezuela are 20 times higher than the 1990's deals. But, for some reason, none of this matters to our clueless friends. The only thing that matters is an entirely insignificant detail of no consequence whatsoever. I guess that's what happens when your hatred for Hugo Chavez doesn't let you see straight: dishonesty prevails and you make mountains out of molehills.

Bordering on Fascism?

In the last few days, our clueless friends over at CaracasChronicles have made some very alarming comments; comments that are, quite frankly, pretty scary.

First, co-author of the blog Juan Cristobal made the statement that there is no one "normal" among Chavez's supporters, and that the only ones who support him are the "crooks, the hopelessly ideological and the co-dependent psychos". Of course, this would mean that a significant portion of Venezuelan society are "crooks", "psychos" and "hopeless ideologues". The statement is pretty revealing of the contempt that JC feels towards the majority of his fellow countrymen.

The comments that followed this post were especially interesting. Some people disagreed with JC, and insisted that "some of them are still decent people." Wow, what an admission! "Some" of the millions of Venezuelans who support Chavez are "decent people"!!!!

Others implied that perhaps some of them are "normal" but they are simply too stupid to know any better, and spend all their time "reading the baseball part of últimas noticias and watching soap operas." One commenter said:

...anyone who supports Chavez is "invariably either a piece of garbage whose only possible contribution to the world is as fertilizer or an ignorant retard."

Quico then followed JC's post with an attempt to explain the fascist views of his co-author. The post itself was actually very ironic. He makes some very broad generalizations about Chavistas, implying that those who support Chavez are members of a "cult" who have a very "abnormal" set of beliefs. (In other words, Chavistas are apparently not normal people.) And one of these "abnormal" beliefs is that the world can be divided into "good" and "evil."

But, isn't this precisely what they are doing??? According to them, one's political leaning defines whether they are "normal" or "abnormal". They divide up Venezuela between "decent" (good) people and indecent (bad) people, psychos (them) and non-psychos (us), "crooks" and non-crooks, etc.

First of all, these comments show very clearly just how unfamiliar our clueless friends are with the majority of the Venezuelan population that supports Chavez. This kind of stereotyping of such a large group of people can only happen if you have virtually no contact with, or understanding of, the group at hand. It is for the same reason that many people in the United States make similar generalizations about blacks or Mexicans. This is the very definition of prejudice; making preconceived judgments about a group of people based on their race, gender, religion, or, in this case, political beliefs.

Second of all, this is pretty serious stuff. When you feel so much disdain and contempt for a certain group of society, it can easily open the door to aggression and violence towards those people simply because of their political inclinations. And this is exactly what the Venezuelan opposition has done on several occasions. Perhaps most noteworthy was when the Venezuelan opposition briefly took power in 2002. Opposition forces planned and carried out the shooting of political activists and as many as 60 pro-Chavez protesters were shot dead on the streets of Caracas by the opposition government. Many of the officials in the Chavez government were hunted down and beaten, simply because of their political inclinations.

This just goes to show you, unfamiliarity (ignorance) leads to preconceived judgements (prejudice), which, in turn, leads to discrimination, racism, and intolerance. This kind of prejudiced intolerance is certainly one of the key elements of fascism. Let's just hope our clueless friends are never in a place to put their views into practice!

Our Clueless Friends Swallow Another Media Lie

Thanks to our resident moron JSB (pictured at right), it has been brought to my attention that our chronically idiotic friends have swallowed another media whopper regarding Hugo Chavez.

A Spanish newspaper started the lie with this headline: "Chavez accuses the United States of causing the earthquake in Haiti."

And then, as usually happens with these media lies, other news outlets picked up the story and have repeated it over, and over, and over again.

But, as everyone should know, this isn't the first time Chavez has been accused of saying something he didn't. These kinds of media distortions and lies are a well-known fact when it comes to Hugo Chavez, which makes it that much harder to understand why our clueless friends among the Venezuelan opposition keep believing whatever their private media outlets tell them. (I guess because they are CHRONICALLY clueless?)

What really happened here is that ViveTV, a pro-Chavez TV channel in Venezuela posted an article on their website about a Russian report that claimed the United States military might have provoked the earthquake in Haiti. The private media went on to report that Hugo Chavez had said this, even showing footage of Chavez talking to make it appear legit!!!

Once again, our chronically clueless friends show themselves to be complete media drones, and they make my job of showing you all how stupid they are so easy.