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#Post#: 10124--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: Kerry Date: January 15, 2015, 9:20 pm
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[quote author=HOLLAND link=topic=718.msg10118#msg10118
date=1421374510]
I'm wondering if Maduro has the political base to do anything.
The class hostility in Venezualen society is so great that any
perceived supporter of the poor, such as Chavez was, despite the
falsity of the belief, are in a strong position. As Marx
observed that there is a "fetishism of commodities", perhaps
there is a greater fetishism at work, a mystification of value
attached to rulers and the parties they represent, carrying
forward illusions that are hard to dislodge, especially if they
are based upon the personal grievance of political and social
oppression.
Chavez is gone, but the illusions surrounding him have not gone
. . .
[/quote]I'd say the illusions are wearing thin. Doubtlessly
some people in Chavez' party would want to continue to idolize
him and sacrifice Maduro to put up a more competent President;
but then again, some people may also be getting disillusioned
with the semi-sacred aspect of the memory of Chavez.
#Post#: 10165--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: guest6 Date: January 20, 2015, 5:06 pm
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[quote author=Kerry link=topic=718.msg10124#msg10124
date=1421378451]
I'd say the illusions are wearing thin. Doubtlessly some
people in Chavez' party would want to continue to idolize him
and sacrifice Maduro to put up a more competent President; but
then again, some people may also be getting disillusioned with
the semi-sacred aspect of the memory of Chavez.
[/quote]
I didn't realize how much some people idolize Chavez until I
read a story about how they have taken the Lord's Prayer and
substituted his name and added and deleted other words.
'Our Chavez who art in heaven': Venezuela's Socialist party
delegate rewrites the Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer has been rewritten at a government 'ideology
workshop' in a theatre to pay respect to the deceased leader,
Hugo Chavez
By Reuters
3:48PM BST 03 Sep 2014
A member of Venezuela's Socialist Party has rolled out a
variation of the "Lord's Prayer" to implore beloved late leader
Hugo Chavez for protection from the evils of capitalism....
HTML http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/11072928/Our-Chavez-who-art-in-heaven-Venezuelas-Socialist-party-delegate-rewrites-the-Lords-Prayer.html<br
/>
#Post#: 10166--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: Kerry Date: January 20, 2015, 9:58 pm
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[quote author=Heartsong link=topic=718.msg10165#msg10165
date=1421795214]
I didn't realize how much some people idolize Chavez until I
read a story about how they have taken the Lord's Prayer and
substituted his name and added and deleted other words.
'Our Chavez who art in heaven': Venezuela's Socialist party
delegate rewrites the Lord's Prayer
The Lord's Prayer has been rewritten at a government 'ideology
workshop' in a theatre to pay respect to the deceased leader,
Hugo Chavez
By Reuters
3:48PM BST 03 Sep 2014
A member of Venezuela's Socialist Party has rolled out a
variation of the "Lord's Prayer" to implore beloved late leader
Hugo Chavez for protection from the evils of capitalism....
HTML http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/venezuela/11072928/Our-Chavez-who-art-in-heaven-Venezuelas-Socialist-party-delegate-rewrites-the-Lords-Prayer.html
[/quote]The level of superstition is amazing. They have shrines
to his memory too. From the Financial Times
HTML http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/afac6754-0503-11e3-9ffd-00144feab7de.html#axzz3PQNlgYdj:
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share
this article with others using the link below, do not cut &
paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more
detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights.
HTML http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/afac6754-0503-11e3-9ffd-00144feab7de.html#ixzz3PQOY2UZ9
The “Saint Hugo Chávez” shrine in the 23 de Enero slum in
central Caracas is one of many that have sprung up around the
country since the socialist leader, who described himself as a
Christian, died in March. In poor areas like the 23 de Enero,
one of Chávez’s strongholds where he was revered in life, his
image hangs next to those of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Pope
Francis I.
“This is a product of the empathy he developed with the majority
of the unassisted, unprotected, forgotten population of
Venezuela. When he took power they felt that some sort of father
had arrived, a saviour, a protector, an Almighty,” says Lizbety
González, a Venezuelan expert on cults. “His death generated a
deep pain and that vacuum was filled by a cult, a cult that is
evident all over Venezuela now.”
Some even believe the former president could be more powerful
dead than alive. “Chávez is a god, a messiah, a warrior of
light,” says Humberto López, who likes to dress as the
Argentine-Cuban guerrilla fighter Ernesto Che Guevara.
For many, the question remains as to what Chávez really was in
life – just a charismatic leader, a dangerous messianic
demagogue, or a revered hero. But to his devoted followers that
is irrelevant. The answer is simple: “Chávez lives”, so the
“fight continues”.
“He is still a force for good, a hope for this people; Chávez is
still performing miracles,” says Mr López, lighting three
candles representing the red, yellow and blue Venezuelan flag at
a makeshift altar he built at home.
I was happy when I learned his body could not be embalmed to be
put on permanent view. The article I read said the body has
already decomposed too much.
#Post#: 10369--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: Kerry Date: February 20, 2015, 8:25 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
I ran across some news from Venezuela. The mayor of Caracas
was arrested for alleging trying to lead a coup.From the
Independent
HTML http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/corruption-falling-oil-prices-and-talk-of-a-coup-the-end-of-chavezs-socialist-dream-in-venezuela-10060576.html:
Tensions spiked dramatically last week on the first anniversary
of last year’s anti-government rioting that left 43 people dead
and occasioned the surrender to the authorities of Leopoldo
Lopez, a prominent opposition figurehead, who remains in jail
today. Facing charges of inciting last year’s unrest, he is
quite clearly a political prisoner. Meanwhile late on Thursday,
armed intelligence agents arrested the Mayor of metropolitan
Caracas, Antonio Ledezma, also aligned with the opposition,
apparently without warrant.
Opposition leaders said yesterday that allegations linking Mr
Ledezma, 59, to the alleged coup plot cited by President Maduro,
were false and demanded his immediate release. “He’s in good
spirits and very optimistic of demonstrating that he has no
links with any wrongdoing,” his lawyer, Omar Estacio, said after
briefly visiting the mayor with his wife Mitzy early yesterday.
The US has also repeatedly denied that it is involved in trying
to destabilise the South American nation.
In a statement, the public prosecutor’s office said Mr Ledezma
would be formally accused of “presumed involvement in
conspiratorial acts to organise and carry out violent acts
against the democratically constituted government.”
A Hezbollah operative has also recently left Syria to go to
Venezuela. In the past, the Chavez regime supported Hezbollah;
and now it looks as if Hezbollah may be trying to help prop up
the Madura regime. From American Enterprise Institute
HTML https://www.aei.org/publication/hezbollah-in-the-streets-of-caracas/:
A man whom the US Treasury Department has designated as an
operative of the terrorist organization Hezbollah has relocated
from the Syria war zone to Venezuela in recent days, apparently
in support the government’s violent crackdown against student
demonstrators. Ghazi Atef Nassereddine was sanctioned by the US
government in 2008 for providing logistical and financial
support to Hezbollah.
Sources and documents substantiate Nassereddine’s role as
Hezbollah’s principal representative to the Venezuelan regime
and a close collaborator of President Nicolás Maduro. In recent
years, his official cover has been as a diplomat assigned to
Venezuela’s embassy in Damascus, where he has used his position
to facilitate travel for many persons from the Middle East to
Venezuela. From that post, he had extraordinary access to senior
Syrian security officials who have waged war on opponents of the
Assad regime.
A man whom the US Treasury Department has designated as an
operative of the terrorist organization Hezbollah has relocated
from the Syria war zone to Venezuela in recent days, apparently
in support the government’s violent crackdown against student
demonstrators. Ghazi Atef Nassereddine was sanctioned by the US
government in 2008 for providing logistical and financial
support to Hezbollah.
Sources and documents substantiate Nassereddine’s role as
Hezbollah’s principal representative to the Venezuelan regime
and a close collaborator of President Nicolás Maduro. In recent
years, his official cover has been as a diplomat assigned to
Venezuela’s embassy in Damascus, where he has used his position
to facilitate travel for many persons from the Middle East to
Venezuela. From that post, he had extraordinary access to senior
Syrian security officials who have waged war on opponents of the
Assad regime.
. . .
Ghazi parents emigrated to Venezuela, where he acquired
citizenship soon after Chávez took power. As I stated in my
testimony before the Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and
Intelligence Committee on Homeland Security on July 2011,
“[Ghazi Nassereddine], along with at least two of his brothers,
manages a network that raises and launders money and recruits
and trains operatives to expand Hezbollah’s influence in
Venezuela and throughout Latin America.” His brother, Oday, is a
long-time activist in the so-called “Bolivarian Circles,” one of
the activist groups that has received paramilitary training to
defend Chavismo.
Ghazi Nassereddine appears to have returned to Venezuela to help
the regime in its fight to hold to power and silence protesters
against Nicolás Maduro’s criminal regime. He tweeted from
Caracas on February 19 that he “supports the actions taken by
the government [against the opposition]” and labeled the
government’s actions against the opposition as “humanitarian and
patient.”
Nassereddine’s return to Venezuela shows that the regime knows
that it is in fight for survival and prepared to use violence.
Already thuggish paramilitary have been videotaped beating and
shooting pistols indiscriminately into crowds of student
demonstrators. It is remarkable that a Hezbollah operative of
Nassereddine’s prominence would be part of that repressive
campaign.
#Post#: 10872--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: Kerry Date: May 19, 2015, 9:17 pm
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The Number Two man there is under a cloud. From ABC
HTML http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/venezuelas-denies-involvement-drug-trafficking-31162023:
The powerful leader of Venezuela's congress on Tuesday fiercely
denied allegations he might be involved in the drug trade.
National Assembly chief Diosdado Cabello said he would never do
anything that could hurt the South American nation's young
people.
His comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported that
U.S. officials are investigating Cabello and other members of
the country's socialist administration for trafficking **** and
money laundering.
The Journal's story built on reports from earlier this year that
Cabello's bodyguard had defected to the U.S. and was fingering
his former boss as the head of a drug ring led by Venezuelan
political and military officials.
-----------------------
Earlier in the day, opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who
narrowly lost the 2013 presidential election to President
Nicolas Maduro, called for an official investigation into the
reports that Venezuela has become a main corridor for drug
trafficking.
#Post#: 11300--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: Kerry Date: August 22, 2015, 6:42 am
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The BBC
HTML http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34025800
reports
President Maduro declared martial law in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan president has declared a state of emergency in a
border region near Colombia following an attack by smugglers in
which three soldiers and a civilian were injured.
Nicolas Maduro said there would be 60 days of martial law in
five municipalities of the state of Tachira.
He also said the closure of the border, announced on Thursday,
will be extended until further notice.
Petrol and food smugglers have increasingly clashed with
officers.
The BBC's Daniel Pardo in Venezuela reports that Mr Maduro said
Colombian paramilitary groups regularly travel to Venezuela,
generating chaos and shortages in order to destabilise the
revolution.
#Post#: 11910--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: Kerry Date: April 15, 2016, 7:14 am
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It amazes me that Maduro is still in office. From Yahoo News
HTML https://www.yahoo.com/news/venezuela-ration-malls-change-clocks-save-power-002148870.html?ref=gs:<br
/>
President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday punitive electricity
rationing would be imposed on 15 shopping malls and drought-hit
Venezuela's time zone would also be modified to save power.
Many of the South American OPEC nation's 29 million people are
suffering daily, unscheduled water and electricity cuts as
levels recede at the Guri dam complex providing nearly
two-thirds of power needs.
Maduro, 53, whose popularity has suffered amid a national
economic crisis and stuttering public services, said some major
shopping centers had failed to supply their own generators
despite being told to do so five years ago.
"The time has come to take a drastic rationing measure against a
group of about 15 malls who did not obey the law and are
consuming without conscience at a critical moment due to the 'El
Nino' phenomenon," he said, without giving further details.
The socialist government says the El Nino weather pattern is to
blame for Venezuela's water and power problems. But critics
insist the state is also responsible for inadequate preparation,
investment and diversification of electricity sources.
Maduro also said that from May 1, he planned to change
Venezuela's time scheme as another way to save electricity.
"I'll explain that in the next few days," said Maduro, whose
predecessor Hugo Chavez famously put Venezuela's clocks back
half an hour in 2007 to allow children to wake up in daylight.
In a further bid to save energy, Maduro also decreed Monday a
holiday, on top of a Tuesday national anniversary.
The president had already given public workers Fridays off, and
raised eyebrows by urging women to cut usage of hair dryers.
The power problems have added to suffering from economic
contraction, the world's highest inflation, shortages of basic
goods, and lengthy lines at shops around the nation.
#Post#: 11921--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: Kerry Date: April 17, 2016, 9:27 pm
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I was curious about the situation in Venezuela. Yes, it's true
that drought is a factor at the Guri dam; but there had been a
lot of mismanagement as well. From Vox
HTML http://www.vox.com/2016/3/17/11254860/venezuela-electricity-crisis:
The first big crisis hit in 2009-'10, when an extended drought
caused water levels at the Guri Dam to plummet. Rolling
blackouts ensued, and the government struggled to cope, forcing
companies to take a week-long holiday, fining large electricity
users for excessive consumption, and ordering businesses,
factories, and mines to reduce output. Chávez's popularity
plummeted to the lowest point of his presidency.
In the months after, the government scrambled to fix the
situation, spending $1.5 billion to install backup diesel
generators throughout the country. It wasn't nearly enough. A
year later, experts were warning that only a quarter of those
generators were even operational due to a lack of maintenance.
And the country's transmission lines remained in shoddy shape,
unable to handle major fluctuations. Corruption, incompetence,
underfunding — it's all there.
So the electricity crisis never really receded. Further
blackouts hit in 2011, in 2012, in 2013, in 2014, in 2015, and
now again in 2016. And there's no end in sight.Back in 2011, the
Inter-American Dialogue asked a number of the country's energy
experts how Venezuela could fix its electricity woes. They all
basically said the same thing — "a well-executed investment
plan."
Venezuela needs upgrades to its existing dams, reliable sources
of backup power during droughts, and a sturdy grid. That all
costs money and requires competent oversight.
And that's easier said than done. For instance, experts say one
big reason for the lack of investment is that electricity rates
were kept artificially low after 2002. Reversing this situation,
and hiking people's power bills, is never going to be a popular
move. Yet the alternative has been even uglier.
There have been a few minor moves in the direction of reform: In
2014, the government did begin to pare back subsidies for
electricity consumption in some regions. But during the latest
crisis, Maduro hasn't laid out much of a long-term plan.
Instead, he's largely blamed El Nińo and mysterious "saboteurs"
for the shortages. And the government has mainly focused on
short-term rationing and gimmicky holidays, just as it has
during previous crises.
"This plan for 60 days, for two months, will allow the country
to get through the most difficult period with the most risk,"
Maduro said on state television Wednesday, according to
Bloomberg. "I call on families, on the youth, to join this plan
with discipline, with conscience and extreme collaboration to
confront this extreme situation."
The subsidy years ago was somewhere close to 80%. While this
may have made Chavez popular with the masses who enjoyed such
cheap electricity, it meant the government was picking up most
of the bill -- probably from its sales of oil. I don't know
what the government could do now with the prices of food and
other necessities of life being so high.
#Post#: 18200--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: Kerry Date: April 6, 2018, 6:03 am
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Years ago, I was shown the Horn of Africa sinking into the sea.
Why was I shown that? I believed I was supposed to pray for it
to happen, so I prayed for it. I figured it would take years
and I'd never see it. After all, I wouldn't want it to fall
into the sea all at once. That wouldn't be loving. No, it
would take years so people could move away.
I still don't expect to see the mountains of Somalia under the
sea in my lifetime; but the process seems to have started. A
large crack has appeared in east Africa.
HTML https://mediadc.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/d682114/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2290x1296+0+13/resize/1060x600!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmediadc.brightspotcdn.com%2F62%2F22%2Fbae5bef44bfe8debb05ef252044a%2Ftwitter-screenshot-africa-crack.jpg
HTML https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/huge-crack-in-the-ground-in-africa-could-split-the-continent-in-two
A 50-foot deep crack in the earth has appeared Africa that some
scientists say is a sign the continent will split in two.
"We're seeing a crack that in all likelihood formed over many
thousands of years or hundreds of thousands of years," Ben
Andrews, a geologist with the Smithsonian, told CBS News.
Some scientists say the crack could be an indication of tectonic
plate movement that could result in the continent splitting in
two in 50 million years.
While I don't expect it to happen in my lifetime, I also don't
think it will take 50 million years. While parts of it may form
another continent, I still expect the northern part of the split
to sink into the sea.
The crack appeared seemingly overnight in Kenya. This video
shows where the large rift is.
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RG-wx-KYnTk
It is intriguing since that rift was likely there and flushed
out by water. So far as I know, no seismic activity was
reported. I rather think the explanation is more complicated
than rain flushing it out. For that to happen, the rift would
have to have turned into a river -- so where did the water end
up? I think something may be happened below the surface of
the earth.
#Post#: 18203--------------------------------------------------
Re: Musings of a Mad Mystic
By: paralambano Date: April 6, 2018, 3:13 pm
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Kerry - ^
Matter - - ruinous.
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