Venezuelan Garbage From the New York Times

I admit to being mystified by this New York Times article about the latest elections in Venezuela. All of the articles I have read so far said that the elections were a win for Chavez.

Bizarrely, this weird NY Times piece seeks to cast the elections as a crushing blow to Chavez. I haven't the faintest idea how they are justifying that, other than sheer blatant propaganda. They are seeking to turn what was a smashing victory for Chavez into a humiliating defeat.

Chavez' forces won in 17 out of 22 states in Venezuela. That means they won 72% of states. Somehow, a crushing 72% victory is being spun as a disastrous defeat. The article states that this defeat is the second for Chavez in less than a year. The previous defeat was for an overly ambitious attempt to rewrite the Constitution that was nevertheless only narrowly defeated by less than 1% of the vote.

How was this a loss for Chavez? Because Chavez only won 17 out of 22 states, and not 22 out of 22 states, that means it was a devastating blow for Chavez. Propaganda or what?

Truth is that Chavez' party, PSUV, won about 60% of the vote and the opposition won about 40%. That is about the way it has been going for some time now. Furthermore, the PSUV gained 1 million votes over their last election and the opposition lost 300,000 votes.

It is true that the opposition now controls 6 states, as opposed to 2 states before. The real reason for that is that the idiots finally started contesting some elections. They only won 2 states last time because the morons decided to boycott the elections.

This time around, the opposition won Zulia (long the opposition stronghold), Miranda (a wealthy state) and Neuva Esparta (the wealthy tourist island of Margarita). They also won the mayor's office in Caracas. However, this was more of a parochial campaign about Caracas issues and not a referendum on Chavez. The voters seemed to feel that the opposition candidate would do more to fight crime.

The PSUV candidate in Miranda was a very weak compromiser, and not a real revolutionary supporter of Chavez. There are plenty like that in the party, and it's high time they took off. I'm happy to see him go. The opposition also won Carabobo, an industrial state and Tachira, on the Colombian border. Much has been made of the fact that the opposition now controls Caracas and "won the cities", but the truth is that 81% of the mayoral races were won by the PSUV.

Furthermore, winning opposition candidates used such socialist rhetoric in their victory speeches that one wonders why they don't just join the PSUV. The fact that rightwing rhetoric is so unacceptable in Venezuela nowadays that even the rightwing opposition must at least campaign as socialists is itself a victory for the Chavistas.

This already is being spun as civilized and modern (urban) people versus backwards and I guess uncivilized (rural) folks. The PSUV tended to win rural areas, while the opposition made some gains in the urban areas, in contrast to the situation in the US.

Truth is the election was pretty much of a wash for both sides.

Chavez' opponents won in Zulia state, long a stronghold of the opposition, where opposition-linked death squads have killed scores of peasants throughout Chavez' reign.

The article is full of negatives.

Venezuela has inflation of 30%. Indeed, this is due to an overheating economy with the highest growth rate in Latin America. Sure there's inflation. What do you expect?

However, unlike previous governments, Chavez' government has tried to soften the blow by providing low-priced foods for the poor. Further, part of the inflation is being caused by asshole producers, such as milk and egg producers, who are deliberately withholding their products from the market to create artificial shortages and drive up prices.

The NY Times direly warns that Venezuela may soon fall on hard times due to crashing oil prices. Yes, and this is true in all oil states.

The article points out that there is a serious crime problem, especially with violent crime. Caracas has a violent crime rate four times that of Bogota, Colombia. This figure is a bit of a lie. Colombia has a far worse crime rate. By dishonestly focusing on capital cities, the Lie York Times hopes to fool readers into thinking that crime is worse in Venezuela than in Colombia.

Crime, even violent crime, like corruption, is a very long-standing problem in Venezuela. There was horrible crime before Chavez, there is horrible crime under Chavez, and it will doubtless continue after Chavez leaves. The opposition has not offered the slightest evidence that Chavez has somehow caused crime or violent crime.

One of their arguments is that by helping the poor and railing against the corrupt oligarchy, Chavez has helped fuel class war. Played out on the streets, this means poor people robbing rich people in a form of revolutionary direct action masquerading as crime. The problem with that is that there is no truth to it. Most of the crime is in the poor areas. It's poor preying on poor, like all over the damned world.

Chavez has dramatically improved the lives of the poor majority in Venezuela (80% of the population was poor when he took office). One would think that would reduce crime, but Venezuela's poor still do not live well. There is only so much one can do. What exactly is Chavez supposed to do to reduce crime. What exactly is the opposition going to do to reduce crime?

Chavez supporters control the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government. Pretty good for a defeated party reeling from crushing blows.

An former official with the PDVSA, the state petroleum company, is quoted making statements against Chavez. The PDVSA is the favorite of the US media (Amazing how US elites suddenly fall in love with state-owned businesses sometimes.)

In truth, their union, beloved by the US ruling classes (Don't you love it how the ruling classes can suddenly become "pro-union" sometimes?) was nothing but an organization of crooked middle-class office workers.

The PDVSA was an incredibly corrupt company. Much of the money produced by the oil company was simply siphoned off by the corrupt PDVSA. The workers in the union were the criminals who were involved in this theft of the patrimony of the Venezuelan people. These were no downtrodden proletarians.

The article also focuses on some of the admittedly heated rhetoric in the election. What's not said is that the opposition routinely uses rhetoric that is just as bad as Chavez' supporters do. It's more a reflection of a profoundly polarized political environment in a country full of Latin hotheads.

It is true that the opposition won in some of Caracas' slums. This is most unfortunate. Chavez has dramatically increased people's expectations. For decades, the corrupt ruling parties had never done the slightest damned thing to help the people, so people lost hope. Now Chavez has stirred people's hopes and lit a light in their hearts. If you can't deliver on the voracious demands that flicker stirs, that can be a dangerous thing.

More along the same lines from the New Lies Times again here, by the same liar, Simon Romero.

Much more sensible analysis here, here and here.