In the past, Gustavo has made much of his lowly antecedents, his admirable rise from the grassroots to positions of power as executive president of the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG), directorships in various Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) subsidiaries and his key role in the Presidential candidature of Henrique Salas Romer ... which, of course, ended in failure and Gustavo's own 'retirement' to the paradise island of Margarita to manage a hotel-cum-tourism complex for a nameless friend.
Along the way, Gustavo gathered unto himself sufficient wealth to follow in the footsteps of so many of his renegade countrymen to live a luxurious lifestyle in the United States, Virginia to be precise, surrounded by his loving grandchildren while passing the time between grandfatherly cat-naps jotting off memorandae to all and sundry about his pet hate: Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias.
Now, let's be clear about this ... Dear Gustavo has every right to take pot-shots at whomsoever displeaseth him from under whatever rock shields him from reality ... he does, indeed, have every right to enjoy freedom of expression and we applaud him for his courage and conviction although, despite him having conferred an honorary PhD upon me, I am not by any means medically qualified to diagnose his fixation as being somewhat sick, verging on the paranoid if not already maniacal.
It is with regret, however, that I see Gustavo's ire aroused by a sincere editorial published a couple of weeks ago in which I explained why my heart bleeds for Venezuela.
Not for the first time, Gustavo makes unsubstantiated statements! It was in fact his penchant for unsubstantiated statements that led to our reluctant parting of the ways in the aftermath of the April 2002 coup d'etat, when his cogent writings began to take on the wildly accusatory style he has since mastered under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation USA and other anti-Venezuela funders of its ilk.It was shortly after Gustavo "got sacked"/ "parted company" from his role as custodian at the Isla de Margarita vacation site that he began to complain bitterly about red-bereted "invadors" at his expensive property near Valencia and how he had to check on his unproductive property in the Andean foothills among others. The editorial crunch (at least for me as editor of VHeadline) came when Gustavo went ballistic after I chose to ask him to modify a libelous statement in one of his editorials that would have put us in legal jeopardy if the unsubstantiated allegation had in fact appeared. No amount of explanation of the niceties could convince Gustavo that VHeadline has a declared responsibility to promote the truth, NOT lies, in reporting what is happening in Venezuela.
Gustavo has made much since then of the fact that he himself admitted downing a number of Scotch whiskies as he fled the paradise island back to his comfortable family abode on the mainland...
But let's not dwell on the past. Let us rather cogitate on the present and the future as it undoubtedly affects Venezuela, Gustavo and myself!QUOTE: Some of the things Mr. Carson says in his cowering manifest include: "Elements within the government are probably keeping Chavez so occupied that he doesn't have time to deal with details although he is a workaholic."
Delving deeply into a psycho-analysis of the quotation he attributed to me (my colleague Oscar Heck will undoubtedly claim copyright!), Gustavo assumes "this means that Chavez himself is immaculate and his collaborators are the ones who are incompetent" and wonders "who decides to name these collaborators and who is ultimately responsible for the dismal moral quality of government bureaucrats during the last nine years."
The dear old soul then cites: "Chavez plight is made all the worse by the fact that while he is making every effort to govern by the democratic book…"
In further analysis Gustavo effuses: His (Chavez') efforts to govern by the democratic book must include, according to Carson, the total lack of transparency and accountability in the use of national resources, the prostitution of the armed forces, the politicization of PDVSA, the high levels of corruption among his relatives, the political indoctrination of Venezuelan children, the rejection of his defeat in the December 2007 referendum, his failed attempt at becoming president for life, his alignment with the Colombian narcoterrorists and his prodigality in giving the money that belongs to us Venezuelans to political gangsters Castro, Morales and Ortega.
WOW!
QUOTE: "Venezuela is blighted with corruption, indolence and infiltration at various embassies and consulates around the world and it makes a mockery of everything that President Hugo Chavez stands for "
Gustavo whips up even more of a storm: Again, "poor" President Chavez is, according to Carson, a victim of his corrupt and incompetent collaborators. It does not matter that he is the one taking all decisions on personnel, government policies and actions. Carson claims that he simply does not know what is happening around him.
QUOTE AGAIN: "The list of victims of Venezuela's current descent into political mayhem … begins with Hugo Rafael Chavez himself and ends with the millions of grassroots Venezuelans who have caught sight of the Promised Land which they have not yet reached. Like Moses Chavez has had the best of intentions for his people…. those nearest to him have betrayed him…"
Spitting blood by this time, Gustavo rails on:
- In this paragraph Carson reaches the top of his sycophantic capabilities. He develops in more detail the familiar theme: the blame lies elsewhere. Corruption, incompetence, ignorance, indolence, despotism, nepotism, neglect, insensitivity, egocentrism, personality cult, disdain for the opinions of Venezuelans, aggressiveness and vulgarity as a political style, all of these traits are present in treacherous followers, never in Chavez.
- I would like to know what this "promised land" Carson mentions really mean. It would also be good to know what Carson calls "Chavez life's ambition". All evidence available to Venezuelans today points to Chavez trying to install in our country a socialist state, like Cuba, with all its misery and suffering for the people. Carson talks a good game about democracy but, being paid by Chavez, he has ended up, like so many mercenaries before him, justifying a despot's rape of democracy.
- How is this for ass kissing? In Venezuela we say: "Jala [bolas] pero no te guindes", or pull [testicles] but do not cling, when we read something as obsequious as this. If Chavez completes his "life work" as his employee would like him to do, we Venezuelans are doomed. He has already largely ruined our country and only a corrupt minority, are reaping the material benefits.
- Industry is largely destroyed, agriculture has essentially disappeared (food imports are at a record high in Venezuela, mostly from Colombia), mining (Carson is one of Crystallex's widowers) is largely gone, oil production is down, foreign companies are being confiscated, food is scarce, planes are falling off the sky, crime is rampant, inflation is the highest in Latin America, unemployment and inequality have not subsided, the army is breaking down, public administration is in the hands of ignorant and incompetent, the environment is seriously degraded, the regime is growing isolated. Obviously this is not the Venezuela we Venezuelans desire. This is the Venezuela that mercenaries like Roy S. Carson has helped to create.
- Human misery and moral depravity are some of the byproducts of Hugo Chavez' tragic presidency. Roy S. Carson is just one example of the Chavez's regime massive moral collapse but there are many more.
- I would like to know what this "promised land" Carson mentions really mean. It would also be good to know what Carson calls "Chavez life's ambition". All evidence available to Venezuelans today points to Chavez trying to install in our country a socialist state, like Cuba, with all its misery and suffering for the people. Carson talks a good game about democracy but, being paid by Chavez, he has ended up, like so many mercenaries before him, justifying a despot's rape of democracy.
That which Gustavo continues to delude himself on is the basic concept of democracy ... okay, I understand that it is not easy for old dogs to learn new tricks, especially after Gustavo's career long fraternization with the corruption in a string of administrations prior to President Hugo Chavez coming on the scene to insult Gustavo's affection for the lifestyle to which he had become accustomed. Yes, we understand that Gustavo has been inculcated with the traditional prejudices of the richer upper classes (by no means an aristocracy) that held Venezuelans in slavish control for more than half a century. Gustavo fixates on the personality of President Hugo Chavez and goes into hyper-drive mostly because Chavez is visually no Mona Lisa and, being of indigenous stock, the fact that he has the bare effrontery to challenge the "authority" of the white-faced Spanish ethnics is quite intolerable ... at least in Gustavo's and the minds of those who view any other class but their own as "monkeys come down from the barrios" emulating Gibraltar apes bare-assed in the faces of the Spaniards who still believe the Rick to be their own.
Dear Gustavo ... whether you like it or not, the Venezuelan people (the REAL Venezuelan people!) elected President Hugo Chavez Frias in a democratic general election in December 1998. Now, I know that you and your buddy Salas Romer never accepted the true intent of democracy and that you set out immediately to sabotage every twist and turn of governance that followed on Chavez' inauguration as President in February 1999. You even failed to recognize the fact that a democratic majority agreed essential constitutional reforms in December 1999 to replace an outdated and provenly corrupt 1961 ditto that had simply nurtured under-the-table political manipulations by both Accion Democratica (AD) and COPEI. You were at first gleeful when Pedro Carmona Estanga usurped the democratic process and abolished the National Assembly, the Judiciary and the Constitution in April 2002 when President Hugo Chavez was briefly overthrown ... but chagrin set in when he was returned to power by the overwhelming mass of the people just a few days later.
YES ... that's democracy!
You can bellow and bully and whine and frown your sorrows in many more Scotch whiskies, Gustavo, but it is the grassroots people of Venezuela that will ultimately decide Venezuela's future. YES! Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias is currently the man at the top and we can indeed agree that traditional corruption and malfeasance is dragging him down.
But at that point, Gustavo, your paranoia takes precedence over rational thinking!
President Hugo Chavez Frias is but a simple man of flesh and blood. He has all the frailties of being a human being like you also have your frailties, Gustavo, if you would but recognize them! As a former executive at the Venezuelan Guayana Corporation (CVG) you will have had first hand experience (I am now kindly making the assumption that you were not complicit in) of the corruption that has beleagured Venezuela's heavy industry sector for most of its history. Were YOU able to deal with it decisively? YOU had the executive power! What, apart from a line of pretty trees planted along the avenue at Pequiven, did you accomplish as a key executive at Petroleos de Venezuela? YOU had the executive power! Surely you accomplished a little more than planting a few ornamental trees?
Rightly or wrongly, President Hugo Chavez Frias believes that he is the man to accomplish the job. More importantly, the majority of Venezuelans believe that he is the man to accomplish the job in their behalf! They said so at the polls. They said so majoritarily! So who are you -- or I -- to dispute the sovereign will of the Venezuelan people? I don't think so!
Of course, Gustavo, it makes good copy for your paymasters at the Carnegie Institute and others for them to see you in attack-mode in advance of each pay-check and ... after all ... its more expensive to live in Virginia than "down on the hacienda" outside Valencia. You do, however, have the added blessing of your grandchildren to sit on your knee and hear grandpa gripe about "the good old days" when the monkeys in the barrios knew their place and didn't make demands for such silly things as democracy and/or a better coconut to drop from the trees...
Saludos, amigo viejo!
Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com
Mr. Carson here you are dealing with the children of the leftovers of WW11 who think that the hospita must endure a thousand years of suffering by their criminal hands. These people in generation to come will never become anything other than a "deshecho Europeo"(pedazo de)
ReplyDeleteHere follows a wise analysis of one of VHEADLINE best writers.
In general, the constitution describes only the form of the state, that is, only how power is exercised or the procedural characteristics of the operation of the state. So, a constitutional reform changes the form of the state. In this case, however, the changes in form proposed by the constitutional reform have profound and enduring implications for the content of the state, that is, who chiefly exercises power and for whom is power chiefly exercised. In other words, shall the elected and appointed representatives at the top of the executive power of the state be politically, ideologically, and organizationally tied to the proletariat or to the bourgeoisie? And, shall the proletariat itself directly execute an enlarged share of the executive power without the intervention of elected representatives or of the bourgeoisie?
bylined by Arthur Shaw december 2nd 2007