VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: Yeah, okay! What on earth does Venezuela have to learn from English legends ... or Spanish ones, for that matter, either? Sure, you can perhaps draw some parallels with Don Quixote tilting at windmills, but King Canute and Alfred the Great hit nearer to home when musing on contemporary Venezuelan politics for, while the Great Satan to the north is finding it increasingly unlikely that it will ever be able to stop the rising tide of grassroots awareness throughout Latin America, the current masters of the Venezuelan universe need to remember that King Alfred was careless enough to let the cakes burn...
Very much to Washington's chagrin, and the fact that their biased irrationality always equates 21st Century socialism with Stalinist-style communism, it is gaining ground throughout the southern continent as they (Latinos) see the north's peculiar brand of fascism begin to implode with lunatic leaders ensconced in the self-delusion that they will not be swamped by the waves and eventually drowned in their own arrogance.
But replacing one brand of arrogance with another is NOT the answer!
Neither is it to tilt at temporary windmills that quickly disappear when the ovens catch fire and the cakes get burned to a cinder. Nor can they hope that a phoenix will rise from the ashes of their own foohardy delusions. Rather they should resolve to do that which King Alfred failed to do since playing with fire is a dangerous game and fingers can indeed get burned as well as cakes if the oven is not kept in regular check, not allowed to overheat but rather given the opportunity to bake the cake according to proven recipe.
Such, however, is the dilemma in the experimental kitchen of 21st Century socialism where each step along the pathway to national and social development must be carefully taken if for no other reason than to avoid removing the "and" and have it tipping over into national socialism! Quite clearly, lessons have to be learned from history although there are some who would prefer, rather, to re-write the history books to the tune of their own ambitions.
It is no easy task, even today, for President Hugo Chavez Frias to navigate the minefields of Venezuela's economic and political intrigue.
Since way before the Spanish conquistadores were finally ousted in the final victory over colonial rule at the Battle of Carabobo, shrewd manipulators have always polluted the corridors of power through a succession of pseudo-democratic governments and military dictatorships under which the Venezuelan people have suffered greatly. The millions of impoverished Venezuelans of all racial mixes are, however, at last beginning to understand the value of political franchise and their voice is surely being heard at the ballot box across the nation in a succession of votes that have enhanced Venezuela's new democracy in the wake of President Chavez' coming to power in February 1999. But nine years on ... while Venezuela's political panorama has most definitely changed ... grassroots voters are beginning to feel that they may have replaced one dangerous political elite for another. They are ready for rebellion as they see a new elite in Chavez' administration abuse the very foundations on which Chavez has built the new democracy he calls the Bolivarian Revolution.
Perhaps he feels, like King Canute, he can stop the waves that threaten to engulf his best ambitions for the Venezuelan nation, but the tide of corruption, incompetence and malfeasance that pollutes the current administration is a cancer that must be surgically removed else the patient will surely die.
It is time now for Chavez to wield the surgeon's knife, decisively, since November 23 could otherwise become his presidency's funeral parlor.
The English legend says that in AD 877, King Alfred, an innovator and a thinker, was scolded by a peasant woman for his carelessness, but from that point on, he took definitive charge of his nation and things began to look up for him with consolidated gains to eventually become a successful warrior going down in history as 'The Great.'
One thousand and thirty one years later, the choice waiting in the wings for Venezuelans this November 23 is to put trust in Alfred's grassroots-admonished leadership, hoping that Chavez will have learned some lessons from Alfred having burned the cakes...
Or if he will be as stoic (read stupid) as King Canute and insist on sitting by the seashore convinced that he has the power to halt the rising tide...
Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com
Venezuela is facing the most difficult period of its history with honest reporters crippled by sectarianism on top of rampant corruption within the administration and beyond, aided and abetted by criminal forces in the US and Spanish governments which cannot accept the sovereignty of the Venezuelan people to decide over their own future.
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