VENEZUELA: What are we left with? Well, any farmer knows that there's a lot of mucking out to do in the aftermath!

VHeadline editor & publisher Roy S. Carson writes: As Venezuela goes to the polls today to elect State governors and municipal officials in what is also seen as a plebiscite on the main personality -- who is not up for election this time around -- closed minds and unreasoned prejudices are, perhaps, an even greater danger to Venezuela's political and economic future than anything President Hugo Chavez Frias believes the United States or his political opposition in Venezuela can do.

In similar vein, closed minds and prejudices in Chavez' opposition are, effectively, accomplishing the same thing with an ever-increasing sectarian divide that has led to the formation of what THEY see as Chavez' storm troopers marching over individual rights and freedom in the name of collectivism ... or worse ... the dreaded "S"-word, Socialism!

I speak from personal experience of a youth enmeshed in sectarian divisions in my native Ireland where, by daunt of family name, I was pre-conditioned to a belief that the other side was evil, traitorous, manipulative and in league with Satan himself.

Hopefully, I have since progressed beyond such Neanderthal position to see that nothing is achieved by such simple alienation and the realization that as George Orwell stated in 'Animal Farm' -- first published in the year of my birth -- that "all animals being equal" spells out the propaganda message: "four legs good, two legs bad!"

In this, I am grateful for a swift reminder from Swedish-Australian reader Eric Pihl, in New South Wales, who points out that chasing the drunken farmer off his land, suddenly allows "the pigs, chickens, horses, dogs, cats and cows to control the means of production." Translated into human terms, of course, it means that when, the oppressor is vanquished, the means of production reverts to the grassroots people ... a fact that the good citizens of Venezuela should be mindful of today as they go to the polls to decide the pathway to Venezuela's future!

But, having gotten rid of the 'drunken farmer'/'oppressor'/'corruption of previous administrations,' George Orwell also warned of the progress of the pigs -- all animals being equal of course ... who "slyly turn the screws on the laboring menagerie, most of whom only dimly remember a time when life wasn't so hard." Could Nostradamus have put it plainer?

Orwell's 'Animal Farm' has a lot to say about power, what people do with power and how often it is dangerous and frightening ... he simplifies it down to "the pigs become obese with power and propaganda twists the message"! Everything starts off looking as though it will be wonderfully egalitarian, with all animals being equal. However, things soon start to degenerate, and the pigs take almost dictatorial control ... they gradually start to get more like the tyrannical masters that they themselves once were subject to."

YES! It is understood that Orwell's not-always subtle political rant is focused on the then dangers of Stalinism, it could even be regarded as a work of fiction although it holds so many truths ... not least applicable to today's (and yesteryear's) scenario in Venezuela. Having been released from the shackles of Spanish colonialism, the Liberator Simon Bolivar had in how own way, contemporary with the times, sought to return political and economic power to the grassroots of the South American continent. In many ways it was a losing battle because a succession of "pigs" have, over the last two hundred years, manipulated the rest of the farmyard animals to the extent that they are only now gaining a sense of self-esteem and empowerment to do battle with the darker forces that would enslave the slaves before they finally get out of total submission to servitude ... and that is where we are today!

I know that many ill-will individuals around the world will seek to foist the imagery of 'The Pig' on President Hugo Chavez Frias and it must be admitted that his weight-gains in recent years has given added fuel to their fires. But on the whole, it is NOT he who should be cast inthe role of 'Principal Porcine' but rather the myriad of little piglets that have bloated his governmental administration so that its corpulence is increasingly beyond any concept of control. That is the saddest part of it all!

YES! There are more reasoned members of the Venezuelan farmyard community who are better equipped to haul the heavy plows and bulldozers that are necessary to move mountains than a sty-load of piglets that will run squealing at the first sight of heavy labor.

• George "Mr. Donkey" Bush certainly hasn't helped things any by his obstinate McCarthyist braying that anything possibly left of extreme right must be obliterated off the face of the earth.

Then again, it hasn't helped any for either the Chavistas or the 'Escualidos' (opposition) to scream hatred at each other across the barricades when the older forces of past political and economic corruption (on both sides) are already dying off.

The focus, in today's elections, must necessarily be to deal with the political piglets on both sides of the brick farmyard wall that refuse to see their world as it was originally intended, egalitarian, to be.

Of course, it serves the piglets' purpose to frighten the chickens into believing that there are NOT some animals more capable than others to serve the better interests of the nation ... it has nothing to do with egalitarianism, but rather one of enabling those who will see a better future for all of Venezuela to use their individual talents to achieve rather than to destroy.

Those animals (?) are often to be found on the other side of the barricades, fighting for what they sincerely believe to be their versions of The Truth.

Whichever way, their ambitions are, we believe, fondly for the ultimate good of Venezuela AND, with necessary checks and balances that should otherwise be provided in the democratically instituted Constitution of Venezuela AND periodic submission of those powers to the electoral decision of the Venezuelan people.

What we are left with today is a farmyard full of piglets squealing blue murder as they are rounded up ready to be taken to the abattoir, having already filled themselves at the public trough!

So what are we left with? Well, any farmer knows that there's a lot of mucking out to do in the aftermath!

Roy S. Carson
vheadline@gmail.com

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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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