VENEZUELA: A POLITICAL "CHIMERA" TO KILL DEMOCRACY

In the last couple months I have been collaborating with the blog "Venezuela News & Views". The editor of this blog, Daniel Duquenal, had the idea to invite his readers to write comments on the modifications to each and every article of the ill conceived constitutional reform being proposed by the government.

Venezuela is at the brink of becoming a totalitarian country under the Presidency of a tyrant who wants to stay in power for life. I can not think of any other issue in Latin America that is more important than this one and therefore I offered Daniel to write comments to the modifications being proposed to Articles 11, 16 and 18.

The following are the comments I wrote and the dramatic conclusions I have reached.

Article 16

Preamble: When I first asked the editor of "Venezuela News & Views" to allow me to comment on the constitutional modifications of articles 11, 16 and 18, I was totally aware, from the first reading, of the dangers that the modifications to article 11 posed to the Venezuelan democracy.

At that time, I also thought that commenting article 16 was a waste of time because the text of this modification is the closest I have ever seen a constitutional text come to the legendary dyslectic speech of that beloved character called “Cantinflas” brilliantly portrayed by the Mexican actor Mario Moreno throughout his life.

I decided to write comments on all three articles though because they are part of Title II of the Bolivarian Constitution of 1999 that deals with the territory and the political division of that territory.

Far was I then from realizing that, as much as the implications of the modified text to article 11 where frightening, the implications of the modifications to the text of article 16 are by far, and I mean far, worse than those of article 11. Further, I was wrong and presumptuous by dismissing and labeling the text of the modifications to article 16 as “Cantinflesco”.

VENEZUELA: ABSOLUTE POWER FOR AN ABSOLUTE TYRANT

In the last couple months I have been collaborating with the blog "Venezuela News & Views". The editor of this blog, Daniel Duquenal, had the idea to invite his readers to write comments on the modifications to each and every article of the ill conceived constitutional reform being proposed by the government.

Venezuela is at the brink of becoming a totalitarian country under the Presidency of a tyrant who wants to stay in power for life. I can not think of any other issue in Latin America that is more important than this one and therefore I offered Daniel to write comments to the modifications being proposed to Articles 11, 16 and 18.

The following are the comments I wrote and the dramatic conclusions I have reached.

THE POWER AND LEGACY OF OUR CULTURE IS OUR CONCEPT OF INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM

The following is my answer to a comment posted by "Bauta" in the blog of Andres Oppenheimer from The Miami Herald. It touches some of the points of my previous two postings but here again, it does provide further insights as to my thoughts on the immigration issue. Enjoy!

Bauta said...

When you have millions of people coming from the same region, the result is that they don't feel the need to assimilate to the new society and they don't learn the language. Hispanics in America and Muslims in Europe don't want to assimilate, they want to impose their culture. Now the US is going to bring 7,000 more Muslims from Irak. Wonderful ah? Bauta

Mousqueton said....

Dear Bauta:

That is not quite true. Let me explain.

1) At a certain point in our history over 74% of the New York population was foreign and they eventually assimilated. Further, in the 1900’s the foreign born population of the United States was higher than in the year 2000 and they have assimilated as well.

In the process we also assimilated some of their customs and traditions. A token of that is the Saint Patrick's Ball held in the White House and certainly the bagpipes that are today an American tradition at the funeral of any policeman and/or firefighter who dies in the line of duty.

2) While numbers do have an impact on the assimilation process, it is the endurance and fortitude of the principles that eventually determine which culture prevails.

If you make a list of everything you believe to be American and do some research you will find that none of it, except as I mentioned before arguably Baseball and certainly Rock and Roll, is indeed American.

The logical question then is; how can there be an American culture if everything we regard as American is indeed foreign?

IT IS HARD TO BE AN AMERICAN

The following is a comment posted in the blog of Andres Oppenheimer from The Miami Herald. It is in a way a little redundant with my last posting but it does add some additional concepts to the immigration debate. Enjoy!
Mousqueton said ...

It is pretty clear, from the reading of some comments in this blog, that many of you do not understand what America is all about.

IMMIGRATION OR ETHNIC CLEANSING DEBATE? THAT IS THE QUESTION

The immigration debate in the US is so biased that there is little chance that any intelligent discussion can take place.

To some neo-conservatives immigration is the mother of all evils and blamed for everything that is wrong except, at least for the time being, the war in Iraq. On the other side of the spectrum we have those who believe that immigration is good for the US and that since we are a nation of immigrants everyone should be welcomed.

Behind the slogans, self serving names, the posturing and of course the profiteering by some dubious and certainly biased media personalities, the truth is that everyone in both sides of the argument are simply human beings; human beings that react as such when confronted with real and/or perceived threats.

In the end, everyone in this epic confrontation shares the same primal calling and motivation; survival!

In the US, the anti-immigration zealots are not really concerned with jobs, welfare and the economy. Why should they? If there is something that the US has proven through out its history is that we are the best there is when it comes to assimilating and adapting. We are extremely good at thriving in adverse conditions and certainly a couple million immigrants are not going to change that.

Further, immigrants are both producers and consumers and that is what our economic system is based on. We might need to tweak a little thing here and there to help immigrants adapt and produce more than they consume, but that is not a problem for a strong and creative economy such as the US economy.

The real concern that conservative zealots and other xenophobic fanatics have is that they perceive Hispanic immigration as a threat to the survival of their particular brand of American culture. Further, most of them are really advocates of a policy of ethnic cleansing disguised as an immigration policy.