Where's my upside down exclamation point on the keyboard? How about if I used a lower case "i". So..iHola! Not bad.Well,whatta week it was in Venezuela. One great thing is the emergence of "Radio Venezuela En Vivo. We were able to hear 24 hour a day live broadcasting from some pretty awesome people there. and not just cool and groovy journalists like Mike Fox and others, but many interviews with Venezuelans who are making the revolution in their neighborhoods. Lots of us are hoping they can bring it back now the that the referendum is over. Like totally over. Por Ahora,(for now) as Chavez said. His concession speech late Sunday night was a class act. Lots of talk about what went wrong and what's next. It certainly was a defeat, but not a concisive victory for the opposition by any means. The political landscape will be changing in Venezuela as the opposition tries to figure out who they are and where they're going. A more moderate leadership is predicted for the opposition, but the crazy fire-setting, molotov cocktail-throwing students are still a wild card. For the bolivarian revolution, people (including Chavez) are saying it happened too fast and didn't come from the base.(there was also a brutal scare campaign put on by the opposition) The 1999 constitution was created by the Constituent Assembly, and many thought that should have happened with the reforms. But Chavez and the huge majority that are still with him (in spite of the fact that many were afraid to vote for the reforms and abstained) intend to deepen the socialist revolution and the take stock of how to work to do that.
More recently, Chavez has pointed out that many of these reforms can be worked on by the people, and presented again, perhaps in a different form.
But...everything is always interesting.
Get great info from http://www.venezualanalysis.com/ and keep your spirits up and keep on getting great information and keep laughing with http://www.borev.net/
Posts
1 comment:
Hi Jeanne,
I wonder whether part of the problem with the referendum is that a lot of people appreciate what Chavez has done, but are actually wary of starting a process of socialist transformation. (There are dangers in that process, both of defeat and the process being corrupted, so the wariness may not be entirely irrational.) It is to Chavez's credit that he would not start the process without the explicit support of the people. It is going to be interesting to see how Chavez tries to convince people of the desirability of this departure.
Cheers,
Tom
Post a Comment