Generally, it’s a good idea not to gawk when you pass a car wreck. Especially if you’re the kind of person who is easily upset by blood and fire and twisted metal, because you’ll only stagger off and barf in the bushes. And even if, like me, you’re not that easily upset, you will still feel as though you’ve just looked into Nietzsche’s abyss, and had it look back into you.
Then again, sometimes you stick your head out the car window, just to get a breath of fresh air amid all the damn traffic. You don’t rubberneck, but you still see what happened. You can’t not see. And then you see something else, something you’d have missed if you had averted your eyes. Something that’s downright bracing, and does wonders for that queasy feeling. And it doesn’t come a moment too soon. Especially when you consider the fact that Chavecito’s ex is the one who wrecked her own car with a big flouncy defection in the first place.
Despite all her protestations about invaded privacy, though, the former first lady has been playing peek-a-boo a fair bit, and has even invited the worst invaders into her parlor for tea and crumpets. Not something I’d advise for anyone who really fears for her life, or who truly cares about protecting her privacy or that of her children. But apparently she was a media personage of some sort before she met him. So maybe what seems so uncouth to me, is normal for her. Or maybe she’s so hooked on the spotlight, and the sense of power that it gives her to be somebody, that she just doesn’t know where to draw the curtains anymore. Who knows?
Anyhow, her latest exploit is a doozer. She went all the way to a Colombian radio station to make dire predictions, play pop psychologist, issue a strident mea culpa, and peddle her latest tale of woe. It was too sensational (and sniffy) to believe, but because it paints the situation in precisely the lurid colors the media adore, it was instantly picked up by even “serious” news sites as a supposedly major blow for the constitutional reforms. Predictably, Globovision, the FUX Snooze of Venezuela, is playing it 24/7, too, since they never met a piece of red meat or sad human flesh that they couldn’t grind into partisan sausage.
Meanwhile, every right-wing nutter is high-fiving every other, just out of sheer slimy glee over someone else’s misfortune. (Do their hands stick together from all the oozy secretions whenever they slap each other some skin, I wonder? Yuck. Where’s my Angostura?)
But just when you thought the abyss had truly gotten the upper hand, along comes this.
"We do not share my daughter’s opinion about the constitutional reform," assured her father, in response to Marisabel’s declarations last Tuesday against the reform and the government of President Chávez, along with the advertisements with her advocating for a NO vote that are being run on Globovisión.
"President Chávez is a very humane man who wishes the best for the people of Venezuela, especially for those most in need," stated Rodríguez accompanied by his wife Beatriz Jiménez.
José Vicente Rodríguez was also accompanied by his children Beatriz Rodríguez Jiménez and José Vicente Rodríguez Jiménez and his brother Edecio Rodríguez. "We support the President because he deserves it; we are completely with him," said Marisabel’s uncle, who invited the public to vote in favor of the reform Sunday, December 2nd.
Her sister, Beatriz Rodríguez, explained, "We respect the decision of anyone, including our sister, but we do not agree with it."
What? Not a word in there about the death threats she claims she got from him? And nobody was holding a gun to her relatives’ heads to get them out on camera? Nothing but kind words for that nasty would-be dictator? Oh, the humanity.
How does it feel when you (and a couple of other erstwhile allies) march with huge fanfare over to the opposition, only to have your own family come out and quietly say that with all due respect to you and your views, they will still be voting for your ex and his constitutional reforms? Not terribly good for the ego, I imagine.
But then again, what happens today is not about anybody’s ego. Even if the sausage factory does love to pretend that it is. It is about the future of a country, a democratic country, and the will of its citizens in shaping its constitution. I will be watching that, and not some sordid media-driven fender-bender, thankyouverymuch.
