Good evening, cool world! Can you believe we’re already in the double digits here? Me neither…or at least, I wouldn’t believe it if it weren’t the Venezuelan oppos we’re talking about. Those people are just replete with irony, and they don’t even know it.
Anyhow, tonight’s edition is an old fossil, sniping at the young. Now, fossils are common enough in Venezuela — how do you think all that dino-juice got into the ground? — but for an opposition that keeps presenting itself as the hot, young, up-and-coming “alternative” to the eeeeeeeevils of bad old Chavismo, it sure is funny that the criticism of the young hotties is coming not from the bad old Chavistas, but from one of their very own:
This week there was a fierce argument between the secretary-general of the Acción Democrática (AD) party, Henry Ramos Allup, and a group of young opposition members, after the Adeco leader criticized the “star-powered” leadership of the opposition youth.
The insults and disparagements began last Tuesday, when the AD director wrote on his Twitter account: “Snobbery: the directors don’t improvise…Look what’s become of the ‘star-powered’ young from a few years ago.”
Allup’s stance toward the “students” who staged protests in front of the Cuban embassy, or the recent attempt to camp out in front of the National Electoral Council, soon got responses on Twitter.
“A few people, @hramosallup, a few people like you have damaged Venezuelan democracy. May God soon come looking for you,” replied @macabrism, in support of the opposition youth.
“I won’t respond to insults from the same paid-off government flunkies, or those who pass for opposition. The same detritus,” replied Allup.
“That response, @hramosallup, is the typical reaction of those who are permanently frustrated at not having any impact among the students,” replied @Archidvcem, another student oppositionist. Allup questioned this one: “Student? False. Anti-political snobbery, promiscuous, guarimbero, coward, pothead, parakeet, gum-chewer, and political asexual.”
And just so there’s no doubt as to what the AD director was talking about when he demonstrated his disagreement, he added: “Why don’t you go start a guarimba in Catia, in the 23 de Enero, or Valle-Coche? Go there and grab a geezer’s pacemaker. SOBs.”
The polemics demonstrate the different politics between the opposition and those who, under the banner of “students”, head up the actions from the earlier this year, which have not been recognized by the most traditional sectors of the Venezuelan opposition.
Translation mine.
Some backgrounder is necessary here. The guarimba is a uniquely Venezuelan “student” oppositionist tactic for delegitimizing a duly elected government. It involves “protests” that are clearly just violence and bomb-throwing, but the proponents routinely call it “peaceful” and claim it’s the authorities who are to blame for the violence, even when it comes with no crackdown from the authorities whatsoever. The tactic comes courtesy of one Gene Sharp, an anti-socialist who appropriated the name of the VERY socialist Albert Einstein for his so-called “institute”, and who gets a lot of toe-sucking from clueless North American liberals and proponents of “the mindful life” for his bullshit “nonviolent protest” manual. The irony of a violent provocation passing itself off as nonviolent protest should be lost on no one. (Not even you “mindful” hipsters, who have a well-known penchant for abusing the i-word.)
But even funnier and more ironic than the Venezuelan oppos’ habit of eating their own, and pitting the politically apathetic young against the politically fossilized old, is the fact that ol’ Henry is an accidental pop star, with his very own reggaeton tune:
Yes, that’s right. Stodgy-podgy Henry is hipper than any hipster. And he’s friggin’ SQUARE.
At this rate, we don’t have to wonder why the Bolivarians keep romping to easy victory in what Jimmy Carter himself has called the best electoral process in the world. Nor do we need to wonder why Henry fears Chavecito more dead than alive. With enemies like these, the Bolivarians don’t need no stinkin’ friends.
And if that’s not ironic, I don’t know what is.
