safe passages

There is this phrase which more or less in english goes like: we’re making the effort for having a better country. Now everything is for having a better country. Last Saturday I went to the venezuelan version of a Food Truck Fair and, like everything lately, it wasn´t enjoyable at all. Many people complained and they had a point to do so, the thing is that the producers of the event weren´t, in my opinion, respectful enough with the upset ones. This mainstream way of management through cell phones and by posting flattering moments of itself is not being well used as I can see. We are supposed to be cheering and grateful because they’re making the effort for having a better country; just like the government. Chavez used to speak about the new man as a person with new values. A lot of money in propaganda got spent to convey such an affirmation. I think it worked, there’s indeed a new man, only that perhaps it is not what’s expected, not to me at least.

The new politicians for instance. They’ve become so popular and then, at last, it turned too little (almost nothing) all these growing alliance against our oppressors. Yesterday, for example, these representatives, both sides, gathered at Dominican Republic to renegotiate terms. I’m kind of lost with those terms. I need my income to reach the next payment. We need a whole new economy system and we need it right away. This terms thing just delay while prices keep increasing. On the other hand, like the people of the Food Truck, these ones also are making the effort for having a better country…

It seems like everything is being done through safe passages. It seems that’s the excuse we better believe so, yes, we’re supposed to self-deceive one another, post it as a good thing to then, by lying each other, make the phrase a slogan. Therefore, let’s say I’m making the effort for having a better country I guess…

and the slogan becomes a song…

I was having a little chat with some coworkers. One was saying about English importance: the treaties, the way to get in touch with the world, the advantages and, in general; all those things we’ve been always told but not so many cared. The interesting thing was what the other one said:  why English? That’s a language I won’t be submitted (and it won’t be necessary to write what else he said)

I pictured some scenarios in my head: let’s take this guy and sit him over a chair with power, let’s say he will be named a minister or a director: what kind of management would it be his? The possible answers of this question actually remove you from any doubt. It would be nefarious, just as it is Venezuela nowadays.

We’ve been living the time of free market and globalization; something opposing will hardly reach a common good. The only way a government controlled market may work is by sponsoring perceptions through alms; you see: I set up an insult, something that makes minds feel rather than understand, so perceptions get open through this sort of offensive feeling via, which also make them get eager, eager for an explanation, and the explanation comes, an archetype: there must be someone, someone evil, evil from abroad; and now I get why I’ve been poor, why wealth is a concept for frustration, then I start summarizing: what do I really want, or need? What the government gives: a box with several products so you don’t get hungry, but remember, this is not just to solve hunger, it isn’t. This is a struggle against the enemy, an enemy who imposed English and a wrong concept of wealth. I don´t know what’s wealth anymore. Wealth is what government tells, so you better start paying attention to its words, so its words become a slogan, and the slogan becomes a song…

What about now? Alms have been reduced because Oil price crumbled. Now the song is about production: what such a thing could be if you first told me I wasn´t responsible for who I’ve been? 

Now that I’m aware my ignorance was planted by the enemy… I just wait for my box of food.

Power is power, Cercei said.

The goal

Poverty is not a consequence but a resource. A good one to second class politicians. There’s this sort of pushing on mantra we’re used to hear from anything and anywhere that encourages happiness among the poor. Chavez did it well from a TV constant broadcast and, in time, poor became proud. I’m not against it, I’m not. I think it is accurate for the poor not to feel miserable. We all understand misery implies unwilling; not cheering at all, at anything, of course. There has to be some purpose, some motivation to go and hang on, but it doesn’t mean poverty is a free ticket Disney Park stay because it is not. We’ve been told for years that our situation is how it is, due to the politics of some other countries, and somehow – despite there’s always a joy because we’re free – it affects us all because our economy depends on them.

It might not be entirely false; we do depend, but this is neither why we’re poor nor why we’re supposed to be proud of, and I want to talk about this pride: if you feel proud of being poor – because the government makes you believe so – you just stop trying to improve your situation. If you believe there’s no need to move from where you are, because it’s ok living in a rancho, you just won’t push yourselves hard anymore, and what’s the deal of it? It is everyone’s problem, right? It is, it’s true, but the moment you accept it, you open yourselves up to the speeches of the politicians, and that moment is going to seal your perception for good. From now on you won’t question, hesitate or complain. From now on you believe… like the inquisition did. This time not in the name of God, but in the name of the revolution.  

Pride did not come by chance, it didn’t. This pride is the result of many years of rejection, that’s why many people went for it, embraced it, because they were tired of seeing how chances were set up to others and not to them. To those, the political speeches brought hope, and hope is powerful, especially when you’re poor. We let it happen, we let hope became pride without warning, instead, we fooled at it, criticized it. We set the distance that politicians took as a road, and the road led them to victory, and poor became deaf to middle class… now middle class joined the poor without the pride, therefore this poverty is not resourceful to the chairmen, this poverty is a pretext.

At the end of the thinking, poverty is the goal and they’ve pretty much achieved it.