About Chave'z Venezuela and their pathetic middle class.

Today’s Hugo Chavez 3rd electoral win was for me not a surprise at all. I expected it. It doesn’t mean I support or like Chavez or his way of ruling, at all. I have been in Venezuela 3 times; the first at mid 70’s, the second at mid 80’s and the third at the mid 90’s. I didn’t like the country or the people. Too noisy people, too shallow people. I thought "I"m in the land of the Miss Universe queens, so the girls must be gorgeous." Not at all, just the usual girls, only more shallow than in other South American countries. Then somebody told me the cruel truth that all the Miss Venezuela’s misses should go through the plastic surgeon in order to get the OK for being candidates to that Donald Trump yearly show. There's a huge quantity of plastic invested in those girls. The countryside was the usual one of an equatorial place, except maybe for the near Andean zone, in Merida, nice place. However, what shocked me more, in all my 3 times in the country were the following: -In the 70's the huge squandering of money and resources by almost everybody (I was staying with middle class people.) There’s even a documentary called “MAYAMI NUESTRO”. It was then usual that mid-class Venezuelans traveled for the weekend to Miami in order to just… shop. There’s a line in the documentary were the then mayor of Miami says “without the Venezuelans our economy will plunder.” -Everybody from the middle class having 2, 3 or more cars, plus motorcycles and the cost of fuel way cheaper that the cost of a small soda. -Caracas, Venezuela’s capital, have like a bowl-shape, where like one quarter is covered by beautiful green woods, “El Avila”. However I remember asking for the other 3 quarters, with a brownish color. The answer was the same and with the same indifference tone “Those are the “Ranchitos” (the shanty towns.)” In those “Ranchitos” live almost ¾ of Caracas population and the middle class gave a squat for them. They didn’t care about them, at all. It was for them like the ugly spot in their panoramic view. In the 80's, when I went back for a short trip, Venezuela was in the middle of an economic crisis. It was not that they had less petroleum, it was simply that so much corruption and squandering took it's tool. I remember inviting for dinner over 20 people at the same time, with wine and beer included, and the tab was less that 80 bucks. I was pretty young at those times but I remember thinking, every time I saw those "Ranchitos" “if that people decide to take the city, they have the higher ground.” Well, that was what Hugo Chavez did. It was just a matter of time that years of spilling money, turn backs to the poor and make believe everybody that everything was just fine exploded. It happened in 1992, and Hugo Chavez did it. His attempt for a coup badly failed, and the government did him an enormous favor, as the German government did it at the beginning of the 20’s with a ridiculous guy with a funny mustache called Adolph: put him in jail, with access to all the books that he wanted, visits and, the best of all, TIME to think about why his coup failed and how to not fall again in the same mistakes in order to gain power. We all know the rest of the history: Chavez came out of jail, happy, chubby and ready to take what he didn’t took with the guns. And he did it, big time. Did the Venezuelan society changed while Chavez was in jail? Not at all. On the contrary, it grew in its inequalities to make the place perfect for a Chavez to come into power… and he did. So that’s why Venezuela has a Chavez. That’s why no candidate can beat him. I remember a close relative that lives in Venezuela and still don’t get it (he’s a wannabe, very dumb) telling me about the previous candidate against Chavez “he’s just an idiot, kind of rich peasant, but could be useful dor us.” That candidate lost big time. Capriles, the last candidate against a dying Chavez (yes, he’s dying, he knows it, all his entourage knows it) tried a smart move: instead of showing the face of a right-wing candidate in a country that wants something way away from the right, he “transformed” himself and his proposal into something more “progressive”, more “in the center and maybe open to the left.” Well, it was a smart move, but he lost, the people knew what actually he was: the old system trying to regain the power using a mask of "progressive." Venezuela’s problem is not a problem of candidates. The problem is that the old middle class wants to turn the clocks backwards. They can’t. They want to win? Move forward, even forward that Chavez, let Miami goes into the past and build an integrated society. Sadly, they can’t and don’t want, because they don't get it.