When a bloody nose is a sign of progress
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As everyone knows by now, a meeting of the Opposition's "Unity Roundtable" in Carabobo state ended in blows last week as various local factions' frustration over negotiations ahead of September's parliamentary vote came to a head.
The news has been greeted with the typical oppo roll-of-the-eyes, as example umpteen of the opposition's ingrained cluelessness. But I wonder if we're not missing the point here. After all, these guys in Carabobo might have screwed up, but what they did not do is the one thing that would really hurt the opposition in September: walk out.
In its own way, that's progress. For once, the instinct that could really screw up our chances come September - that deep, atavistic reflex to say "if I can't get my way in your unity table I'm going to go off and start my own unity table!" - gave way to a decision to tough it out even as frustration reached boiling point. At long last, 'fight' won over 'flight' within an intra-opposition dispute.
The opposition is starting to grasp one fundamental truth: walking out is not an option. Anything - even beating each other up - is preferable.
Come to think of it, Leo López would do well to go take some boxing classes in Valencia...
Francisco Toro
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Pink elephants
Well, somebody woke up looking at the bright side!
Seriously, I won't go that far, I think it's disturbing that talks of "unity" end in bloody noses. And I wouldn't be too confident that a parallel MUD won't prop up. There are 3,567 ways this could all go wrong, we still have to thread the needle.
??
What was the argument about?
Proyecto Venezuela trying to keep what it has vs everyone else?
Salas' party
does not want primaries. They want people to recognise their "leadership" based on the votes of 2008. The thing is Proyecto Venezuela (or Proyecto Salas-Feo-La-Cruz) has underperformed and other people see it is losing popularity. Mind: I supported PROVE before, the Salas Senior guy was much less bad than previous governors and much less bad than Carlez (but then my cactus would have been better than Mr Belch)
Valencia was lost in 2008 to a big extent because Proyecto Venezuela did not want to accept any candidate but theirs.
Now Proyecto Venezuela is trying to use that "student" who claims he deserves the seat because he has been in jail for one day or two (what's his name? the guy with the handkerchief around his neck)
I produced this pie
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_rZbKKDohSyc/S5UR5Qpa-EI/AAAAAAAABLc/Ls2wLuNQw0...
The 1000 parties from MPJ to La Plataforma stood behind one guy, who got 36.43%,
Proyecto Venezuela and Proyecto carabobo (a clon party with the same people) as well as copei took away 11.37%.
Parra, the PSUV winner, got 38.15%. We could have won Valencia easily...
Scarano has shown a big popularity level in San Diego, but he has kept himself there and said he wanted to keep himself there still. He has one of the highst popularity rates in Venezuela and San Diego, although middle class, is not like cumbres de Ocurumo, but rather middle-middle-middle class.
I knew quite some people who did the real job of defending the elections for Salas. He did not organise things well, unlike Scarano. Jesus, we almost lost the state to Mario Silva of all people!
Another issue is the very existence of so many parties. This is a real joke even for South American standards. Really, it is like for having any other South American to say: "Oh, my God, what a banana country Venezuelans have!"
We are South America's Somalia: beautiful women, a million warlords. The only difference is we have oil.
Positive but still
It is nice from time to time to see this type of writings because it reminds me that a half-empty glass can also be half-full. But being a bit more pessimistic, or perhaps realistic, this fight is only sending a message of selfishness and division to the entire country on behalf of the MUD.
People who identify with the opposition might be ok with this because they already got used to the idea of inner tensions. (Leopoldo anyone?) However, i think that the ni-ni's will see this as a sign that giving their vote to the opposition is giving their vote to more of the old-school politics that, in one way or another, led to our country to its own doom, politics in which self-interest got too far. Stupid and loud fights like this are probably going to discourage those voters who usually abstain, which are the people we should be aiming to convince in the first place.
I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but "small" mistakes like this could cost us a lot in terms of future legislation and political life. We are in a position in which any mistake, no matter how small it is, cannot be allowed. It might be too extreme to ask for perfection, but the closer we get to it the closer we are of ending this regime.
Exactly. Now: what can we do?
I think they tried to minimize the problems they had on earlier discussions precisely out of fear
of being seen as just a bunch of warlords, but by ignoring them those problems were not going away: Salas wanted his stuff and they wanted their stuff and they were holding just a few parallel monologues with the press.
I think that you have to either do the whole process behind closed doors OR with everybody looking at you and microphones all the way through (or most of it). Then you say what you want and DEBATE what they and you want/think.
It would be interesting to see the Salas group and the others in front of the cameras saying "my position is this" and the other "my position is this". It would actually be a huge difference to Escarrá's way of debating. As Vicente wrote, Escarrá once said on a TV interview "Let's go outside and I f...ck you up". We are showing we are not much better...and we don't even have the petrodollars.
This is a tough thing, but I reckon this is what is needed.
Unfortunately, as we have said a million times, people do not know how to hold a real debate in Venezuela
walkouts
They not only did not walk out, something to consider as the right attitude, as you mention in your post. Regardless of who is right or wrong in this case, the incident shows that passions run high these days, something akin to what Al Gore tried to show during the election recounts of 2000, only to give up.
And, come to think about it, there are more incidents of this kind with the energúmena Iris Varela already sitting shamefully in the Asamblea...
So let me get this straight...
A fight at an opposition unity table meeting is a good sign for opposition unity?!
Better than the alternative...yes
certainly...
Debate Teaching Examples - by LapaDura
Let's dream for a moment on a way to improve things.
I would nominate the UCV (Univ Central Vzla), Primero Justicia and Sumate (is Sumate still alive?), with the support of Televen/GloboV.
The idea is to televise 2 example debates, one on close doors and another with completely open doors, to convey to both the general public and party heads going through real debates the issues and techniques of those debates.
These examples could be based on either made-up cases (with students as actors) or real ones already agreed (with actor or real players - willing to be exposed in such away). The importance of this is, again, duofold: to educate the public and the players along the country. It is far too easy to brand the desicion players as selfish or whatever else without understanding the hard issues they face (kingdoms, financing, access to media, leverage with communities). Those issues are quite varied as our geography, but I bet there are a lot of themes that get repeated. So, debaters can also take notice of the techniques, successes, mistakes and general outcomes made on the examples, and move forward.
There is a need to help people understand that politics require negotiation and compromising, and hopefully some shared values in the middle. Setting those shared values might be the starting point of any of the negotiations (yes, the Pacto de Punto Fijo could be an example)
I named some organisations that might want to be associated with it. UCV (USM, UCAB or other Uni) would provide some negotiation and issue dissecting techniques, venue and willing actors. PJ (or any other party) the know-how of real down-to-earth issues. Sumate (or MUD) the inter-party democratic platform and rules. It might be harder for TV Co.s to get involved, so they might need to ensure the plays are not too much about bashing the Govmt. but about the game play.
Organising this should not be too dificult. It would be certainly informative and entertaining. Whoever takes the lead will clearly earn heavy political kudos. If they do it quickly, they might even teelvise it before El Chigüire Bipolar takes it on (please note I did use ü).
LapaDura
TV clips, and music videos,
TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content such as video blogging and short original videos. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, VEVO and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.
Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google. The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content.
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