The ability to recall elected officials is central to the Bolivarian process, but who will be the first Chavista to be recalled? (more…)

In December we went to Apure, in the Venezuelan llanos, or flatlands. It was hella nice… (more…)

There has been lots going on here of late: elections, celebrations, unified party, ministry shuffling, a request for enabling laws, and early discussions of constitutional reform…

Overall, it’s going quite well. But not perfect.

Specifically, here’s a sort of balance sheet for the ministerial shuffle: (more…)

Hi blog, sorry I’ve been neglecting you.

I’ll try to be be better about it…

… and I’m as happy as a pig in puppy poop. (more…)

So things have been weird here since the election. (more…)

Pinochet is gone, and I’m almost as happy as when Reagan died. (more…)

Been meaning to post on the subject for a while…

1.) Jay’s new album Kingdom Come is hot. (more…)

Sorry for not posting much lately. As you all can guess, things have been hectic, but in a good way. Looks like the oppos are accepting election results, and the city is eerily calm.

We were up late at the Chavista celebration, a street party that lasted all night through the pouring rain. Best party… ever.

A heartwarming story… Globovision had gone to a small cluster of tents assembled near the presidential residence, La Casona. (more…)

The opposition—struggling to come up with a reason why Rosales is polling between 20 and 30 percentage points behind Chavez—has resorted to colored pencils… (more…)

Sorry for the lack of posting, but anyone familiar with my predilections will know that the fact that the Second Annual Book Convention is in town is more than enough reason to keep me from the computer. (more…)

Here in Caracas, everyone is making contingency plans.

Or, why I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about the Democrats winning the House/Senate.

So we’ve found an apartment. It’s too expensive, but we needed something. It’s also deep within sifrinolandia, the fortified state-within-a-state of the wealthy opposition. (more…)

We recently had the honor of hosting Robin Hahnel, who spoke at the CIM as well as to my students. Hahnel spoke, quite fittingly given the context, on the need for a new model of participatory socialist planning, to replace market socialist models on the one hand and authoritarian planning on the other.

Much ado currently about a recent speech by PDVSA president Rafael Ramirez, in which he declared the "new PDVSA" to be "red from top to bottom," and furthermore urged those non-revolutionaries in the ranks to step aside and make room for a Bolivarian. (more…)

So, Chávez didn’t turn up at the event yesterday. For still unknown reasons, he was replaced all day by the less-than-charismatic VP, José Vicente Rangel. (more…)

Several people, over the past few days, have jumped in front of Metro trains during the morning commute. (more…)

The other day, Rosales once again put his foot in his mouth, this time referring to the fact that on December 3rd, the opposition would be celebrating "our defeat." Even the opposition press was a bit ruthless on this, as we see via La Hojilla.

So, our house was robbed last week while we were there. I was hoping to blog about it at length, but am feeling less and less like doing so as time passes. The frightening part was listening to the whole thing through our bedroom door, but we were quite lucky and are fine, but have moved out and are looking for a better place…

In better news, we will meet Chávez tomorrow… 

Manuel Rosales: "We’re going to increase petroleum production in the country, in order to raise the price of oil."

You’ve got to be kidding me…

"There were tense moments yesterday in the UCV [Central University of Venezuela] when a group of students carried out a demonstration of support for [opposition candidate] Manuel Rosales, and were attacked with gunshots, with the detonation of explosive artifacts and tear gas canisters." (From Ultimas Noticias).

From the BBC: "Ex-White House aide Oliver North - at the centre of a 1980s scheme to finance Contra rebels in Nicaragua - has warned the country not to return to the past.

Mr North said he hoped voters would not elect ex-Sandinista leader and former President Daniel Ortega - whom the rebels sought to topple."

Faced with the Chavista slogan of "10 million votes" (a.k.a. "10 million down their throats")  the opposition campaign did the only thing they could at the time: they pointed out that the embracing of 10 million votes is a divisive gesture. (more…)

The media is as crucial for the Venezuelan Revolution as it has been for the counter-Revolution. (more…)

Two students of mine were walking last weekend near Parque Central at 3am. Not generally a good idea, to understate the matter significantly. A young fellow, 14 or 15 years old, approached them and brandished a pistol, demanding money. (more…)

Informalization is massive in Venezuela, where the informal sector is larger than most of Latin America, and by extension the world. (more…)

Formerly the "Day of Discovery"—commemorating the conquest of the Americas—and until recently "Day of the Race" in honor of the reactionary ideology of mestizaje, October 12th has become a pole of tension in Venezuela. (more…)

It hasn’t been a good week for elections: (more…)

After the furore over the "Mi Negra" card, one might expect the opposition to tread lightly when it comes to race. Not to be. (more…)

So now Chávez is wearing blue instead of his traditional red (more…)

The Bolivian opposition—known for their whiteness, wealth, and separatist tendencies—are demanding that Venezuelan ambassador to Bolivia Julio Montes be declared persona non grata. (more…)

Numbers are so addictive. Soon, I’ll be a political "scientist." (more…)

Kudos to Puerto Rican rap/reggaeton duo Calle 13 for turning down an offer to perform at a march in support of Venezuelan opposition candidate Manuel Rosales. (more…)

Victory! My first ever email to the Times—a fine publication which I have always refused to read, and have only recently been forced to—is deemed worthy of a reply. On their corrections page, the Times printed the following: (more…)

Some videos by stic.man of dead prez, on the LAFCO (Los Angeles Filmmakers Cooperative) blog. (more…)

Bill Ayers is in town, giving some talks in association with the International Miranda Center (CIM), (more…)

Last night, we got to visit some of the educational missions, specifically the secondary-level Mission Ribas. (more…)

Bolivia is struggling through a constitutional assembly. (more…)

There has been much disagreement on poverty statistics in Venezuela during recent years. (more…)

The BBC has printed an article on the Venezuelan opposition, messing themselves in the process. (more…)

A very interesting story: most of the world press, especially in English, emphasized in the aftermath of Chávez’s speech at the General Assembly the alleged fact that the Venezuelan President had erroneously claimed that Noam Chomsky was already dead. (more…)

Last Sunday started off badly for me: I fell in a hole. (more…)