Cubazuelification
Our friend Daniel in Venezuela has a photograph of a big government ad that's running in the local newspapers around Caracas, touting a big healthcare clinic, and most tellingly showing that the flag of Venezuela has now been superceded by the flag of Cuba, in a communist insult to both countries. Lotsa phony propaganda on castroite health care too, and note that they call Hugo 'Comrade Chavez' now.
As Chavistas sink every deeper into the vortex of castro, it's getting ever clearer which government is eventually going to be running the land of Simon Bolivar and it's not native Venezuelans. See the whole photo here.
If there is comfort to be found, find it in this:
The secret of castro's success is that Cuba is an island in the middle of a shark-infested sea. There are three ways on or off the island:
By the specific permission of castro
With the help of the US Navy
Or on a rickety, improvised raft, braving sharks, exposure, and dehydration.
This has meant that castro has had complete control of the public image of Cuban communism. castro can keep "politically incorrect" journalists out of Cuba, and dissidents cannot easily get their families out of the way of castro's retaliation.
Venezuela, on the other hand, is a piece of a larger continent, and it has neighbors. Dissidents' sick grandmas would fare much better in a secret compartment on a melon truck going to Guyana than on a raft in the Florida Straits. Independent reporters can smuggle themselves in on the return trip and get the real story, without having to be politically acceptable to chavez.
What this means is that chavez ultimately cannot "play" the public outside of his country like castro can. The mask is going to slip, and/or his government will fall.
I don't know RS, how many years did it take for the truth about Stalin to leak out? No shark infested seas there, just the usual totalitarian control, and accommodating western media. Why will Venezuela be different? It seems to me that RCTCA´s recent relocation and move to cable is going to force chavez' hand vis á vis controlling information. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't see him backing down; draconian measures will follow. The question is will the MSM report the truth, or will they whitewash it in the name of their lefitsts gods?
In the era of Stalin, journalists had few options for self-publishing, or anonymous publishing. Chavez can take draconian measures, but he can't take them with nobody watching.