Caracas Chronicles

Quico says: …it would be good to turn comments back on for a few days so those of you in Venezuela can write in about what’s happening on the ground. Looks hairy.

You know, I never fully bought into Alberto Garrido’s portrayal of Chavez as Master Strategist. But the guy does have some sense for tactics. Enough to realize the importance of confronting his enemies where he wants when he wants. He’s had plenty of practice over the last eight years, and by now he’s pretty good at it. He knows just what he has to do to push our buttons, to provoke us out into a confrontation on his terms.

It’s all too easy for him, because his side has leadership and plans ahead and our side has rage in place of a strategy, emotion in place of planning. It’s an old script, the one these kids are playing out this week. Understandably and justifiably angry, they’re doing exactly what Chávez wants them to do: handing him a pretext to shut down Globovisión and end University Autonomy. When the dust settles, the outcome will be the same it’s always been: a few more institutions will have lost their autonomy, and a few more dissidents will have been scapegoated and silenced.

Eight years on, we still haven’t put it together: anger is not a plan. Eight years on, we’re still strategizing with our liver. Eight years on, Chávez can still play us like a violin.