Caracas Chronicles

Sometimes, it feels like the Maduro Era is just a showcase of human misery, a dismal display case for the absolute friggin’ worst this benighted species has to offer. The last few days have provided not one, not two but three stomach-churning examples, each more shocking than the last.

First, consider the morally bankrupt embarrassment that once – long ago – looked like a promising progressive experiment for Brazil. As you’ve probably heard, a delegation of Brazilian Senators, including opposition leader Aecio Neves, travelled to Venezuela to try to meet with Leopoldo López and Antonio Ledezma, Venezuela’s highest profile political prisoners.

They were nearly lynched.

Their president, Dilma Rousseff – a one time political prisoner herself – shat all over her whatever vestigial trace of moral authority she might have still had with this bafflingly tone-deaf attack on her own country’s senators over, saying “the intention of the senators to visit the imprisoned opposition figures put the [Venezuelan] government in a type of trap, and represents a shame for Brazil; this is meddling in the internal affairs of Venezuela.”

What. A…I’m just going to let you finish that sentence yourself.

So there I was, thinking Dilma had plumbed all the depths of human misery we were going to plumb this weekend, but no. Chavismo always finds a way to become even more vile, even when the vile-o-meter can’t take much more.

Chavista propaganda arm LaIguana informed us that SEBIN, chavismo’s increasingly repressive secret police, had launched an investigation to identify the fascist saboteurs who…held up this placcard at the Copa America match vs. Colombia calling for the release of chavismo’s political prisoners. 

Just so we’re clear, in a country with tens of thousands of murders a year, the security forces devote their resources to…hounding exiles in Chile (of ALL friggin’ places) who call for the release of political prisoners.

But it gets worse. Then, in a page ripped right out of some Borgia miniseries, the Maduro regime has started taking little old ladies hostage to intimidate their children. Literally.

Rafael Isea, the one-time Chavista governor of Aragua and, before that, Finance Minister, turned DEA informant blew the whistle on this on Twitter, after his sister and his 75 year old mom had their homes raided and were taken into custody on no charges anyone could figure out.

Let’s get it right, these women aren’t being detained, they’re being held hostage. They’re leverage in a game Tareck al Aissami is playing with Rafael Isea. Something Ms. Rousseff might be do well to mull next time she’s tempted to start pontificating about shame this and shame that with regard to Venezuela.

I try to think about these stories analytically. I really do. That’s meant to be my role here, right? But it’s a struggle.

These people are just fucking evil. And not a day goes by when they let us forget it.

I swear, I didn’t set out to become a hardcore misanthrope. It just sort of…happened.

Venezuela will do that to you.