Sunday, March 1, 2009

oh, yeah. almost forgot!

there was a pretty major ammendment to the constitution that was voted on, on feb. 15. SI won with a pretty solid 9 percent lead, granting chavez and all other elected government officials the opportunity to re-run for election indefinitely.

this doesn´t mean that chavez will be president forever, because he has to continue to be re-elected and there are also other forms of checks and balances to support the wishes of the pueblo, but it means that he can be president until he until he stops doing his job well and the people decide they want someone else.

i was definitely in favor of this, in the name of true participatory democracy, and it was really exciting to be here while it was decided.

speaking of participatory democracy, here in venezuela, 1 vote is 1 person, it´s no electoral college b.s. and they are known for having one of the most effective and high tech anti-trampa voting systems in the world. the u.s. could learn a lot from venezuela when it comes to democracy, and it really annoys me with people say the completely typical and baseless line ´chavez is a dictator and the people venezuela are losing their rights´


i also have realized that my time here before the ammendment was extra politically charged and it was really easy to talk about politics all day and all night, it was pretty ideal for learning about the process. now that the vote is over, people have stopped offering their opinions so freely and the entire vibe of the country is really different. i thought venezuela was always living in a much higher eschalon of political awareness, which to a degree they definitely are, but it isn´t to the extreme level that i saw when i first got here.

still impressive, though.

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