P-R-evolutionary diplomacy

/ September 29, 2014

So, Nicolas Maduro was in New York City last week and apparently things didn’t go so well for him.

But the government (through the Information Ministry) believes otherwise and, to prove it, paid for a couple of full-page color ads on Sunday’s editions of two major U.S. newspapers: the New York Times and the Washington Post.

ByoTp_2CQAERtI3.jpg largeDays earlier, Maduro had strongly criticized both papers for running editorials questioning Venezuela’s unopposed bid to join the United Nations Security Council as Latin America’s representative (which looks like a done deal).

Of course, one-on-one interviews would have been a better option, but that’s a no-no … because questions. Instead they gave both the Gray Lady and the WaPo lots of our money to put up an unremarkable, gramatically-challenged propaganda ad. That’ll show them!

At this point, propaganda is all they’ve got. Just go channel-surfing on TV and many commercials on both national and international (cable) channels are from state institutions or companies such as PDVSA or public banks. And the Information Ministry is about to go even further thanks to its brand new in-house advertising agency (a.k.a. the AVP). Basically, the communicational hegemony will have its own version of Mad Men (So, who will be Don Draper?)

One more thing, what’s the deal with Chavismo’s obsession regarding Puerto Rico’s independence? I mean, the island has voted on this issue several times and the most the independence option has gotten is a little more than 5 %. In the last referendum held almost two years ago, most PR voters chose either the status quo or joining the U.S. of A. as a State.

Isn’t the constant meddling on this issue something one could consider as… I dunno… imperialist?

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48 thoughts on “P-R-evolutionary diplomacy”

  3. I thought Maduro et al had a sophisticated public relations company working on their behalf. This just says: CRAZY.

    Is a leader supreme something you get at Dairy Queen?

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  5. 1. “Raised the voice of the people” which fell on absent ears.
    2. “Decision making taking”….
    3. Why the hell is Ebola in quotation marks? Are they trying to make it sound as if Ebola is a conspiracy?
    4. Humankind’s longest political prisoner? I was unaware the U.S. imprisoned non-human beings too.
    5. “The total peace” just doesn’t have the same ring to it as “paz absoluta” or whatever they were trying to inadequately translate.
    6. Childish thought, but Maduro’s signature looks like a really, really long pig’s tail.

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      • Possibly. ISIS is Al-Qaeda Sunni, therefore the enemy of the Iran-Syria-Shia-Iraq bloc. “Palestine” is a reference to Israel’s self-defence against bombardment from Gaza. Libya may be a random complaint about Sunni jihadists running wild there; Qaddafi was a devoted ally of Chavez.

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  6. “…gramatically-challenged propaganda ad.” — No kidding.

    Is there no one in Maduro’s inner circle with good command of English? The mediocrity and improvisation shown in such material is staggering. Sadly it is in line with my expectations for the diplomatic team Venezuela is fielding at the UN, namely, Maria Gabriela Chavez.

    No wonder the right wing in the US has a field day tearing the UN to pieces. In hind site, even Mafalda had strong criticism for it in the 60s :-)

    What vexes me is that this gang is still in power with no clear way of removing them (yeah, I get it populism fueled by oil, etc, but still).

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    • Where is Gollinger in all of this. The president of Venezuela is in NYC and the novia of the revolution is nowhere to be found? She’s dropped off the face of the Earth since the same happened to El Comandante.

      Her English is at least eloquent compared to this tripe. Shrill, but far more readable.

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      • She must cashing her check today on a job well done. They just got the seat in UN Sec Council. What a joke. I suuport John Bolton

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  7. Are you sure some oppo person didn’t pay for this ad? It’s such a total joke, from the $5 million (wow, big money!) offered for “Ebola”, to the independence of Puerto Rico (they don’t want it!!!!), to the many grammatical mistakes.

    What a complete joke. Truly mind boggling how this is the product the venezuelan government puts in two of the biggest newspapers in the world.

    Mediocrity is beyond them.

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  9. The only positive thing about all this is that it evidences the mediocrity and cynicism of this “government”. I would imagine that many governments (not in LA, though…) will think it over before supporting VE to the Security Council. If we have all these concerns from away I would imagine that the diplomatic circles will have the same and more, and more in-depth so that they will wonder what do we need these fanatic imbeciles in the SC for… Hopefully.

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  11. The regime has been very successful, corrupting the language Venezuelans use. It is now practically impossible to hear a government official telling a clear truth about anything. Even common people often circle around facts, as if it was impolite or vulgar to tell the truth as it is.

    Prisoners are “people deprived of their freedom “. Homeless children are “children of the fatherland”. Catastrophe refugees are “The Dignified “.

    Truth sometimes spills out the mouths of careless ministers; for example, we know the Venezuelan school system is designed to keep people mired in poverty, thanks to an unconscious slip by the minister of education.

    Until recently I thought this perversion was a propaganda strategy. Now I think the strategy was too successful, and the Regime has lost the ability to speak clearly, even if it wanted to.

    This ad is just another example.

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    • Very gracious on your part but it is simpler than that: they couldn’t care less!! They are convinced that their truth is the one and only, universal truth. They have reached the point described grossly in Spanish (Venezuelan) as “se creen sus propios mojones…”.

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    • What did the education minister say?

      Was he the one who ssaid they want to keep the people poor, so they don’t become escualidos?

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  12. What an embarrassment this must be to educated Venezuelans. Someone should inform Maburro that this type of propaganda only works in Venezuela. “This is the Truth about Venezuela,…..” WTF, meaning what? Jesus Christ, could someone in the Vzla Government take a basic English composition class and learn how to express a thought coherently?

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    • that’s the problem. When your thoughts are not coherent, your (brain)writing will follow suit. And how can anyone be coherent while ruled by a phoney government, pretending to be democratic.

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        • While you certainly should not expect to get pears from an oven, the saying is actually “pedirle peras al OLMO” or in english “ask for pears from an ELM tree”.

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  14. Researching how much this costs our country, I found that a full page add in the NYT Sunday Edition is around $200,000. If they published this at another 2 or 3 national papers I see this costing upwards of $500,000 with A LOT of grammar mistakes…shameful

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  15. The owners of the two newspapers must be dying laughing on their way to the bank. That’s easy money, they did not even had to correct the pitiful English. That is provided they get paid sinceMaduro has as quite a reputation as a swindler.

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  16. Here’s wiki on the fellow Maduro calls America’s longest-serving political prisoner:

    “López Rivera was among the 14 convicted FALN members offered conditional clemency by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1999, but rejected the offer. His sister, Zenaida López, said he refused the offer because on parole, he would be in “prison outside prison.” Congressman Pedro Pierluisi, has stated that “the primary reason that López Rivera did not accept the clemency offer extended to him in 1999 was because it had not also been extended to fellow FALN prisoner Carlos Torres (who was subsequently released from prison in July 2010).” According to New York Times writer John Broder, Lopez Rivera “refused to accept the President’s offer to commute their sentences. Mr. Clinton demanded as one of the conditions of their release that the jailed Puerto Ricans renounce the use of terrorism to achieve their aim of independence for the Caribbean commonwealth.”

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  17. “Our leader supreme” sounds like something you would expect from North Korea or Iran, not a western nation. Also, if these idiots knew anything about English-speaking people, they would know that words like “motherland” are historically associated with people like Hitler and Stalin, and are not considered a positive thing. Mentioning PetroCaribe and the “blockade against Cuba” in the same article is a huge hypocrisy. The fact that Cuba is able to receive billions of dollars of cash and oil every year because of PetroCaribe and other agreements proves there is no blockade against Cuba. This ad reeks of something that was translated word for word using some mediocre computer program, which is probably exactly what it is.

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  18. As usual, maburro appears like a whiny, sissy, retarded and moronic bully on the eyes of the rest of the world.
    “This is the truth about our countryyyyy!!” Please, somebody call the waaammbulance for that imbecile xD

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  19. I don’t see why everybody gets all worked up about this. I wouldn’t change a comma. Well, yes… I think I’d change “leader supreme” to “taco supreme” — because, frankly, it just makes the whole thing tastier.

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  20. I want to know how many dogs and cats took a shit on that one.
    I know Chavez and Maduro’s face have taken mythical proportions of piss and poop. And my dog’s pee is radioactive…

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  21. On entering the Theater of the Absurd this evening, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I shall, this eve, laugh, in deference to your dark humor. Tomorrow, maybe cry.

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  22. “That this general clamor of making a refoundation of the UN does not fall into emptiness.”

    Maybe we should thank them — this is a nearly perfect representation of ineptitude.

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  23. (1) I’m making a copy of this ad and hanging on my wall – next to the “trilogia del mal” poster
    (2) I’m keeping a copy in my pocket so I can save my breath and go directly to exhibit A should anyone approach me with another “but … Chavez cared for the poor …”

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  24. describing the call for Puerto Rico’s independence (historically, from the Spanish Empire, and, since 1898, from American imperialism) ‘imperialist’ is not the stupidest fucking thing said today on this blog

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