Richard Barnes

So far from God and so close to the United States!

September 7, 2019September 9, 2019 Richard Barnes

“Only those born in Spain were allowed to own shops or mines in the colonies.” The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, page 47.

“…[Simón] Bolivar was the son of one of Caracas’s wealthiest creole families [which] owned several plantations, mines and elegant town homes.” The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt’s New World, page 117.

Yes, it’s the same book, published in 2016 (I am about halfway through). And the above tendentiousness — the colonists could own nothing on page 47 — and contradiction — the colonists were tycoons 70 pages later — are not isolated.

It is hailed as a masterpiece by the usual literati. It is considered at times interesting, at times insufferable, and at times infuriating by your humble blogger. You’re better off reading Humboldt’s writings directly.

We’ve much work yet ahead of us in clearing the misconceptions and prejudices which color our understanding of South America generally and Venezuela specifically, not to mention world history and science.

The fact remains that Spain’s conquest of much of the Americas, their export of European culture to these shores, their eradication of human sacrifices, their education and teaching of the Spanish language to the indigenous peoples, and much more, remains an unequalled, spectacular achievement in history. Humboldt, himself a creature of the Enlightenment, who like his fellows, borrowed profusely from Christianity without so much as a tip of the hat, would have achieved nothing had it not been for Spain who gave him a passport when Enlightenment France did not, and had it not been for the missions in the Americas who helped him and had even seen many of his discoveries centuries before he was conceived in his mother’s womb. He just took it all for granted, like a good modern.

Now, saying the above does not mean I am blind to Spanish failures (nor am I blind to English failures) or Jesuit perfidy. But it does mean that I refuse to take at face value the usual textbook approach to Spain and South America that we’ve been spoon fed for centuries now. The history of our neighbors to the south and across the pond is much more complex and vastly richer than: Spain bad–Spain rape–Spain kill–Las Casas saint.

I would challenge us to consider the possibility that we in the United States have much more in common with South America than we do with modern Europe. But to consider that challenge, we must first make an effort to clear the underbrush accumulated over hundreds of years. What did Spain do right? What did she do wrong? Was Spain responsible for the fearsome bloodletting in 19th century South America? Hint: she was not. Then who and what was?

In 1829, after “independence”, Simón Bolivar wrote to his fellow South Americans in A Look At Spanish America:

“From one end to the other, the New World is an abyss of abomination; there is no good faith in [Spanish] America; treaties are mere paper; constitutions, books; elections, combat; liberty, anarchy; life, a torment. We’ve never been so disgraced as we are now. Before, we enjoyed good things; illusion is fed by chimera…. we are tormented by bitter realities.”

This, from a man who was largely responsible for the chaos he now bitterly laments. A man who proclaimed the glorious unity of the continent, saw it irredeemably fractured and destroyed. He died, embittered (“I have plowed the sea!”), a mere year later.

Historian Luis Level de Goda wrote in 1893, “The revolutions have produced in Venezuela nothing but the most vulgar leaders, tribal chieftains, the greatest disorders and lack of concern for one another, corruption, and a long, never-ending tyranny, the moral ruin of the country, and the degradation of a great number of Venezuelans.”

Half a century before Level de Goda, the writer, Cecilio Acosta made a like point, “The internal convulsions have produced sacrifices but not improvements; tears but not harvests.” Others have made similar, terrible, and depressing observations.

One of the purposes of this blog is to look at these and related matters as dispassionately as possible and hopefully to encourage us to reconsider what we’ve been taught for generations.

And maybe, with God’s help and with sincere goodwill, we might see a true and wonderful rapprochement between “The Colossus of the North” (how they referred to the USA for generations) and the land which was first called “America” (it was South America who first had that epithet, not the United States).

Long time Mexican president, Porfirio Díaz, spoke for many in Central and South American when he exclaimed in exasperation: “Poor Mexico! So far from God, so close to the United States [Pobre Méjico! Tan lejos de Dios y tan cerca de los Estados Unidos]!”

I’d say that, today, both the United States and South America are far from God as far as their legislators go. Let’s pray and work towards a rapprochement with the Triune God. Then the way to a bright future between these great neighbors will be not only more possible but excitingly successful and fruitful!

Porfirio Díaz, president of Mexico; photo taken early 20th century.

Don Porfirio Díaz and his wife, Doña Carmen, in exile in Paris circa 1912, shortly before his death.

Sketch from life in 1830 by José María Espinosa. Bolivar was 47 and died shortly thereafter.

Following are representative examples of Spanish architecture in colonial Americas

Castillo de San Marcos, St. Augustine, Florida, United States, built 17th century.

Cuzco Cathedral, Cuzco, Perú. Built 17th century.

Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City. Built in sections with the first section built in the 16th century (the century before the arrival of the Pilgrims)

Metropolitan Cathedral of Quito, Quito, Ecuador. Construction began in 1562.

Cathedral of San Juan, Puerto Rico, first constructed of wood in 1521; current building first constructed in 1540, almost 100 years before the Pilgrims.

Cathedral of Santa María la Menor, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, construction began in 1512 and was completed in 1540. Pilgrims arrived in Massachussets in 1620. First permanent English settlement in America was in 1607. My point is not that “Spain is better or that England is better”; it is simply that there is more to our stories than that in the standard narratives.

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico was one of the very few Spanish colonies that was not devastated by the bloodletting elsewhere in the Americas. The district, now a national historic site, is characterized by cobblestone streets and stone buildings dating to the 16th and 17th centuries.

Snippets

September 1, 2019September 1, 2019 Richard Barnes

This week’s post is a bit of a departure.

It is composed of snippets that, although not directly about Venezuela, they do apply in that they reflect thinking that takes hold on societies that lose their moorings.

The first link is to a 6-minute excerpt of an interview with Yuri Bezmenov (1939-1993), a KGB defector who after years of work with the Communist regime in the Soviet Union during which he grew to love the liberty of the West, defected in 1970, disguising himself as a hippie. His comments will not surprise you but will, nevertheless, disturb you as he details the focus of our countries enemies to demoralize us by creating chaos in our thinking and questioning our moral foundations.

The next link is an interview of Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) by Mike Wallace in 1958. If you sit through the entire thirty minutes you will, first, in today’s sensitive era, be a bit amazed at an interview where the host is smoking a cigarette; second, you will appreciate the superior intellectual conversation that was not only tolerated a generation ago, but encouraged and enjoyed; and, third, you will also see that men who were not easily pegged as conservative or liberal, nevertheless saw the direction we as a free people were taking: a direction to slavery by bamboozlement. He believed that the “Brave New World” that he wrote about can and will “come to these shores.”

That world arrived in Venezuela, with a vengeance. But we are not immune to it. “Why is it that you think that the wrong people” will use these instruments for evil ends? Huxley’s reply comes close to the Calvinist understanding. Yet, he was an atheist.

There is much more in the interview and it is healthy to challenge yourself to listen to a man and go through the exercise of refuting his errors while agreeing with some of his insights. Somewhat like the Apostle Paul when he quoted a pagan poet in Acts 17.

It is also bracing to hear Mike Wallace speak of the Soviet Union in 1958 as a successful society despite its lack of freedom. There was plenty of alternative reporting back then which, had he been a bit more curious, would have caused him pause before declaring the Soviet Union a success.

In his letter to George Orwell in 1949 congratulating him for his book, 1984, Huxley wrote:

“Within the next generation I believe that the world’s leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narcohypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of governments, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience.”

And the last link is a reenactment of a lecture given by C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) on the BBC in 1941. He went on to give lectures on the BBC for about three years, during a time when the city of London was being bombed. Civilians and soldiers looked forward to these lectures because, as many of them expressed it, they gave them a sense of order and meaning at at time when it was easy to believe all was chaos. Pubs would suddenly come to a hush, when Lewis came on the radio. These lectures became the foundation for his great book, Mere Christianity.

This first lecture is about right and wrong. And, if you find it compelling, I would recommend reading Lewis’ The Abolition of Man where he develops these thoughts into a challenging and rewarding read.

Contrary to Huxley, Lewis was a Christian. One thing they had in common was that they both died on November 22, 1963. Their deaths were overshadowed by the death of another famous man on that same day: John F. Kennedy.

I believe you will find these three links to be challenging yet engaging and provocative. I recommend you set times aside throughout this coming week to listen to each. They not only help us understand what has been, and what is happening in Venezuela, but also what has been happening in the United States for generations now.

Model for Destruction.

Nationalization and Military Dissent

August 25, 2019August 25, 2019 Richard Barnes

In the late 1970’s, I took an extended leave to visit the country of my birth. During that most memorable trip, I had the joyful pleasure of meeting countless individuals and families, who, in true Venezuelan fashion were not shy in sharing their opinions about the direction the country was taking at the time.

That direction was, in a word, “nationalization” or forced divestment, principally of the iron ore and petroleum industries. This phenomenon was worldwide at the time, especially in Africa and Latin America, and it had devastating consequences.

What I saw — gargantuan enterprises with protean manufacturing plants, power centers, chemical processors, and assorted buildings and dormitories, accompanied by massive hirings of blue and white collar workforces and countless foreign workers, some of whom were housed on cruise ships docked on the Orinoco — did not “pass the sniff test”.

I had a number of vigorous but mostly friendly debates on the merits of government-run versus privately run operations. Already the mining camp where I was born had shown deterioration. One lady expressed sincere surprise at this, “How is it that now that this belongs to us, we haven’t managed to maintain it, let alone improve it?”

“Could it be that when something belongs to ‘us all’ it actually belongs to no one?” was one refrain I found myself repeating throughout the trip.

At my expressed concern about the immense power and wealth being concentrated in the Venezuelan government, something usually seen in Communist or Socialist regimes, the usual reply by those who disagreed with my concerns, was along the lines of, ‘it’s about time that “our” wealth remained here instead of being transferred to the United States.'”

Conversely, the reply by those who somewhat agreed with my concerns was along the lines of, “the Venezuelan military would never allow the government to devolve into outright Socialism or Communism.”

Interestingly, neither camp was concerned about what all this nationalization activity would lead to. In one heated and less friendly exchange, a more recent acquaintance at the time ridiculed my concerns, expressing disdain that I would question the massive wealth now owned by the Venezuelan people. He mocked my assertion that the people actually “owned” nothing. It was all owned by the state.

According to a scholarly analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City in 2013, “Nationalization brought considerable declines in productivity in the oil industries of the sample countries. Productivity fell by more than 70 percent in the Venezuelan oil industry. Despite enormous efforts put into expansion, it took Venezuelan’s nationalized industry about 20 years to return to its early 1960’s productivity levels.”

Sadly, shortly after the 20 years, another, more serious wave of nationalization was launched with even more catastrophic results. To take just one example, the enormous Venezuelan steelworks, Sidor, the crown of Venezuelan heavy industry, saw its production go from 4 million tons of steel in 2007, the year before its nationalization by the Chavez Socialist government, to 1.5 million in 2014, with triple the number of employees. Between late October, 2013 and August 2014, it had operated for only 90 days. I have no access to more recent figures nor would I trust them if I did.

Well, the wealth is gone for the most part; other than the billions in the private foreign bank accounts of a relative handful of Socialists. As for the massive mineral and petroleum reserves, those await the capital and the expertise to extract it. That explains the intense interest and activity in Venezuela on the part of both China and Russia.

As to the military, in later trips, friends were more subdued as they told me of the heavy Cuban influence in the Venezuelan forces. Why was this not being reported, they wondered.

Fidel Castro ruthlessly applied the tactic of buying or otherwise coopting the military. A tactic he taught Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro. Hence, the failure of the Venezuelan military to “never allow the government to devolve into outright Socialism or Communism.”

To read more about the emasculation of the Venezuelan military, refer to the Reuters article linked below, “How Cuba Taught Venezuela to Quash Military Dissent”. The article is appreciated, but why did it not appear a decade ago when it might have made a difference?

https://editorialexpress.com/cgi-bin/conference/download.cgi?db_name=CEF2014&paper_id=90
The macroeconomic analysis of the negative impact of nationalization on productivity

https://www.yahoo.com/news/special-report-cuba-taught-venezuela-121454933.html

Clouds of DDT

August 17, 2019August 17, 2019 Richard Barnes

In the 1950’s and early 60’s we (the boys in the camp) enjoyed an occasional treat: DDT spraying. On such days, we’d mischievously run behind the company pick-up as it pulled a powerful pump throughout the camp, spraying clouds of DDT, enveloping us as we ran and zigzagged behind it like crazy banshees following some loud piped piper billowing thick clouds of sweet smelling mist which protected the camps from outbreaks of malaria.

There’s something about clouds. When flying to and from the U.S. on annual leave, I’d always hope we’d fly into clouds. I would wonder how it would be to jump off the airplane, into the clouds. Clouds! Beautiful, soft, memorable clouds. Whether fog just above the ground, or mist rolling off the river, or high, cumulus clouds above, clouds pointed to the heavens, to freedom, to action, to beauty, to adventure, to … being a boy. And the white foamy mist the sprayer poured forth was close enough to real clouds!

Our parents did not like us getting anywhere near the stuff, but, like moths drawn to light, we simply refused to resist the temptation and once we heard the unique sound of the pump and saw the clouds coming down the road, we ran to it and followed it like athletes running a marathon; only these El Pao athletes screamed, waved their arms like butterflies, or held them straight out from their sides like airplanes and breathed the stuff deeply into our lungs. We competed to see who could get the closest to the pump. The driver would stick his head out and yell at us to keep away from the truck and pump, not because of the insecticide, but for fear he’d run us over. We’d laugh and he, well, he eventually had to laugh right back at us. But he would still shake his fist!

I don’t recall how often the DDT was sprayed: twice a year? Twice a month? But I do well remember how much fun it was and my bewilderment when I learned that DDT was banned worldwide because of concerns. It was hard for a boy to figure out what could be more of a concern than death by malaria and I do remember adults expressing worries about that.

Without getting into the controversies, which, incredibly, are still “hot” despite so many years of world-wide prohibition, for our purposes we’ll just point out some facts which help illuminate the history and one of the great successes of Venezuela.

The country had the highest number of human malaria cases in Latin America before 1936. During 1891-1920, malaria was endemic to over 600,000 squared kilometers of Venezuela; deaths from malaria substantially reduced the population during that period. No pathogen, including the influenza virus that caused the 1918 pandemic, caused more deaths than malaria during 1905-1945.

Venezuela’s efforts to eradicate this scourge sparked the world’s interest in global eradication. She developed an efficient control program, but, undeniably, it was the introduction of DDT in 1945 which did the lion’s share. I recall visiting my family in San Félix on the banks of the Orinoco and, every night at bedtime, my aunt or my cousins would manually pump insecticide in all rooms, shutting the doors as they finished. This reflects the extent of the malaria eradication campaign. All homes knew what to do and what processes to take.

“Success of DDT spraying was startling. Malaria disappeared after 3-5 years without additional measures beyond occasional quinacrine use in areas….” (Source: National Institutes of Health). Before DDT use, most municipalities in affected areas … had mortality rates of 20 – 50 / 1000 persons. This rather rapidly precipitated to near zero after the introduction of DDT.

It wasn’t all insecticide, of course. Looking back, I am still startled at the cleanliness in the humblest homes in the country; how all things were picked up right away and spills were mopped up immediately. Etc. Visitors wrote that the poorest Venezuelan homes were greater examples of cleanliness and neatness than many northern European dwellings at the time.

Venezuelan doctors, including the influential Arnoldo Gabaldón, insisted on eradication, and actively opposed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) approach of “control”. “In 1968, a WHO report found that ‘the concept of malaria eradication adopted by the national [Venezuelan] authorities’ has … and is … at variance with the [experts].”

But even before Gabaldón, other Venezuelan doctors were leading the way to eradication. In 1894, Dr. Santos Anibal Dominici (1869-1954) identified the malaria parasite in patients in Caracas. But he was more inclined to involvement in politics and upon return from exile in 1936, he named Dr. Enrique Tejera (1889-1980) to lead malaria efforts. However, Dr. Tejera resigned in disgust because global efforts did not address whether malaria could be eradicated or merely controlled.

His dissatisfaction presaged issues highlighted decades later by Dr. Gabaldón which eventually resulted in a split between Gabaldón and WHO, which is a story that continues to be repeated in many disciplines: “developing” countries resent it when fully developed ones seek to tell them what’s good for them, even when it comes to life or death matters, such as the eradication of malaria.

Sadly, “once a beacon of malaria eradication”, Venezuela is again being buffeted by the disease.

But those controversies were the farthest things from the minds of boys running after the clouds.

Images of trucks spraying of DDT, 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Similar to the manual pump used by my Aunt and cousins in San Félix every night at bedtime.

Dr. Santos Anibal Dominici (1869-1954), Medical Doctor, Writer, Diplomat. His involvement in politics limited his subsequent impact on malaria control.

Dr. Enrique Tejera (1889-1980), a brilliant medical doctor and scientist. He continued his work against malaria until his death in 1980.

Dr. Arnoldo Gabaldón (1909-1990), a great visionary who desired eradication of malaria. His success was extraordinary.

Distribution of malaria (red area) in 1937, on the left. Distribution of malaria in 1980, on the right.
Source: National Institutes of Health with GIMP

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4193164/ For readers interested in more technical medical analysis see link.

Orinoco, Casiquiare, Humboldt, and Monster Aguirre

August 9, 2019August 9, 2019 Richard Barnes

During the rainy season, about April to August, the Orinoco River rises 40 to 60 feet at Ciudad Bolivar, the capital of the state of Bolivar, also known as Guayana. I recall, in my boyhood, dangerously flooded city streets in San Félix, about 70 miles east of Ciudad Bolivar. In the plains, the waters expand great distances, up to 120 miles or more in some places. During the dry season, the river continuously drops, exposing vast tracts along its banks and many islands.

Alexander von Humboldt explored the Casiquiare River, which starts as an arm of the Orinoco and finds its way to the Rio Negro (Black River), a tributary of the Amazon, thus forming a “natural canal” between the Orinoco and the Amazon. The great explorer’s efforts in that area were cut short by Portuguese and Spanish authorities. Nevertheless, as much credit as Humboldt deserves, the channel between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers was known for centuries before his celebrated voyage: Spanish missionaries, which he was so fond of mocking, were well acquainted with it and often traversed it northwards from what is now Brazilian territory. Maps subsequent to the early missionary eras also note it, under various names.

As for Humboldt’s tendency to somewhat minimize Christianity, we must say that it was Christians who opened the doors to him. It was the monks, even the bad ones, who guided him. It was the mission Indians who led him and showed him the way — and did so without devouring him for supper, thanks to Christianity. In fact, besides some attempts at robbery, by unevangelized natives, we might add, the only obstacle to his endeavors was courtesy of, not the church, but politicians. He was expelled from Brazil because the Portuguese and Spanish civil authorities were not on good terms. But, ever the Enlightenment Man, he reserved his bile for Christ, not Caesar.

Be that as it may, others were at Casiquiare before him. In fact, two and half centuries before Humboldt’s great voyage, the infamous Lope de Aguirre formed part of an expedition headed east to the Atlantic Ocean from Lima, Perú. Aguirre was right out of central casting: hideously ugly and lame in one foot. The explorers were commissioned by the Marquis of Cañete with the purpose of verifying the truth or falsehood of fantastic reports by Indians, of various tribes, coming from the East, telling of the fabulous El Dorado. These stories were at times seconded by European explorers, such as the German, Felipe de Utre, who told the Spaniards in Perú of vast cities and great wealth further east.

So, the Marquis of Cañete appointed Don Pedro de Ursua as the Leader, but Aguirre murdered Don Pedro in his sleep and had himself named leader. Anyone who questioned or was not sufficiently enthusiastic about his leadership was promptly murdered, including Don Pedro’s concubine, Inés de Atienza, who was cruelly put to death.

The voyage continued, and a very bloody voyage it was. Indians along the way were massacred, and murders within the company continued as they made their way to the Atlantic Ocean, first ascending the Rio Negro, then following the streams of the Casiquiare and eventually the Orinoco. They killed, massacred, and slaughtered all along the long, bloody trek.

They eventually sailed across the sea to the island of Margarita where they committed the most horrible atrocities on the inhabitants without regard to age or sex, and murdered all of the officers of the Spanish government. Aguirre met his end in Barquisimeto, about 200 miles east of Caracas, where he was finally successfully ambushed, captured, and executed. His body was quartered and sent to various cities across Venezuela.

It must be noted that Simon Bolivar approvingly considered Aguirre’s acts as the first declaration of independence in the Americas. He wrote this about a man who, as his well-deserved capture and death approached, stabbed his own daughter, Elvira, to death, saying, “Someone I love so much must never be bedded by ruined people.” Compare his “declaration of independence” to that of the thirteen colonies, and you have a microcosm of the chasm between the two. And of the at times frustrating character of Bolivar.

As to the Orinoco, at places the shore is very broad and the jungle remains at a distance from the river. At other stretches, the jungle comes right to the river’s edge and even seems to invade or overhang it, as if to stake its claim over everything, even the wide Orinoco, whose name is believed to come from Orinucu, a Tamanak word meaning, so some think, “Great Water”. In fact, some tribes in the past called this river, Paragua, which also means “Great Water.”

Then there’s the Boto, or Amazon River Dolphin, known in Venezuela as the Tonina, the largest sweet water cetacean in the world. These were plentiful in my childhood, and their mighty antics in the middle of the river formed a delightful distraction. I recall during a trip down the Orinoco how they undulated, seemingly in majestic slow motion, upstream as the ship continued its journey. These fresh water dolphins seemed to fit perfectly in the Orinoco whose attributes at times resemble the ocean.

Much more about the Orinoco and Humboldt in future posts.