The Pull Of The Land

Rome’s Bad Boy

December 15, 2020December 15, 2020 Richard Barnes

December 13 was this year’s third Sunday of Advent, which traditionally focuses on the joy of Christmas. Joy and its variants are seen throughout the Bible but one of the best known passages is in St. Paul’s epistle to the Philippians wherein he writes, “Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice!” He wrote that as a prisoner in Rome awaiting an appearance before Nero, a man not known for his tender mercies. St. Paul made it clear that true joy is not dependent on circumstances or material goods but on the Person of Jesus Christ.

Thinking about this brought to mind a 2014 cover story in National Geographic: “Rome’s Bad Boy: Nero Rises From the Ashes.” The cover is a photo of the majestic statue erected in his home town, Anzio in 2010.

As a child in Venezuela, I’d hear adults say something along the lines of, “Más malo que Nerón,” [“More wicked than Nero”]. I never imagined I’d grow up to hear learned individuals defend Nero. But even that is nothing new under the sun. After all, the ancient prophet warns, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.”

What follows is a letter I wrote my family shortly after reading the article while away on a business trip in 2014.

Dear Family:

T.S. Eliot famously said that those who deny God will pay their respects to Hitler or Stalin. And as we put God farther from our thoughts, we will surely fall for attempts to rehabilitate monsters. Especially explicitly anti-Christian monsters.

The then-Mayor of Anzio, Luciano Bruschini, commissioned the statue [on the National Geographic cover]. He says, “As children, we were taught that he was evil – among the worst emperors of all. Doing a little research, I came to conclude that it’s not true. I consider Nero to be a good, even great emperor, and maybe the most beloved of the entire empire. He was a great reformer. The senators were rich, and they owned slaves. He took from them and gave to the poor. He was the first socialist!”

Of course, you will be shocked! shocked! to know that Mayor Bruschini is also a socialist.

As you might recall, Nero was considered by many in the apostolic and post apostolic era to be the Beast described in the book of Revelation. Such interpretation largely fell into disuse in succeeding centuries and some now even consider it to be heresy, because such a reading would deny the futuristic view of Revelation so prevalent today.

Without entering into an eschatological argument … we ought to at least consider why so many through the ages have thought Nero to have been that beast (recognizing that the epithet applies to an individual as well as to a kingdom, depending on the context).

What follows is not an analysis of the article; were it that, I’d begin with the wording of the title itself: Nero as “bad boy.” That sort of removes the sting of “beast” or “monster,” and conjures up some sort of Roman Dennis the Menace. My intent is not so much to analyze as it is to caution.

Since some of Nero’s most egregious acts are a matter of record, the article does note them: kicked his pregnant wife to death; murdered his mother after committing incest with her; murdered his brother; ordered his mentor, Seneca, to commit suicide; burned Christians alive, using their bodies to light his gardens, and blamed them for the great fire in Rome, which enabled him to embark on an enormous building program for himself. (Since Mayor Bruschini noted that the senators owned slaves, we will also helpfully note that one of Nero’s pastimes was dressing up as a lion, molesting slaves who were tied up, and then slaughtering them. That was not in the article.)

As horrible as that litany is, by placing it at the beginning of the cover story and then going on about the great things Nero did and his good intentions and his rich enemies in the Senate, and framing his reign within the tiresome class warfare Marxist doctrine (Nero was for the poor, you see) and quoting professors and mayors and sundry apologists, by the time you get to the end of the article, unless you are imbued with a Christian worldview, you’ll be sort of nodding in some agreement: he wasn’t so bad after all. Or as the author of a Nero biography put it, “…even today he would be avant-garde, ahead of his time.”

Not only that, although the article notes that other emperors were also bad, the only one contrasted with Nero is the Christian emperor, Constantine, sarcastically identified as “a saint”. And you’ll read that he had “his son, second wife, and father-in-law all murdered.” So typical of modernists; always seeking to cry, “Aha! Tu quoque!:” an effective red herring to the unaware. However, Constantine, unlike Nero, did not stomp his pregnant wife to death and the deaths noted above were executions, although there is considerable debate as to the reasons. Regardless, the whole tenor of the life of Constantine was poles opposite to Nero’s. But you’d have to look that up on your own.

Again, unless you are steeled with Scripture and a strong Christian weltanschauung, you’ll fall like the foolish moonstruck maiden for the smooth talking rake that alienates her affections from God and home. Likewise, these godless twits seek to alienate your affection from Christ and the historic faith.

A subversive technique cleverly employed in the article is to draw equivalence between its readers’ pleasures in life and the pleasures enjoyed by people-like-us in Nero’s Rome. So you’ll see photos of “Roman revelry” today: a couple about to start slobbering over each other; an 81-year old has-been actress showing off her leg; a crowd of partying, smug-faced (not one bright smile in the lot) high-society 70-year-olds doing their downright best to look like Burberry models. Life under Nero wasn’t all that different from today! And we all behave like that too, anyway. So what’s the big deal?

And you’ll read about Nero’s love of art and music and great building programs and how they began to be re-discovered in the Renaissance (so-called) and how such discoveries continue on today. Including documented evidence of a statue, almost as high as the Statue of Liberty, Nero erected to himself standing midst his palace grounds but which could be seen from all directions at great distances. Since he considered himself to be a god, the sculpture denoted the rays of the sun on his head, as do some extant coins from that era.

And you’ll read about how he just luuuved the people; and the people just luuuved him back.

Yes, boys and girls, it is lamentable that a “ruler of such baffling complexity was now simply a beast.” A “public relations man ahead of his time with a shrewd understanding of what the people wanted, often before they knew it themselves [emphasis mine]” is reduced to just being a monster. His reign was “warless.” He gave us “Neronia – Olympic-style poetry, music, and athletic contests.” He “created something no one had seen before: a light-flooded public place not just for hygiene [don’t you love that? ‘not just for hygiene’!] but also where there were statues and paintings and books, where you could hang out and listen to someone read poetry aloud. It meant an entirely new social situation.”

“In addition to the Gymnasium Neronis, the young emperor’s public building works included an amphitheater, a meat market, and a proposed canal that would connect Naples to Rome’s seaport at Ostia … to ensure safe passage of the city’s food supply….”

We are now privileged to discover “the full architectural greatness of Nero’s reign.” The inscription at the statue at Anzio says, “During his reign the empire enjoyed a period of peace, of great splendor, and of important reforms.”

I guess we plebes should have focused on all that, and not on the guy’s fruits which are seen in his deplorable actions and resultant lakes of innocent blood. Poor Nero; no one really understands him. My heart breaks.

The Bible warns us to beware of men whom every one praises, for example, the pharisees. Did not Herod die horribly for receiving praise that belongs only to God? The history of the world is littered with men and women, “loved by the people” but who played God. They had one thing in common: they hated Christianity. And they’re dead. And those today — high and low, known and unknown, famous and obscure — who hate likewise, will eventually be so too. And that, forever.

A funny thing about character is that it will out on what you do. Nero initiated a horrible persecution of Christians in November, AD 64. Vast numbers were murdered, most by horrible means. The numbers were so great, that even Roman chroniclers, who also despised Christians, nevertheless felt compelled to record the vastness of the slaughter. Of course, both Peter and Paul were put to death by Nero. At least one Roman historian specifically called Nero ‘a beast’.

But people kept bringing flowers to his tomb for months and years. He was greatly mourned and lamented. Many believed, and hoped, he would return from the dead. As the article puts it, “…the persistent belief that the boy king would one day return to the people who so loved him.”

The article documents his great power; his great glory; his “godlike” characteristics; his vast riches; his power to give or take life; the belief by many that he’d rise from the dead. And it also cannot help but mention or allude to his beastly cruelty; his hatred of Christ and Christians; and more. Clearly a host of his contemporaries thought very highly of the guy, and many, including him, thought him to be a god. And now we see that many today seem to think likewise!

Some things never change.

Your loving father,

Dad

The September, 2014 *National Geographic*

Rosa

December 7, 2020December 7, 2020 Richard Barnes

Recently, someone asked me about life in El Pao and in the course of the conversation, she asked a question that made me think about Rosa. I am glad she asked me. It had been too long since I thought about that lady who deserves to be remembered. She is one of billions who lie in their graves, forgotten but to God. And to those who remember.

José was her brother. I remember him too. He showed up once a week or so to work on our garden. He’d amble up on this burro, laden with what looked to me like large canvas bags on either side, towards the rear, swinging heavily, slowly, comically. Seen from behind, José looked like an unstable, ponderous metronome atop a slow yet choppy sea, while the canvas or hemp bags swayed behind him like loose pendulums, slapping the donkey’s upper thighs as she plodded the quiet streets of El Pao where Jose’s gardens graced several homes.

“Sra., las rosas se ven bellas hoy,” he would invariably utter those or similar words, sotto voce, as he unloaded his baggage and pulled his spade and shovel from their respective canvas casings draped on either side of the burro’s neck. To me, it seemed José was born wearing a permanent, drooping straw hat. It was part of José. I never saw him without it.

“That’s thanks to you, José. This whole garden is thanks to you!” My mother would give directions as to what she wanted to see done and often she worked the garden with her own hands, but always gave credit to José.

His sister, Rosa, would accompany him many a time and while he worked the gardens and landscapes, she’d assist with laundry, general cleaning, and even rearranging the furniture at times. She also became a sort of informal nanny to us for a time. By and by Rosa became as well known to folks in El Pao as José. In my child’s recollection, I had thought they lived in the labor camp in a home provided by the company. But my mother corrected me on that memory. They were well known and loved in the labor camp too, but did not live there.

Cancer struck Rosa. A nasty, encroaching, overwhelming, suffocating cancer. Her beauty and bustling energy rapidly became things of the past as her Spanish skin became sallow and her cheeks sank and her eyes lost their happy luster.

Soon she no longer could play with the boy, and he didn’t want to play with her because she just looked very sick.

And soon, she no longer came to the camp.

“I’ll be back shortly,” my mother had paused by me as I memorized my assigned arithmetic tables one afternoon.

I saw her taking a small pot.

“I am taking her a beef stew. She asked that I bring her a little of that stew that we make here once in a while. She’s always liked it because she says it combines an American dish with Venezuelan seasoning and it’s a favorite of hers. I asked the doctor and he said it’d be OK for me to bring her some.”

“Rosa died this morning,” I heard my mother speaking into the telephone mere days later. “We will attend the wake tonight in the labor camp; as you know, she’ll be buried tomorrow.”

Although she did not live in the labor camp, someone had offered his home as the site for the wake.

Rosa had expressed, as best she could, her gratitude for the beef stew. But she never tasted even a teaspoonful. She just could not. Impossible.

“I want to go.”

“That’ll be fine, son. But just remember, Rosa will not be there; only her body. She will rise again one day, and on that day you will not see her stumbling stiffly because of the pain. You won’t see her cheeks hollowed out or her skin with that deathly color. You won’t see her wasted, unable to eat or drink….”

But that night I would see that I did not really understand what my mother was trying to tell me. As we entered the house I became uneasy seeing all the candles uncertainly piercing the darkness. Why didn’t they turn on some more lights? What seemed to me a multitude crowded the small living room. I saw José standing next to the simple coffin, at the head as folks milled by, expressing their pésame and hearing his expression of simple thanks in reply. I barely recognized José, probably because I had never seen him looking so sad and forlorn; but most likely because this was the first time that I saw him without that drooping straw hat resting easily on his head. On this grievous occasion, it revolved, slowly, loosely, by the rim, by means of José’s sun-darkened, scarred, knobby hands.

I was just tall enough to see Rosa lying there, covered up to her neck in what looked like white lace, under which she seemed clothed in a white, shiny dress. At least that’s what I’d always remember. Then I looked at her face. I hardly recognized her. It was hardened and wasted; it seemed battered. I saw pain, much pain in poor Rosa’s face. I noticed cotton in each nostril and wondered at that and did not like it. I wanted to cry, but did not.

I could not pull my eyes away from her face.

“Son, we need to go home now,” my mother had leaned over me and gently whispered in my ear.

And so, I opened my hands, which had been lightly gripping the edge of the casket, and backed up a bit, and, after a long look, I turned away.

But for days, and months, and years I’d have dreams, frightfully real dreams, of Rosa peering at me. Sometimes I’d fear going into a room alone at night because I could see her face right outside the screened window, looking at me.

I would learn, much later, that these visions and dreams were vivid examples of paradox: I loved and missed Rosa very much. I wished she had not gone. I loved her. But I hated seeing that face of death.

May you rest in peace, Rosa.

Rosa was not glamorous. But to get an idea of what she looked like, you could see Gale Sondergaard and imagine her without the makeup and dressed plainly.

For an “idea” of José, shave off about 40 pounds from Al Lettieri, dress him in rough khakis, and soften his features a tad.

The First Thanksgiving Declaration, Governor William Bradford

November 27, 2020November 27, 2020 Richard Barnes

“Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience.

“Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the daytime, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty three and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.”

William Bradford

Ye Governor of Ye Colony

That first formal declaration was three years after their arrival, when practices and habits had begun to solidify. However, the very first Thanksgiving was in 1621, most likely in November, a year after their arrival. In that year’s winter, their first, about half their company perished, including their first governor, John Carver, who died in April:

“He was buried in the best manner they could, with some vollies of shott by all that bore arms; and his wife, being weak, dyed within five or six weeks after him.”

All previous burials had been done in secret because they did not want the Indians to know how alarmingly depleted their number was becoming. This was the first burial done openly.

During that year they made a treaty with the Indians, the Wampanoag, which treaty was honored by both parties for decades, until Plymouth Colony had ceased to exist, having been folded into the Massachusetts colony.

From Bradford’s journal:

“Our harvest being gotten in, our governor [he always wrote in the third person] sent four men on fowling, that we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms. King Massasoit, with some ninety men, we entertained and feasted with for three days. They went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by goodness of God, we are so far from want.”

The words of our Lord Jesus Christ certainly apply to the Pilgrims: “Ye are the light of the world”.

Bradford seemed to sense the portentousness of their voyage, their survival, and their prosperity, when he wrote:

“Thus out of smalle beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand [Who] made all things that are; and as one small candle may light a thousands, so ye light here kindled hath shone to many, yea in some sorte to our whole nation; let ye glorious name of Jehova have all ye praise.”

The character of the Pilgrims is worthy of emulation by us all today, 400 years after their arrival.

Most of all, the attitude of gratitude. Entire families had died; many survivors had lost loved ones and friends. But they knew, they sincerely knew, to be grateful.

They honored God and God honored them.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

P.S. If you’d like to read about Squanto, please see my 2019 Thanksgiving post (Squanto).

Signing of the Mayflower Compact (see here for more on that event).

William Bradford (1590 – 1657), Governor of Plymouth Colony.

Artist rendition of the First Thanksgiving

The Smartmatic Story: From Venezuela With No Love

November 27, 2020November 27, 2020 Richard Barnes

The previous post told about the 2004 recall elections in Venezuela and the evidence of fraud in such.

The Epoch Times has published a riveting article by Roger Simon, which alludes to those elections. I encourage all to read. By the way, if you want to be informed by well-written stories, especially about the recent elections, I recommend The Epoch Times. The article below is behind the paywall, but their fees are very reasonable and worth every penny.

As you will see, if Mr. Simon cannot independently confirm something, he is upfront about it.

These are times that try men’s souls. We should be well informed. The article below helps us in that regard.

The Smartmatic Story: From Venezuela With No Love

Roger L. Simon

The Epoch Times

Many have debated, and Rudy Giuliani only vaguely explained on Lou Dobbs’ show by saying they had “different theories” of the case, why the Trump legal team separated from Sidney Powell.

Occam’s Razor has a simpler explanation: What Powell is investigating—complicated trans-national computer fraud, involving multiple countries, not just the United States, with immense implications for the democratic system worldwide—takes considerably longer to explicate and prove than the time available to question a presidential election before votes are certified and the Electoral College meets.

This was corroborated by discussions I held with two men in a position to understand a great deal of this fraud that they say originated in and still emanates to a great degree from Venezuela (with a little help from Cuban, Iranian, and Hezbollah friends, possibly others).

These men wish to remain anonymous because they fear for their safety operating in foreign territory as they frequently do.

One of them is a former CIA officer who served in the Directorate of Operations and as chief of station in several countries. The other is of Venezuelan birth and lives in the United States.

In recent years, in conjunction with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and others, they have worked to “flip” leaders and military personnel inside the Venezuelan and Cuban establishments, many of whom were involved with or had information about the extensive narcotics trade undertaken by those two countries as well as Iran and Hezbollah.

This billion-dollar criminal enterprise, particularly regarding Hezbollah in this instance, was on the brink of an exposure and prosecution that was ultimately ignored, as Politico reported, by the Obama administration on the urgings of the mullahs in order to protect the then-incipient Iran Deal.

Some of what these men told me can be authenticated, some not for reasons beyond anyone’s control at the moment. I leave it to readers to decide for themselves.

Nevertheless, for the record, and to understand what we are dealing with, the following members of the Venezuelan leadership are currently indicted in the United States for narcotics trafficking: President Nicolas Maduro, National Assembly leader Diosdado Cabello, petroleum minister Tareck El Aissami, Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, former intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal, and Venezuelan Army Chief of Staff Vladimir Padrino.

To give an idea of the extent of the crime, notorious Mexican “narcotrafficante” El Chapo was said to be worth $1.2 billion. Diosdado Cabello, I was told by one of my informants, is worth in excess of $20 billion! That puts him up there among the richest people in the world. Mix petrodollars—Venezuela, in whatever condition, has one of the richest oil fields on the planet—with drug dollars and you have a lucrative cocktail.

Smartmatic

The two men spoke with me about the origins of the Smartmatic system, which they analogized in some respects to 9/11, mentioning that it was another example of how we tend to underestimate our adversaries, in this case their computer capabilities.

With China and Russia to worry about, Venezuela has been more or less off our radar, but, given the figures above, it shouldn’t be. Their ruling class—not their people, clearly—has enough working capital to do as much damage as anyone.

More than a mere Banana Republic, they are a growing criminal state with tentacles reaching into Colombia and across the Atlantic into one of the major parties of our NATO ally Spain, I was told.

But back to Smartmatic.

In 1998, socialist Hugo Chavez, on his way to being maximum leader for life, changed the constitution of his country, allowing him to serve a six-year term instead of five—with the caveat that if 20 percent of Venezuelans were to sign a petition demanding a recall, an election would be held.

To the surprise of Chavez, such a petition was forthcoming and his attempt to invalidate the signatures failed.

A system had to be invented to guarantee the caudillo’s victory in the forthcoming presidential recall referendum.

Enter Smartmatic, a company founded in Delaware in April 2000 by three young Venezuelan engineers.

January 2004, a Venezuelan government agency, the New York Times reported, invested $200,000 in a technology company owned by those same three.

A Businessman’s Investment

According to the gentlemen I talked with, that money came from a businessman who had been approached by Cuban intelligence to make the needed investment in the nascent Smartmatic in order to improve their technology to the necessary level.

(NB: Since Chavez, Cuban intelligence has had a near total control of significant Venezuelan actions, including the selection of Maduro to replace Chavez when he died from cancer, according to my sources.)

This same businessman, I was told, has ”flipped” and is currently under protection by one of our agencies—presumably the DEA—in a foreign country where he is giving evidence in a criminal prosecution of the Venezuelan government.

We can hope information is also being gleaned that we can all learn from. One of the regrettable aspects of the U. S. government is that our agencies like the DEA still seem to compartmentalize. As far as is known, the Department of Justice is not yet involved.

This businessman is the second to make affidavits on this matter after the Venezuelan military officer cited by Sidney Powell a couple of weeks ago.

Shortly after this businessman’s investment (August 2004), Hugo Chavez won the referendum only to have it denounced as fraudulent by local civil-rights organizations.

This last is corroborated in an extensive English-language interview by Debbie D’Souza of Maria Corina Machado, a Venezuelan civil rights leader and politician, who has been the subject of persecution.

Among other things, Ms. Corina Machado recounts the formation of Súmate, an ad hoc group that was able to muster the necessary signatures for the recall election in a single day (Feb. 2, 2003), garnering a total of 3 million when only 2.4 million were necessary.

But that was an extraordinarily happy interlude in the tragedy that is Venezuela. A Bolivian friend of mine, a recent visitor to the country, told me he saw starving people in their streets resembling images from the Holocaust.

Ownership

But back again to Smartmatic. Who owns it?

It’s unclear, although it putatively started in the United States (See above.) By 2006 it was used in disputed elections in Argentina, apparently to fix them, and in 2011 it was set up in the United Kingdom by no less than deputy UN secretary-general Lord Malloch-Brown, “who took up leadership positions of [George] Soros’s funds and institutes in 2007.”

Hmmm…

Equally important, a 2006 WikiLeaked email tells this story:

“Smartmatic has claimed to be of U.S. origin, but its true owners — probably elite Venezuelans of several political strains — remain hidden behind a web of holding companies in the Netherlands and Barbados. … The company is thought to be backing out of Venezuelan electoral events, focusing now on other parts of world, including the United States via its subsidiary, Sequoia.”

Beyond the initial three engineers, Smartmatic, and then Sequoia, had at least thirty anonymous investors, including, possibly, a then Venezuelan vice-president, as found in WikiLeaks’ system at CARACAS 00002063 001.2 OF 004.

Dominion

But where does Dominion fit in? Weren’t they the ones with the U. S. voting machines?

Well, in 2010, after working more than five years for Smartmatic, the former vice president, development at Sequoia who was also their chief software architect, Eric Coomer, went over to Dominion Voting Systems as vice president of U.S. engineering.

Coomer is an active participant in something called the IEEE common data format for election systems. It’s all enmeshed.

Responses by Dominion/Smartmatic/Sequoia people have been from deliberately opaque to nauseating public relations. Only true forensic computer research will solve anything, not to mention abandoning computer voting altogether (probably the right approach).

Mysteries abound, as, no doubt, Sidney Powell would agree. No matter what level of Kraken she releases, there may always be more.

One of those alleged by my sources, and one that I cannot check, is that someone high up in the Democratic National Committee is a “former” Chavista.

Sabotaging Our Election

Another surrounds a trip taken to Mexico City on Oct. 21, 2020, by Ambassador Richard Grenell—a man tremendously admired by my sources and by me.

Amb. Grenell went there to meet with Jorge Rodriquez, the brother of now Venezuelan vice-president Delcy Rodriquez (see the list of indictments above). Jorge is a man, we can assume, of tremendous wealth and something of a “power behind the throne,” as is his sister Delcy.

As the New York Times explains, amidst its predictable huffing and puffing about the State Department not having been informed of the meeting, the purpose was to negotiate the departure of Maduro and company, thus freeing the Venezuelan people from their long national nightmare.

It was a laudable goal, surely, but bound for failure for reasons unknown to Amb. Grenell. (I contacted him to discuss this, but he demurred.)

According to my sources, Rodriquez was well aware at that point that his country’s leadership was participating in the sabotage of our election through their computer system.

That made any negotiation moot, but more than that Rodriquez truly despised the United States to such an extent he would want no part of an agreement.

Grenell would have no reason to know this, said my sources, but Jorge’s hatred would have been motivated by more than the usual anti-Americanism. It had vengeance attached. Although Jorge himself could now fairly be called what’s known as a “boligarch” (today’s wealthy Venezuelan businessmen—Bolivar revolution oligarchs), his father was a communist guerrilla who, many years ago, was killed.

Jorge blames the CIA.

As I type this, word has come that Sidney Powell is about to release her first “Kraken,” concerning voter fraud in Georgia. As I wrote the other day, win, lose or draw, her grievances must be aired for our sake, but more for our children and grandchildren.

Something has gone seriously wrong.

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, editor-at-large for The Epoch Times. His most recent books are “The GOAT” (fiction) and “I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasn’t Already” (nonfiction). Find him on Parler @rogerlsimon.

The 2004 Elections in Venezuela: Nothing New Under the Sun

November 21, 2020November 21, 2020 Richard Barnes

The 2004 recall elections in Venezuela is the event former president Jimmy Carter stamped with the Carter Good Housekeeping Seal of approval. He went on to observe future Venezuela elections, declaring the “election process in Venezuela is the best in the world” [sic!].

Millions of people in the land of my birth were mocked and rebuked for not accepting the results, for being sore losers, for harming democracy, and worse. After all, Jimmy Carter had spoken and Venezuelans were said to respect and love him. And they did. And that made the hurt much worse: betrayal stings deepest when coming from a friend.

Given the current polemics, I’ll stick largely to “mainstream media” in their reporting on that fateful 2004 recall election in Venezuela.

You be the judge as to any parallels.

The New York Times (NYT) reported in August 16, 2004, “We categorically reject the results,” said Henry Ramos, spokesman for the Democratic Coordinator, the umbrella of 27 political parties that opposes the government. In a televised announcement soon after the meeting, he said: “They have perpetrated a gigantic fraud against the will of the people.”

“Opposition leaders reached this morning by phone, insisted that the new computerized voting system had been tampered with …. But the O.A.S. and the Carter Center said that the results could not have been manipulated.”

NYT reported on October 29, 2006, “The federal government is investigating takeover last year of a leading American manufacturer of electronic voting systems by a small software company linked to the leftist Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez. The inquiry is focusing on the Venezuelan owners of the software company, The Smartmatic Corporation, trying to determine whether the government in Caracas has any control or influence over the firm’s operations.”

“Smartmatic was a little-known firm with no experience in voting technology before it was chosen by the Venezuelan authorities to replace the country’s elections machinery ahead of a contentious referendum that confirmed Mr. Chávez as president in August 2004.”

Suspicions were raised because the evidence, including unprecedentedly huge demonstrations [rallies] across Venezuela calling for the peaceful ouster of Chávez and the election of his opponent seemed to point to the dictator’s defeat. In Venezuela, millions marched and rallied for the opposition. The election results, with incredible precision flipped the expected results.

The shock was palpable. I still recall talking with folks who were reeling as if from a totally unexpected blow.

It simply made no sense.

I recall mathematicians challenging the results, especially in areas where it was well known Chávez had weak support, yet the voting machines showed him running strong. The mathematicians found “a very subtle algorithm” that appeared to adjust the vote in Chávez favor.

Computer scientists and well respected pollster, Penn, Schoen & Berland, who conducted exit polling, all found evidence of vote flipping based on statistics and thorough mathematical analyses. In the case of the exit polling, which was extensive, the recall was succeeding 60-40. The certified results were the exact opposite: a “statistically impossible” 40-point swing. That is six times the margin of error in terms of vote shift. “We are talking here of many standard deviations away from the expected result. That result is about as likely as Osama Bin Laden agreeing to be on Bill O’Reilly’s show in person tomorrow night.”

Other anomalies in that election were multiple voting sites where hundreds of machines had identical voting totals, all with the exact same differential between the “Yes” and the “No” votes. Another statistical impossibility.

As added insurance for a favorable outcome, pro-Chávez groups cordoned off voting centers and allowed only their voters to cast ballots or physically assaulted anti-Chávez groups.

The New York Sun reported in February, 2007, “Astonishing as it may seem to Americans who believe the contention by Mr. Chávez that he won both elections by a landslide — 58% to 42% in the recall and 61% to 39% in the presidential election — the studies show that since 2003, Mr. Chávez has added 4.4 million favorable names to the voter list and “migrated” 2.6 million unfavorable voters to places where it was difficult or impossible for them to vote.”

Analyses were performed in 2006 and again in 2011, all concluding that the elections were fraudulent. (The generally liberal Wikipedia has a helpful article under “2004 Venezuelan recall referendum.”)

But the Carter Center was unmoved.

The McClatchy Newspapers reported on March 24, 2009 [emphases mine], “The CIA … has reported apparent vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela … and a raft of concerns about the machines’ vulnerability to tampering….”

“Appearing last month before a U. S. Election Assistance Commission field hearing in Orlando, Fla., a CIA cybersecurity expert suggested that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and his allies fixed a 2004 election recount, an assertion that could further roil U. S. relations with the Latin leader.”

“In a presentation that could provide disturbing lessons for the United States, where electronic voting is becoming universal, Steve Stigall summarized what he described as attempts to use computers to undermine democratic elections in developing nations. His remarks have received no news attention ….”

“Stigall told the Election Assistance Commission … that computerized electoral systems can be manipulated at five stages, from altering voter registration lists to posting results.“

“Susannah Goodman, the director of election reform for the citizens’ lobby Common Cause, said … ‘We can no longer ignore the fact that all of these risks are present right here at home … and must secure our election system by requiring every voter to have his or her vote recorded on a paper ballot.”

I’ve linked to the article below for readers who might be interested in learning more.

James Madison famously wrote, “If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary…. you must … oblige [government] to control itself.”

Hence the almost fanatical care the Founders took to create myriad checks and balances to keep civil government and its agencies in check.

Josef Stalin is reported to have said something along these lines: “It’s not the number of votes that count, its who does the counting.”

Sadly, the Venezuelan people were unable, and are unable, to check on the officials doing the counting, including the programming of the machines.

And that is a problem.

Because men are not angels.

https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/article24530650.html

McClatchy Newspapers March, 2009 report on the CIA analyst presentation.