From the AP two days ago:
“By the time National Electoral Council President Elvis Amoroso was shown on television handing Maduro a document certifying his victory, the opposition had scanned more than half of the tally sheets. The scanned tallies were also uploaded to a searchable website, and [those] who voted could use their government identification number to check out the tally sheet belonging to the machine they used to vote.
“The government then claimed that the electoral council’s website had been hacked. National Assembly President Jorge Rodriguez insisted Maduro was the indisputable winner and called his opponents violent fascists. He called for Machado and González [opposition leaders] to be arrested.“
When those in power — the permanent bureaucracy, their media sycophants, and the political party most aligned with them — facilely tar their opponents with the fascist tag while insisting their electoral results — which not too long ago reflected the “winner” with more votes than any presidential candidate in U. S. history — are as pure as the driven snow, the rest of us ought to see the parallels that so obviously exist. As in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan opposition was clearly anticipating this and was ready to respond with actual results. I still don’t know exactly how they did this when the electoral count is centralized in the hands of the regime, but they did. Of course this does not mean that truth and justice will prevail in that dark corner of the international Socialist world; however, we can be excused for hoping that the rest of the world will grow a bit of spine and support the people of Venezuela as they exhibit the courage — courage! — that in aeons past used to characterize the free West.
Apart from a few exceptions, I do not see the same moral courage in the opposition here, in the United States.
May we remember these days — days when a husband and father was murdered in cold blood, in his own house, by the regime’s thugs; days when an election observer was dragged from her house, in her underwear, and taken by the motorcycle gangs hired by the regime to “keep order”; days when multitudes of protesters have been rounded up and taken under horrendous custody; days when the opposition offices have been ransacked and their leaders have had to seek refuge in the Argentina embassy in Caracas; days when Cuban snipers have been seen on the roof of the presidential palace, Miraflores — and be encouraged by the steadfastness of our Venezuelan friends.
Pray for Venezuela.
