Patriotic Moments - Trocha

First they took on the poor old viaduct, they started milking that one and that's why La Trocha -that's how they called it!-hurt them so much; and it hurted them so much when in all dignity Ramón Carrizales -I was watching you from Palace-, very motivated and emotional, and so much more on time at eleven sharp on the morning! along with a group of compañeros and countrymen with all the people behind; he opened the "trocha", well, to use the same phrase that they have used: there's your little "trochita", well; there's your trochita. On the BUCHE you have that trochita. The trochita hurted them and is still hurting them because they were hoping, of course: that the country is falling into pieces and all the bridges are falling apart.

Then El Nacional printed that Puente Angostura had dropped 10 thousand screws and don't know how much more; same with the bridge over the Lake they said it was falling, and all the bridges! ... In the neighborhood of San Juan de los Morros a bridge fell down, and they made so much noise! another bridge that fell we repaired in half a day, in half a night that bridge was fixed.

Alo Presidente Nro. 248 - 5.3.2006

Note on the English translation of the President's prose.

It is very coloquial, that is without doubt. Any attempt to a translation will clearly make his sub-gutural utterances into a more than adequate speech that should be dignified with a somewhat inteligent conversation or debate. It's difficult to translate the inherent vulgarity of certain utterances without a profound comprehension of the language. Venezuelan coloquial speech is full of nuances and double-entendres. We are inherently humourous, but always dead serious.

The snipet we decided to translate will probably not be the last, but it is the first. In the past certain twists the presidential tongue introduced into formal speeches about topical issues with regard to the political arena, turned into serious anti-oposition odes. This passage was chosen -specifically, because it mixed a topical issue - the "trocha" - with a specific political warfare underlying every decision the government does or lets do.

The same as german scholars had to take on Adolps's attrocious writen german, scholars of Latin America will have to deal to the complete collection of Aló Presidente: one of the most bizarre social experiments sponsored by a modern government ever. It is already one of the longest running shows in Venezuela, although barely nobody out of government or politics ever watches. In a way, it tries to use the public air to conduct plans and dictate publics policies. But, also very casually, using it to consolidate their political power by controlling all information.

1. Buche, as used by the High Authority, is referred to the mouth, or maybe stomach, depending on the understanding as referred to the membranous mouth of certain birds, or the stomach of some cuadripeds. Also, used in the context of the political discussion, very aggressive, meaning: I am going to shove down your throat 10 million votes - thats the actual slogan of the campaign! - and I will force you all to swallow it!, is what people feel will be the next phase.

2. Trocha/Trochita - If this was not so repellent an use of language, we could just let it go, but again, He contradicts himself by that mania of critiquing the opposition's forces, whatever they may be, -speciffically- on its use of the word trocha, which means 'a way opened in the brush, used many times as as a shortpath' and which is officially referred to as the Provisional Road, which was concocted by some genius military engineer, and which collapsed on the first weeked of rains of the season.

A simple landslide blocked both ways. He said maybe there was no need to make another bridge, if this one worked so well. Today they are humbled, but still feel safe because they are botching project after peoject at such an astonishing rate, that just by speed and magnitude they think they can do it forever.

We are kings of the little!

¡That it's not true! will shout the government commentators. But will have no commnets if you mention the Apure project. He was talking about it when all this mess started happening. The Mega- Plasta elections have not been sufficiently investigated, just another example. And for this and that I blame the multicolored and motivated opposition deputies on the national assembly, as well as the hungry and underfed bolibanano lot. It was up to them to force an investigation. It was for them to uncover the truth of the monumental fraud this group of low-life manipulators were preparing, and which have produced increasing data of certain voting issues that stronfly suggest manipulation of the same electoral data. The systen is perfect, as long as nobody has access to the data, and to the data-flow while producing results on electoral days.

We are the king of the Hill!

Then, everybody is blaming the use of technology in their struggle. We simply want to use our long-lost capacity of adding, substracting and multipling. We want to count every vote with our own eyes and using our own fingers. Now if we did it the other way around, what would happen?

What I mean is: ¿what if we made the elections the traditional way of voting in venezuela. Before all this mess! And inmediately making a full recount, including entering the result by ballot/box, on machines according to codes, and same principles of what they had planned for election day. Of course, any difference between manually counted chairs and machine will be examined immediatelly, with the contracts with the constructors and operators opening completely the system to world's electoral experts.

The condescending tone of this brief pasage resumes the profound disgust this man has for his opponents, but also of their own bolibanano achievements. By treating such an emergency solution as a kind of victory, he made himself very susceptible to being fingered as the one responsible for last weekend's mess. So, remember, that whatever you say, may come back to haunt you, and when it does, it hurts sooo bad!!

Like somebody kicked you on the face with la trochiiita!

bang!