Esotericism in Politics - BAD MOJO

[Sigma_Orionis]

It's well known that I'm a rabid atheist positivist.

While I don't have an issue with whatver faith anybody could have (I do frown on Esotercism and New Age beliefs though, probably because some of the worst strains of people I've met, happenned to spout that when screwing me up). That changes PRETTY quickly when it's mixed with politics. Political ideologies and its consequences on us grunts are messy enough as it is to also throw in religious beliefs. Not mention that: so far, it has seldom ended well.

One of the worst kept dirty little secrets of Chavismo is that a lot of people its upper echelons have weird "esoteric" beliefs including stuff like Santeria.

Experiencing the disaster of the last 14 years, particularly since the start of the great recession, (that wasn't supposed to touch us, according to the idiotic "Comandante Eterno") already has made me lose whatever little sympathy I had for the Chavistas (the only sympathy I ever had for them was that the opposition was behaving WORSE than the chavistas).

While the idiot (Chavez in case you're wondering) never mentioned any interest on that kind of stuff publically, it was well known that a lot of his henchmen had those "esoteric" tendencies.

Our current two-legged ass (aka Nicky Ripe) apparently is neck deep into that kind of stuff. DEFINITELY NOT OK IN MY BOOK.

I mentioned this, because bitching about our current situation (as usual) on another thread I included a link to this. Which in essence is comentary on an blog post by a German Poetess who was invited to a junket here in Bananaland. (the original blog post was in german and it was translated to spanish) The poor Teutonic Lady Bard was unable to understand what kind of a nuthouse she got invited into, as it can be inferred in the last few lines of her blog post: "I asked a native of Venezuela if it was actually a dictatorship and he cried 'it's unknown even to US'".

The author of the comentary, says that the lady in question was extremely confused by her European Upbringing, as she saw the insane amount of propaganda and the personality cult of Chavez and found it at the same level than that of countries like East Germany or North Korea, but saw few signs of actual repression.

So the author of CC speculates that one of the unique characteristics of our "Glorious Revolutionary Government" is that they tapped the sympathy a lot of people of this country have towards Esotericism/New Age Beliefs, particularly those coming from our Afro-Caribbean heritage.

It was fun when a lot of his readers called him racist.

Yet, I am not so sure he's wrong. I've seen those tendencies in a LOT of people who are DEFINITELY NOT of Afro-Caribbean descent and educated enough to know better.

In any case the last time something like that happened in this corner in the world didn't end well at all.

The point is that the Chavista embracing of those beliefs makes me dislike them even more....

[geonuc]

Except for the level of societal and governmental chaos it has engendered (you have more of both), I see parallels with our conservative politicians embracing fundamentalist christian dogma to stir up their base, even if they they personally don't believe or follow.

[Sigma_Orionis]

Well, that's the point. I'd bet 9 to 1 that (not only your "Conservative" Politicians, also your "Conservative" pundits like Rush Limbaugh) they spout "Christian Fundamentalism", because that's what their base wants to hear. Apparently, a lot of the characters down here (except maybe for Chavez) are "true believers".

Why do I think so? Well, take Michelle Bachmann or that slimeball called Louie Gohmert Jr., they make SURE to let everyone know how "Christian" they are.

Here that is known only through rumors and gossip. And historically, despite being predominantly Catholic, there has always been quite a bit of tolerance to other beliefs. So practitioners of that kind of stuff don't hide it at all.

[Sigma_Orionis]

More on this

On this blogpost there are excerpts (in spanish unfortunately) from a local newspaper (Panorama) article on the fact that the among the shortages we have there are several items used (ONLY) for some occult rituals.

In the full article, (again, in spanish) it mentions that the writer went to a supply store for these items, right in the center of the city (to be fair, OUR downtown is not at all like Manhattan, which is what you gringos are used to call "downtown", it would more like "the old city" along with some government buildings ).

In a passing note in the article, it seems that images of our "beloved Comandante" are now being included in some Santeria Rituals here.

Even Rick Santorum hasn't gotten THAT far.