PERSPECTIVE
From Matt Ball, who always sends me the best stuff: “To cheer you up.”
EVEN BROADER PERSPECTIVE
Our planet in context. Let’s not muck it up.
MORE FROM VENEZUELA
My friend continues:
Many of the foreign electoral observers, plus the USA, EU, Spain, France, England, Chile, Columbia etc etc have all encouraged a recount. The USA was one among many, and not particularly emphatic that I saw. Acting President Maduro responded by brazenly threatening to expropriate Spanish companies plus take various diplomatic and commercial measures against other countries.
More ironies of life:
The head of the electoral commission is strongly refusing to recount the votes, which is of course increasing the suspicion of fraud, and she has cited Bush v Gore in 2000 as an example of a close election where a recount was not needed. (At that time, the populist Chavez government correctly lambasted the USA for its democratic failings.)
Acting President Maduro was a leftist student radical in his youth, known for his confrontational style at demonstrations. Yesterday, he warned the thousands and thousands of students demonstrating for a recount all across the country that he would respond with the full power of the state if necessary.
