Lessons from the PRI

There is one lesson I learned many years ago that accounts for the ability of the indigenous Mexican super rich classes to hold onto State Power. That is the special police that work directly for the President. Ironic in a way that I had my first contact with them arranged by the communist playwright Carlos Prieto (1962). Important because as the years passed and what they call the Gringo Regime had problems with a succession of Mexican Presidents (over their respective class interests) it was the Office of the Special Police of the President of the Republic which always both (1) kept him alive and (2) kept him informed of every important development no matter how small (they always knew were every foreigner in the country was 24 hours a day, for example) and most importantly (3) made absolutely sure no plots could take place in the Army, other military forces or other police forces about which they were not instantly and constantly informed.
Given the increasing intensity of the US plotting to assassinate Hugo Chavez and overthrow his presidency by fascist violence directed both at the state apparatus and at its subversion and subornation this lesson from the PRI might be one well learned by Venezuela’s leaders.