Hugo’s Twitter-Cotta Army
In 1974, some Chinese farmers found what became one of the greatest archeological finds of my lifetime, an army of terra cotta warriors. The statues, over 8,000 of them, were buried to serve as Emperor Qin’s army in the afterlife, to help him conquer yet another empire in a new world.
Hugo Chavez doesn’t quite have 8,000 warriors yet, but he’s building himself quite the little Twitter team to spread his socialist blather across the internet.
CARACAS, Venezuela — President Hugo Chavez is tops on Twitter in Venezuela less than 2 weeks after launching his account, surpassing Internet-savvy foes who dominate the social networking site and use it to oppose him.
Chavez’s account, “chavezcandanga,” had racked up more than 237,000 followers as of Saturday morning — besting the 234,000 who receive tweets from Globovision, the only TV channel that remains critical of the socialist leader.
In recent televised appearances, Chavez has trumpeted the meteoric rise of his Twitter popularity while downplaying the critical, often disparaging messages he receives.
“Some criticize me, others insult me. I don’t care,” he said. “It’s a form of contact with the world.”
The president joined Twitter on April 27 in an attempt to counter adversaries who have actively used the site to make accusations of human rights violations, organize protests and — above all — ridicule Chavez.
He urged supporters to join as well, calling Twitter “a weapon that also needs to be used by the revolution.”
Since then, Chavez says, he has been overwhelmed by nearly 54,000 messages from supporters, critics and people writing to ask for help with a problem or lodge a complaint. On Thursday, he announced that a new team of 200 aides would help him manage the stream.
Now, Chavez doesn’t have an empire, but it’s not for lack of want. Two-hundred bureaucratic flunkies is just a down payment on the totalitarian government hell he really wants to impose, not only on Venezuela, but also on the entire world.
I think it would be great if we could goose up the amount of ridicule pouring into Chavez the Porcine’s Twitter account. If he’s going to put 200 people onto manning the delete key, let’s give them some real work to do.
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Category: The World At Large
