Here are Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3 of this series.
Chavistas turned Hugo Chávez into their own god. They wildly inflated his exploits and virtues and when he died, they created a fake body and put it in the Cuartel de la Montaña (The Fort of the Mountain,) formerly the Museum of Military History, where millions would allegedly visit the late leader in pilgrimages from all over the country. Thousands did go, but only in the first few months following the announcement of his death. The place is now only a location for nasty witchery.
During his research, David Placer infiltrated Sai Baba's Cult in Puttaparthi, India, to see how things were inside. The guru had been dead for years by then, but the place still functioned as if he was alive, just not nearly with the same amount of visitors. In there, he got a personal taste of how things were in the ashram and the fake grandeur built around a charlatan who claimed in life to be the reincarnation of an earlier guru, and of the Hindu god Shiva. His devotees believe that he was God incarnate and had created the Universe and everything in it, and he maintained this myth by supposedly manifesting expensive gold items, jewels and sacred ashes from his throne, as well as "healing" people suffering from severe illness and even "resurrecting" the dead. He still died of very human complications from old age, though, at the age of 84 despite having predicted that he'd die at 96. Like Chávez, his corpse was also put on display in a glass coffin surrounded by his picture in his own sanctuary.
There are other common traits between these two movements. For instance, dissenting from or speaking against the leader or his attendants isn't tolerated; food is a means of control, so those devoted (or at least not adverse) to the movement are rewarded with larger amounts or better quality, while dissenters are barred from the programs; Sai Baba and the chavista regime both made friends among drug traffickers, dictators and other shady individuals with whom they often traded expensive gifts, and although the Indian guru didn't send anyone to prison or ordered them killed (that we know of) like the chavista regime has done, there were quite a few strange incidents in his sanctuary that ended in death and blood, and he was often accused of sexual misconduct. Embezzlement, money laundering and other financial crimes are another rope binding them together.
All of the connections that we could establish between these cults/political movements can be easily summed up with one word: money.
Venezuelan prison are a hell on earth because of money. Armed civilians repress and kill regime adversaries because of money. Security forces massacre citizens and kidnap dissenters because of money. These people don't believe in Chávez or Sai Baba or Shiva or God. Their real deity, the force that moves them to devote themselves to their atrocious path of destruction is money, preferably in the form of U.S. dollars or, more recently, Bitcoins. They have no loyalty beyond that, their faith is conditioned by that, their power is also based on that. And that's also why they're so cruel, cold and empty, because money is nothing but a story, it can't feed the soul, bring true satisfaction or provide purpose and meaning to life.
When Sai Baba died, the authorities raided his compound and found millions of dollars worth in luxury items, cash and gold, a lifetime of gifts by influential devotees which he then reused sometimes in his lavish "materializations" in front of his audiences. When chavismo is removed from power, who knows what we'll find in the many properties and cached locations that they've set up throughout their long criminal careers. Since Money is their true God, the more they accumulate, the more "divine" they feel, I guess. I think that's a good reflection with regards to all powerful, wealthy organizations and individuals in our world, to understand why they act as they act, and why our world is as it is.
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