Venezuela 2017

[Bakery Hill]

Should I? Why should I?

"Charming. Good to know the latifundia mindset is still alive after all these years."
Because i want to know, why, why a maybe british(?) guy that knows what in going on in Venezuela is defending a government that it seems that has the mission of destroy this nation and then escape seeing the fire they provoked, meanwhile a guy that is in the field and doesn't know what is going on because this government controls almost every big media in Venezuela is trying to undestand a guy like you.

British? That's offensive my dear man.

Read the article I posted. I'm criticising the opposition, not defending the government. By putting the current state of affairs into a social and political contex, you offend some people or so it seems.

https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/venezuel ... tivism-oil

[Hydesland]

Yeltsin was sketchy and corrupt as fuck but at least he was genuinely interested in significant nuclear disarmament and cold war de-escalation, it's hardly surprising the West would back him initially.

there were some folks with comparable initial approval ratings to Yeltsin who, unlike Yeltsin, were honest people with much the same policies up front, some of which were in the same rough camp until shock therapy set in.

The West's role in this is overstated anyway.

[Kubra]

Yeltsin was sketchy and corrupt as fuck but at least he was genuinely interested in significant nuclear disarmament and cold war de-escalation, it's hardly surprising the West would back him initially.

And continuing mass sell-offs of state-owned industry.

Don't forget rigged auctions to create oligarchical monopolies and egregious constitutional violations in the point in time where consitutions in Russia finally mattered

[Bakery Hill]

By the look of it, Chavez was right there too.

Should I? Why should I?

Because Bolivar was a conservative and would probably have launched a revolution against Chavez if he had been around.

Thank you for this cool fact. I've heard that before, but that doesn't matter.

Of course, I don't know what it's got to do with anything I've said, but I like cool facts.

[Improved werpland]

what's distrusted is not the sentiment, not the folks on the street, but the parties vying for power. That's where things get dicey.
During the breakup of the Soviet Union there was honest folks who wanted democratic governance and a liberal economy and wanted to make it work, but Yeltsin is the guy the states threw their weight behind.

The same people leading the opposition, like everyone's favourite poster boy Leopoldo Lopez, also played leading roles in the 2002 coup against Chavez when he tried to get control over the oil industry. Does that mean I deny that Maduro's government is spiraling out of control, and there's no real way out? No. I'm just tired of this constant liberal cheerleading of "pro-Western" opposition groups, the same kind that saw everyone cheer Joe Biden when he was praising actual Neo Nazis in Ukraine. There are no good guys and bad guys, there's just classes and factions, they use the same methods and only rarely do they think in different ways.

Crocodile tears. Liberals are far less stupid in choosing which foreign political groups we give lip service to, as evidence by the socialists who celebrate the victory of a militant Islamist group in Yemen whereas liberals produce op-ed after op-ed (sometimes even going too far) about the incompetency of the Ukrainian government.

[Bakery Hill]

Yeltsin was sketchy and corrupt as fuck but at least he was genuinely interested in significant nuclear disarmament and cold war de-escalation, it's hardly surprising the West would back him initially.

there were some folks with comparable initial approval ratings to Yeltsin who, unlike Yeltsin, were honest people with much the same policies up front, some of which were in the same rough camp until shock therapy set in.

If only Gorby could have ridden the dragon.

[Wickedly evil people]

socialists always destroy, never build.

It was inevitable

[MERIZoC]

This is one of the best takes I've seen on the whole thing to be quite honest.

As Nicolás Maduro’s increasingly antidemocratic government battles violent right-wing forces, ordinary Venezuelans are watching the gains of Chavismo slip away.

https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/venezuel ... tivism-oil

Chavez rejected a development proposal some years ago for environmental reasons and in recognition of indigenous communities’ human and territorial rights. But last summer, Maduro began inviting multinational corporations to bid for concessions.

He made the first offer to Barrick, the giant Canadian gold-mining concern that had been excluded from Venezuela a decade earlier. After Chávez nationalized the mines, the company demanded hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation payments. As a gesture of his good faith, Maduro has agreed to pay this debt as well as offer a ten-year tax holiday and develop the regional infrastructure at the state’s expense.

We can already see the environmental consequences of opening the region to the rapacious mining industry — populations displaced, land and rivers poisoned, fragile rain forest and mountain ecologies destroyed. In the Arco, the military began to expel the residents soon after the government’s announcement.

:/

[Phoenicaea]

Because Bolivar was a conservative and would probably have launched a revolution against Chavez if he had been around.

Thank you for this cool fact. I've heard that before, but that doesn't matter.

Of course, I don't know what it's got to do with anything I've said, but I like cool facts.

me too I think you are laughing and ambellish an abstruse personal thinking about a true catastrophe were people suffers, not a matter, since it has not impact on real things, that it is by the way. there are also more heavy and more bad things then.

[Bakery Hill]

The folks on the street want to try new parties in power and should have that democratic right.

no one is saying stick with the PSUV, just to not take whatever party comes into power uncritically. That's the problem with us Westerners, we're so set on the victory that we forgot to pay attention to the aftermath.

The collectivos are where the good part of Chavista Venezuela is, hopefully they can weather this storm. The more power that was given over to a middle class kleptomaniac bureaucracy the worse it got. Of course we'll be seeing mass austerity and possibly a military dictatorship when this sorry lot get booted. Hooray for western values.

[Bakery Hill]

This is one of the best takes I've seen on the whole thing to be quite honest.



https://jacobinmag.com/2017/07/venezuel ... tivism-oil

Chavez rejected a development proposal some years ago for environmental reasons and in recognition of indigenous communities’ human and territorial rights. But last summer, Maduro began inviting multinational corporations to bid for concessions.

He made the first offer to Barrick, the giant Canadian gold-mining concern that had been excluded from Venezuela a decade earlier. After Chávez nationalized the mines, the company demanded hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation payments. As a gesture of his good faith, Maduro has agreed to pay this debt as well as offer a ten-year tax holiday and develop the regional infrastructure at the state’s expense.

We can already see the environmental consequences of opening the region to the rapacious mining industry — populations displaced, land and rivers poisoned, fragile rain forest and mountain ecologies destroyed. In the Arco, the military began to expel the residents soon after the government’s announcement.

:/

I know right? Pretty fucked. Extractivism is a hell of a drug.

[Bakery Hill]

Thank you for this cool fact. I've heard that before, but that doesn't matter.

Of course, I don't know what it's got to do with anything I've said, but I like cool facts.

me too I think you are laughing and ambellish an abstruse personal thinking about a true catastrophe were people suffers, not a matter, since it has not impact on real things, that it is by the way

I'm sorry but I can't understand you.

[Improved werpland]

No, there's a good road. The PSUV gets its shit together and passes a massive austerity program, allowing social democratic visionary Leopoldo Lopez to become president in 2019.

> social democratic
> visionary

choose one

No it's:

> Lopez
> social democratic

[Kubra]

there were some folks with comparable initial approval ratings to Yeltsin who, unlike Yeltsin, were honest people with much the same policies up front, some of which were in the same rough camp until shock therapy set in.

The West's role in this is overstated anyway.

>brings up sources just to ridicule their politics
>Lol we gave them a loan but that's not a big deal

Idk how the guy could say that. The value of money is quite high for people who do not have it.

[MERIZoC]

there were some folks with comparable initial approval ratings to Yeltsin who, unlike Yeltsin, were honest people with much the same policies up front, some of which were in the same rough camp until shock therapy set in.

The West's role in this is overstated anyway.

Thats a pretty poorly made article. All it offers is a repeated "this is coming from a fringe dont listen to these claims", proceeds to contradict itself on the "fringe" part, and then offer no counter argument. The use of the American ambassador to Russia, Yeltsin's daughter, and Clinton's Deputy Secretary of State as the only sources to counter the claim that Yeltin received significant American backing is especially hilarious.

[Bakery Hill]

The same people leading the opposition, like everyone's favourite poster boy Leopoldo Lopez, also played leading roles in the 2002 coup against Chavez when he tried to get control over the oil industry. Does that mean I deny that Maduro's government is spiraling out of control, and there's no real way out? No. I'm just tired of this constant liberal cheerleading of "pro-Western" opposition groups, the same kind that saw everyone cheer Joe Biden when he was praising actual Neo Nazis in Ukraine. There are no good guys and bad guys, there's just classes and factions, they use the same methods and only rarely do they think in different ways.

Crocodile tears. Liberals are far less stupid in choosing which foreign political groups we give lip service to, as evidence by the socialists who celebrate the victory of a militant Islamist group in Yemen whereas liberals produce op-ed after op-ed (sometimes even going too far) about the incompetency of the Ukrainian government.

I saw liberals get behind Euromaidan in a major way, especially the establishment Democrats. To insist that people like, I dunno, the DSA, Jeremy Corbyn, JLM and other mainstream significant socialist groups cheer on the Houthis is however a bit ludicrous. Two or three tankies on the internet doesn't represent socialists, who mostly back Rojava from what I've seen.

[MERIZoC]

Crocodile tears. Liberals are far less stupid in choosing which foreign political groups we give lip service to, as evidence by the socialists who celebrate the victory of a militant Islamist group in Yemen whereas liberals produce op-ed after op-ed (sometimes even going too far) about the incompetency of the Ukrainian government.

I saw liberals get behind Euromaidan in a major way, especially the establishment Democrats. To insist that people like, I dunno, the DSA, Jeremy Corbyn, JLM and other mainstream significant socialist groups cheer on the Houthis is however a bit ludicrous. Two or three tankies on the internet doesn't represent socialists, who mostly back Rojava from what I've seen.

tbh if you're not cheering on the Houthis against Saudi Arabia, which has caused massive destruction and disease in Yemen, you've got issues

[Kubra]

I saw liberals get behind Euromaidan in a major way, especially the establishment Democrats. To insist that people like, I dunno, the DSA, Jeremy Corbyn, JLM and other mainstream significant socialist groups cheer on the Houthis is however a bit ludicrous. Two or three tankies on the internet doesn't represent socialists, who mostly back Rojava from what I've seen.

tbh if you're not cheering on the Houthis against Saudi Arabia, which has caused massive destruction and disease in Yemen, you've got issues

no sides in sectarian war, especially when those sides came together once to throw out the secular modernists back in the 80s.

[Bakery Hill]

I saw liberals get behind Euromaidan in a major way, especially the establishment Democrats. To insist that people like, I dunno, the DSA, Jeremy Corbyn, JLM and other mainstream significant socialist groups cheer on the Houthis is however a bit ludicrous. Two or three tankies on the internet doesn't represent socialists, who mostly back Rojava from what I've seen.

tbh if you're not cheering on the Houthis against Saudi Arabia, which has caused massive destruction and disease in Yemen, you've got issues

How about I cheer neither? I mean one's a state that executes people for witchcraft, while the other has a flag with "Death to the Jews" written on it. Of course the Houthis have the moral high ground considering what Saudi Arabia is doing to their land and their people, but being better than Saudi Arabia isn't a great achievement.

[Bakery Hill]

tbh if you're not cheering on the Houthis against Saudi Arabia, which has caused massive destruction and disease in Yemen, you've got issues

no sides in sectarian war, especially when those sides came together once to throw out the secular modernists back in the 80s.

Yeah that too. There's little point in backing one Islamist against another. Morally or practically.

[MERIZoC]

tbh if you're not cheering on the Houthis against Saudi Arabia, which has caused massive destruction and disease in Yemen, you've got issues

no sides in sectarian war, especially when those sides came together once to throw out the secular modernists back in the 80s.

You can call it "sectarian war" but when innocent people are dying to famine and cholera, there's a very clear good and bad.

nonetheless, back to the western hemisphere

[Hydesland]

I saw liberals get behind Euromaidan in a major way, especially the establishment Democrats. To insist that people like, I dunno, the DSA, Jeremy Corbyn, JLM and other mainstream significant socialist groups cheer on the Houthis is however a bit ludicrous. Two or three tankies on the internet doesn't represent socialists, who mostly back Rojava from what I've seen.

tbh if you're not cheering on the Houthis against Saudi Arabia, which has caused massive destruction and disease in Yemen, you've got issues

But would you see the irony of someone advocating to be super wary and sceptical of the politics of the opposition against the authoritarians in Venezuela while cheering on club "curse the Jews" in Yemen?

[MERIZoC]

tbh if you're not cheering on the Houthis against Saudi Arabia, which has caused massive destruction and disease in Yemen, you've got issues

But would you see the irony of someone advocating to be super wary and sceptical of the politics of the opposition against the authoritarians in Venezuela while cheering on club "curse the Jews" in Yemen?

Different places, different contexts. I'm not exactly worried a bunch of herders with AKs are gonna invade Israel.

Point being, there's a very real chance a right wing govt could make things worse in Venezuela. Yemen on the other hand is facing the world's worst humanitarian crisis at the hands of the Saudis. Them losing this war is going to be much better than any other alternative.

[Bakery Hill]

Other more sinister forces have been responsible for some of the more barbaric actions that have been reported. They wear balaclavas and have taken to firing ball bearings into the chests of young men, passing pedestrians, drivers. Their actions go beyond protest; these thugs almost certainly draw a paycheck from the far right. They are likely paramilitaries who work for the drug traffickers whose influence is growing. They do not narrowly support the right: they aim to make the country ungovernable, to deepen the despair and the fear that affects growing numbers of Venezuelans. At the same time, the state security forces, the National Guard in particular, are increasingly involved in the violence. It is hard to tell how far these networks have interpenetrated.

Meanwhile, multinational corporations are waiting to seize the country’s enormous oil, gas, and mineral wealth under the complacent eye of an openly neoliberal government. This includes not just the United States but also China, Russia, and the other giants of global capitalism. Some on the Left have called for violence, but it is hard to imagine a more irresponsible and cynical posture. Indeed, it doesn’t amount to much more than posturing, since the mass movement that grew around Chávez and that fought to defend his vision has been disarmed and demoralized. Faced with the systematic undermining of democracy, the demonization of dissent, the death of trade unionists and of grassroots leaders like Sabino Romero, the erosion of popular confidence in the government, and the growing violence, committed Chavistas can do very little. A call to arms simply invites the military to intervene.

Others on the Left have chosen to say nothing or ignore the complex reality. Whatever their motives, their silence amounts to complicity with a new ruling class that hides behind the language of socialism. These elites have helped demobilize the grassroots movement that defended its revolution in 2002–3, and whose diverse forms of community organization could have grounded a successful Chavista project.

Despite this setback, the memory of those years persists wherever people operate cooperatively in their own defense and keep the traditions of solidarity alive — even if many of them have fallen momentarily silent. The Left outside Venezuela can help rebuild the movement by participating in an honest accounting of what went wrong. As socialists, we are not required to choose the lesser evil. Rather, we should support those in struggle in rebuilding the basis for a genuinely democratic society.

[Bakery Hill]

But would you see the irony of someone advocating to be super wary and sceptical of the politics of the opposition against the authoritarians in Venezuela while cheering on club "curse the Jews" in Yemen?

Different places, different contexts. I'm not exactly worried a bunch of herders with AKs are gonna invade Israel.

Point being, there's a very real chance a right wing govt could make things worse in Venezuela. Yemen on the other hand is facing the world's worst humanitarian crisis at the hands of the Saudis. Them losing this war is going to be much better than any other alternative.

Again, it's a thread jack, but people like the Houthis are a big part of the reason why there's not many Yemeni Jews in Yemen anymore.