Venezuela on the verge of collapse

VivaStPauli wrote:Haven't seen Socialism tried yet.

At least not a form of Socialism that would be recognizable to the likes of Marx or Trotsky.

Maybe that should tell you something about the real-life application of marxism? Plenty of powerful people have been influenced by his ideas that theyve had a chance for it

As a Marxist myself I have to admit that it's virtually impossible to apply true Marxism in modern society. It's a fool's dream.

VivaStPauli wrote:Haven't seen Socialism tried yet.

At least not a form of Socialism that would be recognizable to the likes of Marx

What, a class of cattle-rearing fishermen literary critics?

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All the pacifist protests and the like are all pretty and PR-friendly, but ultimately will not deter the clowns in power of altering anything. These sort of governments will only quit by force, sadly. Not even with foreign aid or pressure. They're also too damn stupid to even think politically: it's just a race to milk the country for all it has left until the next official elections, which the opposition will win by a landslide and hopefully kill off that cancerous socialist party.

The thing is, the opposition has no spine and the only ballsy guy they had is in prison. The rest are just so damn cowardly it sickens me. I'm not even completely sure the opposition themselves are not bought over by the government. I mean, we won the parliamentary elections like 70-30 and the government just sacked the Judiciary Court, installed puppets, and have overruled every single law the parliament has supported . It's a whole different entity. Maduro has "special executive" powers just like Palpatine in Episode III (but none of the rancorous applause). It's frankly, embarrassing.  

It's a full on dictatorship and there is no legendary Chavez charisma to hide behind anymore. It's a full on drug cartel filled with thugs and bullies.

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Betty La Fea wrote:

Sushi Master wrote:All the pacifist protests and the like are all pretty and PR-friendly, but ultimately will not deter the clowns in power of altering anything. These sort of governments will only quit by force, sadly. Not even with foreign aid or pressure. They're also too damn stupid to even think politically: it's just a race to milk the country for all it has left until the next official elections, which the opposition will win by a landslide and hopefully kill off that cancerous socialist party.

The thing is, the opposition has no spine and the only ballsy guy they had is in prison. The rest are just so damn cowardly it sickens me. I'm not even completely sure the opposition themselves are not bought over by the government. I mean, we won the parliamentary elections like 70-30 and the government just sacked the Judiciary Court, installed puppets, and have overruled every single law the parliament has supported . It's a whole different entity. Maduro has "special executive" powers just like Palpatine in Episode III (but none of the rancorous applause). It's frankly, embarrassing.  

It's a full on dictatorship and there is no legendary Chavez charisma to hide behind anymore. It's a full on drug cartel filled with thugs and bullies.

Are you prepped for the fall of civilization there? I have grown increasingly more interested in prepping culture, even more so looking at the way my own country is going.

If you are able to start a garden on your own plot of land, that could go a long way.

I was left with no job in April and with a 0% chance of ever finding something similar or as good (I work in the oil industry).

I migrated to Argentina a couple of months ago. I just do not see any happy endings there and even in the case those thugs lose power, recovery will take decades, Our economy us in shambles.

Any decent amount of land you own there is a juicy target for expropriation, more so if you are producing anything of value, I am not kidding when I call them cancer: they have destroyed everything of quality the country has produced running it to the ground for their own gains. Except our women. Uncorruptable, our women.

Apart from the fact we have paramilitary groups or as they call themselves, the National Guard freely sucking the life out of any rural family (unless you have connections).

Are you in the US? I know everyone has their problems but come on. Trump's not winning shit.

Betty La Fea wrote:

zigra wrote:

Betty La Fea wrote:Socialism never works wherever its tried.

Capitalism has never worked wherever it was tried.

You can say that, when we both know that simply isnt true.

Capitalism is exploitative(I Just got off a 14 hour day), but to say it has never worked is simply ignoring the reality of the world we live in. One need only look at what has happened to China, the eternal sick man of Asia, since reforms to see the good opening up markets allow.

Well it works for some at the expense of others. I guess you can say that's what it's supposed to do so yeah, fine, it works. But it only works because it's inherently crap what is basically what I meant.

Spineless bastards. They only went out and said this because Maduro is in Iran right now as is most of his cabinet.

The electoral counsel declared "fraudulent" thousands of signatures that were part of the referendum process (as was expected; they are bought by the government) and the majority opposition congress went out and cried again about it.

As said, the government gives two fruks about what the congress say or do, because the Supreme Court (government bought and puppeteered) turn down everything they do as "unconstitutional".

So, basically, the opposition leaders will go out and rally people pacifically one or two days and the government will still not care.

Sadly, as long as a top military leader does not gain the balls (why would they? They're legitimized drug lords) and take those guys out of power by force, nothing will change in Venezuela. The population is disarmed and pretty much everything else is military controlled, even fraking food.

There's no way out at this point.

The government couldn't give 2 shits about what congress says or does. The "coup" happened long ago.

A lot of people have to die for anything to change. There is no peaceful way out.

You could say this is travel writing mixed with journalism but this is a fantastic read. Bit long but worth it.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/11/14/venezuela-a-failing-state?mbid=social_twitter

Read about half of it, will read the rest later when I get a chance. Great find, Its on point so far. One of the better stories that I've read (in english) about the situation in Venezuela. It really is as bad (and worse) as its painted there.

I try to go back as often as I can. I grew up a couple of minutes from El Hatillo, where he writes the piece about the police mugging. And its true, that used to be a particularly safe place. Now, just this summer I went back with my gf (she is european, and insisted in joining me). We were hanging out in my apartment when a couple of gunshots went off and she got all freaked out. It was a kidnapping gone wrong outside. The 3 criminals were shot and killed by the cops in a car chase, but the ~20 yo guy the took died as well.

Two years ago as well. I stopped at a convenience store between my house and El Hatillo to buy ice to bring to a party later on. Then as we stopped in front of the place, 2 gunshots went off and a guy ran out and left on a motorcycle. He had killed one of the waiters at the restaurant next to the store for whatever reason.

I'm not sure when the author got his interviews and stuff, but this part made me laugh a bit, must been a while back. "The government was jailing opposition leaders in advance of a planned protest march, and Smolansky had calculated, probably rightly, that he might be next". By now Smolansky already got targeted   , he denounced an order to capture him earlier in the year.

I went to school with the guy, he was a couple of classes above me. It'd be a shame if he gets imprisoned, but its very likely. He is not the first guy I know to go to jail for bullshit reasons.

Maduro stages a self-coup as the juidicial branch dissolves the legislative one:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/30/venezuela-president-nicolas-maduro-national-assembly

a south american dictatorship in the 21st century

Every day the hope for a peaceful resolution seems further and further away

BarrileteCosmico wrote:Maduro stages a self-coup as the juidicial branch dissolves the legislative one:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/30/venezuela-president-nicolas-maduro-national-assembly

a south american dictatorship in the 21st century

Every day the hope for a peaceful resolution seems further and further away

Glad the people are finally making themselves heard, it's a shame the international media doesn't pick up on this more, but hey, I guess it's more important to talk about Aaron Hernandez' suicide...

Its tense. People dying every other day in protests. Everyone getting more desperate. I just hope that this time it can work. Similar things happen every few years and so far nothing, yet every time it escalates more.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/world/americas/venezuela-supreme-court-helicopter.html

Policemen took a helicopter and attacked the Supreme Court building.

Wondering if this is really part of the police splintering off in favor of the protesters or just an Erdogan-like stunt to pull off the coup?

Betty La Fea wrote:

FennecFox7 wrote:

Betty La Fea wrote:Socialism never works wherever its tried.

yes, socialism is the reason for the high murder rate and the dependence on oil

Its the reason why the government has to take over toilet paper factories to get output. Its a failed state, in large part, because the lack of a free market to encourage growth.

RealGunner wrote:

Betty La Fea wrote:Socialism never works wherever its tried.

It has worked though.

I've never seen a state effectively exist where the workers, or even government, control the means of production. It always turns either full corruption, or production falls to a level where lives become terrible and basic items are nearly impossible to get.

The closest I can think of was East Germany, and even as a success story of the soviet Union, was well behind what Western Europe was able to achieve thanks to free markets.

But then what would you say to the death of Capitalism & the Free Market after the great depression? There's not a single capitalistic country left in the world.

And US was build on so-called "Socialistic policies" - Minimum Wage, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Massive Infra investments (Tennessee Valley Authority under FDR), Massive Education investments), Taxes ranging from 70% to 90% for 40 years with huge growth, low unemployment & well disbursed equitably among people. Europe is largely been shaped by socialist parties, Labour under Atlee with the NHS, every country having Universal healthcare & so on.

As a matter of fact if you look at the growth of US & Europe, they were totally anti-free market with huge tariffs. Freaking Nissan couldn't export cars from Asia due to the duty structure. Or look at Capitalistic South Korea's miracle growth story - Massive tariffs, government setting quotas, even deciding which private company will operate where, closing profitable companies when it wants & so on.

Every single so-called Capitalistic countries was immensely socialistic in many aspects. We don't have Socialism or Capitalism today. That debate died 80 years ago after the recovery from the Great Depression.

Having said that, I am not an expert on Venezuela but the last time I checked their debt was pretty small, much smaller than US as a % of GDP. In that respect, debt & deficit wise US is in trouble & when interest rates rise, there's a calamity coming. But ofcourse, when you are 1 industry economy like WV is with coal & that industry takes a hit, you suffer. The current numbers on Debt in Venezuela is not terrible so I don't see a major problem economy wise (as in no collapse is coming) but they have to diversify if they want to have a stable future otherwise they will be in trouble.

@BC no one knows right now. It's all too strange lately.

@footyfan look closer. The collapse has already been here for a while, far past trouble. Everyone is dying, starving, and living like shit.

Acá unos 15 soldados venezolanos conversando amablemente con una chica sobre las bondades de la revolución pic.twitter.com/GgI2GB64Lk

— Nicolás José Isola (@NicoJoseIsola) July 2, 2017

"15 soldiers chatting up a girl about the benefits of revolution"

BarrileteCosmico wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/27/world/americas/venezuela-supreme-court-helicopter.html

Policemen took a helicopter and attacked the Supreme Court building.

Wondering if this is really part of the police splintering off in favor of the protesters or just an Erdogan-like stunt to pull off the coup?

It was real but now its finished.

Oscar Perez and most of the others in his group most likely dead. Killed and captured by the military police today. Another tragedy.

Poor people in the world would have really hated Marx if they had the knowledge.

Marxism is one of the biggest reason the world has so many poor people and many are dying.

Colombia

Ivan Duque won last night the presidential election in Colombia. Congrats to Colombians for having the foresight we didn't have. Massive bullet dodged.

Yesterday (and this last week) was the most positive time in Venezuela in a couple of years. It is still unlikely that anything will actually happen (or uncertain) but now there is a bit of hope where there hasn't been since Leopoldo turned himself in and it backfired years ago. Like Pedram says, with the military in power, we can't do shit.

The bullets leading up to this for those interested.

- 2 and a half years ago Maduro dismissed the referendum to revoke him (an electoral tool to remove the acting president if enough people sign, 10 times more than what was needed was delivered to the electoral council, but they refused to hold the referendum).

- Parliament was dissolved last year (huge majority opposition product of the last elections that were held). MPs continued to operate in name, but with no power of course, as the only legitimate branch of power in the country.

- Many protests occurred and many people died, more injured, and more arrested and "disappeared" by the military police.

- After a bunch of fuckery by the electoral council (everything but parliament is government-run), they ended up holding presidential elections last year but with no opposition candidates. Maduro obviously claims to win again.

- Since these elections were even more of a joke than usual, foreign countries that were usually quiet finally started speaking up against the collapse of venezuela.

- This January Maduro's term ended, and the new one is supposed to start. In the condition that there is a crisis and there is no elected president, the constitution says that the president of parliament must be the temporary president of the country until elections can be held.

- The organization of american states (OAS) had been increasingly denouncing Maduro (the chair, Almagro, has been the #1 bro to venezuelans for years). At this point they basically dismissed the Maduro-appointed Venezuelan representative and voted to kick us out.

- The Grupo Lima (neighboring countries + Canada united to address the Venezuelan situation) expressed support for recognizing parliament, and not Maduro, as the presidential term ended. The US and others joined in this move.

- The term ended ~2 weeks ago and the president of parliament, the unlikely Juan Guaido, announced that as law dictates they would assume power to transition out of the regime and call for elections as soon as possible.

- Parliament called for massive demonstrations on January 23rd (very significant date in our history, our other dictator was overthrown on 23/01/58).

- People, angry and desperate, protested for days and face repression by the military. Cabildos (open community street meetings) started happened everywhere. Guaido got captured on the way to one of this in his home states, and immediately released.

- Yesterday, 23rd, the whole country was flooded with people on the street and in Caracas in the middle of it, Guaido announced that as president of parliament, he was the acting president of the country.

- Minutes later every relevant country in the region recognized Guaido and called for Maduro to get out. The only ones supporting Maduro are Bolivia and Cuba of course + now Mexico with their new president.

- Maduro gave US diplomats 72 hours to leave the country (Pence and Rubio had been vocal about the situation, now Trump as well) and applying similar measures to other countries. Guaido says Maduro can't say shit and calls for all diplomatic missions to stay.

- The day ended with ~10 dead, more injured, more arrested, confrontations in the barrios (slums). Diosdado Cabello (Maduro's #2, or rather Venenzuela's #1 military hardman) called for people to surround the presidential palace in a vigil to defend them all night. No one showed up.