Venezuela and the Chavez Legacy

Ok so, recently the guys of Popular Will talked about getting Raul Gorrin (the guy who runs the Globovision TV channel and was caught up with money laundering) out and delivered to justice and say that the place should be run by non-biased reporters. There's been a lot of talk about waiting all the way until January 9-10 in order to take more actions against the communist government because Maduro will stop being president in that time and the international pressure will increase. I honestly thought it wasn't the big deal but the guys of Popular Will (who are Leopoldo Lopez's team) will take control of the congress in that time and they've said they will take the streets again. If they manage to get rid of Maduro and Leopoldo wins the supposed elections, they would end up controlling all the powers. It may be naive on my side but I hope they do their part I doubt the Venezuelan population will do much by itself even if the crisis continues to get worse.

It's a long shot but I guess I will wait and see, they were the ones who started the 2014 rebellion after all. If a change of government doesn't happen, I honestly would think about killing myself.

Edited by Malebranche on Dec 6th 2018 at 5:23:19 AM

The PSUV would love it if you did, and as we all know, everything that is good for the PSUV is bad.

I've found it best to prepare for the future making no assumptions about the political situation. The government will fall, we just don't know when, thus we are to work out right now so that in the meantime it's more bearable and afterwards it's more rewarding.

That's right. I guess I can't do much right now, but I can eventually save everyone. Only I can do it.

Holy fuck, the international rejection is a lot bigger than what I thought. The OAS even voted in order to not recognize Maduro's new term. There's been protests everywhere over here too. It's a shame I don't have Internet access right now. The congress has the capacity to assume presidency right now so I hope the guys of Popular Will don't waste this chance. Either way, I'm sure things will continue to heat up.

Not to be a buzzkill, but we should keep our expectations within reality.

On the other hand, can anybody tell me if today's events can open any new doors towards anything, ANYTHING, good?

After all, we still have a donkey's abortion in our leadership's seat, with no prospect of time in a nice overcrowded room with not-so decorative bars and spitted water and not-so warm or tasty meals twice a day.

If he got not-so warm and tasty meals twice a day wouldn't he still be eating better than a good chunk of Venezuela's population?

Edited by M84 on Jan 10th 2019 at 9:22:49 PM

Pretty much yes.

Also is intersting, that for all the whinning chavez did about the oposition and outside world being mean to venezuela, they were touthless from most part and now there the iggest diaspora in latin america ever.

I checked and Juan Guaido hasn't declared the empty of power. Because of the empty of power, the congress has the capacity to assume the presidency by calling the Art.233 of the constitution. Juan Guaido hasn't officially assumed presidency yet, but there are opposition leaders calling him out on it.

Even if a rebellion doesn't happen yet, having a decent president would help me restore my pride and sleep better...

In good news, Donald Trump says he recognizes Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president of the country. As long as there is no unannounced invasion to accompany this, I am fully on board with the decision.

I was waiting for this since literally my childhood.

I've got mixed feelings about Juan Guaido.

On the one hand the Voluntad Popular's plan for saving the Venezuela's economy seems to be 'Do exactly what Chavez did (focus all of the countries economic policy around the sale of oil), except through inviting foreign energy companies rather than through a nationalised for-profit oil company'... Which erhm... Well... Doesn't seem like a good idea given that it failed for Chavez because oil prices fell due to over-supply and Venezuela increasing oil production massively from where it is not and becoming the world's second largest oil supplier, like Voluntad Popular wants, would drop oil prices quite a bit.

On the other hand Voluntad Popular seems otherwise better in every way than Maduro and the Chavistas.

So for now I'm cautiously optimistic and hoping that all of their progressive views are legit what they want rather than just populism.

Edited by Robrecht on Jan 23rd 2019 at 9:22:35 PM

Just got this in my notifications from Reuters:

"Maduro says Venezuela is breaking diplomatic relations with the United States" - Get updates at Reuters.com

Also:
"Peru recognizes Guaido as Venezuela's interim president" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-peru/peru-recognizes-guaido-as-venezuelas-interim-president-idUSKCN1PH2MR

"Mexico still recognizes Maduro as Venezuela president, 'for now': spokesman" - http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-mexico/mexico-still-recognizes-maduro-as-venezuela-president-for-now-spokesman-idUSKCN1PH2IX

Edited by sgamer82 on Jan 23rd 2019 at 1:23:45 PM

Robert: you see to understimated the fact the nacionalisim of oil was awfull: it put it in the hand of is crony who have no ideas of what to do with it, it also have the fact the oil industry eventually make the state no bound to the people by colecting the money from oil rather than taxes.

There a bizarreness in hearing Maduro talk about Bolivar fights against the Spanish Empire like it do matters to his current regime and then people cheering him.

I get that Bolivar is as idealized as Washington in USA but...damn.

Which is funny because chavismo fixation with bolivar, they are more like caudillos that come after him or los señores del valle that rule before him.

Oh my fucking God, I'm seeing American responses and...C'mon. They literally are saying that the Latinoamerican countries against Maduro are "USA bootlickers".

Their attitudes and phrases are literally straight up from Maduro's paranoia.

Haven't seen any of that, though 'The USA is backing a coup' seems to be a popular takeaway on Twitter.

I'm personally going to keep a wary eye on the situation. I'm really hoping Maduro gives up, but that doesn't seem all that likely at this point. Civil War will just inflame an already bad situation, though I could see it as a last resort by the opposition. And one of the last things I'd like to see is USA boots stomping up the beaches.

Our interventions don't tend to bring out the best results for anyone.

I would distrust any 'American' reaction on Twitter that doesn't come from a verifiable source. There are pro-Chavez people on our far left, there are people on the less-far left who assume Russia must be involved because Trump is supporting it (I don't know any basis for this), there are the hordes of (often Russian) bot accounts bolstering the far right and the Trumpists and there will certainly be a lot of ignorance either way.

That said, I think Trump is, for once, playing along with existing American foreign policy (I wouldn't trust him to take a principled stand on anything). There are more people now considering socialist policies and politicians as desirable but socialism is still a dirty word with most of the old guard.

I was referring to the verified accounts which showed up.

There's little to no basis for Russia to be behind this either, they support Maduro.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. I don't trust Trump in the slightest, even if I would like to see Maduro out of power.

We'll see.

I... May actually know more about it than you think.

The current crisis is the third time this has happened in Venezuela in less than a hundred years ('this' being the country falling into crisis because of its overreliance on the oil industry). Only the last time could (but therefore shouldn't) be blamed on nationalisation, the previous two times the oil industry wasn't nationalised and production was actually on the rise both times (In fact, the second time took place right after a long de-nationalisation/privatization project of the oil industry took place and that crisis' aftermath was the turmoil that allowed Chavez to come to power).

Any plans for Venezuela's economy to recover that rely solely or largely on oil, rather than on a program to get the Venezuelan economy to be less reliant on it is just going to end up setting up a fourth crisis.

So unsurprisingly I'm seeing the leftists of social media slither out of their holes with Maduro and Chavez apologetics, claiming it's definitely a US-backed coup being covered up by neoliberal media. Never mind the fact that the opposition party is leftist in its own right to a degree that the Republicans in charge would find repulsive.

And of course accusing any Venezuelans and especially any ex-pats who challenge the narrative of Maduro and Chavez as saintly heroes of leftism as members of the wealthy top stratum who are only opposed to them out of greedy self-interest. How charming. Human rights matter, unless they're coming from someone who claims to be on our own side.

It's unsurprising as it reminds me of tankies who, when I brought up family stories of the atrocities of Communist China, attempted to handwave the victims as either probably deserving it anyway, or collateral damage to those who did, rather than a deliberate massive violation of human rights instigated for the sake of a small group of men's egos.

Edited by AlleyOop on Jan 23rd 2019 at 11:23:44 AM

Or also important. That literally most of South America also supports it. Unless you want to say that most of South America are USA' bootlickers (which some of them already do), acussing this of being "USA imperialism" is pure nonsense.

If this is USA imperialism. Then is also Peruvian, Chilean and Brazilian imperialism. Which is great, let's gonna invade Bolivia, I wanna create a new Peruvian empire

Edited by KazuyaProta on Jan 23rd 2019 at 12:03:18 PM

If this apparent threat to US diplomats actually materializes there’s a real possibility the US military will be getting deployed to Venezuela in the next few days. Normally the State Department would take the lead on something like this but they’re operating in shutdown mode right now and the Do D will have taken charge of planning.

I'm kind of a revolutionary myself, but I feel as though Venezuela's approaching this the wrong way. In my opinion, yes, Maduro is a problematic figure with some troubling policies, but to try and have this big revolt against him feels almost... hypocritical to a degree? It's like the response to a supposed undemocratically elected figure is to put a figure that literally no one voted for in his place.

Not to mention that if the opposition really wants to look more civil and rational than Maduro's supporters, those rational thinkers should probably distance themselves from the current opposition leadership. After all, there have been reporters shot for being too "pro-Maduro," and multiple Afro-Venezuelans have been lynched (through burning alive from the reports I've uncovered, although there may be more methods used). I'm not saying that a totally peaceful protest would be the answer or anything, but if this opposition leadership - which supports these revolts - keeps their leading positions into a new government, then the fingers will only start to point to them for future problems due to their problematic pasts.

(note: I'm not actually saying whether I'm for or against Maduro, that's unrelated to how I feel about the direction of the opposition)

Edited by golgothasArisen on Jan 23rd 2019 at 1:25:35 PM

Ideally you'd have new elections after this is over (whenever that is) with international oversight. A lot depends on how bad this gets.