Venezuela and the Chavez Legacy

Well on the one hand, It's kind of hard to support the opposition when Capriles himself said Maduro was the winner and was against protests making it look like we the students were criminals and everything being Leopoldo's and Ledezma's fault. At least some internationals got their eyes on Venezuela so it wasn't a complete loss.

Another question, how was Venezuela before Chavez? I heard the previous president was even crazier than him.

Not even close.

Caldera wasn't as crazy as him. Before Chavez Venezuela had a crisis going on ever since Carlos Andres Perez's first period. After that point we only had corrupt governments one after the other. When Carlos Andres won a second time he tried fixing the economical mess with anti-popular measures which ended in a social explosion and two coups in which Chavez became famous and the rest is history.

We had it very good with Betancourt and Raúl Leoni before that.

edited 13th Mar '15 10:08:57 PM by HibikiOni

Caldera's second term was terrible (he caused a banking crisis), but in terms of "crazyness" he and his government were perfectly ordinary. The same goes for decades worth of presidents before him.

Edit: Also, from what I've heard, his first term (1969-1974) was okay.

edited 13th Mar '15 4:59:58 PM by Stormtroper

Huh... Maduro thinks he is similar to Stalin. Including the mustache. And then he goes to visit his friend Daniel Ortega.

I agree, specially the whole AxCrazy dictator part. Platanote tenia que ser.

edited 14th Mar '15 7:29:07 AM by HibikiOni

Rodolfo Gonzalez is dead. Somehow I don't buy that it was suicide.

La persona se autosuicido.

This isn't by itself the only case. There are many cases in which the political prisoners are tortured to horrible levels and many deaths happen that aren't said in public.

The criminals themselves live like kings.

There were some students in SEBIN's La Tumba that were in a Hunger Strike. Last time I heard they were in critical conditions.

They'll pay for this sooner or later.

edited 14th Mar '15 9:19:24 AM by HibikiOni

Even if it were suicide, it's the state's responsibility for his mental health, meanwhile he was held for nearly a year through delayed trials and apparently was threatened to be brought to Yare (one of our jails in terrible conditions).

During the dictatorship in Brazil Driven to Suicide was a common method to kill journalists under arrest.

And sometimes the suicide part was really questionable.

Well, since Maduro isn't popular enough like to make tiny marchs, he is now telling the FANB to do it for the citizens. You can see for yourself the true reaction of the citizens over here.

edited 14th Mar '15 3:04:21 PM by HibikiOni

Well, at least it isn't helicopters and the Rio de la Plata. Yet.

Autosuicidio, heh, esto si es que algo nuevo. I shall mock this whenever I get the chance. Starting now.

edited 14th Mar '15 5:47:34 PM by zsax

Well, tomorrow we'll see if the country will fall in default or not.

If it does happen, I wonder who Maduro is going to blame next? Aliens? The Radical Right doing the impossible to get rid of Maduro's legitimate term.

Maduro will rule by decree until December 31 So this is how democracy dies.

Let's be honest, democracy here already died long ago, and Maduro and Co. already did whatever the hell they pleased and whenever they pleased with no limits before this, as well. This is nothing but an official confirmation.

Even so, wonder how Chavez, and by extension Maduro's fanboys on the left are going to react to this, has Sean Penn said anything about the regime lately?

Sean Penn lives in a nifty house in the US and doesn't have to stand in line over hours waiting for a chance to buy expensive food that used to be cheap food, worrying over being mugged in his way back home. He'll just say poor Maduro was forced into it by his evil enemies and go to bed feeling mighty pleased with himself.

Well, a lot of people still defend it openly. The guys in charge freely talk about putting bullets in oppositors empty heads and there are people that still blame everything on "the Venezuelan right."

Chávez has been doing whatever the hell he wanted ever since 2005 when the MVR won the AN. Chavist Iron Fist!

edited 15th Mar '15 7:49:17 PM by HibikiOni

Political misdirection has been a staple of Chavista governments, and it has prevailed because it has worked.

That there are people within his country supporting him is no strange thing, really.

Fill me in here — what can he do now with his new powers of governing by decree? (Also, this might be an appropriate time to unironically say "Thanks, Obama".)

So far he has begun by making military shows. The law literally says that it allows him to do the following:

Whose literal translation is something like "The protection against the interjection of other States in inner business of the Republic, warlike actions or any external or internal activity that pretends to violate the peace"

So it is like the Patriot Act Up To Eleven. He can basically do whatever the fuck he wants.

edited 16th Mar '15 8:49:48 AM by Aszur

He always could do whatever the hell he wanted, now he just has a flimsy technolegalbabble excuse to justify himself before the international community.

My worst fear is he'll try enforcing mass forced recruiting.

edited 16th Mar '15 11:31:16 AM by NapoleonDeCheese

To be honest, the fact that we will get out of this government or not doesn't scare me that much. I'm not arrogant enough like to say it will surely happen. But well, I don't know if it will be the chavist people or the oppositor or the middle class or the military but I do believe we will get out of this.

What does scares me is, to get the country on the right way, we will probably have to make many sacrifices. So how long will that peace last before the people decide to put another Chávez or another Gómez in charge? I sure as hell know I don't want to go through this again.

If we don't get our things straight by then, it'll be as soon as oil prices rise and fall again. But I'm hopeful that we'll learn from this episode.

Sometimes I wonder if it'd have been better for the country if Carlos Andrés Pérez (or whoever would've won 88's elections if he had been honest about it) had continued with the populist route and brought the country to the brink of ruin (moreso), maybe it'd have taught us a lesson.

Edit: lol "rice"

edited 16th Mar '15 10:15:41 PM by Stormtroper