Venezuela and the Chavez Legacy

I must admit, it's a major disappointment to hear of an artist like Roger Waters taking the side of Maduro on this matter, on the other hand though, I can't say I'm completely surprised.

With all due respect to the European posters here, but I'm under the impression that some of the leftists on the other side of the Atlantic miss the grayer aspects of politics here and are quick to think Left-wing: Good, Right-wing: Evil.

Edit: Jesus, what a page-topper.

Edited by raziel365 on Feb 20th 2019 at 2:57:45 AM

You would be correct. There are a not insignificant number of leftists who can't admit that maybe they made a mistake rooting for Chavez and Maduro.

There's refusing to deliver aid for the fear of it being tainted, and then there's flat-out denialism of the conditions going on in Venezuela, regardless of who to blame.

Speaking of people like that, I rolled my eyes when I learned that Pablo Iglesias of Spain’s Podemos also gave his support to Maduro on the matter of Venezuela, as if the guy couldn’t raise enough red flags back when one of my cousins of Spain told me about him.

It'd be one thing if he was putting the blame on the wrong person. I'd say they're wrong, and depending on how vociferously they do so, but it's an understandable mistake. Dogmatic tribalism is an issue all humans suffer from. Refusing to believe the multitude of evidence that conditions in Caracas are worsening is not only active but I'd argue malicious intellectual dishonesty at this point.

National Guard soldiers are barricading the land borders with Brazil and reports indicate that Colombia is next.

Maduro accepted humanitarian aid from Russian sources according to another report.

NPR looks at the US humanitarian aid program for Venezuela, and why charities including the Red Cross are asking them not to do it.

They're completely wrong, the US should do what it can to help the Venezuelan people and if Maduro opposes that then it's on his head. If he stops all aid from coming in then that's purely on him.

The Red Cross and other humanitarian organisations aren't interested in blame. They're interested in helping as many people as possible. That depends on making humanitarian aid seem harmless and benign to even the most paranoid government. The US is explicitly tying its aid to regime change, and has placed in charge a man with a known track record of using fake aid shipments to commit perfidy. This isn't about Maduro, it's about what happens the next time there's a major famine or disease outbreak in a country hostile to America and the Red Cross, the UN, or whoever needs US support to get those people healthy again. Abrams and company are literally imperilling millions here.

So we should do nothing and allow Maduro to either starve the country or use food to bolster his illegitimate rule?

No, this is on Maduro and future refusal by other rulers to allow aid in is on them too.

Giving humanitarian aid is the correct choice.

Maduro is the absolute living king and worthy heir of the "what about USA?" dynasty that plagues a lot of the Third World.

He would leave the entire country die completely as soon he gets a semi-convenient way to blame it on USA. He will take any of his fails and.blame it on USA and the dumbest elements of the Left will believe him as they always have done.

I know that is weird said this when the Right is nothing but bad things in USA and other developed countries (and many third world countries too). But at this point, everyone with a brain in Latin America is willing to accept America, and yes, Trump's , help.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 22nd 2019 at 9:13:36 AM

No, the US should fire Abrams and work with international aid organisations to ensure that food is delivered with no strings attached (and if that means sourcing it from countries other than America, so be it - Russia's already indicated it's happy to help, and the PSUV have already reluctantly taken that help). Humanitarian aid needs to be kept as separate from the broader political situation as possible - the political effects of Maduro being able to feed people are secondary to the harm reduction of less people starving to death, and if the opposition need the threat of imminent starvation as a weapon, they've frankly got bigger problems to work on if they want to run the country. The only political statement necessary is that regardless of Venezuela's government and political situation, the food will still keep coming.

Russia? Maduro's supporters?

You don't wanna politics to mess in what's a humanitarian affair? Epic.

Issue is. This is Maduro and Venezuela, everything is already political.

Even if everything goes fine and Russia starts feeding Russia what you get is Maduro finding a way to validate himself and Russia getting a stronghold in South America.

As a South American. I can just say "You fool, you have doomed all of us!" at said thought.

Is Russia. You're literally saying that if the gringos do it is bad but if the Russians do it is fine?

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 22nd 2019 at 10:12:07 AM

I believe I've mentioned before that the PSUV has blocked aid several times even though the US had no direct or indirect involvement in it, precisely for political reasons (denying the crisis).

Edited by Stormtroper on Feb 22nd 2019 at 11:30:50 AM

At this point, I feel like donating aid to Venezuela is like donating aid to North Korea. It's a good idea in theory to do it regardless of who's in charge, but actually getting that aid to the common man instead of having it denied for whatever political reasons, or worse, pocketed by the top echelons at the expense of the people who truly need it is another issue.

I'm saying that whatever gets food delivered is fine. That's the guiding principle of humanitarian aid. It's not something you dick around with unless you really like famines, and you especially do not put someone in charge of it who has already used it for perfidy. That's just a recipe for catastrophe when climate change starts biting in the mid-century and we have to transfer a hell of a lot of food to and from some very unpleasant/paranoid people. If the crappy right-wing dictatorship will only take food from one set of duplicitous fascists and not another, then fine. You work with that. Domino theory is not an excuse to ignore the fundamental principles of humanitarian aid.

Besides, if you're worried about Russian expansion, why in God's name do you think it'd be OK to establish an international precedent of exchanging food aid for regime change? Have you already forgotten how Putin used Iraq to justify Crimea?

Edited by Iaculus on Feb 23rd 2019 at 1:28:17 PM

Thing is, Iaculus, that the USA is not the only one that wants to help, sure, it might be the most powerful player of the continent involved in this, but that doesn’t mean that the rest of the Latin American countries that want to help the Venezuelan people are some sort of white noise that can be ignored.

We also can’t keep politics away from this when a) Maduro is not accepted as a legitimate ruler here and b) the people of Venezuela are starving to death, if we just deliver aid without calling out the current government, that will be akin to give our backs to the persons living there.

Oh, and just to nitpick, it’s a left-wing dictatorship we are dealing with, not a right-wing one.

I was talking specifics, not generalities. As in, this specific aid initiative organised by the US that international humanitarian organisations have asked it not to continue with because it sets a terrible precedent and may be in breach of international law.

And Maduro's Venezuela is about as left-wing as Putin's Russia. His gutting of social services is privatisation in all but name, funnelling wealth to a small group of wealthy private interests at the expense of the general public, and bears far more resemblance to a turbocharged version of Osbornian austerity than to any recognisable left-wing economic model.

The classical Not Real Left. Being able to do no wrong sure is convenient

I'm sure Theresa May would be delighted to hear that she's the most far-left leader in Europe, then. Seriously, do you think the National Socialists were actually socialist, too? Or that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic?

Nacional Socialists didn't even claim to be leftists, they were openly proudly anti communist. The part that gets translated as Socialist, meant People as Tribes or nations, not people as working class.

Again. No one know how to avoid criticism better than Leftists, who can do no wrong and every Bad Leftist is just a right winger in disguise.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 23rd 2019 at 9:38:48 AM

Or in other words: Hitler basically took an established term - socialism - and claimed it meant something completely different than it actually did.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Feb 23rd 2019 at 3:41:31 PM

Not like we're looking at a modern, thread-relevant example of that or anything.

Leftist can do no wrong IX: Lefty Boogaloop

We've all deal with Chavez and Maduro stupidity. Is basically left wing stupidity condensed.

Economically it isn't too lefty because conditions don't let it. Them trying to be more lefty was what started the mess in first place.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 23rd 2019 at 9:48:38 AM

Chavez and Maduro's regime is leftwing. It's riddled with incompetence, nepotism, and corruption, but it's still leftwing.