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My Imaginary GF posted:Force PSUV to fire on the people. I'm pretty sure that's not going to work out how you think it will.
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May 5, 2016 20:41
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wdarkk posted:I'm pretty sure that's not going to work out how you think it will. Venezuela's neighbors have been pretty complacent about watching the country turn into a corrupt shithole, but I feel like the military showing up to arrest the legislature and attack protesters might wake them up. Provoking conflict could make things get a lot worse, but at some point the opposition has to weigh the costs of inaction as the country slowly starves as well. Given his disregard for the result of the parliamentary election, what makes anyone think Maduro would respect the result of a recall or presidential election if things progress to that point? Like I've said before, I think the people of Venezuela are the only ones who can decide when it's time to stand up to their leadership, but from the outside it looks like the opposition is just letting themselves be pushed aside after their big victory.
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May 5, 2016 20:53
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Diosdado Cabello has been on television and radio over the past few days saying that any public official (apparently higher-ranking ones) who is discovered to have signed the petition for the recall referendum should be fired from their job. Last night he was speaking on his TV show and said:quote:They say that they've got 1.8 million signatures, but how many of them are copies? (...) I'll say it again: those signatures will be examined one by one, and if [one of] those signatures belongs to the director of an institution, that person has got to go. If there are any escualidos [derogatory term for opposition supporter] who have infiltrated [the government] and they are found out, they will have to go. This type of voter intimidation is nothing new. The PSUV has fired public sector employees who it has found to have voted against the party's interests in the past, which is why it's so infuriating to hear people parrot that old line that the Venezuelan electoral system is one of the best in the world. Not so much when the second-most-powerful man in the world - and the suspected head of a drug cartel - keeps saying stuff like this. Also, it's not hard to imagine that anyone receiving any kind of social assistance (housing, education, food subsidies, etc.) might think twice before signing anything against the government given these kinds of statements. On an unrelated note: Former National Assembly deputy Maria Corina Machado visited a hospital in Merida state yesterday to check the place out. She's been touring the country for a while, meeting with voters and generally trying tor raise political awareness both at home and abroad about the situation in the country. She shows up at this hospital yesterday, and a pro-government group apparently followed/met her there. She was assaulted while she was speaking to reporters, as someone in the crowd pulled on her head and pulled her head back violently. Then, fights broke out between government and opposition supporters, and it was just chaos. Here is the video, and my translation is below: quote:Juana Hernandez (Bolivarian Women's Front): "Chuo" Torrealba [the head of the MUD] and Maria Corina Machado should be in jail! Maria Corina Machado's been the victim of attacks a bunch of times in the past. I saw her speak at the University of Toronto last year and she was very eloquent and obviously very passionate about bringing change to Venezuela. My Imaginary GF posted:What your assembly hasn't realized is that they are as powerful as they are willing to be. Enact legislation which benefits everyone outside PSUV and make poo poo happen. Move the capitol. Move the CNE to a town on the border with Colombia. Move everything and make everyone howl. Make them howl louder than PSUV. Make them howl until PSUV is beat. Well, that's all pretty unprecedented stuff and I'm not sure how it would work given the current political climate. I mean, legislators have every right to meet at the National Assembly in Caracas. I'm not sure if Venezuelans would take kindly to the opposition just packing up and setting up shop in the jungle in Bolivar state or something like that. I think the PSUV would just say "Ok, well, they're gone, so now we can actually get to business" and then they'd just go ahead and legislate from the National Assembly. Part of the problem is that a lot of the Venezuelan state is rotten with corruption and nepotism. Even if the National Assembly managed to somehow "neutralize" the Supreme Court, for example, it would still have to contend with essentially every other state institution (the CNE, the rest of the justice system, etc.). Setting up a shadow government (by appointing a new Supreme Court, for example) would have to be followed by setting up the rest of that shadow government. The MUD just might as well start taking donations to buy some tiny rock in the Caribbean and just make Venezuela 2.0 there, which actually doesn't sound like a terrible idea and I'd love to vacation there!
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May 5, 2016 21:06
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My Imaginary GF posted:What your assembly hasn't realized is that they are as powerful as they are willing to be. Enact legislation which benefits everyone outside PSUV and make poo poo happen. Move the capitol. Move the CNE to a town on the border with Colombia. Move everything and make everyone howl. Make them howl louder than PSUV. Make them howl until PSUV is beat. Adding to what Chuck said, the problem here is that the assembly has essentially no power. You're thinking in terms of working democracy with independent powers, whereas here the central government has even cut off their payroll funds, leaving all workers of the assembly without their paychecks out of pure pettiness. Sinteres posted:Venezuela's neighbors have been pretty complacent about watching the country turn into a corrupt shithole, but I feel like the military showing up to arrest the legislature and attack protesters might wake them up. Provoking conflict could make things get a lot worse, but at some point the opposition has to weigh the costs of inaction as the country slowly starves as well. Given his disregard for the result of the parliamentary election, what makes anyone think Maduro would respect the result of a recall or presidential election if things progress to that point? Like I've said before, I think the people of Venezuela are the only ones who can decide when it's time to stand up to their leadership, but from the outside it looks like the opposition is just letting themselves be pushed aside after their big victory. I believe the main issue here is that although the opposition appears as a united front to observers, they're still essentially a coalition of parties fighting for their own agendas. For example, Voluntad Popular (Leopoldo Lopez's party) was ready to take to the streets two years ago and force the government to play their hand, whereas Primero Justicia (Capriles' party) wanted to cool things off and wait for the next elections. Primero Justicia stills has the most deputies on the assembly and arguably the largest share of supporters, giving them more weight in the negotiations, which is why we now see Capriles headlining the recall referendum. Honestly, I'm not sure that provoking conflict would end well for us, but arguably the longer we wait and leave the ball on the government's court, the more people will die.
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May 5, 2016 22:45
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Labradoodle posted:Adding to what Chuck said, the problem here is that the assembly has essentially no power. You're thinking in terms of working democracy with independent powers, whereas here the central government has even cut off their payroll funds, leaving all workers of the assembly without their paychecks out of pure pettiness. Your nation is on the route to becoming the next Congo, I'm telling ya a pathway to become Vietnam instead.
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May 6, 2016 00:25
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I think the only plan does the future possible in Venezuela these days may be "stop being in Venezuela".
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May 6, 2016 01:09
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The government is importing riot suits. Motherfuckers sure can find dollars for this crap, but not for my dad's medicine.
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May 6, 2016 06:09
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So this doesn't sound great. https://twitter.com/Conflicts/status/728667376275886081
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May 6, 2016 20:39
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Sinteres posted:So this doesn't sound great. Last time something like this happened to an opposition politician, the investigation found out it was due to his organized crime connections. This probably was a result of the guy's connection to the drug trade.
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May 6, 2016 20:57
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Last time something like this happened to an opposition politician, the "investigation" found out it was due to FTFY.
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May 6, 2016 21:11
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Sinteres posted:So this doesn't sound great. And so it begins.
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May 6, 2016 22:27
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Last time something like this happened to an opposition politician, the investigation found out it was due to his organized crime connections. This probably was a result of the guy's connection to the drug trade. What is your goal, Borneo Jimmy? What are you trying to accomplish?
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May 6, 2016 22:53
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Either he really believes it, or thinks trolling Venezuelans about their government going full dictatorship is funny. Either way he's a hosed up idiot.
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May 6, 2016 22:58
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drilldo squirt posted:Either he really believes it, or thinks trolling Venezuelans about their government going full dictatorship is funny. Either way he's a hosed up idiot. Yet they cheerlead the MUD, who will most certainly start killing dissidents once they gain power. (Look at the bloodbaths that are n.eoliberal controlled Mexico and Honduras). (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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May 6, 2016 23:08
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Yet they cheerlead the MUD, who will most certainly start killing dissidents once they gain power. (Look at the bloodbaths that are n.eoliberal controlled Mexico and Honduras). 
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May 6, 2016 23:14
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Yet they cheerlead the MUD, who will most certainly start killing dissidents once they gain power. (Look at the bloodbaths that are n.eoliberal controlled Mexico and Honduras). What makes you think that it will be the MUD doing that and not the armed colectivos you love so much and think should be running the country? Do you honestly think that the crime lords that keep popping up with names like El Picure, El Conejo or El Topo are financed in some way by the opposition? Do you honestly believe the opposition somehow benefits from armed conflict and having violent crime in the streets, while simultaneously having 0 support from the military or the police?
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May 6, 2016 23:50
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fnox posted:What makes you think that it will be the MUD doing that and not the armed colectivos you love so much and think should be running the country? Their long history of violence like the barricades and the targeted assassinations of socialists, their connections to the drug trade and the Colombian paramilitaries, the fact that most of the high ranking MUD officials were part of the old regime who slaughtered 3,000 Venezuelans, etc. The collectives have only fought back to protect their communities from right wing violence and disruptions. They actually prevented the 2014 violence from spiraling out of control. http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/From-2014-Violent-Barricades-to-Venezuelan-Official-Right-Wing-20160211-0024.html quote:So why did the Guarimbas peter out? From a big protest in Caracas to barricades of main roads in other cities, the right-wing then also set up local barricades in their own communities. Here's a piece to give perspective beyond the racist hype perpetuated by right wing media http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/10569 quote:VA: What does colectivos actually mean in Venezuela, and how have collectives evolved over the last decade? Borneo Jimmy fucked around with this message at 00:11 on May 7, 2016 |
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May 7, 2016 00:03
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gently caress you borneo jimmy you loving moron
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May 7, 2016 00:18
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Hey Jimmy why do you think every actual Venezuelan ITT disagrees with you?
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May 7, 2016 00:31
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Their long history of violence like the barricades and the targeted assassinations of socialists, their connections to the drug trade and the Colombian paramilitaries, the fact that most of the high ranking MUD officials were part of the old regime who slaughtered 3,000 Venezuelans, etc. You're aware that in these 17 years of socialism, 250000 Venezuelans have been violently murdered by the rampant crime, of which the government is entirely negligent about? Are you aware Caracas is the most dangerous city in the world? Are you aware that these collectives are armed illegally? Are you aware that the areas they supposedly protect are the most dangerous of the entire city?  Does this look fine to you? Is this what you want the colectivos to do with Venezuelan society? Are you aware that Venezuela doesn't even have legal gun carry laws anymore and thus any civilian holding them is doing so illegally? I don't want your stupid loving TelesurTV links, I want you to cut the poo poo and be honest with me here, what are you trying to accomplish? What is your goal? Is somebody paying you or are you continuing this charade for shits and giggles?  me on this, if you come to Venezuela, I'll take you to where the Colectivo La Piedrita is in 23 de Enero, I'll even let them protect the gently caress out of you.
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May 7, 2016 00:42
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fnox posted:Are you aware Caracas is the most dangerous city in the world? Actually it is San Pedro Sula, followed by Juarez, both under control of ideological allies of the MUD
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May 7, 2016 00:53
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Actually it is San Pedro Sula, followed by Juarez, both under control of ideological allies of the MUD Respond to the rest of his post.
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May 7, 2016 00:56
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He never will. Why people around here don't just hit the report button on him is beyond me, he's not contributing anything of value to the discussion. (I have him on ignore, but it's kind of hard to ignroe someone everyone else responds to.)
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May 7, 2016 01:01
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Actually it is San Pedro Sula, followed by Juarez, both under control of ideological allies of the MUD Nope!
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May 7, 2016 01:02
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Even after all these years, I've still never figured out why he posts here. If he's trolling, he's picked a lovely place to do it. If he's serious, it's strange that he only plays the Sean Penn-esque idiot here and nowhere else. It'd be better here without him, but he's never given up that somehow his shilling will somehow change reality. I really hope this isn't the beginning of opposition politicians being assassinated. If it is, what ways out of this are left? Adventure Pigeon fucked around with this message at 01:14 on May 7, 2016 |
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May 7, 2016 01:07
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Sinteres posted:So this doesn't sound great. A couple of things on this:
In short: this has every indication of being nothing more than the type of murder that is unfortunately fairly commonplace in the country. The man murdered happens to have been an opposition politician; there's nothing to indicate that he was murdered because he was an opposition politician. EDIT: Also, the Supreme Court has just ruled another of the National Assembly's laws unconstitutional. This time it's the law to partially reform the subsidized housing program to give tenants outright ownership of their units. The MUD's reasoning was that the government was blackmailing tenants into voting for them by threatening to evict them from their units/not provide them with homes unless they voted for the PSUV. The court rule that the right to a dignified shelter is more important than the right to own property, and so the law was struck down. By my count, this is the 13th time this year that the Supreme Court has issued a ruling either striking down a law the National Assembly has passed, or otherwise issued a ruling severely limiting the National Assembly's powers. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 01:45 on May 7, 2016 |
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May 7, 2016 01:30
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Chuck Boone posted:A couple of things on this: I'll ask my question again: has any law passed by the Assembly this session not been struck down?
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May 7, 2016 02:45
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Chuck Boone posted:A couple of things on this: Or, it looks like a professional killing if you're more cynical about why someone would want to kill a leading opposition politician in a border region of a nation heading full-bore to civil war. Congrats on living in a nation where you have the right to own nothing. Get out for your own sake before your right to nothing becomes politically convenient.
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May 7, 2016 02:53
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ComradeCosmobot posted:I'll ask my question again: has any law passed by the Assembly this session not been struck down? Exactly one has not been entirely shot down, it was "stopped" to ask for how it is to be implemented. The government is simply unwilling to compromise, since they're declaring even the most harmless stuff unconstitutional just to spite the opposition.
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May 7, 2016 03:06
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ComradeCosmobot posted:I'll ask my question again: has any law passed by the Assembly this session not been struck down? I believe that there is exactly one law (out of a total of four that I can remember right now) that the TSJ has not struck down. That law is the Ley de Bono para Alimentacion y Medicinas a Pensionados y Jubilados [Nutrition and Medication Bonus for Pensioners and Retirees Law]. Unless I'm mistaken that law was passed in March and the Supreme Court ruled shortly afterwards that it was constitutional The Partial Reform of the Central Bank was ruled unconstitutional, as was the Amnesty and National Reconciliation Law. The Gran Mision Vivienda law makes it three; and I think that is all of them. There's also the matter of all the other rulings that the TSJ has issued limiting the powers of the National Assembly, or just sidestepping it altogether. For example, the ruling that removed the MUD representatives from Amazonas state, the ruling reversing the National Assembly's decision to not approve the economic emergency decree (as is their power), the ruling that the National Assembly cannot revoke appointments to the Supreme Court, and a couple of others. My Imaginary GF posted:Or, it looks like a professional killing if you're more cynical about why someone would want to kill a leading opposition politician in a border region of a nation heading full-bore to civil war. I can see why people might see this as a politically-motivated killing, and if it had happened in another country I might also be inclined to suspect that. But in a country where there have been 4,600 murders in four months and getting killed for a cellphone is not unheard of, I'm just not so sure we should be jumping to that conclusion without any evidence. Plus, this really isn't the government's M.O. Look at Leopoldo Lopez, Antonio Ledezma, Enzo Scarano, Daniel Ceballos - all opposition politicians who at one time or another became thorns at the side of the government. All of them arrested on fake charges and imprisoned. I think that when the PSUV wants to get rid of someone, they use the judicial system to do that. Also, I'm relieved to say that I do not live in Venezuela anymore, but unfortunately some of my family still does. EDIT: Beaten! I'm glad I wasn't making up the "Ley de Bono" thing. That's the one you're talking about too, right fnox?
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May 7, 2016 03:17
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My Imaginary GF posted:border region of a nation heading full-bore to civil war. The thing is, Venezuela is an extremely centralist nation. Until problems reach Caracas, there will not be a problem. And they haven't, really, I'm just coming back from being out, and I saw how the same spots in Las Mercedes still have people, the same fancy restaurants, the same clubs. There is still a nightlife. There's not a nightlife in Syria. Venezuela will likely never reach that critical stage until the consequences of the government's inefficacy start really affecting Caracas.
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May 7, 2016 03:23
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fnox posted:The thing is, Venezuela is an extremely centralist nation. Until problems reach Caracas, there will not be a problem. And they haven't, really, I'm just coming back from being out, and I saw how the same spots in Las Mercedes still have people, the same fancy restaurants, the same clubs. There is still a nightlife. There's not a nightlife in Syria. Venezuela will likely never reach that critical stage until the consequences of the government's inefficacy start really affecting Caracas. There is nightlife in Syria, in downtown Damascus. I would recommend the recent Frontline episode on the issue. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/inside-assads-syria/ Caracas is a drain upon your nation's finances. Your wealth lies in the provinces; if one could control just the provinces, without having to divert any funds to Caracas, they would be in a better position than any of your political parties. What does Caracas provide your nation which cannot be provided elsewhere?
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May 7, 2016 03:43
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My Imaginary GF posted:What does Caracas provide your nation which cannot be provided elsewhere? Infrastructure. You won't believe how god awful the infrastructure of nearly everything is outside of Caracas. And Caracas doesn't exactly do it well either, it just does it better. You simply cannot run the country outside Caracas. That's the reason why problems don't reach it, the government lies here. And, tbh, it works. You can see how nobody is complaining about blackouts in Caracas, nothing in Caracas ever goes past critical levels, even if they would have in any other country in the world.
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May 7, 2016 04:01
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Caracas is the new Pyongyang.
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May 7, 2016 06:05
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Chuck Boone posted:But in a country where there have been 4,600 murders in four months and getting killed for a cellphone is not unheard of, I'm just not so sure we should be jumping to that conclusion without any evidence. Out of curiosity (and apologies if it has been addressed before), but what material gain does a murderous thief realize from stealing a cellphone in Venezuela? Is there still something of a market for phones in the country, despite the disparity in "real" prices and income? Is there some kind of black market export in stolen phones to other countries in Central and South America? Is it just that selling a stolen phone for any amount of money you might get outweighs the hesitation and moral qualms of robbing and killing people to do it? It just seems especially awful to me, somehow, that people will be killed for something that might not even be that valuable or lucrative to the perpetrator of the crime in the end  .
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May 7, 2016 06:06
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Kthulhu5000 posted:Out of curiosity (and apologies if it has been addressed before), but what material gain does a murderous thief realize from stealing a cellphone in Venezuela? Is there still something of a market for phones in the country, despite the disparity in "real" prices and income? Is there some kind of black market export in stolen phones to other countries in Central and South America? Is it just that selling a stolen phone for any amount of money you might get outweighs the hesitation and moral qualms of robbing and killing people to do it? You have to realize that there is near complete impunity here. The police won't get you, the jails aren't even a punishment as they are ran by the criminals, and it's very unlikely anybody other than a fellow criminal will shoot you. It almost doesn't make sense to not steal. The guys that kill people for their phones are mostly robberies gone wrong, or just deranged psychopaths, either way, they aren't the norm, the norm is them just stealing cellphones. The reason why they steal cellphones is threefold: first, motorbikes are excessively common and they drive between lanes in Caracas at whichever speed they want, making it very hard to stop one, let alone track one down; second, traffic jams are extremely commonplace in Caracas and happen regularly at any hour, giving you literally lanes of sitting ducks you can rob; and third, Venezuela has an unusually large market for cell phones, we were once like the 2nd biggest market for Blackberry, and there's literally more cell phone lines than people, making it extremely likely that whoever owns a car also owns a cell phone. Morality has corrupted to the point where we're seeing more and more frivolous murders though, that's definitely true. It's what happens after years of social decay.
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May 7, 2016 08:31
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JeffersonClay posted:Caracas is the new Pyongyang.
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May 7, 2016 08:44
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Chuck Boone posted:
Why the gently caress do they shoot people after they've taken what they want? In every other country in the world, you get mugged and if you don't resist they just take your poo poo and run off. It seems like in Venezuela (and to a lesser extent, Brazil) they take your poo poo and then shoot you just for kicks. Is gun ownership so commonplace that they're afraid whoever they steal from will pull a gun on them as they drive away? E: I get that there's total impunity and no one will ever catch you, but even in other countries with a ~1% crime solve rate, the murdering isn't so bad. Most countries with murder rates approaching the rates in Venezuela have other mitigating circumstances (e.g. drug wars, civil wars) and it's not just 30'000 "robberies gone wrong" per year. Saladman fucked around with this message at 10:59 on May 7, 2016 |
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May 7, 2016 10:52
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Saladman posted:Why the gently caress do they shoot people after they've taken what they want? In every other country in the world, you get mugged and if you don't resist they just take your poo poo and run off. It seems like in Venezuela (and to a lesser extent, Brazil) they take your poo poo and then shoot you just for kicks. Is gun ownership so commonplace that they're afraid whoever they steal from will pull a gun on them as they drive away? Because of Chavez, he said time and time again that being rich is bad and that stealing from them was fine, and to a guy who grew up poor as dirt anyone with a cellphone and or a car is rich. You have no idea the hate culture Chavez created. Patria, Socialismo o Muerte, that's their motto after all.
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May 7, 2016 12:32
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Kthulhu5000 posted:Out of curiosity (and apologies if it has been addressed before), but what material gain does a murderous thief realize from stealing a cellphone in Venezuela? Is there still something of a market for phones in the country, despite the disparity in "real" prices and income? Is there some kind of black market export in stolen phones to other countries in Central and South America? Is it just that selling a stolen phone for any amount of money you might get outweighs the hesitation and moral qualms of robbing and killing people to do it? Adding to what everyone else said, Venezuela is a smartphone obsessed society, pretty much everyone has one, ranging from budget phones to flagships. Thieves seek them out because they're the smallest, most high-value item that any given person is likely to carry on the streets of Caracas. The most common methods of robberies in Caracas are sliding up to pedestrians on the sidewalks and holding them up, getting on buses and robbing everyone on board, or robbing cars during traffic jams. To give you an idea of how attractive phones can be, a $100 model such as a Moto E would equal around five months of minimum wage around here (and that's including food stamps, which make up half of those wages, so in truth it would be almost ten months of work). A robber can take it in seconds and then resell it online at a small loss to move it fast. As to how people are able to afford them, during years, the government has been importing Chinese smartphones and giving them out at a fraction of their cost, plus for a long time before that they gave out a yearly allotment of dollars for online purchases using credit cards. So, for years, anyone with access to a credit card could spend up to $400 per year to buy themselves new gadgets online, and then, in turn pay only a fraction of its true price to the government who gave away those dollars at Bs6,30. The government essentially gave you a yearly allotment to get a nearly free flagship phone  in between populist policies and corruption, I'm surprised the economy didn't collapse sooner.Saladman posted:Why the gently caress do they shoot people after they've taken what they want? In every other country in the world, you get mugged and if you don't resist they just take your poo poo and run off. It seems like in Venezuela (and to a lesser extent, Brazil) they take your poo poo and then shoot you just for kicks. Is gun ownership so commonplace that they're afraid whoever they steal from will pull a gun on them as they drive away? I think it's mostly a status thing. But then again, stuff like this happens and you just get to thinking that Venezuelans are loving unsalvageable: https://twitter.com/AKurmanaev/status/725075517884485632 Labradoodle fucked around with this message at 13:57 on May 7, 2016 |
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May 7, 2016 13:51
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