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I remember all the obituaries of Chavez basically fellating him back in 2013, but I imagine there was more than that. I knew he was a dictator no matter what he said, despite some (low-info) sympathy towards him during the Iraq War.
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May 15, 2016 17:11
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Venezuela's problems are a manifestation of a hard left regime/economic policies mixed with unchecked graft. Pretending otherwise is dumb. What is happening in Venezuela is not unique. Scarcity of basic goods and the coalescence of power in the hands of a few are commonplace and completely predictable problems in that system. What is unique is perhaps the speed at which it is happening, because of spiraling inflation and dependence on an export that has decreased dramatically in value.
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May 15, 2016 18:58
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Nationalization of "the means of production" and the destruction of the rule of law and civil liberties in the name of "populism" is always bad and always leads to what is happening in Venezuela. If you want to be a "democratic socialist" the best way to help the poor is to keep the economy strong (i.e. privatized) so that you have something to tax in order to fund redistributive programs. Venezuela is a great example of this and I don't plan on ceasing to point out facts that are of the utmost contemporary relevance just because they are triggering to left-wingers' safe spaces. I support the initiative to send people who defend PSUV to Venezuela. Where is the Kickstarter?
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May 15, 2016 19:11
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Chuck Boone posted:Like Hugoon Chavez said, the reason why Jimmy gets so much flak is because his understanding on the situation in Venezuela is extremely limited because whatever he knows appears to come either from the PSUV or the fringiest fringe sites out there. This isn't the "Socialism in General" thread. It's the Venezuela thread. The fact that there are people actually living in Venezuela right now posting in this thread guarantees that there'll be backlash whenever Jimmy comes in here and calls them murderers for supporting the opposition and says that their fridges being empty is a product of their imagination. I'm really struggling to understand Jimmy's motivation, is he going for the long con, or is he legit THAT committed to defend the Venezuelan government? Like, I don't think he's a troll, particularly because he deliberately avoids arguments he's going to lose instead of continuing just to fish for reactions. But the type of fervor that goes behind going to the same thread after years and years, causing him to get repeatedly probated, just to regurgitate some radical PSUVista crap goes beyond even what I usually see from Chavistas in Venezuela. He's committed to try and show the world that we're wrong.
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May 15, 2016 19:30
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fnox posted:I'm really struggling to understand Jimmy's motivation, is he going for the long con, or is he legit THAT committed to defend the Venezuelan government? Like, I don't think he's a troll, particularly because he deliberately avoids arguments he's going to lose instead of continuing just to fish for reactions. But the type of fervor that goes behind going to the same thread after years and years, causing him to get repeatedly probated, just to regurgitate some radical PSUVista crap goes beyond even what I usually see from Chavistas in Venezuela. He's committed to try and show the world that we're wrong. I think, frighteningly, he is just that committed. Or delusional. Maybe both. I'm not sure it matters anymore?
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May 15, 2016 19:32
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The PSUV has thousands of Twitter accounts that spend all day creating trending hashtags, nothing would surprise me at this point. Any time you see on Twitter some poo poo like #ChavezVive or whatever it's always the same accounts and if you go to the history of those accounts you see they only ever tweet about La Revolucion and nothing ever about any normal life stuff.
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May 15, 2016 20:00
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El Hefe posted:The PSUV has thousands of Twitter accounts that spend all day creating trending hashtags, nothing would surprise me at this point. Yeah, but that's Twitter. An actually large part of the Venezuelan population uses it every day just to get the news since all other media is censored, so the presence of PSUV in Twitter is actually valuable enough to warrant paying some folk to run Twitter accounts just retweeting poo poo that the government says. But here? Where there's something like 10 Venezuelans who are all educated enough to actually use the internet beyond just social media and thus are immune to these poo poo attempts at propaganda? Nah I find it hard to believe he's actually on the PSUV's payroll.
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May 15, 2016 20:50
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I was watching these vivo play youtube videos on expropriaciones/ reclamations and gently caress this is bad
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May 15, 2016 22:09
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fnox posted:I'm really struggling to understand Jimmy's motivation, is he going for the long con, or is he legit THAT committed to defend the Venezuelan government? Like, I don't think he's a troll, particularly because he deliberately avoids arguments he's going to lose instead of continuing just to fish for reactions. But the type of fervor that goes behind going to the same thread after years and years, causing him to get repeatedly probated, just to regurgitate some radical PSUVista crap goes beyond even what I usually see from Chavistas in Venezuela. He's committed to try and show the world that we're wrong. because he is your typical California hipster leftist. everything that isnt left leaning is either AmeraKKKa or "problematic". he reminds me of my old govemerment college teacher, who would defend every monster in the world because the US did and does awful poo poo, therefor we cant judge. Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 22:43 on May 15, 2016 |
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May 15, 2016 22:29
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I can't remember where I read this but during the late 80s the lower ranked officers in the Venezuelan military became much representative of the overall racial makeup of Venezuela (much more Brown/Black). One of these officers was Chavez himself. My theory is that this cadre essentially replaced the old "bourgeoisie" though Chavez and his anti-capitalist policies, becoming the new ruling class in the process. The best comparison I can make is Nasser and the Free Officers Movement in Egypt, where the vast majority of private assets were nationalized, but eventually were privatized again through corrupt methods, creating a new class of oligarchs. Eventually the Egyptian military became a state within a state, owning an estimated 40% of all wealth in the country. My predication is that Maduro and the hardliners will be overthrown by an alliance between an opportunist opposition group and the military, with an agreement between these two groups that much of appropriated wealth now in the hands of the military and the militaries privileged position in society will be maintained. Does this sound overly conspiratorial to you Venezuelan goons?
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May 15, 2016 22:45
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marx did nothing wrong
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May 16, 2016 01:41
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American socialists defended Chavez for 10 years after he fired oil workers for going on strike. Lol
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May 16, 2016 01:54
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hypnorotic posted:I can't remember where I read this but during the late 80s the lower ranked officers in the Venezuelan military became much representative of the overall racial makeup of Venezuela (much more Brown/Black). One of these officers was Chavez himself. My theory is that this cadre essentially replaced the old "bourgeoisie" though Chavez and his anti-capitalist policies, becoming the new ruling class in the process. The best comparison I can make is Nasser and the Free Officers Movement in Egypt, where the vast majority of private assets were nationalized, but eventually were privatized again through corrupt methods, creating a new class of oligarchs. Eventually the Egyptian military became a state within a state, owning an estimated 40% of all wealth in the country. No, that sounds like something that could perfectly happen here. The MUD aren't as united as their name would have you believe and they are going to need the military's support to get rid of the PSUV.
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May 16, 2016 01:57
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hypnorotic posted:I can't remember where I read this but during the late 80s the lower ranked officers in the Venezuelan military became much representative of the overall racial makeup of Venezuela (much more Brown/Black). One of these officers was Chavez himself. My theory is that this cadre essentially replaced the old "bourgeoisie" though Chavez and his anti-capitalist policies, becoming the new ruling class in the process. The best comparison I can make is Nasser and the Free Officers Movement in Egypt, where the vast majority of private assets were nationalized, but eventually were privatized again through corrupt methods, creating a new class of oligarchs. Eventually the Egyptian military became a state within a state, owning an estimated 40% of all wealth in the country. quote:I, like many others, believe that the situation in Venezuela comes down to the military. Do they side with the president as in Peru 1992? Do they side with the president’s opponents, as they did in Honduras 2009? Or do they simply toss out the whole system and install themselves in charge as occurred in Chile 1973? Whatever occurs will not be an exact replica of a previous coup, but if there is a coup, the military will be involved and you’ll likely know it when you see it.
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May 16, 2016 02:00
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Ultimately it comes down to a respect for the rule of law, which means neither localized criminality, nor large-scale corruption, nor autocracy can be tolerated. Economies can't function without some confidence in the system -- defined property rights, defined welfare systems (i.e. taxation funding redistributive cash payments, not the government seizing factories when it feels like). Right now Venezuela is in actual fact a military-backed dictatorship; changing to a right-wing military dictatorship from a left-wing one won't help anything. The sad fact is that Venezuela was one of the better countries in Latin America at understanding and implementing the importance of civil society and rule of law before Chavez and Maduro began a deliberate effort to destroy it.
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May 16, 2016 02:08
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NYTimes article about the state of Venezuela's hospitals. Truly horrifying stuff. Plus, it has one of the most delusional Maduro quotes I've ever heard.quote:[...] How modest!
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May 16, 2016 19:05
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Hospitals here are so good that when one of the regime's top shots get sick they always go to the private clinics.
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May 16, 2016 19:13
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Are the photos in that article broadly representative, or at least somewhat cherry picked? I have literally seen footage of hospitals and clinics in active warzones that are less squalid.El Hefe posted:Hospitals here are so good that when one of the regime's top shots get sick they always go to the private clinics. I assumed that they quietly went out of country for healthcare.
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May 16, 2016 19:25
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I dont know posted:I assumed that they quietly went out of country for healthcare. Now what on Earth would make you think that?
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May 16, 2016 19:30
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I dont know posted:Are the photos in that article broadly representative, or at least somewhat cherry picked? I have literally seen footage of hospitals and clinics in active warzones that are less squalid. Involvement in narco trafficking makes leaving the country a risky proposition for some of them. Besides, they still control enough dollars to ensure their preferred clinics are well stocked.
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May 16, 2016 19:34
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Every public hospital here looks like one of Assad's torture dungeons. And the regime's top shots do go to the USA, UK, etc for surgeries and stuff but for emergencies or small stuff they always go to private clinics and never to public hospitals.
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May 16, 2016 19:34
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I dont know posted:Are the photos in that article broadly representative, or at least somewhat cherry picked? I have literally seen footage of hospitals and clinics in active warzones that are less squalid. Yeah, holy poo poo. It literally looks worse than some of the hospital photos I've seen of Syria and Libya. (As a local) I'd rather take my chances in Raqqa than that hospital Nick Casey went to. At least there you'll get a clean death by beheading rather than gradual amputations of your limbs as the bacteria grows. In other news, what's up with the Guri dam? I thought it was supposed to be out of water in mid-May, but I can't find any articles online about it -- searching in English -- newer than end of April.
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May 16, 2016 19:35
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beer_war posted:Now what on Earth would make you think that? And his "Cuban cancer care" was actually a specially built room for him with doctors from all over the world.
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May 16, 2016 19:37
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As someone who has lots of doctor friends working in Venezuela, public hospitals have been in terrible conditions for a while, but the lack of medicines is making things impossible. Actually one of my friends worked in emergencies for a huge public hospital in Valencia until a month ago (that he moved here to Madrid) and his stories and pictures are insane.
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May 16, 2016 19:40
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William Bear posted:http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/world/americas/dying-infants-and-no-medicine-inside-venezuelas-failing-hospitals.html  ~~~ HECHO EN SOCIALISMO ~~~
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May 16, 2016 19:41
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As the son of a doctor who also suffers from a number of chronic diseases, this medicine poo poo is possibly the most criminally incompetent thing the government has ever done, and the amount of grief and suffering they've caused due to their corruption is absolutely hideous. I don't think there is a single person alive that can justify just how loving awful Venezuela's healthcare and access to medicine is. We have a loving AIDS epidemic in one of our states, for gently caress's sake.
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May 16, 2016 20:35
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They are selling some cheap no brand condoms now too, durex and stuff are impossible to find.
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May 16, 2016 20:46
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Celexi posted:I was watching these vivo play youtube videos on expropriaciones/ reclamations and gently caress this is bad Was Maduro really just pointing at things and saying "expropriate it" without even bothering to think about what the government would do with them? Expropriation sounds like something you want to plan well in advance.
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May 16, 2016 20:53
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Woolie Wool posted:Was Maduro really just pointing at things and saying "expropriate it" without even bothering to think about what the government would do with them? Expropriation sounds like something you want to plan well in advance. He's just copying Chavez since that was his MO.
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May 16, 2016 20:54
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That is like collectivization as imagined by a five-year-old.
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May 16, 2016 21:00
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beer_war posted:
Gotta lot of respect for those hospital staff who still bother to get up and show up to work in those conditions. Be pretty easy to say "gently caress it. Shits hosed, I'm out." Are they still getting paid on time?
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May 16, 2016 21:10
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The opposition has another march planned for Wednesday, but the mayor of the western half of Caracas, Jorge Rodriguez, said today that his side of the city would be closed off that day, and that no protest would be allowed to take place there. This is completely unconstitutional, of course, because the Libertador municipality (of which Rodriguez is mayor) isn't his personal fiefdom, and the constitution grants Venezuelans the right to peaceful protest and peaceful assembly. Rodriguez is also in charge of overseeing the verification of the signatures for the recall referendum, and he's been featured in the media predominantly over the last few days because he keeps saying that the opposition didn't collect enough signatures for the referendum because all the signatures were faked. Yesterday he said that the opposition hadn't collected "even close to half" of the approximately 195,000 signatures it needed, even though it handed in around 2 million signatures. "Wait, isn't the CNE in charge of verifying the signatures? And doesn't the verification process start on May 26? How could Rodriguez be talking about the signatures like he's already verified all of them himself?". Those are valid points, and the answer is that Saladman posted:In other news, what's up with the Guri dam? I thought it was supposed to be out of water in mid-May, but I can't find any articles online about it -- searching in English -- newer than end of April. Last Sunday, Minister of Electrical Energy Luis Motta Dominguez said that the water level at the dam was "very critical". My understanding is that the level at which the water level was decreasing has slowed somewhat, but it is still decreasing. The Guri dam's water level isn't the most immediate threat to electricity in the country, though. CORPOELEC (the national electrical company) workers are threatening to go on strike by the end of the week because their collective bargaining agreement expired five years ago and the government hasn't moved a finger to work with them on a new one. 18,000 CORPOELEC workers have signed a petition calling for the strike. The PSUV is the party of the workers, though: don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Woolie Wool posted:Was Maduro really just pointing at things and saying "expropriate it" without even bothering to think about what the government would do with them? Expropriation sounds like something you want to plan well in advance. Here's a classic video showing Chavez expropriating buildings on a whim on live television: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOjvJAfIMSI Even if you don't speak Spanish, you can see him pointing at random buildings and saying "expropiese", which means "expropriate it".
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May 16, 2016 21:16
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Chuck Boone posted:Last Sunday, Minister of Electrical Energy Luis Motta Dominguez said that the water level at the dam was "very critical". That link completely causes Chrome to freeze and crash on my computer. There's probably symbolism in there somewhere.
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May 16, 2016 21:32
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Polar only has enough white corn to make Harina PAN until the end of the month. Sometimes I feel like not reading any more news and just watch movies and play games or whatever to occupy the mind because this poo poo is so depressing.
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May 17, 2016 00:09
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Looking at that video of Chavez randomly picking out buildings I just realised how much he reminds me of Chris Roberts. His body language exudes feigned competence and he relies entirely on a cult like following to maintain his image.
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May 17, 2016 01:25
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Demiurge4 posted:Looking at that video of Chavez randomly picking out buildings I just realised how much he reminds me of Chris Roberts. His body language exudes feigned competence and he relies entirely on a cult like following to maintain his image. Maduro's presidency and Star Citizen are alike in that they serve as a clear example of how far people are willing to go due to the sunk cost fallacy. When you realize that the Venezuelan people elected a bus driver as president because Chavez told them to, it suddenly doesn't seem that unfeasible that people are willing to dish out hundreds of dollars to purchase JPEGs.
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May 17, 2016 05:28
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fnox posted:Maduro's presidency and Star Citizen are alike in that they serve as a clear example of how far people are willing to go due to the sunk cost fallacy. When you realize that the Venezuelan people elected a bus driver as president because Chavez told them to, it suddenly doesn't seem that unfeasible that people are willing to dish out hundreds of dollars to purchase JPEGs. hahahahahahahhaa
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May 17, 2016 05:49
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The Guardian are asking Venezuelans to share their stories about life in the country. It's small comfort but this might (sadly) be the best way for some of you Venegoons to get your voices heard.
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May 17, 2016 06:52
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Vlex posted:The Guardian are asking Venezuelans to share their stories about life in the country. Time to campaign and translate everything my friends have to share. If I can get my doctor friend to publicly open up about the "Colosseum Tuesdays" on his emergency unit that would be pretty sweet.
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May 17, 2016 08:33
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William Bear posted:NYTimes article about the state of Venezuela's hospitals. Truly horrifying stuff. Plus, it has one of the most delusional Maduro quotes I've ever heard.
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May 17, 2016 08:56
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