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A full transition to a military government would really, really, not sit well with nearly every ally that Venezuela has. I don't think they'd last very long if they attempted that. On the other hand, let them. It's about time we had a proper excuse to hang the bastards.
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Jul 12, 2016 17:57
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Where did all the oil money go? A fund could have been established to feed every Venezuelan..
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Jul 12, 2016 18:00
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Yeah this does smell very coup-like to me.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:02
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Baloogan posted:Where did all the oil money go? Mansions, luxury cars, the usual.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:10
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Baloogan posted:Where did all the oil money go? A nice chunk of it made its way into the pockets of private individuals who are connected to the government. The figure is hard to quantify, but you can ask any Venezuelan and they will give you anecdotes of people/cases they know involving individuals suddenly becoming extremely wealthy through a connection with some government official. I personally have first-hand knowledge of a person who served a multi-year prison sentence for a serious offence, and upon his/her return to Venezuela she/he got set up extremely nicely with multiple cars, apartments, and enough cash to set up really lucrative businesses because of a connection to the PSUV (I'm sorry for being vague, but I'd rather not give out too many details about this). Aside from that money that just evaporated in private hands, at least $70 billion is sitting in bank accounts outside of the country, according to the Comptroller's Commission at the National Assembly. That's just the money that has been identified and traced back to Venezuela: think of how much more there is sitting in secret bank accounts who knows where, or tied up in real state or whatever around the world. Some of the money would also have been given away to score political points through initiatives like PETROCARIBE. Anyway, the figure I've heard thrown around is that Venezuela made something like $1 trillion over the last 17 years and this is what we've got to show for it.
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Jul 12, 2016 18:13
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Why did the people let this happen?
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Jul 12, 2016 18:15
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Baloogan posted:Why did the people let this happen? How could they have stopped it?
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Jul 12, 2016 18:30
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Chuck Boone posted:Vladimir Padrino Lopez is now officially more powerful than Maduro. So you're basically a military dictatorship now?
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Jul 12, 2016 19:02
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It's a 21st century dictatorship!
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Jul 12, 2016 19:10
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Virtually 0 english results searching Google News for Maduro Lopez (but a lot of Spanish results). Lacking serious coverage here in the US. edit: from what I can glean from the spanish sources, seems like this guy is a big fan of Cuba's dictatorship and of Fidel Castro. Arkane fucked around with this message at 19:13 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 19:10
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Boner Slaem posted:I couldn't follow the threat until just recently. Most of the useful idiots have quietly slunk off into the shadows. Borneo Jimmy usually shows up and shitposts for a day or two before getting probated for a while. The last couple of times he ate a 30 day, so I think the mods are getting fed up with him.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:23
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Baloogan posted:Why did the people let this happen? I think it's at least partially due to the "Boiling Frog" effect. By the end of the 1990s, Venezuelans were extremely disillusioned with the political order in the country. The inflation rate was high, there was lots of crime, and corruption was widespread. Chavez came in to the 1998 election as a political outsider who wanted to fundamentally change the way the country ran, so people voted him in. Chavez built a cult of personality around himself, and partially because he was so popular every issue boiled down to "the people vs. the bad guys", with "the bad guys" being "anyone who doesn't agree with Chavez". Slowly over the years Chavez gave himself more and more power, because "the people", the Bolivarian revolution and the Venezuelan state were all embodied in him. Before Chavez died, he named Maduro his successor. If you supported Chavez (and therefore the people, the Bolivarian revolution, and Venezuela) you support Maduro; if you don't support Maduro, you're an enemy of the people, the Bolivarian revolution, and Venezuela. You can imagine that, slowly, gradually, with more and more power concentrated in the hands of a single person, you could end up in a situation like the one Venezuela is in now. In a sense, the people "let it happen" because they made it happen. beer_war posted:So you're basically a military dictatorship now? I'm not sure what else we could call it. CAMIMPEG is an organization that has complete control over "every activty related to oil, gas and mineral exploitation in general, without any limits". Oil and gas operations make up 95% of Venezuela's foreign income. The head of CAMIMPEG is the Minister of Defense. The Gran Mision Soberana de Abastecimiento Soberano puts "every institution of the state" and "every ministry and every minister" under the direct command of the Minister of Defense. In other words, virtually all of the country's income-earning potential, the entirety of the civil state and the armed forces are now under the command of the same person. It sounds extreme but I think this is what's happened.
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Jul 12, 2016 19:51
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fnox posted:Today I saw some guy in Lund, Sweden, wearing a Hugo Chavez t-shirt. These exist? Wow. GlyphGryph fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Jul 12, 2016 |
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Jul 12, 2016 20:24
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GlyphGryph posted:These exist? Wow. Of course.  There are couple of styles to choose from, actually: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odk...+shirt&_sacat=0
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Jul 12, 2016 20:43
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Baloogan posted:Why did the people let this happen? They were fooled to accept it, in short. Venezuela is the clearest demonstration on how to cheat democracy, a place that's at the same time autocratic, but considered to have clean elections, that's what the "pink tide" was all about. GlyphGryph posted:These exist? Wow. There's of course t-shirts with this print, wearing one is also a surefire way to enrage me.  How many Chavez t-shirts do you all think that Borneo Jimmy owns?
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Jul 12, 2016 20:56
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You used to see people wearing Chavez shirts all the time but now you only see them if they are going to one of those paid/forced rally gigs.
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Jul 12, 2016 21:00
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I'm surprised he saw one in Sweden though, I've never ever seen one of those and I've lived in major cities all around the world. Che shirts? Not terrible uncommon. But Chavez shirts? I'm legitimately surprised they exist outside of Venezuela, even though I guess I shouldn't be. The guy just doesn't seem very t-shirt friendly!
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Jul 12, 2016 21:03
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Chuck Boone posted:Here are some links on yesterday's announcement and a press conference Padrino Lopez gave earlier for anyone interested: Thanks, one of my Venezuelan ex-pat friends was saying "Well, at least someone else is now at the helm of this sinking ship".
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Jul 12, 2016 21:08
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GlyphGryph posted:I'm surprised he saw one in Sweden though, I've never ever seen one of those and I've lived in major cities all around the world. Che shirts? Not terrible uncommon. But Chavez shirts? I'm legitimately surprised they exist outside of Venezuela, even though I guess I shouldn't be. The guy just doesn't seem very t-shirt friendly! Hence the stencil, however that also looks loving terrible. Chavez fortunately doesn't have a very marketable face. People with little ability for critical thought tend to also have limited fashion sense however, so those shirts actually get sold.
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Jul 12, 2016 21:14
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The other big news from the past 24 hours is that Citibank announced that it was closing the Venezuelan government's account. The government used the account to pay financiers and suppliers, so now it's going to have a more difficult time doing that from a logistical standpoint. The closure comes after Citibank did a "risk assessment" of its relationship with the country and said "Thanks, but no thanks!".
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Jul 12, 2016 22:27
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Venezuelan government, now less trustworthy than Mexican drug lords!
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Jul 13, 2016 00:04
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1) ...Vladimir? 2) Jesus gently caress. Well, maybe it'll be a step up! That wouldn't be hard.
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Jul 13, 2016 00:10
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mobby_6kl posted:Venezuelan government, now less trustworthy than Mexican drug lords! I'm sure HSBC will be their next port of call.
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Jul 13, 2016 00:22
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GlyphGryph posted:These exist? Wow. Yeah. I have one, given to me as a gift by our ex-Chavista guide in Amazonas. Probably doesn't want to be seen wearing it if I were to guess. I wear it to the gym sometimes but haven't recently. It also says "CHAVISTA POR SIEMPRE" across the shoulders. I don't want to be "that guy" on the Tube getting confronted by a Venezuelan expat who had to deal with that so it mostly lives in the back of my t-shirt drawer. I also have a "SOMOS LA FUERZA DE AMAZONAS" shirt which dates to the National Assembly elections last year. It looks and feels like those sweat-wicking super-porous running t-shirts but boy howdy it doesn't breathe one bit and clings to you like a motherfucker when you sweat. Aside from a literal reindeer skin suit, I can't think of anything worse to wear in Amazonas state. I nearly died wearing it for a whole day while surveying rock art sites along the Orinoco. Edit, with photographic evidence 
Vlex fucked around with this message at 00:28 on Jul 13, 2016 |
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Jul 13, 2016 00:22
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The funny thing about that shirt is that Amazonas are currently the only state without representation in the National Assembly because the PSUV are loving scum who don't give a poo poo about the constitution.
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Jul 13, 2016 00:37
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well the amazonas has a bunch of people pissed about the 24/7 traffic of cocaine from Colombia that includes quite the crime and odd people, along with the Venezuela military that support them, so best not to give them any rights as they will vote against.
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Jul 13, 2016 00:48
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El Hefe posted:The funny thing about that shirt is that Amazonas are currently the only state without representation in the National Assembly because the PSUV are loving scum who don't give a poo poo about the constitution. As a non-Venezuelan lurker, what's the story with this?
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Jul 13, 2016 00:58
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Jygallax posted:As a non-Venezuelan lurker, what's the story with this? There was a parliamentary election last December. The PSUV got demolished, and the opposition won a super-majority (112 seats out of 167). Anyway, with a super-majority, the opposition had full access to every one of the National Assembly's legislative powers. There was nothing that the PSUV could do to stop any kind of reform the opposition would want to pass, including things like calling for a constituent assembly to create a new constitution, for example. The PSUV couldn't live with that, so a few weeks after the election, the Supreme Court ruled that the three deputies from Amazonas state hadn't actually been elected because of some irregularity or another, so they were removed from their seats. The National Electoral Council (CNE) and the Supreme Court are supposed to be working the case, but no one's heard anything from either the court of the CNE since the ruling. The ruling was shady for all kinds of reasons, chief among them the fact that the election results were verified by the CNE as legitimate. Now we're in July and Amazonas state is still without representatives at the National Assembly because the PSUV/TSJ didn't want the opposition to have the super-majority.
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Jul 13, 2016 01:05
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El Hefe posted:The funny thing about that shirt is that Amazonas are currently the only state without representation in the National Assembly because the PSUV are loving scum who don't give a poo poo about the constitution. But as the Assembly is defacto no longer part of the government, nobody really has representation.
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Jul 13, 2016 01:07
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Jygallax posted:As a non-Venezuelan lurker, what's the story with this? In short, the opposition won a supermajority by one seat that would have allowed them to actually change things. That is unacceptable of course, so the outgoing Assembly packed the TSJ (Venezuelan Supreme Court) which then proceeded to accept a challenge from the PSUV candidate for that seat. It then ruled that the election of the opposition member to that seat was to be annulled, thereby depriving the opposition of their supermajority and making them unable to overturn Maduro's vetoes. So that seat remains vacant because I guess there's no mechanism to fill the seat. The discussion in the thread started here.
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Jul 13, 2016 01:11
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It's Wednesday, and Maduro is doing his weekly show called En Contacto Con Maduro. I think it ends at about 9:00 PM EST. If you want to know what it's like to live in a bad Twilight Zone episode, you can watch Maduro's live show here.
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Jul 13, 2016 01:14
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El Hefe posted:The funny thing about that shirt is that Amazonas are currently the only state without representation in the National Assembly because the PSUV are loving scum who don't give a poo poo about the constitution. Well duh, the back of the shirt says "Chavista por siempre" too. No Chavistas were elected in Amazonas, ergo no representation. Checkmate imperialist lapdogs, shirts don't lie. 
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Jul 13, 2016 01:16
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Chuck Boone posted:This is huge news. The entire cabinet and, in Maduro's words, "every institution of the state", is now under the command of the armed forces under Padrino Lopez. It's part of a new initiative the government is calling the Gran Mision de Abastesimiento Soberano [Great Sovereign Supply (or Stock) Mission", which is an initiative that's supposed to put the entire state working towards getting food and medicine back in stock. So is this a "good" thing or a bad thing. I assume its a junta now with maduro as figure head?
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Jul 13, 2016 01:41
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Dapper_Swindler posted:So is this a "good" thing or a bad thing. I assume its a junta now with maduro as figure head? I mean it is something other than the status quo so it has that going for it.
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Jul 13, 2016 01:42
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Bip Roberts posted:I mean it is something other than the status quo so it has that going for it. true. so whats maduros role now? I assume the military controls everything?
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Jul 13, 2016 01:46
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Maduro is the emperor and Padrino Lopez is now the shogun.
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Jul 13, 2016 01:48
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I just clicked on and heard Maduro shouting "Trabajo! Trabajo! Revolucion!" and some guys are holding up a Palestine scarf. This is nuts. The country is collapsing and here's a guy in olive fatigues rambling about world revolution.
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Jul 13, 2016 01:50
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Barudak posted:Maduro is the emperor and Padrino Lopez is now the shogun. so he is still in charge them?
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Jul 13, 2016 01:51
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Dapper_Swindler posted:So is this a "good" thing or a bad thing. I assume its a junta now with maduro as figure head? I'd say that this is definitely not a good thing for a number of reasons:
In short, there are lots of reasons why this is happening, and I don't think any one of them is good. Dapper_Swindler posted:so he is still in charge them? It's hard to say. I think the answer is "yes", but like I said, this is so unprecedented that it's difficult to say with certainty. I think that the way that Maduro introduced this announcement last night is really telling. When he was making the announcement, he set it up by saying, "this crisis needs a unified command, a single command", as if to say, "one person in charge". And that one person in charge turns out to be Maduro... and Padrino? Together? But they're two people, so what was Maduro talking about when he introduced this measure out of a necessity for a single, unified command? I may be reading too much into it, but it sounds like Maduro gave away that there's only one person in charge, but I don't think I know which one it is. Barudak posted:Maduro is the emperor and Padrino Lopez is now the shogun.
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Jul 13, 2016 02:07
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