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GlyphGryph posted:Members of the opposition that arent bad get "dealt with" until only the baddies remain Yeah it's like asking why there's no good opposition to Hitler in 1938.
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Apr 2, 2017 15:02
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This whole week has been so ridiculous that my head is still spinning. Like fnox said, Maduro held this National Defense Council meeting on Friday, but neither AG Luisa Ortega Dias nor National Assembly President Julio Borges were there. The National Defense Council has only been convened twice before, I think, and both times it was done under Maduro. That is to say, there's very little precedent for what this thing is, what it's supposed to look like, and what it's able to do. Just a few hours after the National Defense Council called on the TSJ to consider reversing the two rulings (No. 155 stripping immunity from legislators, and No. 156 usurping the National Assembly's powers). As far as I can tell, all of ruling 155 was reversed: that is, legislators now have immunity again (at least on paper). As for ruling 156, only the finding that because the National Assembly is in contempt the TSJ should exercise all of its powers was reversed. The rest of the ruling stands, and this allows for Maduro to negotiate loans and investments from foreign sources, which is a power that belongs solely to the National Assembly. What does this all mean? I don't think anyone knows for sure, but the theory that I've heard floating around is that a radical section of the PSUV (headed by Diosdado Cabello and/or Tarek El Aissami) put pressure on the TSJ to issue the two rulings this week without Maduro's knowledge. Like Labradoodle said, Maduro is a useful idiot: he's Chavez's "son", his handpicked successor, so it's difficult to get rid of him. Because the reaction to the rulings was so immediate and overwhelmingly negative (not just from the international community, but also from the opposition and the PSUV itself!), this radical section of the PSUV realizes they've overplayed their hand. This is when Maduro steps in, gets a few people around a table on TV, and "fixes" the problem by getting the TSJ to backpedal a bit. The fear with the backpedaling was that regime opponents would take it as a victory and lose some of the impressive amount of momentum that they'd gained by Saturday. Fortunately, this appears to not have been the case. National Assembly President Julio Borges said that the TSJ's reversals meant absolutely nothing, and other deputies pointed out that if the court could so easily reverse its decisions, there were about 54 other decisions they should reverse. OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro pointed out that "a break in constitutional order isn't fixed with more breaks in the constitutional order" in reference to the fact that Maduro ordered the TSJ to strike down two of its own decisions on television, which the TSJ promptly did. Finally, Mercosur held a meeting yesterday in which it denounced the "systematic meddling" of the judiciary in the legislature and the "lack of separation of powers" in the country. On another note, there were some pretty big protests in Caracas yesterday. Here are some videos. Protesters on the Francisco Fajardo highway in Caracas: https://twitter.com/Imag3n/status/848221763691581441 The caption for this video reads: "Opposition supporters take refuge in the El Recreo mall. Authorities launch tear gas". The crowd is chanting "Libertad! Libertad!" [Freedom! Freedom!]: https://twitter.com/EfectoCocuyo/status/848233463098552320 Protesters charging a National Guard line. The man in the white shirt wearing glasses and yelling at the National Guard soldiers is National Assembly deputy Miguel Pizarro: https://twitter.com/Pr1meroJusticia/status/848253485258866688 Some of the protesters tried to make it to the Public Defender's office in Caracas, but were prevented from doing so by National Guard trucks that open up to form walls. Here is a video of demonstrators on the mobile walls. The crowd is chanting "El pueblo arrecho reclama sus derechos!" [Roughly, "The pissed-off people demand their rights!"]: https://twitter.com/pjdiputados/status/848227376127463424 Here is a longer video of the crowd that was stopped by these mobile walls. You can see from the video what a formidable barrier these things are: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKlVnd12M0w caberham posted:So why is the opposition so bad? Do they have much experience in governing or were they always played the part of the little guy? Any historical baggage of some sort? Another person who comes to mind is Maria Corina Machado. She was a National Assembly deputy and the head of one of the opposition parties. Among prominent opposition figures, I think she was the first one to call Maduro out for being a dictator pretty much out of the gate for him. A few years ago (I think in 2014) she was kicked out of parliament by then-National Assembly president Diosdado Cabello, and was then implicated in a plot to assassinate Maduro. She wasn't thrown in jail, but she was more or less removed from the political picture.
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Apr 2, 2017 16:15
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There's basically a standard formula for how the PSUV deals with competent opposition figures: they will inevitably be "arrested", and it'll be claimed they had weapons and evidence in their car/house for a plot to assassinate Maduro.
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Apr 2, 2017 20:02
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Did the decision come from a court case in the style of SCOTUS cases, or did the TSJ just wake up and decide to declare themselves to be the National Assembly without any (public) prompting?
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Apr 3, 2017 05:13
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Badger of Basra posted:Did the decision come from a court case in the style of SCOTUS cases, or did the TSJ just wake up and decide to declare themselves to be the National Assembly without any (public) prompting? The two decisions from last week were a bit of a mixed bag on this, but I'd say the latter is more correct. One thing to remember is that Venezuela follows the civil law tradition, which makes both its legal institutions and its mechanisms quite different from what we might be used to in North America. One big difference between the Supreme Court in Venezuela vs. that in the U.S. and Canada is that any citizen can file a suit before the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court. Anyone can do this so long as they believe that they have observed a constitutional violation and would like to bring the court's attention to the matter. What this means is that the PSUV will file lots of suits with the court over things that the National Assembly says and/or does. Sometimes, the National Assembly will pass a motion and the PSUV deputies will leave parliament straight for the Supreme Court to file a suit right then and there. This is one reason why there appear to be so many decisions coming out of the Supreme Court. The other reason is that jurisprudence in Venezuela is a facade used by the regime to give the impression that it is a functional country where the rule of law and separation of powers exist. The Supreme Court website has been down all morning, but I've found a couple of other sources that describe the two decisions in some detail. From those sources we can observe the following:
TL;DR: The TSJ just woke up and decided to declare themselves to be the National Assembly with practically no prompting. Those decisions were coming out anyway. The fact that the decisions were attached to this or that specific ruling is immaterial.
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Apr 3, 2017 16:19
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So the justifications the supreme court uses to give power to the psuv are that complex? What are the most egregious examples of the court doing that sort of mind bending '1+1=3' logic?
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Apr 3, 2017 18:25
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So something very interesting is happening as of late. For the first time ever, Maduro's government is facing significant international pressure in the form of statements by different Latin American countries, and perhaps more importantly, through the approval of a joint declaration at the OAS declaring that there has indeed been a break in the constitutional order in the country. The declaration stopped short of actually instating sanctions, but this is perhaps the strongest international condemnation the Venezuelan government has ever faced, it also proves that whatever they were trying to do by reversing the sentence didn't work. The OAS was once held on lock through Venezuela's lobbying with Caribbean countries through PetroCaribe, but now, it seems like the only friends Maduro has left are Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador (which may switch soon) and El Salvador.
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Apr 4, 2017 09:29
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With regard to empresas mixtas, in the us they might be called public-private partnerships; the public funds the enterprise, but it's run privately and I assume the profits go back to the government to some degree as a repayment on investment. The reason there is so much furor over them in Venezuela is that they're a very key element of the oil industry. Having the ability to create them without the national assembly's input gives Maduro a pretty sizeable amount of power over the country's most lucrative industry. Someone with much more grounding in the intricacies of Venezuelan economics could probably give you a far better answer though.
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Apr 4, 2017 12:40
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Quorum posted:With regard to empresas mixtas, in the us they might be called public-private partnerships; the public funds the enterprise, but it's run privately and I assume the profits go back to the government to some degree as a repayment on investment. The reason there is so much furor over them in Venezuela is that they're a very key element of the oil industry. Having the ability to create them without the national assembly's input gives Maduro a pretty sizeable amount of power over the country's most lucrative industry. More power than he has already? I don't think Maduro needs anyone's permission to do what he wants with Venezuela's oil industry.
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Apr 4, 2017 14:39
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fnox posted:The OAS was once held on lock through Venezuela's lobbying with Caribbean countries through PetroCaribe, but now, it seems like the only friends Maduro has left are Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador (which may switch soon) and El Salvador. Makes sense that the countries Venezuela's bribed over the years would be less impressed when the country can barely afford to feed its own people anymore, let alone pay a bunch of bribes.
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Apr 4, 2017 14:58
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There are pro-regime and anti-regime protests in Caracas scheduled for today. From a quick look through a few news websites it looks like access to Caracas has been essentially shut down; twelve subway stations in the city are closed; and the National Guard has the area around Plaza Venezuela. The government is building a stage behind the National Assembly, so it looks like their demonstration will be around that area. EDIT: This YouTube channel is streaming live from the opposition demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWistjKRdxE Also, Roberto Enriquez the head of the COPEI party was arrested yesterday by the Military Counterintelligence Directorate. He's expected to appear before a military tribunal at some point, and he has been charged with treason and "inciting rebellion". Putting civilians before military tribunals is becoming an increasingly common tactic. Pharohman777 posted:So the justifications the supreme court uses to give power to the psuv are that complex? For the sake of efficiency and transparency, the rulings might as well be just a page long: "This is what we've decided and no one can do anything about it, so eat it". However, the Supreme Court tries its best to give the rulings the veneer of being legal, so they turn into pages and pages of relatively complex, not only because it's all in legalese, but because the starting premises are often outright contrary to reality. The Supreme Court website has been down since at least yesterday morning, so I can't open up a ruling to look through right now. But let's take, for example, the decision last week to strip diplomatic immunity from National Assembly deputies. Article 200 of the constitution is quite clear on who gets immunity, for how long: quote:Article 200: Deputies of the National Assembly shall enjoy immunity in the exercise of their functions from the time of their installation until the end of their term or resignation. Only the Supreme Tribunal of Justice shall have competence over any crimes may be charged as committed by members of the National Assembly, and only the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, subject to authorization in advance from the National Assembly, shall have the power to order their arrest and prosecution. What the Supreme Court did in last week's decision is look at that and say, "well, no, actually, that's not true because...". As I mentioned in earlier posts, the court based that decision on the fact that it still holds that the National Assembly is in contempt through the incorporation of the three opposition deputies from Amazonas state... except that those deputies resigned and parliament accepted their resignation, therefore making it official. In other words, the Supreme Court has chosen to outright ignore a factual, real-life event that happened and was highly publicized, and has substituted that with an alternate reality from which it can argue that Article 200 of the constitution doesn't hold water anymore. That's just my quick and dirty summary of the case. Now imagine dozens of pages elaborating the point with the same result, and you get "QED 1 + 1 = 3". Other rulings that come to mind are all of the ones (I believe there may be 5 or 6 now) in which the court ruled that Maduro's state of emergency decrees/extensions were valid despite not being approved by the National Assembly. Again, the constitution clearly states that the National Assembly has to approve emergency decrees/extensions or they cannot come into effect, and again we get pages and pages of the court explaining why up is actually down. fnox posted:The OAS was once held on lock through Venezuela's lobbying with Caribbean countries through PetroCaribe, but now, it seems like the only friends Maduro has left are Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador (which may switch soon) and El Salvador. quote:CP/RES. 1078 (2108/17) Also, Uruguay - which was relatively friendly, specially at Mercosur - looks like is done with Maduro's nonsense. They voted in favour of the resolution yesterday, and the Uruguayan Minister of the Economy said today that Maduro is "profoundly authoritarian", and called him "ungrateful" over the help that he got in Mercosur from Uruguay. Quorum posted:With regard to empresas mixtas, in the us they might be called public-private partnerships; the public funds the enterprise, but it's run privately and I assume the profits go back to the government to some degree as a repayment on investment. The reason there is so much furor over them in Venezuela is that they're a very key element of the oil industry. Having the ability to create them without the national assembly's input gives Maduro a pretty sizable amount of power over the country's most lucrative industry. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 15:55
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Totally not important but I thought i'd ask: How realistic is it to expect a safe and sure shipping of something like records (LPs) from Venezuela to the US? I'm talking to a guy in Venezuela on Discogs to get some records but I'm not very confident at all that they'll get here or in one piece. Also if any venegoons got records they want to part with, I'm all ears.
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Apr 4, 2017 16:20
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Disco vulture
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Apr 4, 2017 16:25
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Disco es cultura vulture
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Apr 4, 2017 16:41
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lol all your buying is sped up vaporwave
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Apr 4, 2017 16:43
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Gozinbulx posted:Totally not important but I thought i'd ask: How realistic is it to expect a safe and sure shipping of something like records (LPs) from Venezuela to the US? I'm talking to a guy in Venezuela on Discogs to get some records but I'm not very confident at all that they'll get here or in one piece. If they are being sent through private delivery then there's a good chance you'll get them. If it's regular mail then you're getting scammed because no one would use that in Venezuela and not expect it to be stolen. What kind of LPs are you interested in? My mom was about as obsessed with music as I am and we have a fuckton of vinyls at home, plus a neighbor was a musician and radio host and he collected thousands of them. He's dead now sadly but I'm sure his bro would maybe part with them. I'll mention it to them!
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Apr 4, 2017 16:52
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fnox posted:More power than he has already? I don't think Maduro needs anyone's permission to do what he wants with Venezuela's oil industry. In theory the power to create and regulate these enterprises lies with the National Assembly. I don't know how much of that authority they've been able to exercise in practice (I'm guessing not much, thus the original suit) but the court basically gave that power officially to Maduro-- and told the Assembly they weren't allowed to regulate the ones he made. But yeah as asserted above, the theory that it's actually about foreign money isn't a bad one.
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Apr 4, 2017 17:24
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Hugoon Chavez posted:If they are being sent through private delivery then there's a good chance you'll get them. If it's regular mail then you're getting scammed because no one would use that in Venezuela and not expect it to be stolen. Todo lo que es musica tropical caribeńa. Cuba, Puerto Rico, Rep. Dom., Venezuela, ect.. Marcas como Velvet, Maype, Kubaney, Discuba, Modiner, Adria, Seeco, ect. Mas que nada lo que me gusta es la musica antigua, de antes de 1970. El que era locutor me imagino que tiene joyas de la musica de ayer en su coleccion...
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Apr 4, 2017 17:51
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Baloogan posted:lol all your buying is sped up vaporwave I'd like to be in on this joke.
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Apr 4, 2017 17:53
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There are a number of heated protests going on in Caracas right now, they seem to be the real deal, they're trying to get to Plaza Venezuela but the response from the police has been brutal. Even then, people are fearless, somebody linked me to this video of someone literally wrestling a gun from a National Guard then throwing it down the overpass. https://twitter.com/AndrewsAbreu/status/849318029246812160 fnox fucked around with this message at 20:33 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 20:31
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holy poo poo
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Apr 4, 2017 20:35
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The situation in Caracas has been pretty intense all day. Lots of clashes on the Libertador Avenue between Plaza Venezuela and Los Cedros mall, and a colectivo armado (pro-regime civilian armed group) attacked demonstrators in Bello Monte. Videos of the clashes on the Libertador Avenue: https://twitter.com/vhgarciam/status/849295063729545216 https://twitter.com/RCamachoVzla/status/849301784287997952 https://twitter.com/RCamachoVzla/status/849301896061964288 The video below shows the moment shots are fired in Bello Monte as a colectivo armado (the people on motorcycles) rides by: https://twitter.com/VoluntadPopular/status/849316611609821185 EDIT: The news is reporting nine injured so far (eight from tear gas inhalation and one from a gunshot wound). EDIT 2: The National Assembly was supposed to meet today to debate removing the magistrates from the TSJ who issued this rulings last week (something the National Assembly has the power to do). The regime shut down Caracas and all access to the National Assembly except to its own supporters, so the debate has been postponed until tomorrow. EDIT 3: Here is a video of National Bolivarian Police officers beating a protesters and then leaving her lying on the floor like a dog. The man recording says "Ayudala! Ayudala!" ("Help her! Help her!") as he runs to give aid to the woman: https://twitter.com/VVperiodistas/status/849334599717187586 Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 21:16 on Apr 4, 2017 |
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Apr 4, 2017 21:08
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Holy crap that was a straight up charge: https://twitter.com/hannahdreier/status/849360791987945472
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Apr 5, 2017 00:12
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fnox posted:There are a number of heated protests going on in Caracas right now, they seem to be the real deal, they're trying to get to Plaza Venezuela but the response from the police has been brutal. Even then, people are fearless, somebody linked me to this video of someone literally wrestling a gun from a National Guard then throwing it down the overpass. It's nuts how calm everyone is considering a gun gets stolen and tossed around between people. Even though it's a rifle or shotgun and not held aggressively by anyone, I'd still be pretty drat worried, but this looks exactly like what we did as kids when you would take something from the kid everyone picks on and keeps it away from him. E: on watching it again, it's weird that the guy on the motorcycle he actually takes it from doesn't seem to care very much, and the two national guardsmen come only later. I guess we missed the context before the person started filming. lol and the guy who's on the underpass, has basically no reaction when a gun gets tossed down like 2 feet in front of him. He just ambles slowly in a slightly different direction, doesn't even look up. Saladman fucked around with this message at 11:32 on Apr 5, 2017 |
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Apr 5, 2017 07:34
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Saladman posted:It's nuts how calm everyone is considering a gun gets stolen and tossed around between people. Even though it's a rifle or shotgun and not held aggressively by anyone, I'd still be pretty drat worried, but this looks exactly like what we did as kids when you would take something from the kid everyone picks on and keeps it away from him. Yeah, this video is surreal. It's hard to tell from the footage, but the people recording it say that the weapon is a tear-gas launcher. The two people on the motorcycle are National Guard soldiers, and the two officers who run up to the scene are National Bolivarian Police officers. The National Guard is attached to the army and they have all the big guns (armored vehicles, assault rifles, etc.), while the NBP is a civilian force that is much more like a traditional police organization. You've pointed out that the soldiers on the motorcycle don't seem to even flinch when their weapon gets stolen. They don't seem to react at all, and don't even try to ride away. It's also worth noticing how pathetic the NBP response is. There's a grade school-level game of Monkey in the Middle, and then the a bit of a hurried walk to the man who throws the weapon off the overpass (and the man then dashes away - the police don't follow him). At no point were the officers anywhere close to getting their hands on that weapon. It's a testament to the poor training officers and National Guard soldiers receive. Also, I believe the two NBP officers are female. It's not uncommon for the NBP to deploy unarmed female officers to the front lines of protests. I believe the intention is to use them as human shields against protesters, and as a propaganda tool for the government since they can later say that the fascist protesters attacked the brave revolutionary women of the NBP. The picture below show this tactic. The picture was taken on April 1 in Caracas. Notice how behind the line of unprotected female officers is a line of armored officers: https://twitter.com/EfectoCocuyo/status/848240533541703680
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Apr 5, 2017 15:59
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There's a big protest happening in Caracas right now. It looks bigger than Tuesday's. A huge mass of protesters is trying to make its way to the People's Defender offices. The march is being live streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trn5r7YMRKY
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Apr 6, 2017 18:05
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Chuck Boone posted:There's a big protest happening in Caracas right now. It looks bigger than Tuesday's. A huge mass of protesters is trying to make its way to the People's Defender offices. The march is being live streamed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Trn5r7YMRKY Aren't there a lot of guns in the country? I'm surprised there aren't provocateurs out there shooting at police to force a bigger confrontational between the people and the regime.
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Apr 6, 2017 18:06
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Sinteres posted:Aren't there a lot of guns in the country? I'm surprised there aren't provocateurs out there shooting at police to force a bigger confrontational between the people and the regime. Who the hell would want that?
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Apr 6, 2017 22:47
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wdarkk posted:Who the hell would want that? Whichever side thought they'd win that confrontation, I guess.
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Apr 6, 2017 22:52
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Or just somebody who's starving, has a gun, and doesn't necessarily care about all of the possible effects.
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Apr 6, 2017 22:54
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Mozi posted:Or just somebody who's starving, has a gun, and doesn't necessarily care about all of the possible effects. Yeah. If the current situation is intolerable, I'm surprised there aren't people willing to gamble that chaos could lead to opportunity.
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Apr 6, 2017 22:56
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Unrelated to the protests, but I'm filing US taxes now and was wondering what Americans citizens working in Venezuela are supposed to do and I came across one page telling people to file using 9.4 BsF = $1 ( https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/yearly-average-currency-exchange-rates ). Fortunately, and somewhat surprisingly, it looks like the IRS is not actually stuck in some dystopian nightmare, and elsewhere recommends using the black market exchange rate for your country if the two differ and basically tells you to use whatever number you want as long as you can back it up somehow (e.g. last year https://www.irs.gov/pub/int_practice_units/fcu_c_18_02_01_06.pdf , even lists https://www.dollar.nu). Also what the gently caress, why is dollar.nu such an ugly website straight out of 1997 geocities?
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Apr 7, 2017 08:44
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"Yeah, if the country you are working in is experiencing dystopian hyperinflation, just use the black market value of the dollar- IRS" Its really incredible that the IRS has a document that directs people to the black market exchange rate for taxation purposes.
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Apr 7, 2017 09:36
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Pharohman777 posted:"Yeah, if the country you are working in is experiencing dystopian hyperinflation, just use the black market value of the dollar- IRS" I mean it's the difference between having $9 million dollars worth in assets in bolivares, and having $2000.
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Apr 7, 2017 11:13
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The dystopian part is that you have to fill out US taxes while living and working in Venezuela.
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Apr 7, 2017 12:02
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mobby_6kl posted:The dystopian part is that you have to fill out US taxes while living and working in Venezuela. Also true.
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Apr 7, 2017 12:24
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I think the dystopian part is living in Venezuela willingly as a foreigner.
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Apr 7, 2017 15:51
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The protest in Caracas yesterday was the biggest in about six months. There were prolonged (4 hour +) skirmishes between authorities and protesters on the Francisco Fajardo highway, which is one of the city's main arteries. At least 18 people were hurt (mostly from teargas and rubber pellet lacerations) and over 50 were arrested. A 19 year old engineering student was killed at a protest in Carrizal, which is just south of Caracas. Witnesses at the scene say that the man was killed by National Guard soldiers who were attempting to disperse the protesters. I believe that this is the first protest-related death since National Guard soldiers killed a 14-year-old boy at a demonstration in Tachira state back in February 2015. Here are some pictures and videos from the unrest in Caracas yesterday. This was the crowd before the skirmishes began: https://twitter.com/vanessaneumann/status/850062184273018880 https://twitter.com/Imag3n/status/850037780478611456 This video shows the two sides squaring off. The video shows demonstrators in the background (towards the east) and security forces in the foreground (towards the west). Note the heavy presence of tear gas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TBHJgYAjFw National Guard soldiers advancing on protesters arrest a young woman: https://twitter.com/hsiciliano/status/850141780284715008 This video shows protesters charging a group of motorized National Bolivarian Police officers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn3u4aZBMOg This video shows protesters fighting a ballena [literally, "whale": a mobile high-pressure water cannon]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDCPUtSGIUI The video below shows National Bolivarian Police officers beating a protester: https://twitter.com/AndrewsAbreu/status/850161210959986688 This video shows National Assembly vice-president Freddy Guevara helping a man escape capture. In the video, Guevara (white shirt) helps pull a man away from two NG soldiers while saying, “Leave him alone!”. When the man escapes, Guevara throws his hands up in the air and asks the soldiers, “Are you insane?”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOpTxDnwXi4 The opposition has called for another protest tomorrow. Yesterday's was bigger than Tuesday's. If tomorrow's is somehow bigger than yesterday's... it's going to be a long day. Sinteres posted:Aren't there a lot of guns in the country? I'm surprised there aren't provocateurs out there shooting at police to force a bigger confrontational between the people and the regime. I also notice that in a lot of videos we see protesters pleading with the authorities sent to repress them to "wake up" and realize that they're helping to support a corrupt regime that is hurting them and their families. Maybe the other venegoons can speak to this more, but the sense that I get from watching videos and listening to people talk about the protests is that many protesters see the National Guard/Police grunts as a Venezuelan just like them who, due to unfortunate life circumstances, have to wear the other team's uniform for the time being. Also, as you can see in the video, the protests are absolutely huge and they're made up of a diverse cross-section of Venezuelan society: students, doctors, teachers, civil servants, retirees, etc. These aren't the fascist imperialist terrorists the PSUV makes them out to be: they're by and large ordinary people who want a better future for themselves are for their children. And it's rare for ordinary people to kill (or try to kill), even when push comes to shove. I realize now that your comment was about provocateurs and that I haven't answered that point at all. I'm sorry: I just don't know either. I think most people don't want to kill or hurt others. Opposition protests are generally hyper-paranoid about "infiltrados" (provocateurs), so I think that anyone shooting at the police would be singled out as not a "real" protester really quickly.
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Apr 7, 2017 15:56
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Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles has just been banned from holding office for 15 years. Capriles is a leading opposition figure and was the opposition presidential candidate against Chavez in his last election and Maduro in 2013. He was the top contender for presidential candidate for the next elections as well. This is the other half of the PSUV pincer against opposition in the country, the other being imprisonment. Tomorrow's protest is going to be intense.
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Apr 7, 2017 19:07
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Chuck Boone posted:Miranda state governor Henrique Capriles has just been banned from holding office for 15 years. Capriles is a leading opposition figure and was the opposition presidential candidate against Chavez in his last election and Maduro in 2013. He was the top contender for presidential candidate for the next elections as well. This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but I'm actually not devastated about this. I mean, ideally the government wouldn't bar anyone from running in elections but Capriles has already served two terms as governor of Miranda and ran twice as a presidential candidate. In any regular country, his political life would already be winding down and his party would be pushing new candidates. However, he's still the preferred candidate for presidential elections, even a year ahead of the actual schedule. My thinking is, Capriles is still basically the de-facto leader of the opposition (because they aren't allowing new blood in) and he's one of the main forces behind the opposition pushing for the recall referendum. I'm hopěng this will push him towards finally realizing we've got to get rid of the PSUV before thinking about elections in the first place. In practice, I fear this is going to push the opposition towards backing Henry Ramos Allup as the next presidential candidate instead of focusing on the problem at hand.
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Apr 8, 2017 01:22
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