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The MUD should hold their own elections independent from the Maduro admin and continue to claim they are illegitimate. Do not any any way recognize the Maduro admin, and build up a parralel government full of appropriately elected and appointed figures.
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Aug 10, 2017 13:19
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Chuck Boone posted:Yes, the MUD announced yesterday that it would run in the regional elections. The way they explained it is that they know the election is rigged, that the PSUV will cheat to win, etc., but they still figure that showing up is worth it just on principle. As one MUD official put it in a press conference yesterday, the opposition wants to fight the regime on every terrain. I think the "cuck" meme is overplayed, stupid, and sexist, and yet the only thing I can think of when I see anything about the MUD now is "what a bunch of fukkin' cucks". I'm surprised anyone listens to them at all anymore after they blew their shot with the constituent assembly, and the recall, and leading meaningful protests, and etc literally everything they have done is incompetent. I get that they're too afraid to lead meaningful protests because they want to save their own skins—I'm sure I would be like that if I was in the same situation—but FFS at least step back and stop inhibiting people who have enough courage to fight against the regime.
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Aug 10, 2017 14:33
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MUD is between a rock and a hard place, they want to wrest control of the country from the PSUV but do it in a relatively peaceful manner (it is debatable why). The problem is the PSUV knows they are going to go for the option that has better international optics, so they drag the MUD along through whatever hoops they feel like with little intention of losing control. The problem for MUD is the PSUV is leading them eventually embrace a more radical solution which is going to be more unpredictable (like forming a separate government or outright rebellion). The PSUV is giving them the option of accepting the status quo or something that may lead to civil war.
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Aug 10, 2017 14:41
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Well at this point they're probably concerned that the PSUV has all the guns and increasingly little reason not to just drag every MUD politician out into the street and shoot them.
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Aug 10, 2017 15:02
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Feinne posted:Well at this point they're probably concerned that the PSUV has all the guns and increasingly little reason not to just drag every MUD politician out into the street and shoot them. Well they still want political support from Ecuador, Bolivia, and Nicaragua...
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Aug 10, 2017 15:07
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Feinne posted:Well at this point they're probably concerned that the PSUV has all the guns and increasingly little reason not to just drag every MUD politician out into the street and shoot them. Pretty much, and if MUD actually outright created a separate government, it would give the PSUV a great chance not only to crush with force but hunt down any politician even vaguely affiliated it. In addition, the PSUV at this point is expecting China to continue backing them since the opposition seems too weak to actually overthrow them and/or is willing to passively collaborate with whatever plan they have cooked up. In turn, only cares about Venezuela's crude and is happy to essentially "pre-own" years of future production. If anything that is Venezuela's curse, it has something the rest of the world wants but not government competent to make use of it and is now so deep in debt there may not be a way to get out of it. Like I said, previously, the Chinese governments that legal precedent is on their side, and they also have the ability to "find a new government" if whoever is in power disappoints them. At best Venezuela may get alternative loans by the IMF, but they come with their own heavy conditions and are likely predicated that Venezuela pays off its own creditors as well.
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Aug 10, 2017 15:24
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I thought the future production already got sold to Goldman Sachs
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Aug 10, 2017 15:27
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Feinne posted:Well at this point they're probably concerned that the PSUV has all the guns and increasingly little reason not to just drag every MUD politician out into the street and shoot them. Which is a good reason to not prolong their rule. It's going to sound grim but Maduro will not last more than a week if he's forced to implement the Plan Avila (tankies, read up on that!). His government desperately needs legitimacy to continue accessing loans, and he will lose it all if he even tries to commit an atrocity in the capital. People have been ready to go all the way to Miraflores for a year now yet no MUD politician is willing to follow them. If all, the government would only have more people to imprison if the opposition gets more governors and mayors. fnox fucked around with this message at 18:46 on Aug 10, 2017 |
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Aug 10, 2017 16:31
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Lol for fucks sake now the opposition is splintering someone shoot me.
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Aug 10, 2017 21:54
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Also, I guess I should add, my parents are now officially out of the country as of a couple of hours ago. My aunt and grandma are soon to follow, my extended family from my mother's side has their own plans, which effectively means my entire family is abandoning the country.
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Aug 10, 2017 22:13
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fnox posted:Also, I guess I should add, my parents are now officially out of the country as of a couple of hours ago. My aunt and grandma are soon to follow, my extended family from my mother's side has their own plans, which effectively means my entire family is abandoning the country. It is sad but congratulations on your families safe passage out.
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Aug 10, 2017 22:18
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fnox posted:People have been ready to go all the way to Miraflores for a year now yet no MUD politician is willing to follow them. It's worse. Honestly if the MUD did not exist then people would have already marched to Miraflores and done something. As it is the MUD is worse than ineffectual, they're legitimizing the government internationally and they're inhibiting social change domestically. Congratulations on your family for escaping. Labradoodle I hope you can get out before it gets worse, although it seems like Venezuela is on a nice steady, predictable death spiral towards oblivion, without any bumps or jumps along the way.
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Aug 10, 2017 22:54
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P-Mack posted:I thought the future production already got sold to Goldman Sachs Yeah, Venezuela has a lot of creditors. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/10/venezuela-falls-behind-on-oil-for-loan-deals-with-china-russia.html Basically, PDVSA is already falling behind with shipments, and basically, the future wealth of the country has already been gobbled up. At this point I am sure the PSUV is hoping some portion of MUD is able to stick together to give future election some international legitimacy.
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Aug 11, 2017 01:14
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More and more cracks are appearing along the lines of the MUD coalition. This is not good.
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Aug 11, 2017 03:20
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fnox posted:Also, I guess I should add, my parents are now officially out of the country as of a couple of hours ago. My aunt and grandma are soon to follow, my extended family from my mother's side has their own plans, which effectively means my entire family is abandoning the country. Buena suerte, fnox. All the best wishes for your family's safe passage.
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Aug 11, 2017 04:03
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ThisIsWhyTrumpWon posted:More and more cracks are appearing along the lines of the MUD coalition. I feel like if the MUD fall apart or fail to enact some kind of collective directed strategy, it guarantees there will be an increase in violence. If MUD can't convince people there's coherent strategy to replace the government, more and more people will turn away from them and choose the path of violent revolution. If anti-government energy can't be channeled into productive activity young angry men are going to take matters into their own hands.
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Aug 11, 2017 04:48
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fnox posted:Also, I guess I should add, my parents are now officially out of the country as of a couple of hours ago. My aunt and grandma are soon to follow, my extended family from my mother's side has their own plans, which effectively means my entire family is abandoning the country. That sucks.  Is there a place for people to go, or did your family have external help?
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Aug 11, 2017 07:15
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Volkerball posted:That sucks. In the case of my parents, they sold whatever they could sell, and are staying in Spain with some of their friends until they can find a place to rent. Until they can find a job they'll be relying on me and my sister's salary. My grandmother is staying with one of my aunts in the US. The rest of my family have their own schemes for getting out. It's not easy for anyone. Squalid posted:I feel like if the MUD fall apart or fail to enact some kind of collective directed strategy, it guarantees there will be an increase in violence. If MUD can't convince people there's coherent strategy to replace the government, more and more people will turn away from them and choose the path of violent revolution. If anti-government energy can't be channeled into productive activity young angry men are going to take matters into their own hands. That would happen if the MUD hadn't splintered off. If the splinter coalition manages to get results that the MUD hasn't gotten in the past couple of years, people will abandon the MUD in droves and the new group will become the opposition. We'll see who they'll back soon, there's a protest scheduled by the MUD tomorrow, and Vente Venezuela will probably stage a protest next week, if you compare turnouts you'll see who has the people's approval. fnox fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 08:03
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Maduro in his infinite revolutionary wisdom announced yesterday that he wanted to have as strong a relationship with the U.S. as he does with Russia, and that he wanted to work towards developing a relationship with Donald Trump that is based on "respect and equality". He also said that he's instructed the foreign minister to reach out to Washington so that Maduro can have "a personal conversation, a telephone conversation" with Trump so the two can get to work on being friends. It's almost as if Maduro and the PSUV don't act out of any kind of political conviction, and instead flop around in the wind going this way and that way in a desperate struggle to hold on to power for personal reasons  Speaking of doing anything to stay in power: at least 150 families in Apure state are being denied access to subsidized food (the CLAP bags) because they did not vote in the July 30 Constituent Assembly election. We heard the regime threaten people for weeks with firing them from their state jobs and/or cutting them off from social programs unless they voted in the election, and this is the regime making good on those threats. To add insult to injury, the families that are being denied the subsidized food bags had already paid for them in advance. I don't think I need to remind anyone that the people who are likely to need these CLAP bags are among the poorest of the poor in Venezuela, and that denying them this benefit is tantamount to ripping food out of their hungry mouths. Squalid posted:I feel like if the MUD fall apart or fail to enact some kind of collective directed strategy, it guarantees there will be an increase in violence. If MUD can't convince people there's coherent strategy to replace the government, more and more people will turn away from them and choose the path of violent revolution. If anti-government energy can't be channeled into productive activity young angry men are going to take matters into their own hands. There have been quite a few videos showing masked, armed men that essentially point to this effect. Whenever these videos used to come up I tended to not pay too much attention to them because it seemed to me like any group of friends in an apartment block or a street with access to a few guns (and there are lots of guns on the streets in Venezuela) could make one of these scary-looking videos, but there have been two or three over the past little while that I think might be a symptom of what you've described. For reference, here is one such video, and here is another. I think that the opposition did an exceptional job at hyping up the Constituent Assembly as a do-or-die moment for the country (they even called the days of protesters before the July 30 vote "Zero Hour"), and a horrible job at following up on that once the actual vote took place. I got a chance to talk to someone who was in Venezuela covering the protests leading up to the July 30 vote recently, and he told me that it was incredible to watch so much anticipation and anxiety just disappear into thin air... except that maybe it didn't, and it's just being channeled into different efforts now. Anyway, this is some of what Maria Corina Machado said yesterday in a press conference where she announced that her Vente Venezuela party was leaving the MUD over the bloc's agreement to participate in the regional elections: quote:Participating in the regional elections is to hand over all of the strength that we have accumulated during these days [of protest since April 1] over crumbs of ephemeral and fictitious power. We are talking about a few governorships, when we have a National Constituent Assembly that is dissolving the Republic. We are handing over everything in exchange for nothing. We cannot fall into this trap. We cannot turn out back on the people. We cannot abandon the fight that we started more than 100 days ago. She makes a very compelling argument, I think. The reason why the opposition is so torn about the regional elections is that there's only two moves they can make, and both result in them losing: if they participate they lose because the elections are rigged, and if they don't participate they lose because they don't participate. Those who argue in favour of participation say they know they're going to lose but are running as a matter of principle (the struggle is peaceful, democracy is the solution, etc.), while those who argue in favour of not participating say that running in the elections would lend legitimacy to the dictatorship. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 13:13 on Aug 11, 2017 |
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Aug 11, 2017 13:11
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The best strategy I can offer (besides violence, but always anticipate violence anyway) is to literally start ignoring the federal Venezuelan state except as far as to not get shot or arrested. The MUD is floundering because they are attempting to regain control of a system that has disregarded the rules of democracy. A system that even if they regained some sort of foothold on restoring electoral order no longer represents the needs of the people. People in general always process government as if its some sort of nebulous system that simply IS and responds to them. While that is a functional mentality for normal life that is no longer true. The thing to impress upon the citizen and residents of the country now is this: a government is the people, we vest trust in the individual policemen and together they form a law enforcement organization, we vest trust in our local councilmen to allocate resources to needs wisely, and we vest trust in our taxmen to handle the transactions to get those resources. Together all of the individuals are what makes "the government" and there's nothing to gain trying to work with people in PSUV who are playing games with your lives. So in a way I could be construed in the camp that supports MUD forming its own government, in exile essentially, but I think that won't do anything useful. What I am saying, is that on a community level you can start ignoring the PSUV, organize your own localities. Don't worry about things at a federal level. A neighborhood can survey themselves and find out who still has jobs that actually bring in resources, or if they're just going to work every day for free out of fear. How much water and food can you reasonably have access too, how much of that may suddenly disappear? Who is unemployed but can be trusted to patrol the streets at night to prevent those scarce resources from being robbed? If you domestically treat day to day life as if anarchy has fallen and organize accordingly you are essentially building a new government. A government of need at the local level that actually has a chance of getting some good done. Get a big enough region of Caracas or any other city handling their own issues and PSUV loses a huge amount of power, because now they are no longer needed or trusted and the people have turned to each other. How does Maduro and his army get food and water and electricity? How do the anti-protest cops supply themselves? Individuals can cut off supplys from other individuals, you don't need a government apparatus to do that. This is where violence may come back into the picture, People can find the sources of individual oppressors and cut them off. Dissconnect a phone line, close a water and sewer valve, open electrical breakers. Or if non-destructive means fail, scissors to landlines, a sawzall through a water pipe, or damage to a substation. These are all things that will very soon be happening anyway and don't involve directly harming people. Shooting cops, even corrupt ones, may make the situation worse. Denying them food and water and isolating them? That is the next step in non-violent opposition.
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Aug 11, 2017 16:48
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I think you've basically just re-invented colectivos. I mean, the original idea, not the armed bandits they've turned into. Unfortunately I think without rule of law and in a large urban area with constant and variable external pressure, such systems essentially always turn into armed gangs. In rural Venezuela that idea might work (and might already be implemented).
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Aug 11, 2017 17:04
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A lot of Venezuelans are arguing - and I am starting to agree - that the opposition leadership and a great part of the opposition itself is bought off by Maduro and the PSUV and Military. Maduro insinuated it himself about Chuo Torrealba in his speech to the ANC today. As Chuck mentioned they have been specifically holding back their protests, specifically holding back on enacting the will of the people as voted on the 16th, and specifically avoided organizing the kind of resistance needed to stop Maduro. They only care about the power they currently have and the potential of blame following a regime change. They are not starving or suffering like the general population so they have no reason to do anything that puts themselves in danger to actually improve the situation. It's time for the MUD to cease to be the leading voice of the opposition or at the very least Henry Allup to lose his position as leader of the MUD. This debacle has firmly lost the opposition the support of the people and any chance of stopping Maduro It's time for the people to march on Miraflores and do whatever it takes to invoke the powers given to them by Article 350 of the constitution - no matter the consequence.
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Aug 11, 2017 19:51
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I have to say, thanks for your high-quality effortposting Chuck Boone. It means I can actually get infomation from this thread, not just trolling. The thing that's been so odd about Venezuela for me has been that the government is still semi-pretending to obey the rule of law (all this effort to elect a new Constituent assembly, using the supreme court to kick out mayors instead of using direct force, etc) and also the lack of violent response by the Venezuelan people so far. Protests in Syria or Ukraine or Egypt that went violent or had semi-official thugs attack escalated to either peaceful overthrow or rebellion relatively soon - Venezuela has been going on like this for at least 2 years now? (with things getting worse over time of course). Why haven't things escalated nearly as far even recently?
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Aug 11, 2017 20:46
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nothing to seehere posted:I have to say, thanks for your high-quality effortposting Chuck Boone. It means I can actually get infomation from this thread, not just trolling. Things have deteriorated over such a long period of time it is legitimately hard to tell as a Venezuelan how poor you have it until you leave the country. Chavistas have been in rule for such a long time that this completely bizarre and abnormal state doesn't seem that odd to someone on the inside.
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Aug 11, 2017 23:11
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https://twitter.com/jdawsey1/status/896131302084141056 uh
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Aug 11, 2017 23:16
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As with all things Trump he will affirm he meant it on some crazier level then forget he said it as a new cloud to yell at rolls in.
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Aug 11, 2017 23:22
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He hasn't tweeted it yet so that might mean it's actually happening...
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Aug 11, 2017 23:29
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I'm sure this is entirely at odds with literally anybody working in the State Department. Trump might be desperately seeking a military win to recuperate his approval ratings, but straight up invading Venezuela would be beyond disastrous, it wouldn't net him any points.
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Aug 11, 2017 23:33
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fnox posted:I'm sure this is entirely at odds with literally anybody working in the State Department. Trump might be desperately seeking a military win to recuperate his approval ratings, but straight up invading Venezuela would be beyond disastrous, it wouldn't net him any points. If he bombed the Legislative Building during a meeting of the ANC while Maduro and Delsy and all members of the ANC is inside I would accept it with open arms. Anything beyond that would be dangerous.
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Aug 11, 2017 23:50
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fnox posted:I'm sure this is entirely at odds with literally anybody working in the State Department. Trump might be desperately seeking a military win to recuperate his approval ratings, but straight up invading Venezuela would be beyond disastrous, it wouldn't net him any points. I don't think it's a total given that it would be a disaster, or that we'd even face all that much resistance. Latin America isn't the Middle East, as an earlier comment about the relative lack of violence compared to the Arab Spring pointed out. I don't think it's obvious that it would go well either, but it's at least possible that the Venezuelan military would take the opportunity to abandon an unpopular dictator and let us do to Maduro what we did to Noriega. All of that said, Trump idly musing about military options without any idea what he's talking about, or any desire for intervention from the people of Venezuela, is completely moronic. Even if it went well, it would validate suspicions in the region for another generation about US imperialism, and would represent a further breakdown of the international order to show that great powers can act with impunity in their near abroad, which Russia and China would definitely be taking notes on. There are still considerably less drastic steps which can be taken, and this sort of mindless blustering just gets in the way of working with partner countries in the region on finding realistic solutions.
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Aug 11, 2017 23:57
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Sinteres posted:I don't think it's a total given that it would be a disaster, or that we'd even face all that much resistance. Latin America isn't the Middle East, as an earlier comment about the relative lack of violence compared to the Arab Spring pointed out. I don't think it's obvious that it would go well either, but it's at least possible that the Venezuelan military would take the opportunity to abandon an unpopular dictator and let us do to Maduro what we did to Noriega. Venezuela has the second largest military in South America, any armed conflict would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties. I'm sure the entire army won't surrender the second an actual imperialist invasion comes to Venezuelan shores.
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Aug 12, 2017 00:06
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There's no need for military intervention anyways. There's far more efficient means to apply pressure.
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Aug 12, 2017 00:07
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ugh its Troika posted:There's no need for military intervention anyways. There's far more efficient means to apply pressure. I'm pretty sure an oil embargo would kill more people than an actual invasion.
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Aug 12, 2017 00:13
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ugh its Troika posted:There's no need for military intervention anyways. There's far more efficient means to apply pressure. Like sit back and watch them collapse all on their own?
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Aug 12, 2017 00:28
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you wanna know how to unite the entire fractured Venezuelan people behind Maduro and give him a blank check to do anything he wants? Start a war with them. He'd be openly executing opposition figures on TV and claiming they were an American fifth column. I think though that everyone is starting to understand that the things Trump says are meaningless. Everyone basically ignores him.
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Aug 12, 2017 00:44
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fnox posted:Venezuela has the second largest military in South America, any armed conflict would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties. I'm sure the entire army won't surrender the second an actual imperialist invasion comes to Venezuelan shores. I wonder how much of their equipment has been stolen and sold off by now (or simply had maintenance funds stolen)? Was a big problem for the Ukrainian Army dealing with an actual imperialist invasion... At any rate, the Pentagon is denying it.
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Aug 12, 2017 02:28
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fnox posted:Venezuela has the second largest military in South America, any armed conflict would result in hundreds of thousands of casualties. I'm sure the entire army won't surrender the second an actual imperialist invasion comes to Venezuelan shores. I don't think everyone would drop their guns immediately, but I think hundreds of thousands is kind of an absurd overestimate. It was the years of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands in Iraq, not the invasion itself, and Venezuela doesn't have the same sort of ethnic and sectarian divides to fuel that sort of endless bloodshed. Anyway, it would still be stupid to intervene militarily, and it's pretty much impossible to imagine an offhand remark by Trump to that effect actually meant anything since there's no support for the idea there, in the region, or in the US, so it's kind of a moot point.
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Aug 12, 2017 04:20
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DAD LOST MY IPOD posted:you wanna know how to unite the entire fractured Venezuelan people behind Maduro and give him a blank check to do anything he wants? Start a war with them. He'd be openly executing opposition figures on TV and claiming they were an American fifth column. I think you underestimate how much the general population has turned against Maduro.
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Aug 12, 2017 04:20
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How long will it take to capture Caracas? 2 days Will Maduro be killed? Yes Total Venezuelan civillian casualties: 500 dead Total military casualties Venezuela: 3000 dead Total military casualties U.S.: 15 dead Will the Venezuelan army regulars hold the lines? No Will the Bolivarian Militia fight to the end? No Will chem/bio weapons be used on invading troops?: Yes Will Maduro launch attacks on the indigenous ? Yes Will Maduro sacrifice Caracas (gas/nuke it)? No Will the indigenous people make a grab for independence? Yes Will Columbia do anything silly like try for land? Yes Will Maduro burn the oil fields? Yes How long will the US be occupying Venezuela? ~15 years Will the Venezuela war catalyze increased terrorism in America? No In the long run, will this war be good or bad for the world? Good Seriously though, talking about military intervention in Venezuela is absurd and horrifically stupid on various levels. Maduro would be proven right by any intervention as proof the 'The Empire' is out to get Venezuela. Also, 2017 Venezuela is not 1989 Panama military-wise.
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Aug 12, 2017 05:09
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It is extremely cool and good that an unhinged, unstable orange moron with neonazi friends should get war powers to invade VZ and I'm sure nothing will possibly go wrong. (Also this thread is so predictable I already knew it would be trying to defend a loving military invasion; "the people" will not be giving a poo poo about Maduro when the bombs start killing them)
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Aug 12, 2017 05:22
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