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Chuck Boone posted:
The utter transparency of Maduro/PSUV never ceases to amaze. Chuck/other Venegoons - Has there been any more debates or whatever from the Constitutional Assembly? If so, what has been said? After the kerfuffle around the rigged election our media lost all interest in Venezuela 
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Sep 3, 2017 16:26
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Did she actually have 200 million bolivares in cash, or was it just $11000 and for some reason the government is converting it in their report? Because from my experience, private practices in the country only take dollars, they would have no use for bolivares in cash. As for ANC news, the last thing they said was that they were going to charge the opposition with treason. Other than that, the regional elections are still happening and the opposition is saying increasingly dumber poo poo to justify it, I'll find quotes once I'm back home.
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Sep 3, 2017 17:22
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Speaking of Tintori, when the news broke here in Spain, the media was reporting the official exchange rate, so the talk was of around 100k €, which is a different beast. Que me having to explain once again about the imposible economy of Venezuela. Hugoon Chavez fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Sep 4, 2017 |
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Sep 4, 2017 10:19
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This has no new information for anybody who has been keeping up with this thread, but this is a neat little video that explains the crisis briefly enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1gUR8wM5vA
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Sep 4, 2017 20:00
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The former head of the MUD, Jesus "Chuo" Torrealba, gave an interview yesterday in which he voiced some really harsh (and, I think, appropriate) criticism at the organization. Torrealba said that the MUD has been "without tactics and politics" since the end of 2016. You might remember that in November 2016, the MUD was preparing a march to the Miraflores Palace which was suddenly called off at the last minute, even though it had overwhelming popular support at the time. Torrealba said that the MUD displayed the same kind of cluelessness in July, when it talked about "zero hour", the end of the regime through an intensification of street protests, a national rebellion and/or general strike, etc. When it was unable to stop the Constituent Assembly from taking form, the MUD suddenly toned down its rhetoric and even agreed to participate in the regional elections (which are next month, but the regime hasn't actually announced the date yet), and just left the country hanging. fnox posted:Did she actually have 200 million bolivares in cash, or was it just $11000 and for some reason the government is converting it in their report? Because from my experience, private practices in the country only take dollars, they would have no use for bolivares in cash. As far as I'm aware, she had the money in bolivares. I don't know at what point in the transaction she was at, but as she has stated repeatedly, that was her money and her car. Luisa Ortega Diaz (the former attorney general) spoke on the case recently and said that there was no law against having cash, which we all knew already. BeigeJacket posted:The utter transparency of Maduro/PSUV never ceases to amaze. Like fnox said, there's been lots of movement at the Constituent Assembly regarding treason trials for opposition folks, and that's been about it. As far as I know they haven't moved an inch towards doing what they're actually supposed to be doing, which is draft a new constitution. This is why Diosdado Cabello said a few weeks ago that the Constituent Assembly might end up meeting for four years or more. They'll just keep saying, "Yeah yeah, we're totally writing a new constitution. But while we're doing that, we need a law to lock these people up...".
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Sep 6, 2017 13:01
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Either the MUD is incompetent or their leaders are being paid.
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Sep 7, 2017 23:29
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edit: In all fairness the opposition is between a rock and a hard place. You don't want to legitimize the regime but at the same time you can't disengage entirely from the process for fear of legitimizing them At the same time on the international scene it might seem that if the opposition refuses to engage they have decided not to dialogue with the regime despite the fact that they have been consistently excluded them from the dialogue in the first place I would want to do it better and I'm sure they do too, but to be honest I have no idea how the hell I would do it Furia fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Sep 7, 2017 |
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Sep 7, 2017 23:34
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The opposition has done a really good job convincing people that legitimacy is some sort of switch. The Maduro government will never recover their legitimacy, demanding for Maduro to step down may be unconstitutional, but it is the right thing to do, and I doubt any country will disagree with that. Absolutely no one is demanding for a dictatorship to be dismantled democratically, it's an oxymoron, it can't be done. I saw Accion Democratica running an ad on Instagram saying that Marcos Perez Jimenez was removed from power through an election, which is a pretty blatant lie, he was forced into exile by a military insurrection. That's the kind of poo poo the MUD is resorting to now to justify their participation in the regional elections, straight up historical revisionism. I think it's about time to ditch these idiots and start backing whoever still wants to remove Maduro now, instead of "sometime in the next 5 years".
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Sep 8, 2017 07:27
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Maduro made a couple of economic announcements last night. Or maybe we should call them half announcements, because I don't think anyone is quite sure what some of them were. Anyway, here are the announcements in descending order of lucidity:
None of the measures will work to alleviate the economic crisis. The increase in the minimum monthly salary will drive up prices, drive businesses bankrupt and fuel inflation, just as it has in the dozens of previous times that the government has done this. The new currency exchange shops will be dependent on foreign currency flow from the regime, which is likely to be a trickle, meaning that people will still have little choice but to go to the black market for foreign currency. Right now, the "new" price control system appears to be identical to the old one, which means that it will likely continue to fuel shortages and speculation. As a bit of an aside, let me give you an example of why it's so hard to figure out what's going on in Venezuela a lot of the time, even when we have official announcements from the president himself. This is how Maduro described these new economic measures last night: quote:This is an economic model that is sovereign, [that shows] solidarity, that develops in all of its expressions all of the country’s productive forces. To paraphrase Lisa Simpson: I recognize those words, but those sentences don't make any sense. SSJ_naruto_2003 posted:Either the MUD is incompetent or their leaders are being paid. Someone who knows much, much about the internal politics of the MUD than me explained it this way: The MUD's main factions (AD, PJ, VP, and at some point UNT) have always been at odds about how to go about defeating the dictatorship. The old parties (namely AD) believe that elections are the only way to go, while the newer parties (like VP) believe that only sustained street protests and popular pressure will force Maduro and the PSUV out. When the protests began in April of this year, the parties agreed to stick together, even though AD kept telling all of the other parties that the street protest would eventually die out, and then what? Elections. When the protests did in fact die out, AD jumped at the opportunity to do its thing, and became the first opposition party to announce that it would run candidates in the regional elections scheduled for this year. When AD did this, the rest of the MUD--even the parties that didn't want to participate in the elections--said, "Hang on! We can't just let AD be the only party to run candidates because then they'll win everything. We need to get in on this as well!", which is why most of the MUD eventually agreed to participate in the elections. If you were like me and were watching all of this unfold without knowing what was going on behind the scenes, calling for protests because elections don't work and then cancelling the protests because elections suddenly work again didn't make any sense. I still think that it doesn't, but on top of that the MUD just didn't really communicate what was going on behind the curtains.
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Sep 8, 2017 13:26
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I don't even think the MUD can overwhelmingly win the election anymore. Literally none of the Venezuelans I talk to approve of the opposition's participation in the election, or claim they are going to vote. This is in stark contrast of the parliamentary elections, and even the plebiscite, where nearly all of them voted. It's going to look like an even bigger shitshow if participation is low. An election with sub 40% participation is not going to convince anybody on the outside that Maduro needs to go, and I can't trust any polls anymore so it's hard to gauge numerically just how high the abstention rate is going to be.
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Sep 8, 2017 15:38
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fnox posted:I don't even think the MUD can overwhelmingly win the election anymore. Literally none of the Venezuelans I talk to approve of the opposition's participation in the election, or claim they are going to vote. This is in stark contrast of the parliamentary elections, and even the plebiscite, where nearly all of them voted. I don't think it really matters anyway, it's already been proven that elections are completely fabricated and will continue to be fabricated going forward. Even if 10 million Venezuelans voted for MUD candidates in the regional elections, the announced outcome would be PSUV winning by an 8 million vote margin. They got caught surprised at the AN election in 2015 by not realizing they needed to rig the vote. It won't happen again. I predict a massive landslide for PSUV in the regional elections even if the MUD candidates are not arbitrarily disqualified.
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Sep 8, 2017 15:49
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Saladman posted:I don't think it really matters anyway, it's already been proven that elections are completely fabricated and will continue to be fabricated going forward. Even if 10 million Venezuelans voted for MUD candidates in the regional elections, the announced outcome would be PSUV winning by an 8 million vote margin. They got caught surprised at the AN election in 2015 by not realizing they needed to rig the vote. It won't happen again. I predict a massive landslide for PSUV in the regional elections even if the MUD candidates are not arbitrarily disqualified. That's the thing, I don't even think they need to cheat this time around. The government "legally" has around 5.6 million votes, as in, this is the amount of votes they got in the parliamentary elections. I highly doubt it correlates to 5.6 million supporters but the opposition has historically been awful at proving electoral fraud, so much in fact that the only time fraud has ever been proven has been through Smartmatic's press statement. But anyhow, 5.6 million is a number they could use and get away with. I don't think the opposition has that many votes anymore. The most reliable polls I've seen put participation from voters identifying as opposition at less than 50%.
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Sep 8, 2017 16:05
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Saladman posted:I predict a massive landslide for PSUV in the regional elections even if the MUD candidates are not arbitrarily disqualified. Ah! That reminds me. Yesterday, Maduro also said this: quote:The constituent power [that is, the power of the Constituent Assembly] must make itself be felt by the candidates and political parties. Every governor that is elected must become a subordinate to the National Constituent Assembly or they must be immediately removed from power, in my opinion.
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Sep 8, 2017 16:06
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The MUD held primaries today for its candidates for the regional elections. Participation is expected to be very low, much less than a million voters, although official results will be announced in the coming hours. This isn't an accurate way to gauge participation in the subsequent election, but depending on just how low participation numbers are, it may reflect a creeping dissatisfaction with the opposition and how they're acting. UPDATE: In a turn of events that does nothing to dispel parallels between the MUD and PSUV, the primary results have yet to be released and it's well past midnight, they're excusing themselves with a line literally taken from the Tibisay Lucena, 'Estamos totalizando actas', which is ultimately an euphemism for 'we're figuring out how to present these results' because the actual counting of votes was done on the fly, most results are already known. It's almost like we're dealing with the CNE here. On top of that, there was violence from UNT (The party I've repeatedly called a government ally) supporters after their candidate from Zulia recognized his defeat, there's a video here: https://twitter.com/OliverGLopez/status/907091055182524417 And apparently that wasn't the only scuffle between supporters of different parties in the MUD. Also, sources from the MUD are saying that apparently nearly 2 million people voted, which is bullshit. The biggest turnout ever in MUD primaries was for choosing the candidate for the presidential election against Chavez in 2012, which were heavily publicised, and those resulted in about 3 million votes. fnox fucked around with this message at 08:38 on Sep 11, 2017 |
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Sep 10, 2017 23:56
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Chuck Boone posted:
I ran this link through google translate and came up with one hell of a paragraph quote:"We are faced with two elements that must be weighed. One is a process of chaotic and phased release of prices and another a process of exhaustion and price control systems, "he explained. great sovereign slaughtering mission 
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Sep 11, 2017 22:24
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So, perhaps unsurprisingly, AD, COPEI and PJ almost completely shut out VP and UNT. VP in particular took the absolutely boneheaded decision of running Juan Requesens, a born and raised Caraqueño, for the governorship of Tachira, and promptly lost. UNT lost Zulia, the last bastion of support for the Rosales dynasty, to Juan Pablo Guanipa of PJ. Of course, the ANC came out nearly immediately to propose his political inhabilitation, just to clear out any doubts that UNT wasn't in cahoots with the government. There has been a ridiculous amount of infighting in the past couple of days, which really dispels any notion of the Unidad being in any way united. fnox fucked around with this message at 08:01 on Sep 12, 2017 |
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Sep 12, 2017 07:59
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The United Nations Human Rights Council is meeting in Geneva this week. Yesterday, the High Commissioner for Human Rights said during the day's meeting that he believes that there is evidence that regime officials have committed "crimes against humanity", and he suggested that the only way to know for sure would be for an international organization (presumably the International Criminal Court) to undertake an investigation on the matter. Foreign Affairs Minister Jorge Arreaza spoke in a 10 minute rebuttal to the High Commissioner, and his reaction was exactly what you might expect: the UN is biased, its reports are BS, everything is actually great in Venezuela, etc. To coincide with the HRC meeting in Geneva this week, the International Commission of Jurists (a human rights NGO made up of international judges, lawyers and legal scholars) released a report today titled "The Supreme Court of Justice in Venezuela: an Instrument of the Executive Branch". The report is excellent: it is thorough, detailed, and it outlines the mechanisms through which the Supreme Court has become an arm of the dictatorship. I think that it's written in pretty accessible language, so hopefully you'll check it out! Also, I've just become aware that Al Jazeera interviewed Delcy Rodriguez three days ago and posted a video of it online. Delcy Rodriguez was the foreign affairs minister for many years, and is now arguably the most powerful person in the country because she is the president of the Constituent Assembly. I actually haven't watched the interview yet because it's too early in the morning for me to ruin my day by listening to Delcy lie, but I'll put the link here anyway in case you've got a stronger stomach than I do: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD7MjHsowkQ fnox posted:There has been a ridiculous amount of infighting in the past couple of days, which really dispels any notion of the Unidad being in any way united. It's certainly disappointing. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I thought it was interesting that Accion Democratica came out as the biggest winner in the primaries (they won the candidate spot in at least 10/24 states). Accion Democratica is (I believe) the oldest party in the country, and along with COPEI it represents the old political order of 1958-1999 that we call the Fourth Republic or puntofijismo. The fact that AD and COPEI shared power for much of the second half of the 20th century is why Chavez won in 1998 on his platform to bring radical political change in the country. Also, the gubernatorial election date was announced last night: Sunday, October 15. The elections should also be for state legislators and mayors, but I guess the regime just forgot about that and no one seems to care enough to make a big deal about it. bedpan posted:great sovereign slaughtering mission Ha! Wow, that is grim. I like it.
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Sep 12, 2017 13:31
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So the latest news is that, *sigh*, the opposition has established a secret negotiation table with the government in the Dominican Republic. The news come after Julio Borges said this: https://twitter.com/JulioBorges/status/907960330197901312 Who are the people involved in this negotiation table, you may ask? Manuel Rosales, Timoteo Zambrano, Luis Florido, Henry Ramos Allup...And Julio Borges. If any of this gives you a sense of deja vu, is because this is exactly what happened last year, where the MUD went ahead with a series of "dialogues" in the Dominican Republic that went nowhere and just gave more time to the government. I'm loving done with the MUD at this point, completely done, they might as well be the same as PSUV. In terms of international diplomacy, the EU parliament has voted in favour of sanctions against members of the Venezuelan government and their families. That is perhaps the strongest letter of condemnation coming from there thus far.
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Sep 13, 2017 21:32
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News of these latest talks (or non-talks, as the MUD was quick to clarify) actually came from the French foreign affairs minister, who said he was happy that the talks were taking place and left everyone in Venezuela asking, "What talks?". The MUD then found itself on the back foot, and found itself forced to explain the nature of the talks and to distance itself from any suggestion that a dialogue with the regime had already started. The MUD issued a press release yesterday in which it tried to clarify what was going on by saying that "until there exists a serious negotiation... the dialogue will not re-start", which is a paradox and doesn't actually clarify anything. In the rest of the press release, the MUD stressed that it would not sit down with the regime to talk unless it met a set of demands. Here is the press release: quote:The MUD assures Venezuela and the world that until there exists a serious negotiation that is respectful of the Constitution, the dialogue with the government will not re-start. The [MUD] reiterates that the dialogue has not re-started, and wishes to inform Venezuela and the world what the conditions for such a dialogue are: The PSUV negotiation team is made up of Jorge Rodriguez, his sister Delcy, and Roy Chaderton. The party is so rotten that any high-profile official would have made a terrible choice to participate in the talks, but this trio is particularly terrible. You might remember Jorge Rodriguez as the man who laughed when a reporter who asked him about the seven people who died in the violence of July 30 (in fact, 15 people died). Out of all the terrible things that Delcy Rodriguez has said and done, claiming that "there is no humanitarian crisis in Venezuela" might be the least offensive of all. And, Roy Chaderton--who was foreign affairs minister years and years ago and the country's representative at the OAS--once suggested on television that bullets "fly quickly through the head of opposition supporters" because they don't have any brains. These are the best people the PSUV could come up with to get an honest dialogue going. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 13:34 on Sep 14, 2017 |
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Sep 14, 2017 13:20
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Conversely, the best that the MUD can come up with includes a man who's supposed to be in house arrest and another who was supposed to have his passport revoked. Oh, and of course, the 'joyita' of Timoteo Zambrano, the man who conducted secret talks with the government last year, apparently behind the MUD's back. Maduro is gonna make it to 2018 now, easily.
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Sep 16, 2017 19:19
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Just gonna leave this here:quote:Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has devised a "rabbit plan" to counter the economic war he says is being waged against his government by "imperialist forces". http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41265474
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Sep 16, 2017 19:25
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The other day I was sitting with other Venezuelans talking about the situation and I uttered the forbidden words: "We lost. It's over." Usually that's met with derision and rage towards taking a passive stance towards what is happening. This time, however, it was met with a sad and quiet approval
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Sep 16, 2017 19:26
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beer_war posted:Just gonna leave this here: Didn't North Korea try this? And then they ate all the rabbits before they could breed?
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Sep 16, 2017 19:51
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There's no food to feed people, how would the loving rabbits breed if they're starving? Actually allow me to correct that, the food is there, the government gets to control who it goes to. Much like any other famine in modern times, it has more to do with government inefficiency than it has to do with crop failure.
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Sep 17, 2017 01:28
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The Organization of American States started a series of sessions this week exploring the possibility that Maduro regime officials have committed crimes against humanity. The sessions focus mostly on the regime's brutal repression of the 2014 and 2017 protests, but is not limited to those events. The sessions are headed by Luis Moreno Ocampo, who was the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) from 2003. Once the sessions are over, a panel of three experts will compile a report and make a recommendation on whether or not to forward the case to the ICC so that a formal investigation can begin. Ocampo explained how the process works: quote:It is very important that the Permanent Representatives to the OAS form a working group to receive victims and information about eventual crimes. We must identify who are those responsible for the crimes. Venezuela has the priority to investigate these crimes and it is imperative to consult with their authorities on the efforts carried out to achieve justice. If they confirm the crimes and there are no genuine efforts to investigate them, the OAS can send its information to the ICC Prosecutor’s Office. If one of the 28 states that are members of the OAS and the Court refers the situation of Venezuela that is enough to facilitate the opening of an investigation. There have been two sessions held so far: one on the 14th and one on the 15th. The first session heard from Venezuelan human rights experts and victims of regime torture, and the second heard from former military officials who spoke on the regime's internal repressive machinery. Human rights activist Tamara Suju testified on Thursday that there have been 289 documented cases of torture committed by regime officials against individuals arrested during protests. She said that 192 of those cases involved http://www.el-nacional.com/noticias/mundo/denunciaron-289-casos-tortura-organizacion-estados-americanos_203592%22sexual torture%22, and summarized the conditions under which some of the victims were held in the SEBIN prison in Caracas: quote:They did not breathe fresh air. The temperature [in the cells] was below 18 degrees celcius. There is a jail called “La Tumba” [The Tomb] that is five stories underground. The only sound that [people held in La Tumba] could hear was the sound made by the Caracas subway [trains]. They could tell that it was night when they stopped hearing [the trains] passing overhead. Francisco Marquez, a member of the VP opposition party, was arrested by regime officials while carrying flyers calling for the release of the party's leader, Leopoldo Lopez. He was arrested and held for four months. Marquez described his time in prison: quote:I was inside a putrid dungeon that was constantly full of mosquitoes. I caught dengue, and had a limited amount of food. They shaved me and forced me to scream the slogan, “Chavez vive! La lucha sigue!” [Chavez lives! The fight goes on!]. They stripped me naked and recorded videos of me. They did everything possible to humiliate me. In other news, the MUD held a press conference yesterday in which it said that there was 100%, without a doubt no dialogue happening with the PSUV... yet. The MUD said that the meetings in the Dominican Republic were exploratory, and that because the PSUV hasn't met the MUD's demands to start a dialogue (release of political prisoners, announcement regarding presidential elections, etc.), then the dialogue wasn't happening.
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Sep 17, 2017 16:53
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That International Commision of Jurists report on how the venezualen supreme court doomed the MUD efforts to do anything after the election is pretty eye opening. It shows how the opposition was neutered the mement it came into power by the judiciary, and so all they can do is push ineffectualy against the corrupt judiciary while talking and making symbolic motions. Armed rebellion seems to be the only answer now, but the non-military weapons are all held by criminals/chavismo gangs.
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Sep 17, 2017 21:09
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So Maduro has fought against American tyranny and imperialism by... Listing the price of venezuelan oil in yuan instead of USD. Oddly I don't really see this reported in any real news sources in English, just bogus ones like RT, Sputnik, and Forbes. Seems to be real though as Le Figaro reported it too (a real newspaper, French http://www.lefigaro.fr/conjoncture/...e-la-roupie.php ). Also I don't think armed civil war is the only way out. It seems much more likely to me that catastrophic spontaneous societal collapse will be what drives Maduro out, as soon as foreign reserves are out and the PDVSA coughs its last dying breath. Apparently oil production is going to be down nearly 20% since 2016. (Something like 15% down YTD). Fortunately it seems this will be at least another year down the linr, giving Labradoodle plenty of time to escape. I know you like facts and not speculation, but do you see anything happening before the currency reserves drop to zero, Chuck? Of course there's always the possibility that the PSUV is not as monolithic and stable as it seems, but there are a lot of catalysts that did nothing in the past two years, so it seems hard to me as a reasonably-informed outsider for spontaneous internal collapse of the regime.
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Sep 18, 2017 00:42
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I understand that Rosneft is already digging in?
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Sep 18, 2017 00:56
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One thing I would assume China (and Rosneft) are interested isn't current underwhelming current Venezuelan production but Venezuela's massive amounts of reserves. Basically, I think the dance will go on as long as the PSUV can live off Chinese/Russian interest in Venezuelan oil. That said, I think (as I said before), it is going to be difficult to remove those interests even if the PSUV eventually collapses. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Sep 18, 2017 |
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Sep 18, 2017 07:46
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Aren't elections meaningless at this point anyway? It's my understanding that the Constituent Assembly can overturn any law they don't like, making all other elected officials powerless.
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Sep 18, 2017 12:31
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Konstantin posted:Aren't elections meaningless at this point anyway? It's my understanding that the Constituent Assembly can overturn any law they don't like, making all other elected officials powerless. Yes they are. They've been for a while, actually, not just since the Constituent Assembly was established, but the year before the CNE basically robbed the Venezuelan public of the only legal way they had to oust Nicolas Maduro with basically no justification. The MUD (Or more specifically, AD and PJ) are still pushing for elections because that's literally the only thing they're good at. Here's a fun little topic that came up when talking about the future of the country with fellow Venezuelans: dollarization. Could wrestling control of monetary policy away from inept and corrupt Venezuelan politicians serve as a way to incentivize foreign investment and speed up the recovery of the country? It would certainly prevent nefarious schemes like CADIVI from ever being formed in the future, and the country is already de facto dollarized as most products can only be found being sold at their US price at black market exchange rates. A lot of these products are very literally resold items from Amazon. Of course, on the downside, this would immediately mean that the poor would start realising just how poor they are when they start actually making 10 dollars a month. The only way this could ever be implemented would be by having humanitarian aid for years in order to feed half of the population.
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Sep 18, 2017 13:21
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Saladman posted:I know you like facts and not speculation, but do you see anything happening before the currency reserves drop to zero, Chuck? Of course there's always the possibility that the PSUV is not as monolithic and stable as it seems, but there are a lot of catalysts that did nothing in the past two years, so it seems hard to me as a reasonably-informed outsider for spontaneous internal collapse of the regime. From what I've read, the PSUV is willing to make concessions if it means getting the MUD to play along. In other words, the talks that took place last week in the Dominican Republic were probably a somewhat earnest attempt from the PSUV to feel out a plan for the future. However, the two things that the PSUV will not concede are Maduro's head and the Constituent Assembly. In my list of "Things that have to go for change to happen", those two are in the top 5. It also looks like the talks didn't get anywhere because the MUD refused to recognize the Constituent Assembly. I agree with what Ardennes just said about oil, China/Russia and the future of Venezuela. China and Russia might not allow Venezuela to go bankrupt. I remember reading a story months back that China was becoming more hesitant to lend money to Venezuela because they actually have some expectation to be paid back. I get the feeling that Russia is in it for the long run, and might be OK with not getting repaid so long as it can gobble up the country's resources. In other words, Moscow might be willing to keep bailing the regime out longer than China because it seems to me like Russia wants in Venezuela more. Here's a recent piece from Reuters on the Russian oil play in Venezuela. (Side note: it's interesting to note that for all the talk of "sovereignty" and "independence" that Maduro & co. like to throw around, they obviously don't have a problem to selling the country to Russia). All of that is to say that barring a good chunk of the military (I'm talking 50% of it to start) turning against the regime, we're stuck with the PSUV. There are just too many people with too many guns making too much money off of this thing, and they don't want to see it go away.
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Sep 18, 2017 15:54
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The leader of Finland's tiny Communist Party is on a "solidarity trip" to Venezuela. For what it's worth, his party's support is like 0,3 % (and decreasing) and basically the only way they can feel relevant is going abroads to countries which still react to the words "Communist Party" positively. Anyway, can someone explain this one? https://www.instagram.com/p/BZMJQekBiul/
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Sep 20, 2017 16:12
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In case you didn't want to subject yourself to having to listen to Trump speak so you missed his UN General Assembly speech yesterday, he spent quite a bit of time talking about Venezuela. This is most of what he said:quote:The socialist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro has inflicted terrible pain and suffering on the good people of that country. This corrupt regime destroyed a prosperous nation by imposing a failed ideology that has produced poverty and misery everywhere it has been tried. To make matters worse, Maduro has defied his own people, stealing power from their elected representatives to preserve his disastrous rule.  SOCIALISM!", which drew an audible gasp from the crowd and a trickle of applause:quote:The problem in Venezuela is not that socialism has been poorly implemented, but that socialism has been faithfully implemented. (Applause.) From the Soviet Union to Cuba to Venezuela, wherever true socialism or communism has been adopted, it has delivered anguish and devastation and failure. Those who preach the tenets of these discredited ideologies only contribute to the continued suffering of the people who live under these cruel systems. Maduro reacted to the speech by saying that he considered it direct threat on his life, and that with the speech "Donald Trump has threatened to kill the president of Venezuela" (Yes, this is Maduro saying this. He speaks in the third person sometimes). Stefu posted:The leader of Finland's tiny Communist Party is on a "solidarity trip" to Venezuela. For what it's worth, his party's support is like 0,3 % (and decreasing) and basically the only way they can feel relevant is going abroads to countries which still react to the words "Communist Party" positively. I don't know what that little Superman ripoff is supposed to be, but his name is apparently Moises Super Venezuela. This is what the Instagram post reads: quote:Moises Super Venezuela is a hero who loves his country. He thinks that the land where he was born has the most beautiful vistas, that its people are happy, intelligent and friendly. I agree with him #MoisesSuperVenezuela It's not unusual for the regime to pump out nightmarishly optimistic propaganda to push its project of the week. It's common to hear lots of salsa and reggaeton at regime events, which gives everything a sick, sardonic feel. For example, you can hear festive music in the background during the infamous July 30 interview in which Jorge Rodriguez laughed when a reporter asked him about all of the people who had died in violence that day; the song promoting the Constituent Assembly, which played ad nauseam in the weeks leading to the vote that cemented the Maduro dictatorship; and that time when Mauro danced salsa and partied on live TV while people were getting brutalized for peacefully protesting just a few blocks away. Anyway, I'm not sure who this Moises Super Venezuela character is, but it's entirely in line with the sort of shallow, patronizing "everything is fine!" propaganda that the regime likes to put out.
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Sep 20, 2017 16:50
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That seems to be just a small hand-made knit doll. I don't think it's actually made by PSUV, but likely made by a poor PSUVista who is being allowed to sell it in that convention he's at. I highly doubt that PSUV would create a superhero called "Moses", they're known for being anti-semitic. By the looks of it, he got a propaganda tour and he bought into literally all of it so the guy is an idiot. He's so much of an idiot that he's talking about "people's sovereignty" while standing at a factory that has loving Chinese lettering above the text in Spanish.
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Sep 20, 2017 17:15
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This video is apropos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK9FJ7Khg8Q I just caught it in an article from today. It's from Freddy Bernal's television show (Freddy is a high ranking PSUV official--I've lost track of what his job is now). Anyway, the way is celebrating Chavez, the CLAP subsidized food bags, and a couple of other things. I didn't watch the whole thing. EDIT: I also just remembered that there is an official regime position called the Vice Ministry for the Supreme Happiness of the People. Chuck Boone fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Sep 20, 2017 |
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Sep 20, 2017 17:20
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I just loving remembered that they stole the MUD's jingle, "abajo, en la izquierda, en la esquina la de la manito", turning it into "arriba, a la izquiera, en la equina la de los ojitos". The PSUV's propaganda arm went straight to hell after Chavez died, at least before that they made a little effort in their jingles. That video also made me remember that in the parliamentary elections, the machine displayed 33 or 34 options that were all for PSUV, and only one tiny button at the bottom left for the MUD. fnox fucked around with this message at 17:37 on Sep 20, 2017 |
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Sep 20, 2017 17:34
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fnox posted:I just loving remembered that they stole the MUD's jingle, "abajo, en la izquierda, en la esquina la de la manito", turning it into "arriba, a la izquiera, en la equina la de los ojitos". The PSUV's propaganda arm went straight to hell after Chavez died, at least before that they made a little effort in their jingles. I'm not sure it's low effort, I think they know exactly what they are doing with such a maneuver.
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Sep 20, 2017 17:41
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Ghost of Mussolini posted:I'm not sure it's low effort, I think they know exactly what they are doing with such a maneuver. By low effort, I mean, compared to what they previously did. Chavez previously used his own salsa theme for his 2006 presidential campaign while Manuel Rosales used an unauthorised ripoff of Atrevete by Calle 13. The MUD had absolutely terrible campaign slogans, music and art up until Henrique Capriles ran twice for president. To be fair, Manuel Rosales was the flat out worst loving candidate the MUD and its predecessors have ever fielded. The man is absolutely incompetent at everything he's ever done, and it's infamous for blundering the living poo poo out of every speech he gives, I don't know why he's lasted this long, or why would anybody in the MUD give him any credit. fnox fucked around with this message at 17:58 on Sep 20, 2017 |
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Sep 20, 2017 17:53
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Slightly off-topic but I'm not sure where else this might fit: On a recent trip to Miami I noticed a huge increase in the number of Venezuelans living there. I can't help but wonder if this might actually be good for Venezuela in the long run. In taking a more long term, big picture view of what the reconstruction of Venezuela will look like after the current regime eventually collapses, could the Venezuelan diaspora be an unexpected boon? I know there's a lot of talk of so-called "brain drain" but more recent research has suggested that having a diaspora population living abroad is actually a plus for the country of emigration. Venezuela hasn't had a significant population living abroad or in the US. I am Venezuelan-American (born here) and for the most part I am the only Venezuelan (native or foreign born) many have met. I have yet to meet another second generation Venezuelan-American outside my immediate family. It would seem that at the moment some of the more stable Latin American countries are those that have long-standing and significant diaspora populations: Mexico, Colombia and Chile. I don't believe this is simply a result of the "escape valve" hypothesis Mexico City is so fond of, where potentially subversive elements choose to emigrate, instead of incite social revolution. Some newer research (e.g. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/IJM-08-2015-0116) seems to suggest that having a diaspora population in developed countries can help to significantly increase investment, improve living standards and increase the technical knowledge base of the country of origin. So quite the opposite of the "brain drain" myth. I'm in interested in you guys thoughts on this.
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Sep 20, 2017 20:33
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