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AP describes election day:quote:On Sunday, festive revolutionary music played as a few dozen voters stood in a long line to flash their so-called “fatherland cards” to socialist party volunteers. Depressing.
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May 20, 2018 16:30
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Brogeoisie posted:The oil poo poo in Venezuela is mega complicated now with Conoco asset seizures and Curacao basically shutting down. Besides all of this, 'we went to Iraq for the oil' is complete nonsense.
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May 20, 2018 16:33
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In any case, if the USA had any reason to believe inveding Venezuela could bring more profit than it would cost, I guess they would have already done that a while ago
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May 20, 2018 16:37
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The two countries are headed in completely different directions on oil. US oil production is soaring massively, Venezuela's production is plummeting. The US is on the cusp of having surplus domestic oil.
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May 20, 2018 16:40
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Chuck Boone posted:
Maradona looks like he can't hold himself up and is about to fall down from the weight of that flag
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May 20, 2018 16:41
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Arkane posted:AP describes election day: I feel like after it's known that they just faked the results last time there really is no reason to participate. They're going to pretend El Presidente won in a landslide no matter what happens. I'm actually a bit surprised they're bothering to reward supporters for voting for them, since they're just going to throw the results in the trash anyway.
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May 20, 2018 16:58
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Arkane posted:The two countries are headed in completely different directions on oil. US oil production is soaring massively, Venezuela's production is plummeting. The US is on the cusp of having surplus domestic oil. I mean the primary reason VZ production is plummeting is that every component is broken due to embezzling draining the maintenance budgets.
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May 20, 2018 17:16
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Had to go into town today, the lines to vote are laughably short. Can confirm the "red points".
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May 20, 2018 17:31
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https://qz.com/1282733/venezuela-under-maduro-the-crisis-as-told-by-its-version-of-the-onion/ Venezuela’s unfolding crisis, as told by its version of The Onion This is a pretty good article Reading this stuff with google translate makes some of this stuff a little unintelligible, but I got a good laugh out of this article. http://www.elchiguirebipolar.net/01-05-2018/los-9-destinos-turisticos-de-merida-que-todo-venezolano-debe-conocer-antes-de-irse-del-pais/ The 9 tourist destinations of Merida that every Venezuelan should know before leaving the country quote:In this section of our section, which bears the same name as the one that a father never wants his son to study, Tourism, we will visit the city of Merida. A place that with its enviable climate, beautiful landscapes and friendly settlers -which with their beautiful red cachetitos will always want to charge more- is undoubtedly one of the places that any Venezuelan must visit before leaving the country, because we know that you are going, stop lying to us.
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May 20, 2018 21:07
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What does protesting the election really do. I mean the country is a mafia state already. Even when the opposition had a majority it had no power to do anything. Maduro can just change the way participation is determined and say it was a 65% turnout regardless. Either way, if maduro falls the country will still be in shambles, with no money to rebuild. Venezuela is unfortunately hosed for 100 years. We will see strongmen and dictators rule the country for the forseeble future. Its going to get worse once oil loses its favor globally because they wont even have the capital to go renewable. I feel for the people of venezuela. They were on the cusp of a great south american golden age.. now theyre hosed. People may not want to accept this but only through armed conflict will we see real change. Proving low turnout is absolutely a waste of loving time.
WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 22:37 on May 20, 2018 |
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May 20, 2018 22:33
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Going out and voting is an even bigger waste of time.
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May 21, 2018 00:12
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Elias_Maluco posted:Seems like the helicoide rebelion is over but nobody knows how or what happened to the inmates The only possible reason I can see for them still keeping it under wraps is that they killed several, or many, of the political prisoners. I figured they'd wait until after the election to announce it, but now maybe nothing will ever be mentioned and the PSUV will start taking cues from Assad. I mean, Assad weathered an even worse storm than Venezuela, so maybe Maduro/Diosdado/El Aissami noticed that and are ready to go into full murder mode at the slightest opportunity. I'm exaggerating... or at least I hope I am especially since at least for now it seems that the PSUV can keep their positions without mass slaughter, but god drat. What is going to happen now that their oil industry has collapsed in the past couple weeks (re: Conoco's seizure of assets mentioned in Brogeoisie's post a few up). I guess it is Conoco's interest to keep refining any oil the PDVSA ships to them, but maybe the PDVSA won't do that anymore and will look for other clients willing to accept their oil at an even higher discount? It's only been a week so I guess the effects haven't been felt, but that will likely result in a sudden and substantial drop-off in their foreign exchange, right? Even if it's temporary on a few-months scale, that seems like a huge deal. E: I could definitely believe that Joshua Holt is dead, because I am sure that Trump would flip poo poo and do something to make a show. Well, or maybe just make a tweet but who loving knows with him and Maduro & co would probably rather just cover it up. “Holt is the chief U.S. spy here in Latin America,” Cabello said Wednesday evening. Yeah, a 24 year old lily white Mormon from Utah who was still learning Spanish as an adult and no doubt with a heavy American English accent was the chief US spy in Venezuela. You gently caress. Also what the christ is wrong with people making comments on WaPo? I never read WaPo but good god, those comments are more disgusting than stuff I see on Breitbart: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...m=.dc51ec50b023 Saladman fucked around with this message at 01:18 on May 21, 2018 |
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May 21, 2018 01:01
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Saladman posted:Also what the christ is wrong with people making comments on WaPo? quote:Also what the christ is wrong with people making comments Fixed that for you. Comments on news stories, in particular, are consistently terrible.
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May 21, 2018 03:16
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The regime's electoral body (the Consejo Nacional Electoral) just announced the official results of the election:
Earlier in the night, Reuters cited a source inside the CNE as saying that the voter turnout was actually 32.3%. This is consistent with the fact that voting centres all around the country were largely empty throughout the day. Even if we take the CNE at its word (we shouldn't), the figures are stunning. Today saw the lowest voter turnout in decades. The previous record was held by the 2000 presidential election, which had a 56% voter turnout rate. Maduro's 5.8 million votes is also about 2 million fewer than what he got in the last presidential election, which happened in 2013. Henri Falcon already had a press conference in which he said that he wasn't recognizing the results of today's vote because the election was a fraud, and that he wants to have another presidential election in October just like the one we had today minus all the cheating. No, I'm not kidding.
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May 21, 2018 03:42
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Wait till venezuela is having a presidential election every month
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May 21, 2018 06:12
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I'm returning for one day and one day only just to say that I am glad to have always known that Henri Falcon was a government plant and that hopefully now world governments will understand what part of the opposition to support. The fact that Maduro is now a truly illegitimate president sets the stage for some interesting developments, which I can only hope serve to benefit the Venezuelan people, after having been left to their own devices to suffer for so long.
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May 21, 2018 11:07
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As part of the sanctions imposed after Sunday's "election", the US has frozen all of Diosdado Cabello's US financial and business assets, and Marco Rubio is trolling him on twitter. https://twitter.com/marcorubio/status/997564523191128065 https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/22/rubio-venezuela-trump-plot-602658
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May 22, 2018 23:57
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MullardEL34 posted:As part of the sanctions imposed after Sunday's "election", the US has frozen all of Diosdado Cabello's US financial and business assets, and Marco Rubio is trolling him on twitter. Wikipedia posted:In mid-July 2017, reporters in Washington, D.C. observed an increased security presence surrounding United States Senator Marco Rubio. A month later on 13 August 2017, The Miami Herald reported that Diosdado Cabello had initiated an assassination plot targeting Rubio, allegedly contacting Mexican nationals to discuss killing Rubio. Rubio, who is a critic of the Venezuelan government, has led an effort in the United States government to take action against corrupt officials of the Latin American government, often singling out Cabello. The Department of Homeland Security could not verify all of the details involved in the threat, though the plan was serious enough that multiple law enforcement agencies were contacted about the incident and Rubio's security detail had increased in size.
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May 23, 2018 09:07
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MullardEL34 posted:As part of the sanctions imposed after Sunday's "election", the US has frozen all of Diosdado Cabello's US financial and business assets, and Marco Rubio is trolling him on twitter. Weird.
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May 23, 2018 11:52
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So is Maduro finally going to nationalize the means of production now? You’ve tried everything but actual Socialism at this point and you’re already paying the price in lost FDI so why not go all the way?
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May 23, 2018 18:04
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Lots of systems involve the people in charge/government owning everything. Actual Socialism would mean real accountability and not robbing the country blind - things they are definitely not going to change positions on. But yeah, they might seize, pillage, and liquidate more industry and commerce for a quick buck. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 20:27 on May 23, 2018 |
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May 23, 2018 18:33
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proletarian_pixie posted:So is Maduro finally going to nationalize the means of production now? You’ve tried everything but actual Socialism at this point and you’re already paying the price in lost FDI so why not go all the way? I mean, since 99% of the country's foreign exchange is oil, which was nationalized decades ago, and since they recently nationalized the largest private bank, everything else that remains private is basically a rounding error. Not to mention that if they nationalized e.g. Polar then it would lead to even worse starvation than now, as the government has proven they are far, far more inept at running production than any capitalist fatcat. Who knows what Maduro will try though. Probably more of the same, to be honest.
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May 23, 2018 20:19
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The thing to always keep in mind when thinking about Venezuelan politics today is that Maduro and the PSUV aren't interested in governance. They're not looking to get elected and remain in power to implement and nurture any kind of political project in the way that many of us outside of Venezuela might understand. Maduro and the PSUV are in power to enrich themselves and to secure for themselves a life of luxury. That's it. If that involves taking over businesses, then they'll do it; if it doesn't, then they won't.
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May 23, 2018 20:28
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https://twitter.com/hannahdreier/status/998539490728783872
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May 23, 2018 21:55
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Remeber friends in about a year, we will hear an echochamber of "VENEZUELA WAS NEVER SOCIALIST"
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May 24, 2018 06:36
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It's a pretty thorny philosophical problem, actually... Is Venezuela a socialist country because its government, its supporters and its detractors all call it a socialist country - or is it a capitalist country because it fails to adhere to any theoretical definition of socialism?
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May 24, 2018 09:50
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Mr. Sunshine posted:It's a pretty thorny philosophical problem, actually... It's like a Rorschach test. It's a socialist country if you want to prove that socialism is murder like your average Fox News viewer, but it's a krony kapitalist kleptocracy if you're one of those No True Scotsman people regarding socialism like your average D&D poster. Although the people in the latter group were holding up Venezuela as a model of successful socialism for basically the entire period from 2002-2015 before suddenly doing incredible feats of mental gymnastics. I don't think there's any real way to not call Venezuela a socialist country, although you can definitely say it's not pure socialism or not complete socialism. E: Obviously you can point to like, Haiti, to prove that capitalism and democracy are both steaming piles of poo poo, so pointing to Venezuela as proof that socialism doesn't work is stupid, but also saying "Aktcshually Venezuela is not socialist!!!" doesn't make any goddamn sense either given that it has the same government and same policies today as it has since 2002. VVVV: Probably pretty similar in terms of quality of life? I don't really know anything about Haiti except that they have cholera and earthquakes and people pointing out that Venezuela proves socialism fails always refer to Haiti when they use an intentionally-specious counterargument to make the point that Haiti proves capitalism and democracy always fail. Saladman fucked around with this message at 11:36 on May 24, 2018 |
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May 24, 2018 10:06
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Saladman posted:E: Obviously you can point to like, Haiti,
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May 24, 2018 10:30
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As a Venezuelan I wouldn't call the government socialist now, five years ago, or 19 ago when it started. It's not a state of law or idealism. It's a mine Chavez set up to get rich. When there was surplus because oil prices were through the roof, Chavez had enough smarts to dedicate some of it to keep the lower class happy so he could continue stealing and building up his cult. Now there isn't and those in charge found out it's way easier to steal with a dictatorship than to try and keep up the populism without a charming leader.
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May 24, 2018 12:09
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While I'd agree that they have never been True Socialists according to the book definition it's not really unfair to point out that such a thing is likely to happen again elsewhere in other places with similar movements who successfully pose as socialist. The power to take what you want and destroy your opposition is, apparently, one hell of a drug regardless of which flavor of populist newsletter you print. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 12:48 on May 24, 2018 |
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May 24, 2018 12:45
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The Wall Street Journal published a piece today that is very fitting to this discussion. It was written by Anatoly Kurmanaev, a journalist who spent the last five years living in Venezuela. An excerpt from the piece: quote:But Venezuela’s collapse has been far worse than the chaos that I experienced in the post-Soviet meltdown. As a young person, I was still able to get a good education in a public school with subsidized meals and decent free hospital treatment. By contrast, as the recession took hold in Venezuela, the so-called Socialist government made no attempt to shield health care and education, the two supposed pillars of its program. This wasn’t Socialism. It was kleptocracy—the rule of thieves.
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May 24, 2018 17:19
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Warbadger posted:While I'd agree that they have never been True Socialists according to the book definition it's not really unfair to point out that such a thing is likely to happen again elsewhere in other places with similar movements who successfully pose as socialist. That’s pretty much my position. I concede that Venezuela doesn’t match the definition of socialism, but they had a government that was trying to implement it. If attempts to implement socialism always end up in catastrophic failure then that’s a problem regardless of whether a hypothetical true socialist government would be stable.
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May 24, 2018 17:37
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I feel that is you ask any Venezuelan they'll tell you that we were never under a socialist goverment. Before Chavez took over there were already public schools and universities that offered good education and free meals, and hospitals where you could go through major surgeries free of charges. The propaganda was good enough that they made people forget or ignore that. And those few that still defend the regime go on about how WE HAVE THE FATHERLAND NOW, but never elaborate on what the hell does that mean.
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May 24, 2018 19:15
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I mean Bolivia did a similar economic model to Venezuela and isn't on fire.
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May 24, 2018 19:26
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I don't really know about Bolivia but I'm going to guess that the people elected into the goverment cared enough about the country to do more than fill their bank accounts.
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May 24, 2018 19:57
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I honestly feel like it doesn’t matter. We now live in a society beyond truth were people are willing to call bullshit on major genocides so long as people wear the appropriate shirts and say the appropriate slogans. It reminds me of when I first arrived in England and I saw some posters with Chavez’ face on some socialist students event or whatever. At the time it incensed me that they could be so short sighted but you know what? gently caress them. They wanna be lovely people and worship a dictator then fine by me. They’re not my problem to solve. When change finally comes they won’t be the ones casting ballots, they won’t be the ones getting elected and they won’t be the ones who can finally sleep at night knowing that their friends, family and future are finally safe. Let them keep their opinion pieces and stupid bullshit about ~*the narrative*~. The notion that political ideologies are panaceas is dumb as gently caress and if there’s anything I hope Latin American countries have learned in the last couple decades is that populism kills, and that we must stand together not for politicians, but for governors. It’s certainly not something first world countries or their inhabitants have learned or will learn anytime soon.
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May 24, 2018 20:26
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punk rebel ecks posted:I mean Bolivia did a similar economic model to Venezuela and isn't on fire. Last I checked Bolivia didn't decide to allow all their oil/natural gas and mining infrastructure to fall apart. So, not the same economic model as Venezuela.
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May 24, 2018 20:27
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Mr. Sunshine posted:It's a pretty thorny philosophical problem, actually... I was curious how well it matches up with theoretical definitions of socialism. Not sure of the best way to measure this, but Wikipedia lists the proportion of a country's labor force that works in the public sector: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_sector the statistics for Venezuela are from 2014, and I suspect it has increased since then with the decline of private industry, but it still probably hasn't changed that much. 29% of the Venezuelan workforce was employed in the public sector, which puts in squarely between Denmark and Sweden with 31 and 26% respectively. Contrast with Cuba at 77%, and China at 50%. I could not find comparable statistics for Bolivia in five minutes googling, however I did find that roughly 75% of Bolivia's employment is informal, which, assuming there's no informal public sector employment, means public sector employment must not exceed 25% and is probably considerably lower. Though I could be completely off base. Obviously this is far from the whole story regarding how "socialist" a country is, there's a lot of other factors. The Gulf Monarchies tend to have very large public sectors, with Kuwait's employing 45% of workers. Still though, it does allow for some comparisons.
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May 25, 2018 06:25
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punk rebel ecks posted:I mean Bolivia did a similar economic model to Venezuela and isn't on fire. fishmech posted:Last I checked Bolivia didn't decide to allow all their oil/natural gas and mining infrastructure to fall apart. So, not the same economic model as Venezuela. Bolivia is stable compared to Venezuela, but there were widespread protests running up to Evo Morales' referendum on presidential term limits that spread into early 2018. Still, nothing compared to the Maduro regime, mainly because Morales has decided not to loot the entire economy for personal gain. MullardEL34 fucked around with this message at 06:49 on May 25, 2018 |
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May 25, 2018 06:39
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| # ? May 28, 2024 23:34 |
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A monarchy might be the best form of government for countries that possess enough of an easily exploitable resource like oil that it can single-handedly fund the country. The monarch would be incentivized to share the oil wealth with ALL his subjects to keep them all happy, since a vast majority of them would be supportive of the monarchy. A government that has an electable head-of-state would inevitably split the country into two parties, and the parties would run on promises to give more of the oil wealth to their supporters, so in the end the oil wealth will not be evenly distributed among the population. The two-party system would also make it easier for the leaders to steal oil profits for themselves because they could tell their supporters that if the opposition was in power then they'd get even less of the oil wealth. The situation is similar to the "Pirate game" where the captain gets 98% of the money while two crew members gets 1% and the other two get nothing.
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May 25, 2018 07:25
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