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if you can't identify all hypocrisy everywhere, then you're not allowed to identify it anywhere 
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Feb 13, 2019 00:20
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:so that's a no, then, I take it. Why are you even posting in this thread if all you have to say is "Abrams is bad", seriously. You refuse to engage at all Seriously. Please explain how *you* would solve the current crisis in Venezuela. Make a positive contribution that isn't about Elliot Abrams being evil. Go for it Rust Martialis fucked around with this message at 00:27 on Feb 13, 2019 |
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Feb 13, 2019 00:23
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GreyjoyBastard posted:if Kavanaugh writes majority opinions saying it's fine that Trump imprisoned Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, coerced federal workers to vote for him, and established his own superseding legislature, then I'd say that too is a constitutional crisis with limited to no remedies within the system There's already a problem with no remedies within the system, in both the US and in Venezuela. It's capitalism. but considering the current state of things, outside meddling won't fix it.
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Feb 13, 2019 00:27
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Presenting Nipples posted:We've been through this dog and pony show but can anyone name a source that doesn't have bias? It's a tautology to say "welp this source is biased" without going into details about how that individual piece distorts the truth. Presenting Nipples posted:That's fine, there is bias. Can you give me an source free of bias? Firstly I wouldn't worry so much about looking for sources that are "free" of bias. People have opinions and agendas, there's not getting past that. I like to adopt an antagonistic posture towards all media as a matter of course. Try and tear it apart and aggressively interrogate the pieces. To start with all sources I try and identify 1) the source, 2) the characterization/spin, and 3) the information/data and its limitations. With formalized research information like opinion surveys you also need 4) the methods. Once you have identified these structural elements you can begin to judge the meaning and reliability of the piece. So for example with the video posted by Bob le Moche, I'm not familiar with the source so I have to withhold judgement on that front. The spin is quite obvious, it says upfront they are there to "break the blockade," suggesting the opinion of the authors is supportive of the Maduro administration. This fact doesn't mean much on its own. However we need to distinguish subjective or emotional elements from data/analysis. The information in this video is the testimonial of Maduro supporters. It tells us there are people in Caracas who support Maduro and oppose an American military intervention. It doesn't tell us how large this group is, but it does show that they are organized and politically active. We can compare it with information from other sources. For example, most of the Venezuelans who post in this thread have also said that they also believe the United States should not invade Venezuela. As these two groups come from different poles of the Venezuelan political spectrum, we can infer that there is a broad Venezuelan consensus that the United States should not invade and occupy the country. Not very shocking I know, but most inferences shouldn't be. I see no reason to believe this footage has been staged as it is consistent with other reports. By contrast, the poll you posted presented a number of immediate problems. The first was the source. It was published through Globovision, which is partially state owned and whose editorial board is subject to state oversight. The polling firm itself is owned by a representative in the constituent assembly, from which the opposition was effectively disqualified from participating. It also publishes explicitly pro-Maduro editorials. This source calls into question the validity of polling information. With the interviews its probably unnecessary to fake them for any reason, those are real streets, with real people. If you wanted to check the validity of these claims, you could go to that street yourself and start talking to people, or ask the journalists for the names and contact info of their subjects. This poll was inconsistent with results from another that Chuck Boone recently shared. That is unlike the interviews, which were consistent with past data, here we faced contradictory claims. Polls are expensive and are hard to validate. They are also easy to fake. What's stopping someone from just making up statistics that sound good? Nothing, and therefore we must be extremely cautious when processing them. Polls are also methodologically complicated. Even if someone means well, if they follow sloppy methods their results will be meaningless. That's why I was asking for methods. I needed to see them so I could trust that the polling firm was serious and even capable of producing reliable results. I could not find anything of substance, which was a huge red flag. If it sounds difficult to judge sources, well it is. Generally speaking however, it is better to be too discriminating than too credulous. There's a lot of information out out there and it is better to be conservatively assume we are more ignorant than we are, than to trick ourselves into believing we know more than we really do.
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Feb 13, 2019 00:29
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Rust Martialis posted:Why are you even posting in this thread if all you have to say is "Abrams is bad", seriously. You refuse to engage at all. because it is useful to demonstrate to readers that the Venezuelan opposition, and its supporters, consider the mass murder of suspected leftists at the hands of right-wing death squads a price they are willing to pay to be rid of Maduro, and judge their future statements about how deeply concerned about human rights they are accordingly.
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Feb 13, 2019 00:29
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:because it is useful to demonstrate to readers that the Venezuelan opposition, and its supporters, consider the mass murder of suspected leftists at the hands of right-wing death squads a price they are willing to pay to be rid of Maduro, and judge their future statements about how deeply concerned about human rights they are accordingly. So no, you have nothing else to say except the above. Ok.
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Feb 13, 2019 00:36
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Rust Martialis posted:So no, you have nothing else to say except the above. Ok. is there a point there you disagree with? are you, in fact, unwilling to sign off on the mass murder of suspected leftists and ethnic minorities in the name of getting rid of Maduro? or are you willing to consign a couple thousand people to El Mozote sequels in the name of getting rid of the fat man. because until such time as there's an opposition leader willing to take a stand against US intervention, bad news! those are your two options!
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Feb 13, 2019 00:42
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:because it is useful to demonstrate to readers that the Venezuelan opposition, and its supporters, consider the mass murder of suspected leftists at the hands of right-wing death squads a price they are willing to pay to be rid of Maduro, and judge their future statements about how deeply concerned about human rights they are accordingly. "It is useful to demonstrate to readers that foreign supporters of Maduro consider the starvation of the Venezuelan people a price they are willing in order to (have a nominally socialist leader in a country they don't even live in) / (score a nominal victory over American foreign policy)." I don't believe in this narrative, but it is the narrative you need to address, rather than simply playing straight into it. The blind spot in your argument is American chauvinism. The obvious solution for American leftists is to vociferously oppose further attempts by other Americans to exert control over Venezuela, especially when it comes to invading, sure. (Same goes for pretty much any Anglosphere country.) What is the leftist solution for Venezuelans who aren't happy with the corruption and starvation and political repression under Maduro, particularly those who don't have any way to influence US policy in any event? It's not their job to serve you a win over right-wing Americans on their own backs.
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Feb 13, 2019 00:48
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Ruzihm posted:Overthrowing a democratically elected leader is not democratic. I really appreciate all these cspam trolls that have no real knowledge of the subject come into this thread one or two at a time so they can be promptly told they are fucktards, then thrown out like the nameless bad guys at the start of a Bruce Lee movie. If you knew even a bit about the elections you wouldn’t make claims like this.
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Feb 13, 2019 00:58
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Cease to Hope posted:"It is useful to demonstrate to readers that foreign supporters of Maduro consider the starvation of the Venezuelan people a price they are willing in order to (have a nominally socialist leader in a country they don't even live in) / (score a nominal victory over American foreign policy)." I don't believe in this narrative, but it is the narrative you need to address, rather than simply playing straight into it. The blind spot in your argument is American chauvinism. The obvious solution for American leftists is to vociferously oppose further attempts by other Americans to exert control over Venezuela, especially when it comes to invading, sure. (Same goes for pretty much any Anglosphere country.) correct. it is their job to find a way out of their present circumstances that does not involve the mass murder of their fellow Venezuelans for the crime of being viewed as inconvenient to Americans. or, alternately, they could gleefully consign their darker-skinned and poorer brethren to the killing pits, because it is more convenient to buddy up to Uncle Sledgehammer than not, and because standing up to the people saying "better that the untermenschen be butchered by the truckload than one of us be forced to wait in line for toilet paper" would not be Pragmatic.
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Feb 13, 2019 01:07
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:correct. it is their job to find a way out of their present circumstances that does not involve the mass murder of their fellow Venezuelans for the crime of being viewed as inconvenient to Americans. As opposed to the starvation of their fellow Venezuelans (and themselves) for the crime of being inconvenient to Maduro? "Support Guaido and hope he can fend off the worst excesses of American influence" and "Support Maduro and starve I guess" are not leftist solutions, and you are correct in identifying the pitfalls of the former, sure. Do you actually have some solution founded in leftist rhetoric, or are you just here to gloat about the inevitability of Abrams slaughtering people? Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Feb 13, 2019 |
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Feb 13, 2019 01:16
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:correct. it is their job to find a way out of their present circumstances that does not involve the mass murder of their fellow Venezuelans for the crime of being viewed as inconvenient to Americans. It's been established multiple times upthread that American perceptions of race don't make sense in Venezuela but thanks for trying to cram that in again. Ruzihm posted:There's already a problem with no remedies within the system, in both the US and in Venezuela. It's capitalism. The people of Venezuela must suffer that we might validate our the shambling corpse of our failed ideology, got it.
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Feb 13, 2019 01:18
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Cease to Hope posted:and that way is... supporting an opposition party that will reach the low, low standard of "not actively working with war criminals." i do not feel this is an unrealistic ask.
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Feb 13, 2019 01:21
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:supporting an opposition party that will reach the low, low standard of "not actively working with war criminals." which opposition party is that
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Feb 13, 2019 01:22
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:supporting an opposition party that will reach the low, low standard of "not actively working with war criminals." And who exactly is going to support said opposition in this ideal world? Because it won't be the Russians or the Chinese.
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Feb 13, 2019 01:22
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:The people of Venezuela must suffer that we might validate our the shambling corpse of our failed ideology, got it. but enough about capitalism patonthebach posted:I really appreciate all these cspam trolls that have no real knowledge of the subject come into this thread one or two at a time so they can be promptly told they are fucktards, then thrown out like the nameless bad guys at the start of a Bruce Lee movie. oh you mean the elections that the UN refused to observe because agents of the US asked them to refuse? yeah I head about thos. Ruzihm fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Feb 13, 2019 |
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Feb 13, 2019 01:24
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Ruzihm posted:but enough about capitalism sorry, friend, you're dark skinned enough that you're presumably a chavista. gotta lynch you to send a message (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 13, 2019 01:26
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:sorry, friend, you're dark skinned enough that you're presumably a chavista. gotta lynch you to send a message It's been established multiple times upthread by actual Venezuelans that American perceptions of race don't make sense in Venezuela but thanks for trying to cram that in again.
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Feb 13, 2019 01:28
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Cease to Hope posted:which opposition party is that presumably the one that comes after Guaido's fails. because if he succeeds, history tells us being a member of the opposition to his regime is going to become an excellent way to come down with a case of Kashoggis.
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Feb 13, 2019 01:29
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goddammit how did I miss this post when I was making mine earlier, am I literally blind Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:presumably the one that comes after Guaido's fails. The MUD is a conglomerate of literally every other opposition party in Venezuela and includes a wide spectrum of ideologies 
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Feb 13, 2019 01:42
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:It's been established multiple times upthread by actual Venezuelans that American perceptions of race don't make sense in Venezuela but thanks for trying to cram that in again. okay and actual Americans will tell you that racism is dead in america too but uh https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Deborah_Norden/publication/235332835_Sowing_Conflict_in_Venezuela_Political_Violence_and_Economic_Policy/links/0deec532b31fae40ec000000.pdf posted:Ethnic policies and, in particular, discourse helped to 
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Feb 13, 2019 01:43
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Plastic_Gargoyle posted:It's been established multiple times upthread by actual Venezuelans that American perceptions of race don't make sense in Venezuela but thanks for trying to cram that in again. LMAO so a few venegoons write some dumb poo poo and suddenly it's "established", cause they're obviously sociological experts and not regular people with their own biases.
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Feb 13, 2019 01:44
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:presumably the one that comes after Guaido's fails. so that's a yes on you only being here to salivate at the prospect of Venezuelans dying to prove you right, then?
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Feb 13, 2019 01:44
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Cease to Hope posted:so that's a yes on you only being here to salivate at the prospect of Venezuelans dying to prove you right, then? are you... trying to claim moral high ground because you are optimistic? whats the point of this post?
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Feb 13, 2019 01:46
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Ruzihm posted:are you... trying to claim moral high ground because you are optimistic? whats the point of this post? It was a challenge to actually apply leftist politics to the actual situation, rather than just gloating about how morally superior you are for being an American against American right wing politics, from the relative safety of another continent. I am not optimistic about Guaido. I do think that if he rises to power with US backing, that the expectations and literal-sledgehammer methods of US backers will overwhelm any good intentions on the part of the Venezuelan opposition coalition. I don't think gloating about that in a thread by and for Venezuelans (and people mainly here to hear what they have to say) is useful, especially without any alternative to "Support Guaido and take your chances (btw you're doomed, and here's some snuff porn about what's going to happen if he wins)" and "Support Maduro and starve." What is your alternative to those two choices?
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Feb 13, 2019 01:52
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Acebuckeye13 posted:goddammit how did I miss this post when I was making mine earlier, am I literally blind currently signing off on working with a war criminal, whose publicized and well-recorded historically preferred method of getting his guys in power and keeping them there involves committing mass murder of subject ethnic minorities in order to prevent the spread of sentiments that interfere with the goals of the united states :shh: but hey, why let the perfect be the enemy of the good. by which of course I mean torturing the men, raping the women, and hanging the children from trees to demonstrate the price of looking like you might not be on Elliot Abrams' guy's side.
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Feb 13, 2019 01:52
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This is the Venezuela thread. Not the United States thread.
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Feb 13, 2019 02:02
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Cease to Hope posted:It was a challenge to actually apply leftist politics to the actual situation, rather than just gloating about how morally superior you are for being an American against American right wing politics, from the relative safety of another continent. support Maduro for long enough to get the people who think your mass murder is the correct way to win you over out of the equation, then support someone who will get rid of Maduro without that piece of baggage. that is it. that is the route here, barring the sudden and much-to-be-hoped for appearance of a third party. alternately you could go the accelerationist route in the hope Guaido, Abrams, and Bolton gently caress up so brutally and so catastrophically that Guaido is promptly replaced by someone much better. accelerationism has never worked, admittedly, and the way Abrams appointees react to popular revolt tends towards the Not At All Subtle, but I can at least see how someone would come to the conclusion that just a couple of El Mozotes would be less overall harm to the nation than a continuation of the status quo, if you could be assured there would only be that couple. regardless, the alternative to supporting Maduro now to hopefully replace him later is signing off on us backed death squads massacring your countrymen as constituting a better future. i can understand why people choose that. you may have gathered I disagree, however.
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Feb 13, 2019 02:05
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:support Maduro for long enough to get the people who think your mass murder is the correct way to win you over out of the equation, then support someone who will get rid of Maduro without that piece of baggage. I mean, isn't Maduro already rolling out the death squads amidst mass starvation and doing deeply unpleasant things to non-white people (particularly the native population)? You've said a lot about why Abrams is awful, but you've said very little about how a party with Abrams on board is materially worse than the Venezuelan status quo (probably because that would require demonstrating some basic level of knowledge about the Venezuelan status quo). Like, do you really think that the poorest people in the most disadvantaged social groups do not bear the heaviest burden in a literal famine?
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Feb 13, 2019 02:14
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:support Maduro for long enough to get the people who think your mass murder is the correct way to win you over out of the equation, then support someone who will get rid of Maduro without that piece of baggage. "Keep starving until the US has a socialist revolution" is certainly a bold plan.
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Feb 13, 2019 02:15
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To save Venezuela, first, you must finish the revolution Chavez's goons failed to. Venezuela is a failed capitalist state with a few social programs that have failed and are going to keep failing because capital will never get behind them. Democratize the means of production and a ton of problems will go away.
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Feb 13, 2019 02:19
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:support Maduro for long enough to get the people who think your mass murder is the correct way to win you over out of the equation, then support someone who will get rid of Maduro without that piece of baggage. Where is someone going to come from to oppose Maduro who isn't going to get US backing from the simple fact of opposing Maduro? How long should Venezuelans wait to find this person?
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Feb 13, 2019 02:19
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Elliot Abrams is a motherfucker and his involvement in any part of this process is a black stain, sure, I get that. The problem is that your opposition to the opposition appears based entirely around Abrams, which is, well, a bit concerning. Like, your first post in this threat was literally just three weeks ago, so maybe you haven't been paying attention to what's been going on for a while. And that's okay, not everyone has time to know about everything going on in the hemisphere. But the united opposition—whose constituent parties run the gamut of center right to recognized members of Socialist International—has been trying for years to enact political change in Venezuela through completely domestic and political means, and have been constantly stymied by the increasingly authoritarian rule of Maduro and the PSUV. I'm sure that there are members of the opposition who are just as horrified or outraged to be working with Abrams, if not more so! But that doesn't change the fact that from the opposition's standpoint (which is very reasonable and borne out by evidence), there is no way of peacefully ousting Maduro without applying external international pressure, and unfortunately that means working with the United States, which currently happens to be run by idiots, morons, and war criminals. But at this point... what other choices do they have? That is the question to answer, and that is the crux of this crisis. Acebuckeye13 fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Feb 13, 2019 |
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Feb 13, 2019 02:19
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Ruzihm posted:okay and actual Americans will tell you that racism is dead in america too but uh I don't think anyone has argued that racism doesn't exist in Venezuela. The problem is in assuming it is identical in form and effect as in the United States. If I took a random African-American from the US who voted in 2016 and asked you to guess who who voted for, you'd be right 90+% of the time if you guessed Hillary. In general white and black Americans speak different dialects, listen to different music, go to different churches, live in different neighborhoods. The identity is essentially fixed for life, nobody changes. Race has been ethnicized. This is why concepts like black nationalism make sense in the United States. Black Americans have been able to mobilize themselves as a discrete political block and fight collectively for their interests. By contrast in Venezuela Afro-Venezuelans do not constitute a separate nation/ethnicity. In fact, nobody is exactly sure who is an Afro-Venezuelan, vs who isn't. There are no fine lines, no paperbag tests. Their skin color, traditions, and everything else exist on a gradient. Someone who starts life poor and identified as 'black' but who later becomes rich might become mestijo or white. As one Chavista Afro-Venezuelan activist complained: https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13000 quote:The most characteristic expression of this social problem is internalised racism or the denial of one’s own ethnic identity. It is a fact that we are an essentially Afro-descendent country; the most obvious component of Venezuelan identity is its African inheritance. More than half of Venezuelans originate from the slave-trade, and this fact is scientifically provable and empirically evident throughout the length and breadth of the country. However, this assertion is systematically denied. They have taught us to feel ethnic shame: to invoke our “Spanish or Portuguese grandfather,” and to hide our African ancestry. The "denial of one's own ethnic identity" is very important to understanding the political ramification of race. It means Afro-Venezuelans are not a discrete interest block in the way African-Americans are. Even if if we find % African ancestry is correlated with voting patterns and wealth, without that collective sense of identity we're not going to see racial groups behave like monolithic interest blocks. Of course as your link suggests things do change. Brazil for example has seen an of African identity awakening past few decades. Chavez started a process of promoting Afro-Venezuelan identity and has actively promoted it. I'm not qualified to judge how whether he succeeded, I'd have to defer to actual Venezuelans on that front. tl;dr you have to contextualize prejudice within the context of society to understand the political implications.
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Feb 13, 2019 02:50
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Acebuckeye13 posted:Elliot Abrams is a motherfucker and his involvement in any part of this process is a black stain, sure, I get that. The problem is that your opposition to the opposition appears based entirely around Abrams, which is, well, a bit concerning. if you have come to the conclusion that here and now, the price of progress is right wing death squads hunting down Venezuelans undesirable to Americans, then you have come to that conclusion. if you want to make the argument that a program of massacring peasants when they get uppity is a small price to pay in exchange for making sure only the peasants are starving, as in noted Abrams triumphs over socialism Nicaragua, Guatemala, and El Salvador, then you can make that argument. for obvious reasons, nobody wants to come out and say that, because it kind of gives the game away, but it's at least an honest argument. if you want to make the argument it will go differently this time, please make it! it would be good to hear there was evidence that this time, unlike all previous, there were people in a position to stop the fucker before he gets the chance to get the motor running. as long as America's point man in Venezuela is Elliot Abrams, and the Venezuelan opposition is actively courting his support, anyone claiming their support of the opposition is about human rights is one of two things. they are either ignorant of what that support entails, or they do not consider a broad swath of Venezuelans to be humans. there is not an option three.
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Feb 13, 2019 03:05
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Hugoon Chavez posted:Como si la vaina fuera muy fácil de por sí? O prefieres que se achante todo de nuevo y diez años más comiendo mierda? O que te peguen un tiro con o sin guerra civil porque le hablaste feo a un militar que iba de civil? Obviamente yo no quiero guerra así como no quisiera intervención directa, pero y si es la única alternativa al status quo? Si mi amor, because I look at every civil war that's happened in the last 15 years and as it turns out, things tend to get a hell of a lot worse que meramente seguir deglutiendo mierda, and I don't mean just temporarily. Particularly with our good friends the US of A and Brazil at the helm of any intervention.
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Feb 13, 2019 03:17
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"right wing death squads" aren't the sole alternative outcome. It's not a binary situation, no matter how much you present it as such.
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Feb 13, 2019 03:20
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Saladman posted:Why do you think Abrams is an all omnipotent god? Do you know that non-Americans have agency in their lives? This is a very disingenuous point to make. Polling shows that 57% of the country considers maduro to be the legitimate president while only 22% back guaido. Presumably that 57% exercises their agency by telling America to keep its hands off venezuela?
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Feb 13, 2019 03:41
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We already discussed the problems with that poll the first time you posted it.
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Feb 13, 2019 03:43
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Discendo Vox posted:We already discussed the problems with that poll the first time you posted it. Is there a poll or survey that shows Guaidó with majority or plurality support over Maduro?
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Feb 13, 2019 03:48
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