|
elgatofilo posted:Ilhan Omar is the worst possible person the Democrats could've chosen right now to confront Abrams and try to get some accountability going here. Not only has she put herself in an incredibly weak position but she somehow managed to make a war criminal look like the victim. if only lefties had been nicer to uncle sledgehammer, that would be better for venezuelans loving lol
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:17
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 07:14 |
|
|
She's a sitting rep on the relevant committee and has every right to question the war crimes ghoul about his past enthusiasm for mass slaughter
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:21
|
|
|
elgatofilo posted:Ilhan Omar is the worst possible person the Democrats could've chosen right now to confront Abrams and try to get some accountability going here. Not only has she put herself in an incredibly weak position but she somehow managed to make a war criminal look like the victim. Uh, no. She wasn't nearly harsh enough, if anything.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:25
|
|
|
Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:if only lefties had been nicer to uncle sledgehammer, that would be better for venezuelans It's not about being nice, it's about not losing control of the narrative and letting uncle sledgehammer control it instead, allowing him to paint himself as the victim (which he obviously is not.) At this point the left has completely lost control of the Venezuela narrative. The simple policy matter is that the opinion of Minnesota voters doesn't matter, or California voters, or Oregon voters, or any other deep blue state. The administration is targeting a very specific, very powerful voting bloc with their actions. The left has AOC, why aren't they using her to reach out to Venezuelan and Cuban community leaders? Criticism of Abrams is a lot more powerful when it's coming out of many mouths and especially the mouths of stakeholders in the Venezuelan-American community. Instead they chose someone embroiled in a PR disaster, who has no connection whatsoever to the stakeholder community and has made zero attempt to do so. Getting rid of Abrams would be very easy if Rubio or Trump thought they would lose the votes they're targeting by being associated to him. This is simply irresponsible.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:31
|
|
|
Truga posted:Uh, no. She wasn't nearly harsh enough, if anything. I am curious (and worried) what the general responses to this sort of thing actually are, because I am hilariously unplugged from normal person public opinion. also in this particular case I love Ilhan Omar and hate Eliot Abrams, so edit: gato, while I'm not sure Omar was handpicked by the party exactly, I think you at least make a good point about what the Dems should be doing
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:32
|
|
|
elgatofilo posted:It's not about being nice, it's about not losing control of the narrative and letting uncle sledgehammer control it instead, allowing him to paint himself as the victim (which he obviously is not.) At this point the left has completely lost control of the Venezuela narrative. She isn't in that committee and wouldn't be involved in that hearing today
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:36
|
|
|
Truga posted:Uh, no. She wasn't nearly harsh enough, if anything. I agree, but is the goal to get rid of Abrams so that he can't cause more harm in the future or to have someone scold him about the past to zero effect? Think carefully about this.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:36
|
|
|
GreyjoyBastard posted:I am curious (and worried) what the general responses to this sort of thing actually are, because I am hilariously unplugged from normal person public opinion. 99.5% of people will never see it
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:36
|
|
|
https://twitter.com/kellymagsamen/status/1095817536669696000
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:37
|
|
|
elgatofilo posted:It's not about being nice, it's about not losing control of the narrative and letting uncle sledgehammer control it instead, allowing him to paint himself as the victim (which he obviously is not.) At this point the left has completely lost control of the Venezuela narrative. "who gives a poo poo about war crimes, we've got to think about South Beach." one hell of an angle you've got there, friend. but sure. let's humor it. leaving aside all morality, existing in a world of pure realpolitik, what is the circumstance in which you see Marco Rubio or Noted Man Capable Of Remembering What He Was Talking About At The Start Of A Sentence By The End Of It Donald Trump responding to a good-faith criticism from the left with "oh, I'm sorry, we had no idea he was a war criminal, we'll have him replaced right away." lay out the chain of events that cause this to occur, in your mind, because I have no doubt they will make fascinating reading.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:42
|
|
|
brugroffil posted:99.5% of people will never see it The only reason I even knew Omar existed is because El Nuevo Herald ran her in a front page article naming and shaming pro-Maduro US Congress reps. So unfortunately, the 0.5% of people whose votes actually influence American presidential elections in the swingiest of swing states do know who she is and will see it. I'm sure I'll get one of those horrible forwarded political WhatsApp messages about it in the next couple of days too.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:44
|
|
|
Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:"who gives a poo poo about war crimes, we've got to think about South Beach." one hell of an angle you've got there, friend. You obviously have no idea about South Florida or the politics of Florida. Florida is a state where presidential elections are won on razor thin margins that come mostly from swinging the highly political and influential Miami Latino voting block. I didn't say anything about South Beach, your knowledge of the demographics of South Florida are at least 35 years out of date. The chain of events is that the primary US stakeholders in this political fight (Venezuelan-Americans and Cuban-Americans,) which are a highly organized political group, put pressure on the White House by having our community leaders denounce Abrams and demand that someone else be put instead. Both Pence and Rubio have toured Miami selling the intervention idea (Pence was in Doral less than 2 weeks ago holding a rally.) Rubio absolutely answers to the Cuban and Venezuelan vote and is a highly influential Senator in this case. This is a very simple chain of events based on normal US politics.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:51
|
|
|
Rubio is already gunning for military intervention. There is no possible world where Dem hearing questioning of the war crimes ghoul leads to that changing.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 00:56
|
|
|
elgatofilo posted:You obviously have no idea about South Florida or the politics of Florida. Florida is a state where presidential elections are won on razor thin margins that come mostly from swinging the highly political and influential Miami Latino voting block. I didn't say anything about South Beach, your knowledge of the demographics of South Florida are at least 35 years out of date. what is the set of circumstances where the Cuban exile community proclaims a US policy of murdering socialists in Latin America in order to empower their racial betters a bad idea. you know. that thing you are hypothesizing would definitely be in the cards, were it not for the insolence that black woman showed her rightful white superiors today. can you recall this occurring. ever.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 01:07
|
|
|
Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:what is the set of circumstances where the Cuban exile community proclaims a US policy of murdering socialists in Latin America in order to empower their racial betters a bad idea. Nice bigoted xenophobia and weird secondary attempt at script flipping? I refuse to answer loaded posts that are based on the assumption that only certain ethnic groups are capable of independent thought or critical thinking. I believe that cooperation is possible when people come to the table without preconceived notions about what other ethnic groups are like.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 01:21
|
|
|
elgatofilo posted:Nice bigoted xenophobia and weird secondary attempt at script flipping? good job! you came this close to repeating Abrams' words verbatim, when asked a question he would prefer not to answer about the past. if you can think of no time this has ever happened before, suddenly your whining about how the black woman showing insufficient respect to her betters doomed Venezuela to military intervention looks less like a principled statement of realpolitik, and more like a coward trying to find anyone else to blame for the poo poo he's cheering on. so when was it, this time that the cuban exile community, that you are so sure was winnable over to the cause of stopping right-wing death squads from murdering socialists before now, rose up and said "no, this is monstrosity, and we will not countenance it." or are you just hoping like hell that if you don't upset them they'll cheer for the murders a little less loudly.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 01:36
|
|
|
patonthebach posted:How is it any different than being anti intervention if you don't live in Venezuela? Because my taxes pay for the intervention, little fella.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 01:54
|
|
|
elgatofilo posted:You obviously have no idea about South Florida or the politics of Florida. Florida is a state where presidential elections are won on razor thin margins that come mostly from swinging the highly political and influential Miami Latino voting block. I didn't say anything about South Beach, your knowledge of the demographics of South Florida are at least 35 years out of date. Do you think these interest groups are actually interested in denouncing Abrams? Looking at demographics on wikipedia, there are 135,000 Nicaraguans living in Florida. Wikipedia also suggest they lean Republican by a two to one margin. Should we expect them to have a positive or negative feeling towards Eliot Abrams, due to his association with the Contra's and anti-communism? Presumably many of them are Contra affiliated, or at least preferred emigration to life under the Sandinista government. Obviously the community is much smaller than Florida's Cuban bloc, but on this issue they might be disproportionately relevant.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 01:56
|
|
|
Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:good job! you came this close to repeating Abrams' words verbatim, when asked a question he would prefer not to answer about the past. Do you really want to double down on your xenophobia? Please explain to the thread how saying "all Cuban-Americans are X" or "all Venezuelan-Americans are Y" is not at all loaded, bigoted or xenophobic and totally worthy of a response. I'm sure it will make for "entertaining reading" as you like to say. This is my last post on this because it's veering off topic into a debate about the aparent moral worthiness of minority groups and it's not my job to explain the worthiness of my ethnicity to you. But feel free to answer for posterity. As an aside, Ilhan Omar was elected by a landslide in a 70% White American district of Minneapolis, a literal sundown town in the 1950's. So I guess your argument is that White Americans are capable of evolving over time and supporting Omar, but not Cuban-Americans or Venezuelan-Americans because...
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 02:00
|
|
|
elgatofilo posted:Ilhan Omar is the worst possible person the Democrats could've chosen right now to confront Abrams and try to get some accountability going here. Not only has she put herself in an incredibly weak position but she somehow managed to make a war criminal look like the victim. Immigrants who aren't compradors or exiles with an axe to grind with the regime back at home find her to be a perfectly good spokesperson, actually. Imagine being such a tone policing liberal that ilhan omar's mild criticism of israeli influence on US politics is enough to make someone play the antisemite card. Also imagine blaming omar for the military invasion that's going to happen and not the ghoulish white politicians like pelosi who love dropping bombs as much as the GOP does. CAPS LOCK BROKEN fucked around with this message at 03:01 on Feb 14, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 02:55
|
|
|
How does Maduro resign? He has the generals and possibly the Supreme Court. Does he get forced into a snap election?
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 03:32
|
|
|
drawkcab si eman ym posted:How does Maduro resign? He has the generals and possibly the Supreme Court. Does he get forced into a snap election? That's the most likely non-horrible scenario, yes.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 03:45
|
|
|
elgatofilo posted:It's not about being nice, it's about not losing control of the narrative and letting uncle sledgehammer control it instead, allowing him to paint himself as the victim (which he obviously is not.) At this point the left has completely lost control of the Venezuela narrative. Im used to "stakeholder" being diseased corporate speak, can you explain what a "stakeholder community" is vs. terms like "the Venezuelan-American community", because Im baffled at the distinction youre making
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 06:23
|
|
|
Looks like half of Bolton's "5,000 troops". Not enough to invade on their own, so probably just posturing for the moment. ED: Can't verify. Conspiratiorist fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Feb 14, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 07:30
|
|
|
Page no longer exists, and the source they had seems to just be a blogpost site, here it is. https://en-efectivo.blogspot.com/2019/02/dos-portaaviones-norteamericanos-y-una.html?spref=tw&m=1
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 07:34
|
|
|
Conspiratiorist posted:https://twitter.com/EndGameWW3/status/1095906314566467584 Uhh, any other sources on that? They're citing a Venezuelan "reporter" who can be found at @alexvallenilla and his personal blog as where the info comes from. I like to keep tabs on Venezuelan Twitter and I can tell you that guy is one of many Venezuelan "reporters" that amass huge followings by talking a lot of bullshit and playing dumb when their predictions and intrigue don't pan out. I wouldn't trust that guy if he told me it was raining while the raindrops were hitting my face.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 07:38
|
|
|
drawkcab si eman ym posted:How does Maduro resign? He has the generals and possibly the Supreme Court. Does he get forced into a snap election? He would win the election which is why the opposition has chosen to boycott the elections until they can murder enough of the PSUV base to defeat Maduro.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 07:49
|
|
|
Weird how the opposition with no actual control is murdering everyone at the same time. Almost as if the blame for the crisis in Venezeula's in on the actual ruling party's shoulders.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 07:54
|
|
|
ChaseSP posted:Weird how the opposition with no actual control is murdering everyone at the same time. Almost as if the blame for the crisis in Venezeula's in on the actual ruling party's shoulders. i can't wade through the irony to your point on this one
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 08:00
|
|
|
Presenting Nipples posted:He would win the election which is why the opposition has chosen to boycott the elections until they can murder enough of the PSUV base to defeat Maduro. You've obviously never heard or read any of the guy's speeches, or know anything about his policies. Maduro is so thoroughly unlikable and inept, the opposition could put up a capybara as their candidate and it would win in a landslide. He's so unbelievably dumb and malicious, most people with two brain cells would be embarrassed about supporting him and the PSUV in the hypothetical they actually had the faintest clue about the current state of Venezuela and how they put it in that situation.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 08:00
|
|
|
i would respectfully submit that americans are not likely to believe that it's impossible to reelect an utterly hapless mushmouthed idiot
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 08:02
|
|
|
I'm amazed Guiado didn't even run when Maduro won 67% yet he's the interim. Wonder if he runs in the new election
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 08:16
|
|
|
Labradoodle posted:You've obviously never heard or read any of the guy's speeches, or know anything about his policies. Maduro is so thoroughly unlikable and inept, the opposition could put up a capybara as their candidate and it would win in a landslide. He's so unbelievably dumb and malicious, most people with two brain cells would be embarrassed about supporting him and the PSUV in the hypothetical they actually had the faintest clue about the current state of Venezuela and how they put it in that situation. He just called Trump a white supremacist which most American leaders are too white supermasicty to say, so he at least appears more honest than Nancy Pelosi. The polling shows a majority of Venezuelans view him as the legitimate president. Maduro is willing to have another election and is willing to have international oversight. It’s funny how the western opposition refuses to hold an election despite being ‘pro-democracy’.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 08:20
|
|
|
elgatofilo posted:Ilhan Omar is the worst possible person the Democrats could've chosen right now to confront Abrams and try to get some accountability going here. Not only has she put herself in an incredibly weak position but she somehow managed to make a war criminal look like the victim. Ilhan Omar is the best possible person by virtue of the fact shes the only one who gave him his rightful poo poo to eat. Who on earth but the most ghoulish of DC hacks thinks Elliott loving Abrams came off like a victim in that grilling? Also i'm still trying to find her saying Maduro is a great guy instead of, ya' know, saying DON'T loving COUP ANOTHER LATIN AMERICAN COUNTRY. The GOP has been rigging elections like mad in places like georgia, does that mean Stacey Abrams should announce herself the real governor and the rest of the world should organize military intervention until she's appointed?? Its already been pointed out that nothing anyone says is going to stop the Trump train from death squading as much as it wants, so at least she made him squirm on camera and on record. This was a great career move for Omar, as its getting her attention and showing she has a spine, and as a refugee herself, has some idea of the destruction we will be bringing. Oh, and correction, she never said any anti-Semitic remarks at all, and if you're falling for that line, lmao.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 08:27
|
|
|
Presenting Nipples posted:He just called Trump a white supremacist which most American leaders are too white supermasicty to say, so he at least appears more honest than Nancy Pelosi. The opposition can't 'refuse' to have an election because they don't control the National Electoral Council. Maduro can call as many elections as he wants, but if you ban almost every single opposition party from running, threaten people to cast votes in your favor, and outright falsify votes (as the freaking company that makes the machines we use to tally them says they did), they're not valid. Furthermore, Maduro is only willing to have another election for the National Assembly, not the presidency, which again, anyone who bothered to read any news about Venezuela would know. Honestly, your utter ignorance about Venezuela is understandable. It's almost impossible to understand the current situation unless you have years of context to help make sense of it. Labradoodle fucked around with this message at 08:43 on Feb 14, 2019 |
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 08:40
|
|
|
It's possible if you want to, but none of these people do.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 08:56
|
|
|
Pedro De Heredia posted:It's possible if you want to, but none of these people do. "Noun. Verb. Elliot Abrams."
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 09:17
|
|
|
Pardon the naive question, but I'm wondering why the current hyperinflation in Venezuela can't be combatted by encouraging the regime to switch to a more stable foreign currency, as per https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevehanke/2019/01/01/venezuelas-hyperinflation-hits-80000-per-year-in-2018/? I can understand that it would stunt growth long-term and remove a lot of leverage the regime currently holds, but is there a less overtly political change the US can push for in response to this crisis? (yes, I know Forbes is trash; please educate me) I'm also having a hard time gauging the severity of the situation to know what a measured response might look like. Coming from a European country 1) from which a third of the population emigrated, 2) 30% of whose GDP consists of remittances from abroad, and 3) which was hit with a billion dollar bank theft sizing up to 12% of the country's GDP in 2014, Venezuela's current emigration and corruption issues seem on par with a 90's former communist republic. (it's Moldova, and we were only invaded by Russian forces in the 90's, thank you very much). Unless there's ongoing genocide, what possible justification could there be for sending US armed forces into the country?
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 10:12
|
|
|
RussianRoulette posted:Pardon the naive question, but I'm wondering why the current hyperinflation in Venezuela can't be combatted by encouraging the regime to switch to a more stable foreign currency, as per https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevehanke/2019/01/01/venezuelas-hyperinflation-hits-80000-per-year-in-2018/? Hyperinflation is fundamentally tied to things like that Maduro/the PSUV didn't respond to the unsustainability of some of their programs by changing them to make them sustainable, mostly because Maduro is a corrupt, inept authoritarian strongman first and a socialist last and only when he is incidentally able to appropriate the label for himself at no risk to his ruling junta and personal pocketbook. Instead, he continually defaulted to just printing more money. Things like Venezuela's price fixing programs put impossible matches between "the absolute minimum cost you can make thing" and "the absolute maximum you are allowed to sell thing for" and were too corrupt and ineptly run otherwise to even allow the country to sustainably benefit and distribute the wealth of its own natural resources. Maduro still needed to keep production paid out and running (and pay workers, and keep the lights on in buildings making things and all of that) without admitting the whole thing was a crisis level failure, because this comes at too much risk to Maduro and his control of vast sums of Venezuelan wealth. His chosen option was to just keep printing money and assuring people that the system works and the centralized, socialized systems shall continue as usual. then when the value of that money went down, print more money with more zeroes, and piledrive your country into the loving ground. This is a process that can go on about for as long as you can still actually even afford to run printers, as we saw in other places like Zimbabwe. It's also what Maduro has chosen to do, because he's a corrupt rear end in a top hat who, if all else fails, showed his primary interest was in fleecing the country hard enough to pipeline enough wealth and resources to factions that allow him to hold power at any cost. He has continued to do so even if it has brought the entire country to (and then beyond) a point of failure and left the vast majority of the country in poverty and food insecurity, with insanely growing violence, breakdown of even the most basic civic functions of governance or medicine and created a growingly monumental potential for civil war and/or complete famine -- when pipelines for food totally shut down, rather than just mostly shut down. Venezuela did dick around with the idea of cryptocurrency but I have heard very little about it and I would not be surprised to find out that it was the PSUV spitballing, attempting it with major deficiencies in funding and expertise, and the whole thing turning out to be a waste of time / embarrassment / scam as a result. Another couple of aspects of what Venezuela has already passed the point of no return on and which will leave the country hosed up for decades after this no matter what are that: 1. the emigration crisis also represents severe brain drain, because way way too many of the Venezuelans who had the technical or aptitudinal means to get the gently caress out of Venezuela for virtue of the fact that they know how to do things like run dams or build very tall buildings or code or manage oil refineries (kind of important there) got the gently caress out of venezuela to go earn a living somewhere where they aren't paid in bricks of useless money and they don't have to stand in. Some leftists look at that and exclaim in a celebratory fashion that it's just a bunch of bougie price fixers fleeing a richly deserved fate and proving that they weren't true to the spirit of glorious Socialism with Maduro Characteristics or whatever, but that still just leaves you with a country that can't build poo poo and can't even extract its own reserves. 2. Maduro's tenure has, as alluded to before, left Venezuela mostly or fully unable to manage its own natural resources. Maduro was already sort of busy with a fire sale of Venezuela's public resources anyway, so it's not really something that was too terribly fixable even a year before now. It's also left Venezuela open to extreme foreign influence, including getting sold out to the Russians or Chinese under the Venezuelan people's noses, or for literally John Bolton to be able to get right back to loving over latin america because the country's a hot mess and, in his eyes, ripe for Liberation. The actual Venezuelans here who have actual understanding of the situation on the ground can correct me on these points, but I hope I have a generally correct understanding. IMO Moldova probably had it better, but that's going to be a weird judgement call. It all comes down to the robustness of the democratic process, and seeing if there's ultimately a way out for Venezuelans through organized process. Also, to your last question, I really don't think so. I don't give the US any faith or credit in regards to latin american intervention.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 11:47
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 27, 2024 07:14 |
|
|
RussianRoulette posted:Pardon the naive question, but I'm wondering why the current hyperinflation in Venezuela can't be combatted by encouraging the regime to switch to a more stable foreign currency, as per https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevehanke/2019/01/01/venezuelas-hyperinflation-hits-80000-per-year-in-2018/? I think one of the main differences between the collapse of the east vs. Venezuela is that no one was actually starving then, and you still had electricity and water. Even in Caracas municipal water is not a regular occurrence, and in some places like Valencia there might just be a few hours a week (!). OTOH I have no idea about Moldova, I'm thinking more like Czech Republic and Poland. Moldova is shockingly poor (GDP pp of ~$2200/yr), and I never really understood how a country that's still as nominally wealthy as Venezuela cannot import enough food to feed its population, when countries that are an order of magnitude poorer are still getting by. I'm shocked that even after 4 years of hunger, no one in Venezuela seems to be farming. Like wouldn't this be both a stereotypical and trivial thing for the government to implement? It even would get them more street credit with Marxist-Leninist idiots.
|
|
#
?
Feb 14, 2019 12:19
|
|