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I do NOT hope the US invades and doesnt collapse though. That would be my least favorite outcome.
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Apr 10, 2019 01:04
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Don't underestimate how many stupid wars the US can get into and still keep it's warboner going.
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Apr 10, 2019 01:38
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The Kingfish posted:Is that what moreno means across the Spanish speaking world? I was taught that it’s just the Spanish equivalent of “brunette” lol Just in Venezuela, I think. Here in Argentina 'moreno' means brunette like you said. In Venezuela we use it as a catch-all word for anyone too dark to be considered white, but not quite black, so it covers quite a wide spectrum. I get mistaken for Arabic often and I'm called moreno in Venezuela, if that helps. Majorian posted:Understand, of course, that my ideal solution to all of this would be for the people of Venezuela to band together, overthrow Maduro, and replace him with a left-wing leader who's not a puppet of any foreign power and who actually wants to serve his or her people. Who knows, maybe that will happen in the near-to-medium-term future. But that ain't what Guiado is. I think we can all agree this would be the ideal outcome. However, it's important to understand the Maduro government exerts a lot of pressure on the military, who are key in that ideal scenario. We focus a lot on the opposition figures who have been imprisoned, but the Maduro government also routinely imprisons and tortures military members who they think might be involved in any 'extracurricular' activities, as well as their families. Without a broad sector of the military turning publicly on them, it's hard for change to come solely from within Venezuela, and that's very difficult as long as the government controls enough force to keep everyone on their toes.
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Apr 10, 2019 03:29
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Labradoodle posted:I think we can all agree this would be the ideal outcome. However, it's important to understand the Maduro government exerts a lot of pressure on the military, who are key in that ideal scenario. We focus a lot on the opposition figures who have been imprisoned, but the Maduro government also routinely imprisons and tortures military members who they think might be involved in any 'extracurricular' activities, as well as their families. Without a broad sector of the military turning publicly on them, it's hard for change to come solely from within Venezuela, and that's very difficult as long as the government controls enough force to keep everyone on their toes. I get that, I'm just pretty unconvinced that anyone who has Trump and Abrams' imprimatur is the solution to any of this. Particularly given that Guaido apparently didn't have as much support from the National Assembly as he claimed earlier this year. There have been people here who have said that literally anything would be better than Maduro continuing to rule. The U.S. is pretty great at hearing stuff like that and saying "Hold my beer."
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Apr 10, 2019 06:53
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What I'm wondering is, how will Russia and China prop up the regime long term? It seems a considerably more challenging case for them than usual. Russia helped Assad slaughter his way to victory in Syria, keeping an ally in place, a military bastion, and gaining oil concessions in Deir az Zor that could conceivably pay for themselves eventually. But while Syria ranks among the most inept, corrupt, mismanaged countries in the world, the economy is still significantly better run than Venezuela simply because it's not the most batshit insane kind of socialism and perhaps because Syria is less oil dependent and suffered less dutch disease. The conventional explanation on opposition blogs like Caracas Chronicles has been the Russians and Chinese will demand more and more long term resource concessions in return for providing more loans and services the regime desperately needs, like China building out internet infrastructure and Russia building military bases (not clear yet if this will help Russia or the Maduro regime more). But it's still hard for me to see how this gets them to remotely stable government in Venezuela. Are China and Russia making monthly overall profit out of Venezuela, right now? I know their state-run oil operations in Venezuela right now are profitable, but what about the costs of all their efforts to help the regime? As I understand it, China has net lost money on Venezuela, largely because of their billions in reckless loans during the Chavez era (the Chinese were warned, but chose to learn the hard way) whereas Russia focused on corrupt oil extraction and made billions net. But the past are sunk costs, what dictates Chinese and Russian self-interest now is what they think they can milk out of Venezuela in the future. I have the impression that until recently (maybe even still), China and Russia still didn't fully grasp the sheer ineptitude of the Chavista regime and were largely thinking in terms of traditional third-world economic crises. I can answer my own question but only to an extent; China and Russia will prop up the regime as long as they have reasonable belief it will pay off for them long term. The more pertinent question is how long, to what extent and in what form? CC had an interesting post a couple months back about Huawei and ZTE possibly providing the Chavista regime with state-level internet monitoring and censorship technology, as a way to crack down on dissent and bolster the regime. Again from a totally amoral self-interested standpoint, I can see this possibly being profitable for China. But it's a long way from China having confidence its investments won't justifiably be declared illegal and seized by a future opposition government. Long term, I can see what China and Russia want is the Venezuelan people to have just barely enough food and healthcare, and enough brainwashing and dissent-crushing to not literally rebel and seize their assets. Beyond that they have no reason to care. But it's awfully hard to see how they get there with the changes to their policy I've seen so far. Eregos fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Apr 10, 2019 |
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Apr 10, 2019 08:49
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Why do you seem to believe that Russia and China are effectively in control of/running Venezuela as if the country is some sort of franchise?
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Apr 10, 2019 09:37
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Labradoodle posted:Just in Venezuela, I think. Here in Argentina 'moreno' means brunette like you said. In Venezuela we use it as a catch-all word for anyone too dark to be considered white, but not quite black, so it covers quite a wide spectrum. I get mistaken for Arabic often and I'm called moreno in Venezuela, if that helps. Interesting, in Brazilian portuguese moreno have both these meanings: brunette and brow/mixed person
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Apr 10, 2019 11:14
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Majorian posted:There have been people here who have said that literally anything would be better than Maduro continuing to rule. The U.S. is pretty great at hearing stuff like that and saying "Hold my beer." Keep in mind that those sentiments were primarily expressed while Maduro was still refusing to allow food aid into the country.
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Apr 10, 2019 13:17
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Russia and China's interest in Venezuela is in the country's status as a geopolitical ally, not as a place to earn profit. However its clear they don't value it as an ally enough to just straight up give them free stuff, so they expect to be paid for their services. As the Venezuelan economy contracts their willingness to extend cash and support will probably decrease. Resource concessions inside Venezuela are of limited value to foreign operators because of requirements that they be jointly exploited with the PDVSA, which now acts as a huge drag on efficiency. Ironically the biggest prop for the Venezuelan government in the near future, presuming they can't stabilize the oil industry, is going to be from the US, Western Europe, and Venezuela's South American neighbors. This is because as Venezuelans emigrate, they begin sending remittances back home. This provides hard currency and goods. If Venezuela had closed its borders like the Soviet bloc the situation would be dramatically worse.
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Apr 10, 2019 16:43
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Eregos posted:What I'm wondering is, how will Russia and China prop up the regime long term? It seems a considerably more challenging case for them than usual. Russia helped Assad slaughter his way to victory in Syria, keeping an ally in place, a military bastion, and gaining oil concessions in Deir az Zor that could conceivably pay for themselves eventually. But while Syria ranks among the most inept, corrupt, mismanaged countries in the world, the economy is still significantly better run than Venezuela simply because it's not the most batshit insane kind of socialism and perhaps because Syria is less oil dependent and suffered less dutch disease. Venezuela has been a boondoggle/money pit for Russia. Reuters did a deep dive on it: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/venezuela-russia-rosneft/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=twitter and there has been other reporting as well. Russia does "own" a lot of things in Venezuela at this point, but they're not profitable as far as I am aware. They even gave the regime weapons on credit. thatfatkid posted:Why do you seem to believe that Russia and China are effectively in control of/running Venezuela as if the country is some sort of franchise? Yeah, it's a bit too simplistic to say that the Maduro government is a franchise of Russia and China, because it is actually a franchise of Russia, China, and Cuba. Not going too well at the moment, but not for lack of effort on their part.
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Apr 10, 2019 17:29
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If any one of those countries was actually running things Venezuelans would probably be considerably better off compared to the status quo.
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Apr 10, 2019 17:34
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Labradoodle posted:I get mistaken for Arabic often and I'm called moreno in Venezuela, if that helps. You too? When I met my first friends here they thought I was Turkish before I told them my name
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Apr 10, 2019 18:03
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Netblocks.org reporting another new nationwide power outage.
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Apr 10, 2019 18:45
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Squalid posted:If any one of those countries was actually running things Venezuelans would probably be considerably better off compared to the status quo. Agreed. Interesting to assert Russia and China are more interested in Venezuela as a geopolitical ally. I can't confidently disagree. But there's also plenty of evidence they are highly motivated to make propping up the regime profitable. Digging deeper requires talking about Russia and China separately. In the Hu Jintao years China launched into a massive neomercantilist foreign policy aimed at 'building mutually beneficial development relationships' with 3rd world and developing nations. For the most part these were more about making money and getting resources for China than gaining geopolitical allies. At least every source I've ever read has placed the emphasis more on economic gain. In many nations, including Venezuela, the Chinese began from the premise that the World bank, IMF, western governments and private equity had irrationally written off too many of these nations as investment prospects. The Chinese believed this was partly due to western political bias against non-democracies and partially a lack of willingness to take risks, especially ones that might not pay off for a long time. Though they would never admit it, the Chinese almost certainly considered their government type's lack of transparency, moral and ethical constraints as freeing them to make the kinds of corrupt bargains necessary to make China's investing strategy profitable and successful long-term, especially in Africa. China being a massive economy with no such political bias could afford to take expensive long-term risks. In many cases, like Venezuela, the Chinese learned the hard way why western governments and institutions have strict lending standards. So in the broader context, I've long had the sense Venezuela was another of China's long-term investments they thought would massively pay off long-term. But it genuinely seems the Chinese didn't understand the depths of the Chavista regime's incompetence and mismanagement. Just because China lost money on Venezuela doesn't mean they prioritized gaining a geopolitical ally over making money. Finally I'll note the Chinese have been more stringent in their lending and asked more in return for assistance in recent years. This could fit either view - China is interested in Venezuela mainly as a geopolitical ally but is only willing to invest so much in a failing project, or China was mainly in it for money but is seeing prospects dry up. The reason I didn't name Cuba is because Cuba is too poor to provide the kind of large investments and assistance Russia and China are capable of. As such there's only so much they can do to stabilize the regime. With regard to Chinese and Russian oil concessions, my memory is the requirement of being jointly run with PDVSA has indeed created massive problems but they were able to stretch and take over many of the shared responsibilities as PDVSA continues to fail. Profitability has been hurt but a CC post a few weeks ago claimed their concessions were still net profitable to run. Eregos fucked around with this message at 05:53 on Apr 11, 2019 |
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Apr 11, 2019 05:46
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Eregos posted:Agreed. Interesting to assert Russia and China are more interested in Venezuela as a geopolitical ally. I can't confidently disagree. But there's also plenty of evidence they are highly motivated to make propping up the regime profitable. Digging deeper requires talking about Russia and China separately. In the Hu Jintao years China launched into a massive neomercantilist foreign policy aimed at 'building mutually beneficial development relationships' with 3rd world and developing nations. For the most part these were more about making money and getting resources for China than gaining geopolitical allies. At least every source I've ever read has placed the emphasis more on economic gain. In many nations, including Venezuela, the Chinese began from the premise that the World bank, IMF, western governments and private equity had irrationally written off too many of these nations as investment prospects. The Chinese believed this was partly due to western political bias against non-democracies and partially a lack of willingness to take risks, especially ones that might not pay off for a long time. Though they would never admit it, the Chinese almost certainly considered their government type's lack of transparency, moral and ethical constraints as freeing them to make the kinds of corrupt bargains necessary to make China's investing strategy profitable and successful long-term, especially in Africa. China being a massive economy with no such political bias could afford to take expensive long-term risks. In many cases, like Venezuela, the Chinese learned the hard way why western governments and institutions have strict lending standards. So in the broader context, I've long had the sense Venezuela was another of China's long-term investments they thought would massively pay off long-term. But it genuinely seems the Chinese didn't understand the depths of the Chavista regime's incompetence and mismanagement. Just because China lost money on Venezuela doesn't mean they prioritized gaining a geopolitical ally over making money. Finally I'll note the Chinese have been more stringent in their lending and asked more in return for assistance in recent years. This could fit either view - China is interested in Venezuela mainly as a geopolitical ally but is only willing to invest so much in a failing project, or China was mainly in it for money but is seeing prospects dry up. I feel less confident opining about China's motivation, but with Russia its clear they viewed their investments as both part of a grand strategic project as well as a money making scheme. That desire for a political ally I believe led to willful blindness towards just how much risk they were exposing themselves to. There was a good article on this subject published last month. China's investment I think were more profit motivated. One common note I've seen in Chinese foreign policy thought is the idea of self-determination. China has forsworn interference in other countries internal affairs, and believes the US should do the same. To that end they will provide at least passive support to the Venezuelan government probably as long as Maduro is President. I think we basically agree. China and Russia viewed supporting Venezuela as strategically desirable, and this led them to seeing the fiscal wisdom of loans with rose colored glasses. The US by contrast, when it wants to make loans, has developed mechanisms that can force repayment through structural adjustment. Now they are reaching the point at which the amount of money necessary to support the Maduro government is exceeding what they can reasonably expect to get out of any arrangement. If Venezuela can't change course its hard to imagine what its future is going to look like, but it won't be pretty.
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Apr 11, 2019 07:25
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Sometimes I wonder if China's foreign policy elite, behind closed doors, snicker about the notion China 'doesn't interfere in other nations' internal affairs'. China very much interferes, just not in all the same ways other major powers do. When China sells censorship and repression tools, signs deals with corrupt dictators that screw their people and help to keep them in power, it's no surprise they end up with a backlash like has been growing in parts of Africa the past few years. It's not the same thing as classical imperialism, but the net effect ends up disturbingly similar. I don't think you'd disagree but I can't resist pointing out opposition activists don't feel China's support is all that 'passive' when they get disappeared and tortured, discovered using censorship and monitoring tools China provided. Eregos fucked around with this message at 10:53 on Apr 11, 2019 |
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Apr 11, 2019 10:50
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Eregos posted:Sometimes I wonder if China's foreign policy elite, behind closed doors, snicker about the notion China 'doesn't interfere in other nations' internal affairs' All the way to the bank. *snickering in mandarin* The china man has been doing imperialism long before the white man.
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Apr 12, 2019 03:01
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There must be merry goings-on in the USA (and the UK has Brexit), the thread has lapsed into quietude again. Update on any events? More sniper attacks on electrical infrastructure?
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Apr 12, 2019 18:08
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Rust Martialis posted:There must be merry goings-on in the USA (and the UK has Brexit), the thread has lapsed into quietude again. https://twitter.com/EyesLeftPod/status/1115731368820928512
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Apr 12, 2019 18:17
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The PSUV freaked the gently caress out about Mercenaries 2 as well. Joke's on them, it wasn't very good.
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Apr 12, 2019 18:29
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madeintaipei posted:The PSUV freaked the gently caress out about Mercenaries 2 as well. Joke's on them, it wasn't very good. Which was a real shame, Mercenaries 1 was a ton of fun.
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Apr 12, 2019 18:36
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Never having played CoD, is this even remotely accurate?
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Apr 12, 2019 18:37
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Lol. I want to see a Maduro mission in the next game but he needs a robot body as his final space form.
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Apr 12, 2019 18:39
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Rust Martialis posted:Never having played CoD, is this even remotely accurate? Sort-of. But its just a dumb computer game. Pretty much any future military operation will have similar plots to games already created. Its 2027 and some special ops upload a computer virus to a server room in a skyscraper in Caracas that is supposed to temporarily shut down the power grid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0-OJ3dhj8Q
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Apr 12, 2019 18:55
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Yeeeeah, uh, someone might just have pulled that out of their rear end, but I would not bat an eye if the tone-deaf fuckers producing CoD made a Venezuelan "No Spanish" level in the upcoming Call of Duty : Contras Warfare.
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Apr 12, 2019 19:01
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Rust Martialis posted:Never having played CoD, is this even remotely accurate? Nah. You see a fictitious dam near Caracas in the background. And Call of Duty Caracas looks like some cyberpunk metropolis.
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Apr 12, 2019 19:12
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Red Cross to 'triple' budget to $24M after Maduro softens stance on aid https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/12/red-cross-aid-to-venezuela-to-triple-as-nicolas-maduro-stance-softens
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Apr 12, 2019 19:14
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The latest round of electrical issues are getting ready to kick down some industries that had survived previous critical power instability. They would be joining Venezuela's aluminium manufacturing.
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Apr 12, 2019 19:27
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zapplez posted:Sort-of. But its just a dumb computer game. Pretty much any future military operation will have similar plots to games already created. this is because Venezuelan space marines hijacked America's WMD killsat ten years earlier. christ, Ghosts was a mess.
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Apr 12, 2019 19:42
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Rust Martialis posted:Never having played CoD, is this even remotely accurate? Call of Duty: Ghosts is basically a paranoid right-wing fantasy about "what if Red Dawn but against super Venezuela," it is essentially Tom Clancy mixed with the Turner Diaries. It's also a 6 year old game and was widely panned as one of the worst ones.
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Apr 13, 2019 06:25
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So the Venezuelan people largely don't like Maduro, but what do they think of Guiado?
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Apr 13, 2019 07:11
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punk rebel ecks posted:So the Venezuelan people largely don't like Maduro, but what do they think of Guiado? Assuming a fair election is held eventually, we may yet find out. I think he was intended as a uncontroversial front man for the NA, not as the next MUD candidate. But events flow as they may...
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Apr 13, 2019 07:27
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punk rebel ecks posted:So the Venezuelan people largely don't like Maduro, but what do they think of Guiado? Short story, Guaido was a rockstar for a while, now people are more hesitant because the whole country's realizing the Maduro government isn't going to cede power without a stronger show of force. The best way to put it is everytime the country thinks there's one opposition figure who's going to crack the dictatorship they adore him, but then the ground comes crashing down.
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Apr 13, 2019 08:46
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https://twitter.com/medeabenjamin/status/1116729658857467905
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Apr 13, 2019 14:27
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Yup, those three middle aged white FOLKS with laptops sure will stop the CIA from busting in. vincentpricesboner fucked around with this message at 15:37 on Apr 13, 2019 |
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Apr 13, 2019 15:28
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zapplez posted:Yup, those three middle aged white guys with laptops sure will stop the CIA from busting in. Why deliberately misgender?
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Apr 13, 2019 15:34
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mlmp08 posted:Why deliberately misgender? Guys is a non-gendered term where I come from, but sure I'll change it for you
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Apr 13, 2019 15:37
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zapplez posted:Guys is a non-gendered term where I come from, but sure I'll change it for you Weird. "Hey, guys," is non-gendered here in the most general sense when addressing a large group, but not proper in formal settings. But saying "Look at those three guys," is decidedly not here. Is English your second language? Genuinely curious where anglophones call a woman a "guy" as a matter of course. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 15:43 on Apr 13, 2019 |
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Apr 13, 2019 15:40
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Lightning Knight posted:Call of Duty: Ghosts is basically a paranoid right-wing fantasy about "what if Red Dawn but against super Venezuela," it is essentially Tom Clancy mixed with the Turner Diaries. It's also a 6 year old game and was widely panned as one of the worst ones. Oh, they're talking about Ghost. Wasn't the plot for that one basically "the entire western hemisphere cooperates to take away America's doomsday weapon, and now they must be punished for their insolence"? Even mainstream reviews were like "Wait, these are supposed to be the bad guys?"
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Apr 13, 2019 16:49
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Ghosts was also so bad it almost killed the franchise, so take that as you will.
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Apr 13, 2019 16:56
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