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Helsing posted:The US government had conducted a wide variety of activities aimed at destroying the country, from backing the contras to imposing economic sanctions. Then they grandly announced that they would end the sanctions if the Sandinista government was voted out. There are also reports from the Toronto Star's reporters that dozens of people being killed by Contras during the election in voter intimidation incidents. I really don't know why you're comfortable dismissing the potential impact of this violence or why you think a more likely explanation was campaign spending. I imagine that for a lot of voters it was well understood that the American threat to continue sanctions was also implicitly a threat to continue sponsoring the contras. You can say with the benefit of hindsight that they were already in the process of disbanding but that was probably much less apparent to voters at the time, most of whom probably lacked any reliable information on the conflict. I think the message that probably cut very clearly through all the noise was the US government saying it would stop torturing the country if they just got rid of the Sandinistas. The first mistake is even engaging with the framing that there are "decisive factors" in these kinds of complex phenomena. The entire concept is deceptive and will lead you to mistakes. To repeat myself, imagine an election. Candidate A wins with 51% of the vote against B with 49%. A got 5% extra votes for having good policy positions, and 2% via a strong ground game. Which was the decisive factor in A's victory, policy, or the ground game? Obviously the question itself is nonsensical, the victory would have been impossible without either within these margins. This kind of framing should be rejected out of hand as worse than useless. Looking at your last sentence it seems we are basically in agreement, we are uncertain of the true contribution of any single variable. When making observations about the real world, practically speaking this will always be the case. In literally every case where economic pressure has been used in international politics to pressure a country, someone like Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! will always be able to find some excuse as to why THIS TIME, it doesn't count. Sometimes, they will even be right. It's a fundamental weakness inherent to the study of natural experiments. Unfortunately that just means we have to learn to live with some uncertainty.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 00:06 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 15:25 |
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M. Discordia posted:This actually has a lot to do with Venezuela so I wanted to go over the absurdity on that page: It's a wikipedia entry, I sort of assumed people would know that wikipedia is not a particularly reliable source for anything other than a broad overview (I also kind of thought it went without saying that a statistic with such a ridiculously wide range was inherently sketchy). And as far as overviews go the description of the Cuban government's extensive campaign of training teachers and deploying them to the countryside is an uncontroversial aspect of Cuban history. This is demonstrated by, among other things, UN statistics showing that Cuba has an adult literacy rate of 99.8%, which is better than neighboring countries. Similarly, claims that Cuba's literacy campaign was probably the most ambitious in the world at that time and perhaps one of the most ambitious programs to date are widely echoed even in publications that aren't known for their communist sympathies. Here, for instance, is a book citing a Cuban government census from 1953 showing an illiteracy rate of 23.6% overall and 42% in the countryside: If I had to guess I would say that somewhere between that book and the wikipedia entry the stats got garbled but probably the author was trying to cite that census and hosed it up, possibly due to lack of language skills or just a general misunderstanding of stats. Or hey, maybe it was a sinister Bolshevik conspiracy. And just cause we're on the topic here's another good write up on Cuban literacy: The Independent, Latin lessons: What can we learn from the world's most ambitious literacy campaign? posted:Tuesday afternoon in the José Marti Primary School means it's time for maths. A classroom full of wide-eyed eight-year-old boys and girls are poring over frayed workbooks in pairs while their teacher walks around peering over tiny shoulders. Each wears the standard Cuban primary-school uniform of burgundy shorts or mini-skirt and white short-sleeved shirt, and eager hands go up one after the other as the day's sums are completed.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 01:15 |
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Yeah the country that developed a lung cancer vaccine and eliminated mother-to-child HIV transmission has really stagnated
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 01:34 |
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Pablo Nergigante posted:Yeah the country that developed a lung cancer vaccine and eliminated mother-to-child HIV transmission has really stagnated Another american sanction success story
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 01:48 |
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Uh Cuba also has a lower infant mortality rate than the USA in general lol
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 04:20 |
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Kavros posted:I know by now the discussions about the recent venezuelan power troubles are stuck well in the depths of this thread, but much like with Venezuela's hyperinflation and the crisis imposed by the price fixing programs, the problems in many parts of Venezuela's electrical grid remained inconsistent with sabotage and were absolutely inconsistent with the specific conspiracies that Maduro claimed as official account of the crisis at the time. Yeah. Some posts were inconsistent with my recollection of how thread discussion went. My memory is people said direct US involvement was improbable although not totally impossible. The derisive laughter was at Maduro's claim of a 'cybernetic' and 'electromagnetic' attack.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 05:30 |
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Balliver Shagnasty posted:I have to admire your tenacity, because any other person would have just said "peace out" and left the thread to whatever circlejerks the posters want to engage in. And most Venegoons already have. But anyway, so I’ve been thinking about this, and I guess my answer is a bit more complicated than it originally was. When I first started posting in this thread it was an attempt to bypass the encroachment of freedom of speech in the country, which has been well underway under Maduro to the point where he owns almost all print and television media. I wanted to show the world what I was going through in the only way I knew how. That was the case for many years, for quite a while the thread was either Venezuelans or people with good knowledge of the situation, we’d talk about current events, we’d discuss both the ineffectiveness of the opposition (I’m a vocal critic of them, always have been), and the overwhelming corruption, negligence and criminality of the Madurista government, as well as how absurd their excuses were. These excuses, I believe are the focal point of the thread today. With US involvement ramping up significantly in 2019, radical left circles in America suddenly became aware that a crisis was underway in Venezuela, thus started posting about it. Most of these posters have a hatred of America that far outweighs their knowledge of the country, thus everything begins to gravitate towards that, to the extent of questioning what once were established facts. I don’t have a problem talking about America’s noxious effect in Latin American affairs, I’m not exactly in love with America, I pretty openly oppose Trump, he reminds me of the populist that Chavez was. What happens though is that this chokes out any discussion about what’s happening on the ground. Some posters have gone to absurd lengths to implicate US involvement in literally every part of the crisis. It’s like an ignorance bubble, created by a refusal to stick to evidence. When I returned to the thread after the hiatus I took, I came back to someone implying that since there are Google reviews for restaurants done this year in Venezuela, there likely wasn’t any food shortages. As someone who had gone about a year without drinking milk because it just couldn’t be loving found anywhere back in 2016, I begged to differ. Pop the bubble. Counter the straight up bullshit. So the issue is that these posters with little understanding of what Venezuela was before this year come in fully convinced that they can blame the US for literally everything, seemingly including corruption, or stuff that has been going on before any sanctions. Nothing is ever approached from a Venezuelan standpoint, or the country’s historical context. There doesn’t seem to be any need for evidence, because “why wouldn’t the US do this” seems sufficient for them. And that’s not productive for anyone, that doesn’t drive the discussion forward, that doesn’t inform anybody, that isn’t fair to the Venezuelans who are witnessed and have witnessed gross misconduct from their government, it diminishes and belittles them. My hope ultimately is that by bringing back that historical context of the crisis, those moments that much more clearly explain what is going on rather than aimlessly pinning everything down to US action. I hope that in doing that this thread will become useful to those who are just casually reading and just wanna be updated on the situation, people who do not need to be constantly reminded of terrible American policy in Latin America, and instead want the part they don’t know about, what has been happening on the other side of the Caribbean. And to those posters, I just hope you start reading more into Venezuela. Be it to try and find a sick own for something I say, or to expand your own understanding of the situation. Find actual sources from the country, find real evidence of US action, don’t settle for extrapolating something that happened elsewhere as a way to explain events in Venezuela. And for the love of god, read into the level of corruption within the PSUV, they are not worth defending, they are not fighting for a socialist struggle, the evidence of corruption is widespread. Don’t believe them, challenge what they say, assume they would lie to save their hide as they often do. fnox fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Jun 17, 2019 |
# ? Jun 17, 2019 12:06 |
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Undoubtedly there was a literacy program in Cuba in 1961, undoubtedly no one can quantitatively measure how effective it was because the numbers provided are provable fabrications, undoubtedly worldwide literacy has risen at a steady 4% every year for decades, indicating that perhaps Castro's prison camps and Guevara's mass graves were not necessary to teach some amount of people to read.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 12:38 |
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M. Discordia posted:Undoubtedly there was a literacy program in Cuba in 1961, undoubtedly no one can quantitatively measure how effective it was because the numbers provided are provable fabrications, undoubtedly worldwide literacy has risen at a steady 4% every year for decades, indicating that perhaps Castro's prison camps and Guevara's mass graves were not necessary to teach some amount of people to read. *peering into the distant horizon, trying to see where those goal posts finally ended up*
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 13:35 |
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M. Discordia posted:Undoubtedly there was a literacy program in Cuba in 1961, undoubtedly no one can quantitatively measure how effective it was because the numbers provided are provable fabrications, undoubtedly worldwide literacy has risen at a steady 4% every year for decades, indicating that perhaps Castro's prison camps and Guevara's mass graves were not necessary to teach some amount of people to read. Galaxy brain
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 14:37 |
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M. Discordia posted:Undoubtedly there was a literacy program in Cuba in 1961, undoubtedly no one can quantitatively measure how effective it was because the numbers provided are provable fabrications, undoubtedly worldwide literacy has risen at a steady 4% every year for decades, indicating that perhaps Castro's prison camps and Guevara's mass graves were not necessary to teach some amount of people to read. the mass graves in Nicaragua and Guatemala, however. those were definitely required to make the world a better place. you can tell, because it was kindly old uncle Abrams who did them. and you can't have teachers around giving the kids ideas, can you? suspiciously commie talk, that.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 14:44 |
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M. Discordia posted:Undoubtedly there was a literacy program in Cuba in 1961, undoubtedly no one can quantitatively measure how effective it was because the numbers provided are provable fabrications, undoubtedly worldwide literacy has risen at a steady 4% every year for decades, indicating that perhaps Castro's prison camps and Guevara's mass graves were not necessary to teach some amount of people to read. media literacy campaigns: a profound necessity for a functioning and free society teaching the peasants to read: the horrors of communism
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 15:54 |
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M. Discordia posted:Undoubtedly there was a literacy program in Cuba in 1961, undoubtedly no one can quantitatively measure how effective it was because the numbers provided are provable fabrications, undoubtedly worldwide literacy has risen at a steady 4% every year for decades, indicating that perhaps Castro's prison camps and Guevara's mass graves were not necessary to teach some amount of people to read. Ya know maybe if the USA didn't try to make Cuba a puppet with their requirements on Cuba's constitution and legislature then there wouldn't have been rampant corruption, unemployment rates comparable to the US during the great depression, half the country without electricity, half the population in shacks without running water, some of the highest rents and electricity rates in the world, about 1.5 percent of landlords owning half of all the land, a 63% literacy rate, rampant TB and parasites, all public utilities being US run monopolies, all the best land and all the oil refineries owned by US companies, extraction of wealth from Cuba back to the USA... Then they wouldn't have needed a communist revolution.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 15:57 |
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fnox posted:So the issue is that these posters with little understanding of what Venezuela was before this year come in fully convinced that they can blame the US for literally everything, seemingly including corruption, or stuff that has been going on before any sanctions. Nothing is ever approached from a Venezuelan standpoint, or the country’s historical context. There doesn’t seem to be any need for evidence, because “why wouldn’t the US do this” seems sufficient for them. And that’s not productive for anyone, that doesn’t drive the discussion forward, that doesn’t inform anybody, that isn’t fair to the Venezuelans who are witnessed and have witnessed gross misconduct from their government, it diminishes and belittles them. I've noticed this as well. A big part of it I think is that most people have trouble looking at an issue from someone else's perspective, and this is one of the reasons you in particular catch so much flak. When an American reads you talking about the importance of opposing Maduro, they don't hear a Venezuelan talking to Venezuelans about Venezuelan issues. They hear someone addressing themselves personally about an issue of American foreign policy. That's the light they see the conversation in, and they can't step out of themselves to see how the context might be different for other people. An example of this is how many Europeans start talking about preventing austerity as a reason to support Maduro, or at least oppose Guaido. On its face this is an absurdity, public spending has crashed under Maduro and by any reasonable measure Venezuela is undergoing the deepest austerity imaginable. However it makes sense when you realize they aren't even really thinking about Venezuela. Instead they are projecting their own domestic political issues onto Venezuela, even if it doesn't make sense in context. Venezuela's problems become just another way to talk about their own local issues. I'm not immune to this effect myself, obviously. Years ago when this thread was just people posting news I was pretty much just quiet, because I had nothing to contribute. I don't know that much about Venezuela or events on the ground. I have much more to say in internal debates, but at least I can say about myself that I'm not going to try and shout Venezuelans down.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 16:58 |
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Squalid posted:I've noticed this as well. A big part of it I think is that most people have trouble looking at an issue from someone else's perspective, and this is one of the reasons you in particular catch so much flak. When an American reads you talking about the importance of opposing Maduro, they don't hear a Venezuelan talking to Venezuelans about Venezuelan issues. They hear someone addressing themselves personally about an issue of American foreign policy. That's the light they see the conversation in, and they can't step out of themselves to see how the context might be different for other people. The reason why is because some of the loudest people (here and elsewhere) emphasizing the need to oppose Maduro have also said that this means we need to support a U.S. intervention to replace him - even if that means he is replaced with a murderous Condor Years-type fascist.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 17:39 |
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Also, in the case of austerity Venezuela, it is clear from published data, the state simply lacks any resources to run services at this point and in honesty has been running on fumes since around 2012 or so although it has gotten worse in the last 2 years. Isn't quite the same as the Eurozone where the resources were there in abundance (not just billions but hundreds of billions) but austerity was used as an "instructive lesson" against the population.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 17:47 |
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fnox posted:Stuff. Pretty much this. I don't care if I sound patronizing, but nearly every newcomer to this thread have little idea what they are talking about. They don't know basic things such as the crisis was WELL underway before any type of sanctions were implemented. That the issues of shortages, corruption, and monetary policy didn't happen overnight, but we're very gradual while the PSUV did nothing to stop them, and only make them worse. Many want to make the issue with Venezuela a story of a country that had a successful socialist government nearly two decades that was then ruined by the US economy by sanctions that would make Iran blush, but in actuality Venezuela was crumbling far before the nation got mainstream news attention. Squalid posted:Other stuff. I remember the segment of the thread when the Americans embarrassingly tried to bring America racial politics to Latin America. Or...kinda not since they called people who were clearly "brown" white Europeans. The PSUV is also huge on cyrptocurrency. Right and left wing can look different depending on the country. Majorian posted:The reason why is because some of the loudest people (here and elsewhere) emphasizing the need to oppose Maduro have also said that this means we need to support a U.S. intervention to replace him - even if that means he is replaced with a murderous Condor Years-type fascist. While I admit these types in the thread have show presence, they were/are fairly outnumbered by posters praising up the PSUV as a downtrodden angelic party that had the nation's success snatched for them by sanctions, and any Venezuelan complaining is a plantation owner. Edit - To add to this. The major issue Venezuelan posters and others have in this thread is the framing the newcomers use. They are far too apologietic to the PSUV, as the party isn't portrayed as the corrupt regime that it is, but rather another left wing government that is for the people that its sole and only reason for struggling is because the United States is destroying it from the inside out. And that isn't an accurate representation of the situation and is obviously frustrating for the people who had and have to live through this. punk rebel ecks fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Jun 17, 2019 |
# ? Jun 17, 2019 17:56 |
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:No, we really can't. That's ridiculous. They're a stable state with no active war, they have an open border and trade with China and their main problems are caused by US sanctions. How can you honestly say we don't know that things in North Korea are terrible? Am i just being whooshed by a bad troll? There is no question that North Korea has been in crisis for years and years. There is an argument to be made of how exactly bad things are in Venezuela. To argue that we can't really know how bad things are in NK is ridiculous. https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/05/1009502 https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2019/country-chapters/north-korea https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48590691 https://metro.co.uk/2019/02/27/ive-seen-starving-north-korean-women-executed-for-eating-their-own-children-8726479/ Either way, the original argument of "if things were actually bad, people would revolt" is bullshit. vincentpricesboner fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jun 17, 2019 |
# ? Jun 17, 2019 18:04 |
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zapplez posted:How can you honestly say we don't know that things in North Korea are terrible? I think they are probably not great but just to be devil's advocate: is there any piece of information you have about NK that wasn't disseminated by Western sources with an interest against North Korea? Like I said things are probably not great but I am a little skeptical of some of the more sensationalist stuff especially when they tell me certain people were executed for trivial things but then I see that person alive and fine a few months later lol
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 18:18 |
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punk rebel ecks posted:While I admit these types in the thread have show presence, they were/are fairly outnumbered by posters praising up the PSUV as a downtrodden angelic party that had the nation's success snatched for them by sanctions, and any Venezuelan complaining is a plantation owner. Are they? fnox literally believes that a new Pinochet would be better than Maduro. zapplez and others have said that literally anything, up to and including a U.S. invasion, would be better than Maduro. On the other hand, it seems to me that the people who think the PSUV are a downtrodden angelic party are few in number and pretty easy to ignore. quote:Edit - To add to this. The major issue Venezuelan posters and others have in this thread is the framing the newcomers use. They are far too apologietic to the PSUV, as the party isn't portrayed as the corrupt regime that it is, but rather another left wing government that is for the people that its sole and only reason for struggling is because the United States is destroying it from the inside out. And that isn't an accurate representation of the situation and is obviously frustrating for the people who had and have to live through this. It would probably be helpful to disaggregate people who are critical of Maduro but also stolidly against intervention from those people who think Maduro has done nothing wrong, don't you think? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 18:20 |
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Basically I'm just of the opinion (which hasn't changed all that much really) that there's probably a lot of bad fuckery going on with PSUV and various officials and probably including Maduro. Like the US has been loving with Cuba for decades and they're not collapsing into a nightmare. I understand there are oil export dependencies and fluctuating prices that didn't help either but even if we decide to ignore corruption/etc. it is just mismanagement to not have contingencies for "what if oil gets cheaper" and to not recognize the reliance on foreign oil purchasers is not a solid foundation for a socialist state (I know that's simplified down too, but still). However, the US having to stick their dicks into every single thing muddies the waters greatly - not in terms of whether I think Maduro is good but just in terms of I am highly suspicious of Guiado and his backers. It's difficult to separate out "Maduro sucks" from the Bolton fans who go "yeah and so we gotta go drop some bombs about it!" Well idk what the plan is but all historical indications suggest that if the USA really wanted to help we'd send food and medicine (or give money to 3rd party groups that can provide it if VZ doesn't trust the US enough to accept it) and otherwise butt the gently caress out. I dunno why the US had to appoint a war criminal to be the special envoy. I hate that even humanitarian aid turns into some ideological crusade. Lately, mostly I'm pissed because 100% guaranteed there are Venezuelans trying to seek asylum at the US border and they're probably shuffled into the concentration camps.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 18:33 |
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Majorian posted:It would probably be helpful to disaggregate people who are critical of Maduro but also stolidly against intervention from those people who think Maduro has done nothing wrong, don't you think? Labradoodle and Chuck Boone are two prominent examples.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 18:44 |
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zapplez posted:
Essentially, yes. Other nightmares around the world amply disprove the idea "if it was really that bad they would have overthrown the government by now" even if you discount the issue of how other world powers can completely gently caress over the environment for reform or revolution (guaido, etc)
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 18:44 |
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Wasn't the original argument not "if it were so bad people would revolt" but rather "if it is so bad why is the opposition incapable of getting support?" It's not a huge distinction I guess but I think people were mostly wondering why the pro-Maduro rallies are bigger than the anti-Maduro rallies (assuming that's even true ofc but no one has really denied it so far that I've seen)?
Moridin920 fucked around with this message at 18:53 on Jun 17, 2019 |
# ? Jun 17, 2019 18:51 |
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Moridin920 posted:Wasn't the original argument not "if it were so bad people would revolt" but rather "if it is so bad why is the opposition incapable of getting support?" It's not a huge distinction I guess but I think people were mostly wondering why the pro-Maduro rallies are bigger than the anti-Maduro rallies (assuming that's even true ofc but no one has really denied it so far that I've seen)? The opposition has gotten a ton of support though. Literally millions of people have been protesting the government over the past year. Did you not see the giant parades earlier? Just because the military (who is actively bribed and benefits for the PSUV to remain in power) didn't participate doesn't mean that there is anti-maduro sentiment from the citizens of the country.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 19:01 |
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zapplez posted:The opposition has gotten a ton of support though. Literally millions of people have been protesting the government over the past year. Did you not see the giant parades earlier? Seriously. The anti-Maduro rallies were massive.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 19:10 |
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zapplez posted:The opposition has gotten a ton of support though. Literally millions of people have been protesting the government over the past year. Did you not see the giant parades earlier? It doesn't mean that the opposition, in its current incarnation, had all that much support from the public, though, either. It's not just the military that didn't turn out for Guaido's quixotic march. There's a reason why the leftists in Venezuela have charted out a path that condemns Maduro but refuses to endorse a U.S. puppet or an intervention, after all. punk rebel ecks posted:Labradoodle and Chuck Boone are two prominent examples. I haven't seen either of those two posting in a while.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 19:12 |
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Majorian posted:It doesn't mean that the opposition, in its current incarnation, had all that much support from the public, though, either. It's not just the military that didn't turn out for Guaido's quixotic march. There's a reason why the leftists in Venezuela have charted out a path that condemns Maduro but refuses to endorse a U.S. puppet or an intervention, after all. You got any links regarding the Venezuelan anti-Maduro left? I'm pretty dubious that they have much in the way of support either right now, not least because it's really tempting for any up and coming leftist leaders to be coopted into the PSUV. But it'd be cool if I'm wrong. edit: otoh it's entirely possible they've been blacked out by Telesur too Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 19:23 on Jun 17, 2019 |
# ? Jun 17, 2019 19:19 |
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Yeah I really doubt it. Who is it? loving Trots?
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 19:21 |
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GreyjoyBastard posted:You got any links regarding the Venezuelan anti-Maduro left? I'm pretty dubious that they have much in the way of support either right now, not least because it's really tempting for any up and coming leftist leaders to be coopted into the PSUV. But it'd be cool if I'm wrong. It was from a couple weeks back IIRC. I'll find it, but it was basically, "We don't support Maduro, and we also really, really don't support Guaido or any outside interference." e: Here we go: (yes, they're Trots, but they're also correct on this) Chuck Boone posted:A friend just forwarded me this note written by the "Liga de Trabajadores por el Socialismo" (League of Workers for Socialism), which is a Venezuelan group. I'm sharing it here because I hope that the position that the note puts forward will help people in this thread think critically about their blind support for Maduro. I don't know that they represent very many leftists in Venezuela, but I would guess the "Maduro is an rear end in a top hat and so is Guaido and so are all imperialist powers trying to interfere in our politics" position is one that a great many Venezuelans share. Majorian fucked around with this message at 19:29 on Jun 17, 2019 |
# ? Jun 17, 2019 19:21 |
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WhiskeyWhiskers posted:Yeah I really doubt it. Who is it? loving Trots? You should support Guaidó, he has Stalin on his team.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 19:26 |
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Majorian posted:I haven't seen either of those two posting in a while. Because as I've said, and they themselves complained about, were tired of being overran by the blind PSUV apologists in the thread. To answer your other inquiry, I can't list specific posters here as I assume that would get me probed.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 19:36 |
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punk rebel ecks posted:Because as I've said, and they themselves complained about, were tired of being overran by the blind PSUV apologists in the thread. Well, for what it's worth, Boone and my position seem to be pretty much the same. There's really not much more an American leftist (or really any non-Venezuelan leftist) can do right now with regard to the situation in Venezuela, beyond give what money we can to humanitarian organizations that seem to be above-board, acknowledge that neither Maduro nor Guaido are any good, and continue to stolidly oppose any sort of foreign intervention. Majorian fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Jun 17, 2019 |
# ? Jun 17, 2019 19:40 |
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Majorian posted:fnox literally believes that a new Pinochet would be better than Maduro. Majorian posted:Dude, you literally said that Pinochet would be better than Maduro Majorian posted:I didn't say you support Pinochet. I said you claimed that he would be better than Maduro, which is a thing that you quite literally said. Majorian posted:you think Pinochet would be better than Maduro fnox posted:Maduro is worse than Pinochet by any metric. loving, please, find me one thing that Maduro has done right, one. So, this is part of what makes this particular thread so loving awful to post in. You and other posters have, consistently, engaged into this type of strawman that is meant to portray me as a fascist. This is what you use to deflect any sort of pointed criticism at Maduro, this is what you use to loop back to America, this is what you use to get out of tight spots. This doesn't help the debate, this doesn't help your point, this is you literally inverting what I am saying and then claiming it as a fact, despite me constantly clarifying about this point being false. I never, not loving once said that I would rather have Pinochet than Maduro. The reason why Maduro is worse than Pinochet is that unlike Chile, Venezuela will never recover from the damage Maduro has caused to it, Maduro has just loving doomed the country, he's killed thousands directly, many thousands more indirectly, and more will be known once he's out. Quit this bullshit and maybe we can begin steering this thread somewhere productive. fnox fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Jun 17, 2019 |
# ? Jun 17, 2019 20:09 |
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fnox posted:I never, not loving once said that I would rather have Pinochet than Maduro. The reason why Maduro is worse than Pinochet is ...
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 20:17 |
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fnox posted:So, this is part of what makes this particular thread so loving awful to post in. You and other posters have, consistently, engaged into this type of strawman that is meant to portray me as a fascist. This is what you use to deflect any sort of pointed criticism at Maduro, this is what you use to loop back to America, this is what you use to get out of tight spots. This doesn't help the debate, this doesn't help your point, this is you literally inverting what I am saying and then claiming it as a fact, despite me constantly clarifying about this point being false. I never, not loving once said that I would rather have Pinochet than Maduro. The reason why Maduro is worse than Pinochet is that unlike Chile, Venezuela will never recover from the damage Maduro has caused to it, Maduro has just loving doomed the country, he's killed thousands directly, many thousands more indirectly, and more will be known once he's out. When you make statement as asinine and callous as "Maduro is worse than Pinochet," guess what? You have to expect that you're going to get called out on it a bit.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 20:20 |
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fnox posted:So, this is part of what makes this particular thread so loving awful to post in. You and other posters have, consistently, engaged into this type of strawman that is meant to portray me as a fascist. This is what you use to deflect any sort of pointed criticism at Maduro, this is what you use to loop back to America, this is what you use to get out of tight spots. This doesn't help the debate, this doesn't help your point, this is you literally inverting what I am saying and then claiming it as a fact, despite me constantly clarifying about this point being false. I never, not loving once said that I would rather have Pinochet than Maduro. The reason why Maduro is worse than Pinochet is that unlike Chile, Venezuela will never recover from the damage Maduro has caused to it, Maduro has just loving doomed the country, he's killed thousands directly, many thousands more indirectly, and more will be known once he's out. Saying "Maduro is worse than Pinochet by any metric" would seem to strongly imply that Pinochet would be a better choice. How else do you expect people to interpret that statement?
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 20:21 |
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Majorian posted:When you make statement as asinine and callous as "Maduro is worse than Pinochet," guess what? You have to expect that you're going to get called out on it a bit. So what about this statement is the part that you struggle to believe in? You don't think that Maduro has caused a similar level of destruction? You don't think he's corrupted the essence of the Venezuelan state to its deepest core? You think the 4 million expats are gonna return once he's gone? Tell me, what's so hard to believe about this? The number of dead? Helsing posted:Saying "Maduro is worse than Pinochet by any metric" would seem to strongly imply that Pinochet would be a better choice. How else do you expect people to interpret that statement? Maduro is worse than Pinochet. That's how you interpret it. That doesn't mean I would want a Pinochet, that would also be bad and would be something I would fight tooth and nail against, it's not an endorsement, it's putting things in perspective. What that means is that, in the scale of damage, Maduro exceeds him, and if you start viewing it with those eyes, then you realise why people get loving angry when criticism about him is deflected. fnox fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jun 17, 2019 |
# ? Jun 17, 2019 20:22 |
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fnox posted:So what about this statement is the part that you struggle to believe in? You don't think that Maduro has caused a similar level of destruction? I don't, no. Pinochet objectively tortured and killed a substantially greater number of people than Maduro has. The fact that that isn't a metric that seems to matter to you is...concerning.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 20:26 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 15:25 |
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Comparing Maduro to Pinochet is just another iteration of "who's worse". Stalin* vs Hitler vs Mao vs Pol Pot vs.... It's pointless. They're each horrible on their own merits. * Our one resident tankie's inevitable objection is pre-empted.
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# ? Jun 17, 2019 20:26 |