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536 posted:Some people in this thread have argued the food crisis isn't real or is exaggerated. That somehow google reviews (lmbo) mean no one is starving or that a full supermarket in a rich area doesn't mean the poor are malnourished. Some people are even saying death squads are coming when they've had death squads from maduro for years. OK cool. How does any of that excuse the escalation of suffering for the poor in venezuela tho? What bit, in particular, makes it okay for a superpower to go "no, you can't ship food to that port". Spoiler alert: Maduro isn't fat because he's hungry, he won't be affected by an embargo, any such activity is going to hurt the poor. Meanwhile, leadership gets to spin this as evil empire making GBS threads on them, because it's the actual truth. That's not how you get a democracy, that's how you get a genocide. Easy concepts to mix up, apparently.
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Aug 12, 2019 15:04
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536 posted:We can't pretend things only got bad in 2019 after the latest encompassing round of sanctions. Team Death Squad has demonstrated that they absolutely can and will pretend that.
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Aug 12, 2019 15:09
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Condiv posted:trump just dictated the opposition's priorities when his flunkies unilaterally cancelled negotiations and ramped up embargoes. there's no more meaningful distinction between him and the opposition when his administration can decide on their own the position of the opposition I know this might be shocking to you as a white, privileged American but the world does not revolve around the whims of the US and despite what you may think, people have agency outside the USA too. But I agree that the sanctions hurt the poor and they need to go. As a compromise, how about the USA agreeing to end sanctions in exchange of Maduro being thrown behind bars?
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Aug 12, 2019 15:36
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Noshtane posted:I know this might be shocking to you as a white, privileged American but the world does not revolve around the whims of the US and despite what you may think, people have agency outside the USA too. ok, so the opposition has agency and decided to work with the US to place an embargo instead of continuing negotations. the opposition is starving their own country. no matter how you slice it, either as the opposition being trump's puppet or the opposition having their own will, their actions have been to a) walk away from the table b) start starving venezuelans even harder.
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Aug 12, 2019 15:42
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I had to double check to make sure I was remembering correctly because even Truga is using the language and making assumptions about it, but it's not QUITE a full embargo (close enough, though) and an embargo is not a blockade. It's a (bad) expansion of the (bad) existing sanctions to ban pretty much all American commerce with Venezuela outside of humanitarian and humanitarian-adjacent stuff and maybe food sales? but by the text and the announcement it's not parking naval ships outside of Caracas to bar freight. edited because I misread a thing and had to rewrite a bit
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Aug 12, 2019 15:56
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it is racist against latin americans to deny the venezuelan opposition agency. they are totally in control of their movement. also, maduro is a puppet of cuba, russia, and iran.
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Aug 12, 2019 16:00
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Truga posted:OK cool. I don't believe anyone has said or implied that it does. All but the initial sanctions on individual members of Maduro's regime are bad, and even those are questionable. This does not excuse Maduro of ultimate responsibility for how Venezuela has crashed and burned so thoroughly. Vincent Van Goatse fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 12, 2019 |
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Aug 12, 2019 16:06
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GreyjoyBastard posted:I had to double check to make sure I was remembering correctly because even Truga is using the language and making assumptions about it, but it's not QUITE a full embargo (close enough, though) and an embargo is not a blockade. It’s still early to gauge the effects of these new sets of sanctions, the main thing that annoys me is that it seems like more of the same and it isn’t backed by any diplomatic pressure, or any carrot to follow that stick. Guaido said something about them yesterday but who honestly gives a gently caress about what he has to say. In practical terms, the sanctions are unlikely to affect much regarding the food supply, be it as diminished as it currently is. The government wasn’t buying food from the United States, it was largely getting it from oil for debt agreements with other Latin American countries, and private companies will continue to import goods just as they had previously. If you look at it critically you can see that Venezuelan local food production has been plummeting despite the government putting a whole load of money into local production between 2003 and 2012. The misguided policies of Chavez and rampant corruption meant that it all went to waste, causing the government to have to import more and more to supply its “misiones”. The current degree of importation was unheard of in the country, even during the financial crisis of the 90s. Additionally, and this is something that for whatever reason doesn’t come up as often, there’s the realization that the lack of importation doesn’t come from a lack of capital. The money was indeed there, the food never reached people due to mismanagement and corruption, including the famous PudreVAL incident, or most recently the corruption scandal with Mexican goods that the government put in CLAP boxes, while overpaying something around 200% for certain products. You do the math, quickly you’ll realize that the government doing things the way they do is the root of the entire problem. To note, the government originally claimed that the reason why products were disappearing from shelves, back when I first started noticing shortages, was that people were eating too much because they were so rich. Maduro's policies crippled national production, which heavily relies on importation of chemicals and fertilizer from abroad with their currency control scheme, where they had to ask the government to allocate them dollars for importation. Maduro then further kneecapped production by forcing producers to sell at a loss due to price controls, forcing them into bankruptcy. Then he further made the situation worse by taking lands and factories from these struggling producers, assuming state control, but handing them over to some clueless military officer or some party member who needed a "bozal de arepa". It took maybe 2 years for Maduro to lead the country into absolute disaster and scarcity, and these actions all precede sanctions by 3 years or more. I think a large part as to why some of you believe that the sanctions have had a larger effect than they have, is because of how hard it is to believe that things could go so wrong for a mono-producing economy. Maduro has somehow managed to consistently make the wrong choice in every economic matter he has had a hand in. fnox fucked around with this message at 17:55 on Aug 12, 2019 |
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Aug 12, 2019 17:19
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536 posted:Probably the same reason 4,000,000 other Venezuelans fled a dying country? It's not just Maduro; It's the military gaming their markets that's doing it. I'm not even sure Maduro is totally aware of that frankly, doesn't seem like it, he seems mostly a frontman in some ways. That said, US sanctions introduced to worsen the crisis have certainly multiplied the suffering, and until all of your reckon with the idea that the ouster of Maduro currently would mean civil war, on a scale worse than anything on Iraq or Syria, this discussion is laughable. The Military backs Maduro. Like him or hate him or whatever, that remains the deciding factor of how direct US involvement would play out. Frankly, if you wanted to get rid of Maduro? A big program of aide directed at the poorest and most afflicted while dropping sanctions would do a world of good to turn popular opinion firmly against him. That kind of aide doesn't help business interests though, especially international resource groups, which is why that kind of thing is off the table for US policy. Maduro and the military inherited the failing state from the end of Chavez's tenure and carved themselves out a niche on which they are sitting. It's bad. People are starving and it was avoidable. But the US foreign policy intelligentsia and those they've chosen to back are rapacious opportunists hoping to capitalize on the crisis, failing to realize what this would unleash if they did. There are different bases in Venezuela and the ones backing Guaido would not be kind to the poor and non-whites who make up the significant political backing of the former Chavez government. Latin America has a long and gruesome history on this front and pretending that wouldn't echo here once again is just naive. Especially given who the US has in charge on this front. Tldr; The way to defeat this is to offer aide now, not make it contingent on political outcomes because doing that validates everything Maduro claims. Any sort of direct intervention right now? Civil war. And a long and bloody one, one the US would very likely lose. Will make Iraq look like a simple sunday drive.
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Aug 12, 2019 18:03
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fnox posted:
You are under selling the profit the military brass is privately making on the arbitrage from markets. The same thing happened in Russia during the economic shock and awe; different reasoning and policies, but the effect of an official and unofficial exchange rate means someone makes bank. This is important because this tells you how the military will break here, and why any US intervention would be a blood bath
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Aug 12, 2019 18:06
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:
If that’s the one silver bullet that would destabilize the regime, why would they ever allow it to happen?
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Aug 12, 2019 18:12
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:You are under selling the profit the military brass is privately making on the arbitrage from markets. The same thing happened in Russia during the economic shock and awe; different reasoning and policies, but the effect of an official and unofficial exchange rate means someone makes bank. This is important because this tells you how the military will break here, and why any US intervention would be a blood bath There's no way to really explain just how much money has been flat out stolen through that arbitrage. The distortions caused by it were so severe that even common citizens were able to make a profit out of it, by taking a trip to somewhere within Latin America, getting their CADIVI allocated travel dollars, spending the least they can and then coming back with whatever cash was left over. The profits from selling just the cash allocation in the black market would more than pay for the trip. Millions did this, yearly, until CADIVI was removed. And that was just something that anyone could do, imagine what those with millions, not hundreds, in preferential dollars did. If these so called lefties would look into it critically, they'd see that what Chavez and Maduro's policies ultimately did was create a new, far dirtier elite class to replace the existing one, with Venezuela possibly having the nastiest wealth gap between rich and poor the world has ever seen. BigFactory posted:If that’s the one silver bullet that would destabilize the regime, why would they ever allow it to happen? They didn't. Maduro knows this play. This is why he didn't allow aid to enter the country for more than 6 years of crisis, China forced his hand. fnox fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Aug 12, 2019 |
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Aug 12, 2019 18:20
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BigFactory posted:If that’s the one silver bullet that would destabilize the regime, why would they ever allow it to happen? How could they stop it? If sanctions were dropped and unambiguous aide was given to help stabilize the situation, and Maduro directly opposed it, do you think the crowds would come out and back him on that front? Just doing it would break the narrative that is keeping him in power. The military could try to hold on but without the popular support underneath that it could not stand. There would be calls for new elections very rapidly. It would not be bloodless but magnitudes less destructive than a direct US intervention and a great deal more helpful to Venezuelans than US sanctions designed to make the crisis hurt more. This is a totally pointless hypothetical thugh, because unambiguous aide like this is not in the US repertoire. Right now, the situation is this; Maduro and the Venezuelan military are profiting off the economic crisis, caused by policies introduced a decade ago that should have been removed but have instead been double downed on because they were popular with many people even though they were unsustainable. The group positioning itself as the opposition is backed by international resources interests and currently some of the worst human beings on the planet in the form of the current US foreign service leader put in place by Trump and the CIA. Any intervention would be civil war, on a scale the US is not prepared to fight. Only pain and death could result.
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Aug 12, 2019 18:25
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fnox posted:
ehh, I think it's more plausible that he allowed it because now he had actual strong-ish sanctions to justify it - "we didn't have a crisis before, but now we do because of American aggression" Which actually dovetails nicely with RPA's pitch of removing the sanctions and throwing no-strings aid at suffering Venezuelans.
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Aug 12, 2019 18:28
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fnox posted:There's no way to really explain just how much money has been flat out stolen through that arbitrage. The distortions caused by it were so severe that even common citizens were able to make a profit out of it, by taking a trip to somewhere within Latin America, getting their CADIVI allocated travel dollars, spending the least they can and then coming back with whatever cash was left over. The profits from selling just the cash allocation in the black market would more than pay for the trip. Millions did this, yearly, until CADIVI was removed. And that was just something that anyone could do, imagine what those with millions, not hundreds, in preferential dollars. And that's why China will become the saviours of Venezuela and who will have influence over leadership and policies for years to come. The US had just as much leverage. Don't pretend that kind of aide was ever on the table from the US, they haven't offered that kind of aide since the marshall plan. And only ever to proxy regimes. There is a definite new elite and the military brass are a big part of it. That's why this can't end with an intervention. Really, the idea of a popular revolt is how it would need to go. But it would have to come without a figure head directly backed by foreign capital and governments. Guaido was a squandered opportunity because the capitalist world marched out to declare him their guy; nothing could've mobilized the Chavismo nostalgic base more. Ron Paul Atreides fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Aug 12, 2019 |
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Aug 12, 2019 18:33
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GreyjoyBastard posted:ehh, I think it's more plausible that he allowed it because now he had actual strong-ish sanctions to justify it - "we didn't have a crisis before, but now we do because of American aggression" He started accepting aid on April of this year, it doesn't really match the timeline of the sanctions, with the first proper sanction being enacted on August 2017. If that were the case, he would have played it up then and there, not just silently. The reality is that after the whole disaster with the American aid trucks at the Cucuta border, he seemed to have gotten the advice that him blocking aid and claiming that there wasn't an humanitarian crisis was a bad look. It's part of what seems to be a series of attempts from China to save their investment on Maduro, they've grown increasingly weary on his shenanigans and seem to be less and less optimistic on his ability to make right on payments. Ron Paul Atreides posted:And that's why China will become the saviours of Venezuela and who will have influence over leadership and policies for years to come. The US had just as much leverage. Don't pretend that kind of aide was ever on the table from the US, they haven't offered that kind of aide since the marshall plan. And only ever to proxy regimes. Better options did exist other than Guaido at some stage but things didn't move fast enough. fnox fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Aug 12, 2019 |
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Aug 12, 2019 18:40
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fnox posted:Better options did exist other than Guaido at some stage but things didn't move fast enough. lethal combination of not fast enough and too fast, imo the abortive fart of the coup attempt could probably have had a lot better odds, if the people involved were taking orders from someone other than The Child Eater, No, Really, That's What The Guy Chose To Go By. another couple of eyes on the situation could probably have produced the assessment that hatred of Maduro did not translate into support of Guaido, and something needed to be done to correct that if they were going to have a shot at all. but the role of US Cutout does not select for people who tell their bosses "no, that's dumb."
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Aug 12, 2019 19:26
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:How could they stop it? If sanctions were dropped and unambiguous aide was given to help stabilize the situation, and Maduro directly opposed it, do you think the crowds would come out and back him on that front? Just doing it would break the narrative that is keeping him in power. The military could try to hold on but without the popular support underneath that it could not stand. There would be calls for new elections very rapidly. It would not be bloodless but magnitudes less destructive than a direct US intervention and a great deal more helpful to Venezuelans than US sanctions designed to make the crisis hurt more. Didn't Maduro refuse to receive international aid for years, even from non-western sources, because he was still pretending "there is no crisis" ? Would he even distribute USA or western aid even if it came no strings attached through a third party?
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Aug 12, 2019 19:38
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536 posted:Didn't Maduro refuse to receive international aid for years, even from non-western sources, because he was still pretending "there is no crisis" ? Would he even distribute USA or western aid even if it came no strings attached through a third party? How fast do you think that would turn his impoverished base against him? My argument isn't a way to help Maduro. It's to get the support of his people to tilt against him rather than fore. There is a lot of claims of his universal unpopularity and yet the counter protestors were the ones out in droves to support the government. As long as he commands that base of loyalty, there is no scenario where his ouster doesn't completely destroy the country and kill hundreds of thousands. Right now, the US gives very token gestures while basically having them under an economic siege, and then does stuff like orchestrate the burning of aid trucks instead of actually trying to just help. This has always had the opposite effect, and it's frankly flabbergasting the US keeps trying this method, it doesn't work
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Aug 12, 2019 20:15
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:How fast do you think that would turn his impoverished base against him? My argument isn't a way to help Maduro. It's to get the support of his people to tilt against him rather than fore. There is a lot of claims of his universal unpopularity and yet the counter protestors were the ones out in droves to support the government. As long as he commands that base of loyalty, there is no scenario where his ouster doesn't completely destroy the country and kill hundreds of thousands. Isn’t, speaking in broad strokes, his impoverished base already against him, and only the military and his cronies on his side?
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Aug 12, 2019 20:30
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BigFactory posted:Isn’t, speaking in broad strokes, his impoverished base already against him, and only the military and his cronies on his side? that was the theory of Guaido and company. it did not pan out. the impoverished base does not like him, but it appears they like the people trying to replace him less.
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Aug 12, 2019 20:39
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:that was the theory of Guaido and company. it did not pan out. When support of one side comes with the risk of being murdered, does it influence anything?
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Aug 12, 2019 20:42
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BigFactory posted:When support of one side comes with the risk of being murdered, does it influence anything? You are discounting the effect of the legacy of Chavez. This stuff doesn't happen on a blank slate, the Venezuelans remember their history and the memory of A) Chavez, who was beloved, and B) previous US antagonism and the general unreliability of the US foreign policy apparatus right now does alot to bolster his numbers. If the US invades, and he becomes the de facto head of the resistance? He'll be a hero for the ages. Narratives control most of how these types of struggles play out, and right now the US is just helping cement Maduro into place. The US doesn't realize (but really really needs to) that it is seen as the bad guy in international stuff in contemporary geopolitics. That will underpin all relations, especially with weaker and more vulnerable governments.
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Aug 12, 2019 20:54
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:You are discounting the effect of the legacy of Chavez. This stuff doesn't happen on a blank slate, the Venezuelans remember their history and the memory of A) Chavez, who was beloved, and B) previous US antagonism and the general unreliability of the US foreign policy apparatus right now does alot to bolster his numbers. If the US invades, and he becomes the de facto head of the resistance? He'll be a hero for the ages. I wonder what maduro is doing to Chavez’ legacy? If he stays in power and continues to murder civilians will it matter if Chavez was popular 20 years ago?
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Aug 12, 2019 21:00
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:The US doesn't realize (but really really needs to) that it is seen as the bad guy in international stuff in contemporary geopolitics. The only thing the US is willing to do is elect another Obama who will continue the bloody work of imperialism while using a nice face and soothing voice to cover the bloodstains.
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Aug 12, 2019 21:02
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BigFactory posted:When support of one side comes with the risk of being murdered, does it influence anything? oh, definitely. when the support of both sides comes with the risk of being murdered, said influence ends up largely a wash. one need only look at M. Discordia's one-handed contemplation of the purges of the impure earlier in the thread to understand why a family who's getting their food aid through the PSUV is a little hesitant to sign on with the people who define "progress" as "the mutilated corpses of the communists' children will be left in public as a warning to others."
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Aug 12, 2019 21:05
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BigFactory posted:I wonder what maduro is doing to Chavez’ legacy? If he stays in power and continues to murder civilians will it matter if Chavez was popular 20 years ago? When we get to 20 years past Chavez maybe it won't. Stuff like this doesn't have to resolve quickly. It can bubble for a decade before something significant happens or it can all rush to a head and explode. Right now though, the veneer of being chosen by Chavez is a factor.
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Aug 12, 2019 21:20
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:When we get to 20 years past Chavez maybe it won't. Stuff like this doesn't have to resolve quickly. It can bubble for a decade before something significant happens or it can all rush to a head and explode. Right now though, the veneer of being chosen by Chavez is a factor. At the protests in February the Pro maduro rally was a tiny fraction of the size of the real protest and it was mostly government workers. I think the shine’s off.
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Aug 12, 2019 22:47
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BigFactory posted:At the protests in February the Pro maduro rally was a tiny fraction of the size of the real protest and it was mostly government workers. I think the shine’s off. Mm if you say so. That's not what I remember seeing. Different sources maybe.
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Aug 12, 2019 23:05
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Personally Im glad that Maduro and the USA finally found some common ground in starving the poor. Its a shaky foundation for certain, but a start is a start.
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Aug 12, 2019 23:11
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Mm if you say so. That's not what I remember seeing. Different sources maybe. Were you there?
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Aug 12, 2019 23:32
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Noshtane posted:Have you ever set foot on Venezuelan soil? If so, have you spent time there to match the Swedish dwelling Venezuelan(s) in this thread? Actually you're right. I've never even been to Venezuela and yet I've met Afro Venezuelans! So what's Fnox's excuse?
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Aug 13, 2019 01:09
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Condiv posted:Doesn’t seem to. The opposition are starving more and more people with their policies, especially with the embargo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty (The original quote was about 10s of ms so not Venezuela specifically even though that's what Condiv is talking about.)
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Aug 13, 2019 01:14
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:Mm if you say so. That's not what I remember seeing. Different sources maybe. Some real revisionist history. The anti-government protests were literal road crowding massive. The anti-gov protests were multitudes of people bigger than the pro-maduro ones, especially when you consider half the pro-maduro supporters were the military in uniform. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ai9e5i6fPDI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ111tNKeCs 536 fucked around with this message at 01:46 on Aug 13, 2019 |
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Aug 13, 2019 01:42
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536 posted:Some real revisionist history. The anti-government protests were literal road crowding massive. The anti-gov protests were multitudes of people bigger than the pro-maduro ones, especially when you consider half the pro-maduro supporters were the military in uniform. I’m sure there were some media outlets saying there were huge pro maduro rallies, just like some media outlets carried the story that Trumps inauguration had more people than Obama’s. Propaganda is a powerful weapon. And when you are running a 20% favorable rating and 60% of the country wants to you step down before any elections, propaganda might be your best weapon. Well besides the death squads. Those are good too.
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Aug 13, 2019 01:47
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420 Gank Mid posted:Actually you're right. I've never even been to Venezuela and yet I've met Afro Venezuelans! So what's Fnox's excuse? What I've literally said about this, and this is something that you love to take out of context to besmirch me so that you don't have to address the actual racist crimes committed by Maduro, has never been that "I don't know black Venezuelans". It is that the term "afro Venezuelan" to refer to one is an anglicism that isn't actually used in the country, much like many other strictly American problems, policies and sensibilities you apply to my country in a regular basis. Because you don't know my country, you know yours. And being the American that you are, that makes you think you know enough. For you to care about my country, because you seem to lack any notion of nuance, the government had to make up some strange Jim Crow parallel based on what would've been just another crime in crime ridden Venezuela, so that it would pull the right heartstrings, so that you would fill in all the blanks. It's the perfect type of propaganda, the type that takes regular idiots such as yourself, and turns them into useful idiots. It's loving sad, really. You really have nothing else, and the reason why you keep avoiding talking about Maduro's treatment of indigenous people is because, unlike the Orlando Figuera case you cling to, these hundreds of dead are of no use to your agenda.
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Aug 13, 2019 07:00
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Neurosis posted:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty Not sure what the Soviet Union has to do with Venezuela or me
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Aug 13, 2019 07:34
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Condiv posted:I’m not sure what to believe wrt the food crises. Wait, aren't you the guy that isn't even sure if there is a food crisis going on? Have you been able to figure that out over the past year or are you trying to decipher if people actually are hungry still?
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Aug 13, 2019 13:55
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536 posted:Wait, aren't you the guy that isn't even sure if there is a food crisis going on? Have you been able to figure that out over the past year or are you trying to decipher if people actually are hungry still? you might try reading the post you quoted. it's very clear that I am not questioning if there's an ongoing food crisis.
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Aug 13, 2019 14:00
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Condiv posted:you might try reading the post you quoted. it's very clear that I am not questioning if there's an ongoing food crisis. Are the people of Venezuela hungry today and have they been since at least 2018?
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Aug 13, 2019 14:05
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