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Great post. I think you’ll find most places in Latin America to be polarized like that if you actually go and dig into what the locals are actually saying. The influence of the Cold War is still very, very prevalent just about everywhere. punk rebel ecks posted:Are Venezuelan Refugees "My Country Yearns for Freedom!!!" Types? I’ve always been shocked about people actually believing this, because while it may have been true long before Maduro, it just has no semblance with the reality that Venezuelans are now the underclass of the entire continent. It’s a quarter of the population which has fled. Even with just basic math you can figure out that a quarter of the population can’t be rich, white and wiling to engage with tankies on Twitter who speak only English.
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Apr 21, 2022 06:29
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fnox posted:I’ve always been shocked about people actually believing this, because while it may have been true long before Maduro, it just has no semblance with the reality that Venezuelans are now the underclass of the entire continent. It’s a quarter of the population which has fled. Even with just basic math you can figure out that a quarter of the population can’t be rich, white and wiling to engage with tankies on Twitter who speak only English. For reference I've never believed this. I've always been one of the few people in this forum on the left who has disliked the PSUV, even before things went completely off rails during the mid-2010s.
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Apr 21, 2022 07:12
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fnox posted:Even with just basic math you can figure out that a quarter of the population can’t be rich, white and wiling to engage with tankies on Twitter who speak only English. People actually think that? God damm
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Apr 21, 2022 08:04
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jiggerypokery posted:People actually think that? God damm Someone in the forum actually took the time to find pictures of me and like a Twitch clip of me speaking as some sort of "gotcha", and it's like...Yeah. I mean it's those kind of people who actually believe that, I don't believe it's a generally widespread opinion, particularly since it's very, very easy to debunk, all it takes is a little bit of time spent outside.
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Apr 21, 2022 08:24
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punk rebel ecks posted:For the most obvious...the police. The police in Brazil seem to operate of how the right wing in America want the police to operate there. They are dressed even more militarized, and even are called "Military Police". That's because they are organized and behave like a military department and are considered a reserve force for the actual army. The PMs are in charge of poo poo like patrols, maintaining public order and responding to crimes, while the Civilian Police does investigation and forensics. Related to this, firefighters are also military (in some states they are a branch of the Military police, in others they are a separate force) and thus a reserve force for the army too. Frionnel fucked around with this message at 04:06 on Apr 23, 2022 |
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Apr 23, 2022 04:01
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https://twitter.com/KawsachunNews/status/1534538041678872577
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Jun 8, 2022 19:32
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i will not answer your question but i will answer a much dumber question not asked
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Jun 8, 2022 19:45
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Thanks for the report on your trip to Bolivia. It is truly a special place and a marvelous people.
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Jun 8, 2022 19:46
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So I am actually gonna visit Venezuela for the first time in years sometime in the summer. I'll trip report, I do want to document some of the things that I've been hearing from friends that live there. I'm particularly curious about the current state of the Central University and if any of the Eyes of Chávez are gone, but, let me know if you're curious about something I can figure out in Caracas. Also, I'm actually not sure why the pronunciation of Guaidó with a stress on the first syllable like "Gwaido" somehow transferred back into Spanish, but I've heard some people say it that way and it had me confused if I had misremembered that there's a tilde in the last vowel. It's funny because people do pronounce Chávez with a stress in the first syllable, they don't say "Chavess".
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Jun 8, 2022 21:38
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for the first few weeks he existed, US media didn't put the accent on the O, spelling it guaido. i naturally started pronouncing it gwah-EE-do this youtuber is in venezuela right now. i haven't seen this second one yet, but people seem pretty happy compared to a few years ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOScCHtNWYM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyoKlEdk_3E
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Jun 9, 2022 00:10
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That guy and his channel rules.
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Jun 9, 2022 01:00
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As most white (or mostly) middle-class Latin Americans, I'd be making GBS threads my pants walking around those parts. I'm glad to see people in Venezuela don't seem to be having too much of a hard time as some years ago.
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Jun 9, 2022 01:41
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Negostrike posted:As most white (or mostly) middle-class Latin Americans, I'd be making GBS threads my pants walking around those parts. I'm glad to see people in Venezuela don't seem to be having too much of a hard time as some years ago. there's a lot more to go around when half the population has left jiggerypokery fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Jun 9, 2022 |
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Jun 9, 2022 05:13
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Negostrike posted:As most white (or mostly) middle-class Latin Americans, I'd be making GBS threads my pants walking around those parts. I'm glad to see people in Venezuela don't seem to be having too much of a hard time as some years ago. The main thing that everyone tells me, and one of the reasons I decided to go at this time, is that the situation with crime has improved a lot. They primarily put the reason for it on immigration, and I mean, if a significant amount of the city’s population has indeed left it makes sense. TBH a lot of the robberies and kidnappings in Caracas took place in the nicest areas, so ironically until a certain point at night slums like Petare or 23 de Enero were pretty safe to be in. I’ve also heard that a lot of things have essentially regressed though, with the dollar being king and whatnot. Basically everyone has their gigs that net them dollars and so long as they have those they’re fine. That’s the part I kind of want to know if it’s true, since another part of why I’m going there is that my grandma’s Alzheimer’s is getting a lot worse so part of the family decided to move back with her. fnox fucked around with this message at 07:43 on Jun 9, 2022 |
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Jun 9, 2022 07:40
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It has been so loving funny watching the Summit of the Americas completely implode around Biden.
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Jun 11, 2022 14:51
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Nucleic Acids posted:It has been so loving funny watching the Summit of the Americas completely implode around Biden. Ah?
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Jun 11, 2022 14:58
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Good to see Jeanine get what she deserves https://twitter.com/coolradio1037/status/1535624392092286978?s=20&t=9sZe_XvYcAJQxHSW8BlClw May Bolsonaro be next
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Jun 11, 2022 15:08
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Half the hemisphere either wasn’t invited or didn’t attend, and the other half is basically just telling the US to gently caress off.
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Jun 11, 2022 16:18
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Elias_Maluco posted:Good to see Jeanine get what she deserves remember when the Obama administration's ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, posted "ah, morales has fled! excellent" in response to the coup always nice to have a reminder that the United States' official stance on fascism is "hell yes, more please"
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Jun 11, 2022 17:08
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Just check out the LATAM thread in CSPAM. I'm starting to think we don't need 2 threads.
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Jun 11, 2022 21:11
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quarantinethepast posted:Just check out the LATAM thread in CSPAM. I'm starting to think we don't need 2 threads.
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Jun 11, 2022 21:35
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Grouchio posted:You are not goading me into lurking into CSPAM. So much for left unity 
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Jun 11, 2022 22:01
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TLDR: A number of South American and Carribean countries said they would not attend the Summit if Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua were excluded. US does not budge on the exclusion, sends diplomats to try to grease some palms to minimal success. Mexico, Guatemala, Bolivia, Honduras presidents do not attend, send relative unknowns to the Summit instead. On the day that they declare that they will not be attending, the US releases a statement denouncing Mexico's journalist fatality rate , Mexico accuses the US of genocidal intent towards Cuba. Several countries that did attend used their speech time to denounce the US' sanctions and bans on Cuba/Venezuela/Nicaragua. A number of hecklers confront OAS officials over their involvement in the Bolivian coup. Generally negative coverage of the Summit, Jill Biden and her spouse both independently complain about how the press were being unfair. Not a great showing, considering this was the first Summit to be held in the US since it was first formed. The Cuba exclusion was probably non-negotiable as the democrats probably want to make a play at Florida again, refusing to budge on the Venezuela and Nicaragua ones are more puzzling; The US seems to be low-key easing its sanctions against Venezuela in an attempt to deal with the looming oil crisis in Europe, and I dont think the US is ever going to manage a coup on Nicaragua's political class (and seemed to be a closed case, until recent saber-rattling from this administration).
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Jun 11, 2022 22:31
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It really does seem as if a lot of the USA's political power is collapsing at a very quick rate.
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Jun 11, 2022 23:08
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It seems like the main sticking point is Biden's refusal to invite Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. I quite agree that it was a bad decision, and I think that in the future, with more forward thinking American leadership, we can regain lost credibility and work with other nations in our hemisphere in a more equal and convivial way. Leadership isn't forcing others to do your will.
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Jun 11, 2022 23:23
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How are u posted:It seems like the main sticking point is Biden's refusal to invite Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. I quite agree that it was a bad decision, and I think that in the future, with more forward thinking American leadership, we can regain lost credibility and work with other nations in our hemisphere in a more equal and convivial way. Except that’s all the US has ever tried to do in this hemisphere.
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Jun 12, 2022 02:00
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Yeah, the US already has negative credibility to do anything but install fascist patsies at gunpoint and now they can't even manage that.
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Jun 12, 2022 02:35
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I dunno, from the things I've been reading, there may have been the political drama, but otherwise a lot of administrative business was still done regardless of all the posturing. Really questionable by what you mean by "the USA's political power". https://www.americasquarterly.org/article/highlights-from-the-summit-of-the-americas/ https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/10/politics/biden-summit-of-the-americas-takeaways-trump-bolsonaro/index.html I've also read that there's a lot of reasons to suspect that the president of Mexico is coming from a disingenuous place with his sudden hardline stance on the US, especially in light of his refusal to condemn Russia when more than half the drat globe was doing it, and his apparent disinterest in foreign policy earlier in his term. So a policy apparently established back in 2001 about not inviting non-democracies is now suddenly a non-starter. Also allegations that he may just want to damage Biden because he wants Trump back. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/orde...f-the-americas/ Not really sure why it should be so crucial to recognize and support dictatorships and autocracies in order to demonstrate support for democracies. I guess if the claim is that the US is acting in bad faith, we'll see what happens when Bolsonaro pulls the trigger on trying to fix Brazil's election.
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Jun 12, 2022 07:21
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if the US supports just one more coup i'll finally believe they're not a force for good
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Jun 12, 2022 07:30
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SlothfulCobra posted:Not really sure why it should be so crucial to recognize and support dictatorships and autocracies in order to demonstrate support for democracies. I guess if the claim is that the US is acting in bad faith, we'll see what happens when Bolsonaro pulls the trigger on trying to fix Brazil's election. How hard is this to understand? The problem is the US being the one who decides who can be considered "legitimate" in the first place. After supporting a bazillion dictatorships and coups in the region all the way up to the present day, the US is the final arbiter of who is "democratic"? A country that has so nakedly screwed over the region for its own interests? As Alberto Fernández said, the US has no right to exclude countries from the summit anymore than any other member. Are these countries all equals or is the US the one who calls the shots? Maybe that's why AMLO doesn't want to cooperate with Biden, maybe he doesn't want to be America's bitch. The point of these pan-American orgs should be to benefit everyone in the region mutually. Keeping countries out and sanctioning them does nothing at all besides hurt the people living in those countries. It's all a dumb game of pretend to satisfy some loving gusanos in Miami that will never even vote Democrat. America Inc. fucked around with this message at 09:24 on Jun 12, 2022 |
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Jun 12, 2022 09:14
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SlothfulCobra posted:I dunno, from the things I've been reading, there may have been the political drama, but otherwise a lot of administrative business was still done regardless of all the posturing. Really questionable by what you mean by "the USA's political power". Maybe it's time to step offline a bit. You seem to be drawing some intense 'us vs them' style conclusions around perceived support for Russia and Trump, of all people.
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Jun 12, 2022 10:40
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Mexico is a puppet of Russia with no agency of its own. America should launch a special operation to replace the Mexican president and ensure the country is neutral.
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Jun 12, 2022 11:03
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About the Summit of the Americas thing, I'm not sure what exactly is different this time around? Cuba hasn't been a member of the OAS since the revolution (because the OAS is a US ran organization), Venezuela's membership was supposedly withdrawn and Guaido's government instead being recognized as legitimate (because the OAS is a US ran organization), and Nicaragua left the OAS in April (because the OAS is a US ran organization). So none of those 3 countries are members of the organization, why would they be invited? And note, I'm not saying we need yet another loving pan-American organization that includes Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela and excludes the US since that already exists, it's called CELAC and its about as useless as the OAS. I'm asking why is it controversial when the US, who again, runs the organization, has pretty publicly acknowledged that it doesn't recognize the governments of any of those 3 countries as legitimate.
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Jun 12, 2022 11:21
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Cuba was invited to the 7th summit and was allowed attend under threat of some nations to boycott if they were excluded. They also attended the 8th summit before this one. Nicaragua and Venuezula also attended those previous summits. The difference is those summits were hosted in Latin American countries and this was hosted by America, who used the opportunity to exclude it's regional enemies.
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Jun 12, 2022 11:32
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Marenghi posted:Cuba was invited to the 7th summit and was allowed attend under threat of some nations to boycott if they were excluded. They also attended the 8th summit before this one. Yeah so the 8th summit was in April 2018. This is before Nicaragua's withdrawal from the organization, the 2021 Nicaraguan presidential elections, and the 2018 Venezuelan presidential elections. Maduro himself was banned from the summit, and Delsa Solorzano, who's an opposition politician, attended instead. So you could say that Venezuela was already not invited. Cuba's status as a suspended member means they were never guaranteed a seat in the first place and considering the Biden administration views, it's unlikely they would have anyway.
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Jun 12, 2022 11:48
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I don't think anyone is surprised that the US excluded those three countries or believes that the US had to allow them. Rather that South America evidently is not keen on their exclusion, and seeing as this was to be the first US meeting since the summit, the ball was in our court to placate them. The US stood to lose a lot more in positive press from the drama than the countries did by not attending or using their speeches to embarass the US, and our influence is waning in the light of the very short-lived Bolivian coup, the ousting of the Honduras junta, Bolsonaro's falling status, Venezuela's recovery, Cuba's continued medical diplomacy (expanding into vaccines), Colombia's civil unrest, AMLO's continued efforts to form a continental bloc, Duterte's rewarming of China relations, to name a few. There's not much the US can do to force it back in our favor either; roaming libertarian rape squads are gauche these days, Lawfare has seen mixed success at best, and our economy's not exactly in a good enough state to merit sanctioning & banning trade with every belligerent state. We're apparently interested in competing with China and Russia's investments, but what little of the BRI-competing initiative that's emerged looks like a hideous privatization creature.
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Jun 12, 2022 12:16
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Neurolimal posted:The US stood to lose a lot more in positive press from the drama than the countries did by not attending or using their speeches to embarass the US, and our influence is waning in the light of the very short-lived Bolivian coup, the ousting of the Honduras junta, Bolsonaro's falling status, Venezuela's recovery, Cuba's continued medical diplomacy (expanding into vaccines), Colombia's civil unrest, AMLO's continued efforts to form a continental bloc, Duterte's rewarming of China relations, to name a few. One of these countries is not like the others, I'll let you figure out which. The point is exactly that I don't see what the US has to lose from what appears to me, a lack of change in policy. This is pretty much on par with what it has been. The US foreign policy towards Latin America has been confusing and bad for decades, you brought up Venezuela's recovery despite the exact same sanctions that were supposedly to blame for its crisis still being fully implemented (you'll never guess what Maduro did to achieve this!). But also, there's an implicit problem with all of these pan-American organizations in the sense that the bigger they are, the more ineffective they become. All you need to do to observe this is to see what happened to UNASUR, an organization that doesn't actually include the US. What AMLO is proposing is nothing new, it's just something that doesn't work in Latin America because Latin America is not like Europe, and has been tried like 10 times by now.
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Jun 12, 2022 13:27
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fnox posted:The point is exactly that I don't see what the US has to lose from what appears to me, a lack of change in policy. If you are standing still when everything else is changing then you are going to lose out. The USA is not going to remain as hegemon because it appears incapable of utilising soft power effectively and the increasing lack of money in the actual government to finance things
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Jun 12, 2022 13:39
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Josef bugman posted:If you are standing still when everything else is changing then you are going to lose out. The USA is not going to remain as hegemon because it appears incapable of utilising soft power effectively and the increasing lack of money in the actual government to finance things I think it already lost that status a while ago. Also, isn't this exactly what everyone wants?
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Jun 12, 2022 13:55
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fnox posted:I think it already lost that status a while ago. Also, isn't this exactly what everyone wants? I mean I'm not saying it's a bad thing. I'm just saying it's a thing.
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