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Post by robeiae on Feb 20, 2019 13:41:35 GMT -5
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Post by Don on Feb 22, 2019 13:03:38 GMT -5
My guess is that those "friends" are politically connected, living in a gated community, and drinking Maduro water from the state-controlled media all day long. What they see and hear may well align with what he claims they said.
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Post by Don on Feb 24, 2019 6:16:05 GMT -5
As opposed to Roger Waters, let's hear from someone who actually lived there. Venezuela was my home, and socialism destroyed it.So how did this come about? Gee, it sounds like it happened the same way it has happened to EVERY FUCKING COUNTRY whose policies have eventually painted their central bank into a corner from which there is no escape. But that's okay. It can't happen here because we're different. After all, we're $22 trillion in debt and nothing's happened yet, right? Well, except for inflation that they keep adjusting the calculation formula to make look reasonable.
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Post by robeiae on Feb 26, 2019 7:29:06 GMT -5
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Post by celawson on Feb 26, 2019 13:56:11 GMT -5
This.
There is so much video of what's going on, how can people not see it/believe it? The video that angered Maduro with Jorge Ramos is of young people foraging through a trash truck and eating, right there at the trash truck, trash food they just picked out. It's horrible. I didn't see a link to it in the Variety article, but I saw it last night in reference to Ramos.
Marco Rubio pointed out a video where people are actually begging Maduro's national police to let in the supplies, while the police stand there blocking them in a line. Some soldiers have tears on their cheeks They are actually crying because they have to ignore these poor people begging them for medicine and such.
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Post by nighttimer on Feb 26, 2019 20:40:30 GMT -5
Indeed. Let's hear from someone who actually lived in Venezuela. At least we could if your link took me somewhere other than right back to your post. You might want to fix that. Otherwise, some skeptic might think you wrote it yourself.
Some of us aren't as quick as others to lose their shit over what's happened in Venezuela because we don't see the same sort of concern about a repressive, militaristic, autocratic government pushing a nation to an extremist edge because we see a repressive, militaristic, autocratic government growing like a weed and taking hold right here in the good ol' Disunited States of Amerikka.
Some of us don't see capitalism as the greatest good and socialism as the greatest evil. Some of us don't understand why the evil of a Nicolas Maduro should anger us so when the evil of a Donald Trump are pointedly ignored. Maduro made one mistake when it came to his dealings with the U.S. He had to be a fucked-up socialist on the Left instead of a fucked-up Fascist like Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro on the Right.
If you've got nothing to say about scumbags like Bolsonaro, you're a hypocrite for raising sand about scumbags like Maduro and no smarter than the masses you sneer at.
This. There is so much video of what's going on, how can people not see it/believe it? They can see it and they can believe it. What they can't do is ignore how America has meddled and screwed with South America as hard and as long as they could by undermining elected leaders, supporting strongmen dictators, and making sure they protect the interests of the U.S. by training them at The School of the Americas. Venezuela is not being targeted by Trump and his cronies based solely out of humanitarian concerns and promoting democracy.
So if it's not the promotion of democracy that has Trump, Abrams and the other neo-cons in his Misadministration so wound up about the situation in Venezuela, then what could it be?
Not for a moment would I be so audacious to suggest I have any answers to the crisis in Venezuela. What I do have are questions what's behind the narrative being foisted on a gullible public that knows little to nothing about this country's long and sordid history of prioritizing profit over preserving democracy.
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Post by Don on Feb 27, 2019 16:23:20 GMT -5
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Post by Don on Mar 9, 2019 6:28:30 GMT -5
A few stats that many people may not know, but that are central to the Venezuela story. 11 Economic Stats That Tell Venezuela's StoryFor example, In 1959, the Venezuelan GDP per capita was 10 percent higher than America’s. When Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999, the Venezuelan GDP per capita was 27 percent higher than the average in Latin America. And NT, sorry for ignoring this bit. Guess I missed it. Some of us, OTOH, are concerned about Venezuela because we see parallels between the repressive, militaristic, autocratic government in Venezuela and the repressive, militaristic, autocratic government growing like a weed and taking hold here in the good ol' Disunited States of Amerikkka. (You left out a "k".) Some of us don't think it matters whether you call it capitalism or socialism. As long as it's concentrating power into the hands of a coercive oligarchy, it's bad for humans. And the crap they call capitalism in the US today is designed and managed to produce the same results as Venezuela in the long run, regardless of what you call the nominal economic system. Put enough dams on any river and you'll stop the flow, whether those dams are built by socialists or so-called capitalists. And Trump's tariffs are as evil a dam in the economy as any dreamed up by Bernie and his Bros. Just so you know, Trump and his nationalistic (see also: fascist) economic idiocy on the right is as sure to destroy wealth and make everyone poorer as the socialist economic idiocy displayed by Maduro and dozens of failed countries before him. Trump's tariffs are a textbook example of robbing the consumers and passing the dough along to his cronies. Almost as good as forcing everyone to buy health insurance from some politically-connected corporation. Man, everybody makes money on those deals but the middle class. And they paid the toll. while being told it was for their benefit. But who ended up with the wealth? The corps. It's a feature of concentrating choice and wealth in the hands of an oligarchy, and EVERY country that's ever tried it has failed in the long run, with a long period of repression leading up to the failure. Both Left-wing and Right-wing oligarchies invariably become dictatorships. I don't know of a single exception, where benevolent totalitarian dictatorships have made life better for the people it purportedly serves in the long run by narrowing their choices and making their decisions for them. Potemkin villages, sure, but actual economies? Never has happened, never will. It ain't rocket science, it's history.
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Post by prozyan on Mar 10, 2019 2:12:12 GMT -5
And Caracas goes dark. Per report: Six of the country's 23 states still lacked power as of Saturday afternoon, Socialist Party Vice President Diosdado Cabello said on state television.
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Post by michaelw on Mar 10, 2019 5:50:19 GMT -5
I don't know of a single exception, where benevolent totalitarian dictatorships have made life better for the people it purportedly serves in the long run by narrowing their choices and making their decisions for them. I think examples of this would be few and far between, for sure. Maybe Vietnam would be the closest? (A one-party state where political freedom is limited, yet w/ a fairly strong record of development in recent years. They're doing waaaaaaaay better than Venezuela, at least.)
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Post by Don on Mar 10, 2019 9:26:06 GMT -5
I agree, michael . Isn't it ironic that Vietnam, an "existential threat to democracy" in the '60's, is a vastly different place than the fear-mongers warned us about? There should be an important historical lesson there, if anybody was paying attention. Given the wash, rinse, repeat cycle of foreign policy, I guess that's a pipe dream. See also: USSR, Cuba, North Korea, hotspot of the day.
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Post by robeiae on Mar 10, 2019 18:32:38 GMT -5
The blackout continues: www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/10/venezuela-blackout-day-four-maduro-fear-angerThat's just Caracas. I particularly like this quote: Maduro is assuring people that the government is working to restore power, but I think it bears mentioning that what is likely hampering the process is a lack of expertise. I'd bet dollars to donuts that a good chunk of the people in Venezuela who might know how to fix the problems are no longer actually in Venezuela. And of course, Maduro is too fucking pig-headed to ask for help. Of course, Maduro is claiming the outages are due to sabotage by US agents...
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Post by michaelw on Mar 10, 2019 21:46:04 GMT -5
Of course, Maduro is claiming the outages are due to sabotage by US agents... I think it's due to the explosion at the German Dam.
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Post by robeiae on Mar 11, 2019 8:17:39 GMT -5
Lol, that's pretty funny. FYI, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Donna Shalala are currently in Colombia, checking out the border.
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Post by robeiae on Mar 11, 2019 9:24:44 GMT -5
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