and it so begins...might e the right" move for the people as these guys have failed miserably but...we know. Anyway, sometimes you have to bite the bullet, people will die from inaction as well (starving, disease, crime etc)
Things are precipitating to either a civil war or a fall for Maduro and a return to democracy. Unlike the Chavez years, the regime has lost the support of the majority of the population, but nonetheless there is a strong loyalist kernel. Maybe a quarter to a third of the people still support Maduro, either because they profit directly from their position in the party cleptocracy he instituted or because they remember the "good" Chavez years of high oil revenues and generous social spending and fear that a regime switch has the potential to make things ever worse for them.
It's essentially a class warfare in a highly divided society, that was political and is turning bloody. As always, authoritarians and populists very skillfully exploit such situations to get into power. The corollary is that it could happen anywhere similar conditions exist, like high inequality and dependence on mineral exports. Russia?
Only 36% of US citizens support Trump[1] and yet we don't see calls for deposing him from abroad. We don't see sanctions freezing the assets of US-based multinational corporations because Trump has shut down the US government[2].
This is essentially a coup. Recognizing an unelected oligarch is a continuation of the US's policy of undemocratic meddling in latin american countries.
There is a difference between the approval ratings of a lawfully elected leader, which include the opinions of folks who didn't even bothered to vote, and the minority support of a vile tyrant that in a free and fair election would have lost by a 2:1 - 3:1 margin.
After fixing the last elections, Maduro has no greater legitimacy than the coup leader, who at least recognizes that and calls for new, fair elections.
Maduro and his party polled somewhere in the 20-30% range in all credible publications, and that was before the mass famine and food shortages of 2018:
The very opinion polls you cite "include the opinions of folks who didn't even bothered to vote." The goalposts seem to shift to wherever best supports your position, which is still the recognition of an unelected leader. A belief that the US would support someone that intends to actually restore democracy and not just use that language to sell a coup, is naive and ahistorical[1].
Their sample sizes are also ridiculously low. Do you not recall how poorly the polls predicted the 2016 result?[2]
The analogy with the US fails unless you are claiming the Venezuelan election was fair. Sure, Maduro could have obtained a landslide victory against all odds, but he didn't, he eliminated his adversaries and rigged the results. Sure, the people who poll against him could have staid home, but they were actually forbidden to vote for their desired candidate or in some cases physically prevented to vote at all.
I'm not saying that this isn't a coup, but the idea that Maduro is a legitimate and democratically elected ruler is purely fantastical. It's a coup against an autocrat - the only way to get rid of one. The size of his loyalist kernel is irrelevant here - just the fact that he can't, hasn't and won't win in a free election.
> Votes are still cast on secret ballots, so I don't understand how that would even work.
It's quite easy: jail the respective candidates and remove them from the ballot.
> Really? A US-instigated military coup is the only way?
The position of the US government could be seen as an improvement from earlier calls for a direct military intervention. As long as they do not finance or advise the contenders, lending them international credibility is a standard foreign policy move that doesn't fall under "instigation". The political rift was there and the US should of course applaud any developments in line with their previous foreign policy position, strongly against the Chavez/Maduro regime.
Of course, given the history of the US-Venezuela relations, it's hard to believe US will limit itself to mere diplomatic actions.
You can't just pick and choose a bad economic sanction from the past and claim all economic sanctions are bad and cause misery.
The lack of food and medicine in Venezuela is purely the Venezuelan government's fault, and Jorge Arreaza (an in general, the entire Venezuelan government) has used the US as a scapegoat for the past 20 years.
venezuela placed gold in the bank of england as a guarantee for a loan from germany to buy food from turkey. london is currently refusing to return it despite venezuela paying back germany. the gold has doubled in value and could be used to buy food. just another piece of evidence of economic pressure actively hurting people in venezuela.
>The lack of food and medicine in Venezuela is purely the Venezuelan government's fault
We live in a highly interdependent and interconnected globalized world. Lack of access to the global market hurts Venezuelan farmers, leaving them unable to export their excess and cushion local market fluctuations. It has also hurt Venezuelan consumers unable to purchase imported goods with their Bolivars, rendering them worth less.
Medicine is a patent-encumbered, capital-intensive industry that is protected at the WTO level[1]. When your economy is highly specialized (due to globalization, the post-colonial resource curse, political pressures and/or brain-drain emigration) it becomes dependent on foreign imports of medicine. When those suppliers become malicious, a shortage is what emerges.
No one is blameless, but we must examine the situation with a clear understanding of the actors with power and the actors without.
Why do you claim the shortages are due to suppliers becoming malicious?
Why do you claim the US sanctions are to blame, when said sanctions have only been applied to individuals? (Unless there are new ones I'm not aware of).
>In its role as the only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people, the National Assembly invoked the country's constitution to declare Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, and the office of the presidency therefore vacant.
It's one of those questions: do we believe the words of a notorious liar when he asserts his view of Venezuela's "legitimate branch of government," or do we believe the Venezuelan people?
Is the power to choose their country's president held by the people or by the regional superpower?
But what is your basis for calling him an oligarch? It sounds like you're just reaching for an insult that has certain historical overtones that you think useful.
It's not just the US. They weren't even the first. If I read the news reports accurately, Canada made the move first.
Look, I know we all Trump. I'm with ya. But that doesn't mean that every single decision his government makes is the wrong call. "Even a broken clock is right twice a day", yada yada.
By all accounts, Madura is an unelected tyrant responsible for the deaths of several protesters. I'm not there, so I can't say if these accounts are accurate. But there certainly seems to be an international consensus.
I don't think this action has any similarity to, say, the US's support in the 80s of the Sandinistas, or their involvement in the brutal drug wars, etc.
Canada has a sordid history when it comes to relations with its indigenous first nations peoples that continues to the present day[1]. One of the aims of the Bolivarian revolution was to center and uplift the indigenous population of Venezuela, so it makes sense that the Canadian government would be among the first to question its legitimacy.
31 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 79.0 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_reserves_in_Venezuela They apparently more oil any other country. Not as easy to access as or quality like Saudi Arabia but still, that's an amazing asset to work with.
It's essentially a class warfare in a highly divided society, that was political and is turning bloody. As always, authoritarians and populists very skillfully exploit such situations to get into power. The corollary is that it could happen anywhere similar conditions exist, like high inequality and dependence on mineral exports. Russia?
This is essentially a coup. Recognizing an unelected oligarch is a continuation of the US's policy of undemocratic meddling in latin american countries.
1. https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/trump-approval-falls...
2. https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14239
After fixing the last elections, Maduro has no greater legitimacy than the coup leader, who at least recognizes that and calls for new, fair elections.
Where are you getting that statistic from?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Venezuelan_presidential_e...
Their sample sizes are also ridiculously low. Do you not recall how poorly the polls predicted the 2016 result?[2]
1. https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-25-the-banality-...
2. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
I'm not saying that this isn't a coup, but the idea that Maduro is a legitimate and democratically elected ruler is purely fantastical. It's a coup against an autocrat - the only way to get rid of one. The size of his loyalist kernel is irrelevant here - just the fact that he can't, hasn't and won't win in a free election.
Actually it does not. You're assuming that I claim the US election was also fair, legal and representative.
>they were actually forbidden to vote for their desired candidate
Votes are still cast on secret ballots, so I don't understand how that would even work.
>It's a coup against an autocrat - the only way to get rid of one.
Really? A US-instigated military coup is the only way? Historical[1] events[2] seem[3] to show otherwise.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_I...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnation_Revolution
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution
It's quite easy: jail the respective candidates and remove them from the ballot.
> Really? A US-instigated military coup is the only way?
The position of the US government could be seen as an improvement from earlier calls for a direct military intervention. As long as they do not finance or advise the contenders, lending them international credibility is a standard foreign policy move that doesn't fall under "instigation". The political rift was there and the US should of course applaud any developments in line with their previous foreign policy position, strongly against the Chavez/Maduro regime.
Of course, given the history of the US-Venezuela relations, it's hard to believe US will limit itself to mere diplomatic actions.
Doesn't mean it's not still wrong.
>As long as they do not finance or advise the contenders
Too late. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/world/americas/donald-tru...
"Make the economy scream" was a statement actually uttered by a US president in response to a democratically elected socialist in Chile[1].
According to Jorge Arreaza, Venezuelan foreign minister[2]:
> We cannot repatriate the profit from our company in the United States to invest it in food and medicine in Venezuela.
Economic sanctions ensure that the pain of imperialism is felt by the most vulnerable[3].
We need to wake up to the misery that we impose on the world.
1. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm
2. https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14239
3. https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-sanctions-make-econ...
The lack of food and medicine in Venezuela is purely the Venezuelan government's fault, and Jorge Arreaza (an in general, the entire Venezuelan government) has used the US as a scapegoat for the past 20 years.
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-gold/venezuela-g...
We live in a highly interdependent and interconnected globalized world. Lack of access to the global market hurts Venezuelan farmers, leaving them unable to export their excess and cushion local market fluctuations. It has also hurt Venezuelan consumers unable to purchase imported goods with their Bolivars, rendering them worth less.
Medicine is a patent-encumbered, capital-intensive industry that is protected at the WTO level[1]. When your economy is highly specialized (due to globalization, the post-colonial resource curse, political pressures and/or brain-drain emigration) it becomes dependent on foreign imports of medicine. When those suppliers become malicious, a shortage is what emerges.
No one is blameless, but we must examine the situation with a clear understanding of the actors with power and the actors without.
[1] https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
Why do you claim the US sanctions are to blame, when said sanctions have only been applied to individuals? (Unless there are new ones I'm not aware of).
He seems as elected as Maduro.
>In its role as the only legitimate branch of government duly elected by the Venezuelan people, the National Assembly invoked the country's constitution to declare Nicolas Maduro illegitimate, and the office of the presidency therefore vacant.
Is the power to choose their country's president held by the people or by the regional superpower?
But what is your basis for calling him an oligarch? It sounds like you're just reaching for an insult that has certain historical overtones that you think useful.
1. https://twitter.com/aaronjmate/status/1088704085375795200
Look, I know we all Trump. I'm with ya. But that doesn't mean that every single decision his government makes is the wrong call. "Even a broken clock is right twice a day", yada yada.
By all accounts, Madura is an unelected tyrant responsible for the deaths of several protesters. I'm not there, so I can't say if these accounts are accurate. But there certainly seems to be an international consensus.
I don't think this action has any similarity to, say, the US's support in the 80s of the Sandinistas, or their involvement in the brutal drug wars, etc.
Canada has a sordid history when it comes to relations with its indigenous first nations peoples that continues to the present day[1]. One of the aims of the Bolivarian revolution was to center and uplift the indigenous population of Venezuela, so it makes sense that the Canadian government would be among the first to question its legitimacy.
1. https://medium.com/@CitationsPodcst/episode-36-maplewashing-...