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I titled this South America even though it will be mainly about Venezuela to start because the situation can change or other big conflicts could crop up. Everyone is welcome to post on whatever they would like as long as it relates to South American politics.
This is a big topic in the news right now and a very fluid situation. I thought I would create this space where people could post about it instead of gumming up the US pol thread. I will attempt to show case some of both sides and what has already been posted on the various threads and blogs. If a source is not well known I will do some quick back ground on it. I will try not to be be too biased in this OP but with that being said I strongly believe Maduro to be a dictator and not a true socialist, so my future posts will likely go down this path unless of course new information is discovered.
Some basic facts on the humanitarian Crisis
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46999668
Madruo claims he is the rightfully elected leader in Venezuela and that Guaido is trying to over throw him with a Coup. Guaido claims he is the right person to be the interm President of the Republic until fair elections are called.
Quick break down of the opposing positions.
https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/27/is-it-legal-for-juan-guaido-to-be-proclaimed-venezuela-s-interim-president
A CNN undercover in the streets of Venezuela.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/27/americas/venezuela-military-protests-interview-intl/index.html
Here is an opinion piece on Venezuela published by aljazeera (I thought there was an opposing opinion from the same outlet posted by GH but I can't find it, if some does let me know and I'll edit it in here.)
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/venezuela-charismatic-strongman-190127203108212.html
Guaido is calling for more protests
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics/venezuelas-guaido-calls-for-new-protests-as-pressure-on-maduro-rises-idUSKCN1PM1ND
Why people say Maduro was not elected fairly.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/01/08/why-venezuelas-opposition-has-been-unable-to-effectively-challenge-maduro/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/01/venezuela-maduro-government-opposition-leaders
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Venezuela
Madruo says that this a US conspiricy
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/27/americas/venezuela-maduro-us-coup-accusation/index.html
Why this is believeable is in 2002 there was a us-led coup on Chavez.
An in depth documentary on it.
https://vimeo.com/16724719
https://www.routledge.com/Bad-News-from-Venezuela-Twenty-years-of-fake-news-and-misreporting/Macleod/p/book/9781138489233
One part missed is that Chavez was no Angel either and willing to sick his military on his people if necessary.
+ Show Spoiler +
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Venezuelan_coup_d'état_attempt
Maduro has the support of the military elite and has been making it clear through his twitter that this is the case.
https://www.euronews.com/2019/01/28/maduro-fills-twitter-feed-with-military-photos-after-guaido-s-appeal-to-venezuela-s-soldie
At least 20 anti Maduro protesters were killed.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-un/un-rights-boss-calls-for-inquiry-into-venezuela-killings-idUSKCN1PJ0XU
A global divide on who supports who
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/01/28/divide-venezuela-whos-supporting-maduro-whos-following-us-lead-recognizing-guaid/?utm_term=.660fb337b22c
Some pro Maduro information. These websites have been accused of being Madruo Propaganda machines. The supporters of the sites believe them to be public news organizations supported by government funds just like the BBC or CBC.
www.telesurenglish.net
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuela-Defense-Minister-Padrino-Militarys-Top-Brass-Ratify-Loyality-to-President-Maduro-20190124-0013.html
venezuelanalysis.com
US names Elliot Abrams as a envoy to the situation in Venezuela further fueling the thoughts that this too is a US plot with horrible intentions.
www.thenation.com
A look at the WAY to long history of the corruption in Venezuela
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Venezuela
Some videos posted about the situation from the conspiracy point of view (not meaning to pass judgement with the title just pointing out this is theory. And the people in the video also have posted videos about how 9/11 was a US gov conspiracy and that Assad in Syria did not use chemical weapons, all which would be considered conspiracies by the main stream).
+ Show Spoiler +
+ Show Spoiler +
I'm sure I missed a bunch as it is a very complicated and fluid situation but people can add to it as they like and add commentary. And I'll add to the OP as more stuff comes online.
edit:
Bernie sanders reaction Twitter.
Bernie Sanders
✔
@SenSanders
The Maduro government has waged a violent crackdown on Venezuelan civil society, violated the constitution by dissolving the National Assembly and was re-elected last year in an election many observers said was fraudulent. The economy is a disaster and millions are migrating. 1/3
16.5K
4:06 PM - Jan 24, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
9,147 people are talking about this
EDIT #2
Here is a fairly balanced summary of what is going on, along with an opinion on the best way to move Venezuela forward.
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-can-t-solve-venezuela-s-crisis-alone-achieving-peace-ncna965676
Personally I would be very hopeful and happy if they went down this path. But at the moment with neither side willing to compromise it doesn't seem likely.
This clears it for me. From Maduro's government funded news source, that his opponents say is a propaganda machine writes a story which his forces had to use force on a native tribe killing at least 2 and injuring at least 14 others for trying to let the aid in. Now does this sound like a guy stomping down the rich white elite? Or the dictator killing the poorest of the poor, a native tribe, who is so desperate and poor from the government that they are willing to die to try to get it?
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14345
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Here is a bit of a catch up for what is happening right now as the opposition fights to get Aid into the people they say are starving, and I tend to agree since 3 million have left and many more are trying to leave. Maduro says that there is no crisis and these are "trojan horses" to started a armed Coup. The Opposition leader who has been recognized by 60 countries as the interim president has said all options are on the table and defied a do not travel order from Maduro. Hopefully this is not a precursor to military action.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47352295
I think Maduro is somewhat hoping for military action so he can play the "socialist" Martyr card. I think it is better to just keep waiting on military defections because not only will an invasion lead to human tragedy (it always does) but it will actually strengthen his position.
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I think this is a pretty interesting article on both the situation in Venezuela currently and why military action would do a lot more harm than good. Basically it points out that the military can't really organize and defect because it is spied on my the counter intelligence agents from Cuba. The government doesn't even actually control huge parts of the country it is various gangs that do. So if you invade you would take out the military which could be the only stabilizing force, assuming you could get rid of the Maduro government and Cuban spies, which would allow these gangs that live in civilian areas and can not be really taken out by traditional military means.
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/world/opinions-with-us-military-action-venezuela-could-become-the-libya-of-the-caribbean/ar-BBU3W6Y?li=AAggFp5
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tangentially relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Northwoods
With the talk and general feeling of US military action against Maduro in the air, we should remember the long history of US involvement in Latin American affairs, and that in such a history it is rare that the US Government has the best interests of "the people" at heart.
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This will be an interesting day. Maduro had put a travel ban on Guaido and said he would be arrested if he left the country. In a effort to get his aid into the country and shore up support Guaido left last week. He is returning today and the US has said that Maduro better not arrest him. It will be very interesting to see what Maduro does as he does not want to appear weak, but he also doesn't want to give the US an excuse to use military action.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/04/guaido-venezuela-return-maduro-us-washington
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I thought this was a very interesting play by Maduro's propaganda arm ,venezuelanalysis.com. They created a group called the "Jamaica Peace Council" to say no to a invasion that hasn't happened. It is a pretty weak effort because after a quick google search you can see it was just created and only comments on Venezuela but I think it has a catchy name and if people don't bother to search the source they might believe it.
https://jamaicapeacecouncil.wordpress.com/about/
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/14365
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After prolonged black outs due to infrastructure failure it looks as though power is being restored to parts. Of course Maduro says it was a terrorist attack. The other side saying years of disrepair due to corruption and mismanagement. Either way it cause a lot of suffering and fear.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/08/venezuela-power-outage-maduro-schools-closed
Fiorella said the power crisis was the result of “neglect, disrepair and corruption at the highest levels of the Venezuelan government – precisely the same things that are leading to the crisis in the healthcare sector, the economic crisis. This is one of the facets of the Venezuelan crisis”.
Rodríguez told the state-run broadcaster Telesur her country had fallen victim to “an act of electric sabotage committed by Venezuela’s extreme-right opposition” on a hydroelectric plant in the country’s south.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
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I think Venezuelans are sadly fucked, Maduro is a thug who finances his thugs with drug money and works closely with FARC and the cuban dictatorship.
Dictators do not go off power unless other people with guns come and force them out. Everyone on the civilized world is asking for a "peaceful solution" and somehow hoping that concerts on the border and economic sanctions do magic.
The US won't military intervene the country and the UN will continue being useless, so Maduro will either keep his socialist dictatorship for a long time or there will be some sort of coup with a high chance of devolving into a civil war.
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5th day without light in Venezuela
Unbiased America VENEZUELAN BLACKOUT: DAY FIVE By Kevin Ryan Today is the fifth day since Venezuela’s power system went down. Most of the country, including Caracas, remains in darkness. Last Thursday a substation which supplies electricity to 80% of Venezuelans from the massive Guri hydropower plant, went offline. A union official at the national power monopoly, Corpoelec, told reporters that a brush fire under a power trunk line caused Guri’s turbines to shut down. The government has tried to restart Guri four times since the start of the blackout on Thursday. “Every time they attempt to restart, they fail and the disruption breaks something else in the system, destabilizing the grid yet further,” said José Aguilar, a Venezuelan power industry expert. The latest attempt led to the explosion of a secondary substation near Guri on Saturday. The problem? Restarting the turbines requires skilled operators who can synchronize the speed of rotation on Guri’s operational turbines, yet the most experienced operators had left long ago because of meager wages. Most of the remaining workers are now being told to stay home. President Maduro insists the blackout is the result of sabotage and cyberattacks organized by the United States and his opposition, without providing any evidence. Energy experts, Venezuelan power sector contractors, and current and former Corpoelec employees have dismissed the accusations, saying the blackout was the result of years of underinvestment, corruption, and brain drain. It’s the latest is a string of government failures that have plagued Venezuela since its “socialist revolution”. Without power, looting has become even more widespread. People searching for food have attacked markets and restaurants. There's no communication, not even by cell phone. Water is scarce as pumps have shut down without electricity. Desperate patients have been begging doctors to be kept alive, who have been reduced to performing emergency surgeries by flashlight. Fifteen dialysis patients died as a result of the initial blackout and some 10,000 more are at risk if they continue without treatment. Despite all this, President Nicolás Maduro, successor to the late Hugo Chavez, continues to insist that there is no humanitarian crisis. SOURCES: https://www.nytimes.com/…/ame…/venzuela-blackout-maduro.htmlhttps://www.npr.org/…/this-is-going-to-end-ugly-venezuela-s…https://www.cbsnews.com/…/venezuela-as-blackout-continues-…/
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You're starting a thread about Venezuela, with links from predominantly North American/English speaking news, and call it the South American Politics Thread? Did you even run it by the mods for inclusion in the various country's situation?
Not even one mention of Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan crisis? Argentina's tepid recovery?
I think a better introduction is sorely needed to encapsulate an entire CONTINENT'S politics. Or is Canada just some inferior version of America?
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On March 12 2019 11:23 Danglars wrote:
You're starting a thread about Venezuela, with links from predominantly North American/English speaking news, and call it the South American Politics Thread? Did you even run it by the mods for inclusion in the various country's situation?
Not even one mention of Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan crisis? Argentina's tepid recovery?
I think a better introduction is sorely needed to encapsulate an entire CONTINENT'S politics. Or is Canada just some inferior version of America?
It is too bad you don't seem to have the ability to simply ask a question instead of being a condescending jerk. Have you asked yourself why this is? I'm guessing insecurity but you might know better, if you don't I suggest talking to a counselor because if this behavior is leaking into real life I'm sure it is damaging your personal relationships.
I did talk to the mods about starting this as I didn't want to gum up the US pol thread with something that not everyone was interested in. The decision on making it SA and not just Venezuela was because other people might have interest and knowledge and the want to discuss these issues without a current place to put it. My interest in mainly in Venezuela right now because I know refugee's and immigrants from their. But since this thread was placed in general it made more sense to make it for everyone and not me.
Anyone is welcome to post about Nicaragua or Argentina, so far they have not but perhaps some day they will and we can all learn from that. I would love if more people posted about more topics, all are welcome. You seem to have some interest (Or are you simply here to insult?) so please by all means post any content about politics of South America that you choose. Just make it about the politics and not lightly veiled insults.
And I'm not sure what you blatant insult of Canada is about or how it relates, but it is not welcome here. Please no more low content posts that have the clear goal of insulting.
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The US is removing it's diplomats as the black-outs enter their 5th day. Guadio is trying to arrange bigger and bigger protests and Maduro is having his own counter ones. I sincerely hope this does not lead to a civil war but it is looking more and more likely. The US blames the cuban engineering and the lack of spending on infrastructure for the problems. Maduro continues to blame "US and Rightwing terrorists".
https://www.npr.org/2019/03/12/702464026/u-s-to-pull-diplomats-out-of-embassy-in-venezuela
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At this point it looks like Venezuela will devolve into anarchy. It shows how much of a failure socialist economics really is and how much damage it can do.
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I'm not sure if it is failure of socialist economics so much as it is failure of socialism as a shield to hide monumental corruption. But your first sentence may very well come true.
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On March 13 2019 05:20 JimmiC wrote:
I'm not sure if it is failure of socialist economics so much as it is failure of socialism as a shield to hide monumental corruption. But your first sentence may very well come true.
Ah, the good old "it wasn't real socialism". Corruption IS socialism, and has a history of ruining south american countries.
Brazil until recently, Chile in the 1970, and now Argentina has 50% inflation and looks to not be able to get better.
Former president crony was caught burying bags of US dollars in a church, and despite that she remains somewhat popular (just like Lula from jail). They elected a moderate right wing president, but no fundamental changes have been done to their economy so they are still screwed (taxes got higher and government spending is still out of wack and totally unsustainable).
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Corruption is authoritarianism, there is many democratic socialist countries in northern europe that are doing fantastic and have low levels of corruption. There are also many rightwing autoritarians whose countries are rife with corruption. Sadly corruption finds both left and right.
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TLADT24033 Posts
On March 12 2019 11:23 Danglars wrote:
You're starting a thread about Venezuela, with links from predominantly North American/English speaking news, and call it the South American Politics Thread? Did you even run it by the mods for inclusion in the various country's situation?
Not even one mention of Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan crisis? Argentina's tepid recovery?
I think a better introduction is sorely needed to encapsulate an entire CONTINENT'S politics. Or is Canada just some inferior version of America?
I can confirm that he did indeed run it by us and we agreed to it. Much as he mentioned, people are free to bring up the other topics seeing as this is a general SA thread. Of course, so far, the eyes are on Venezuela so who knows when the Nicaraguan crisis or Argentina's recovery will be brought up in this thread.
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On March 13 2019 09:41 JimmiC wrote:
Corruption is authoritarianism, there is many democratic socialist countries in northern europe that are doing fantastic and have low levels of corruption. There are also many rightwing autoritarians whose countries are rife with corruption. Sadly corruption finds both left and right.
Democratic socialist countries do not exist; it's a myth. Countries that were already prosperous because of the free market and now still have strong property rights and other freedoms, are able to afford high taxes and a welfare state, for now. Just look up any of them in the "freedom index", they are not socialist countries.
That said, since we are talking about latin american countries; every single latin american country that tried socialism completely fell apart or is falling apart before turning around. The notion that socialism will turn poor or developing nations into developed nordic countries is a senseless fantasy at the cost of blood and death. Venezuela's crisis did not start last year, it started over 15 years ago with Hugo Chavez, and many of the leftist around the world, both in latin america and outside, who are watching their hands now saying it "wasn't real socialism", supported him. We remember.
The nations that accepted that a free economy is the way foward are going upwards (Chile, Peru) and the ones that embraced socialism are falling apart or stuck in perpetual poberty. (Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, Argentina, Bolivia).
The other nations play back and forth.
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I think to far in either direction causes problems. The reason Chavez was attractive because despite some wealth being there the poor were destitute and takin advantage of at every turn. Many people dont realize there is a huge cost to having your poor that desperate, including crime, violence and so on. You are also wasting all the potential from a huge population.
Im also just not personally ok with people being born without a chance at success. And thunk things like education and healthcare are mandatory for a successful society.
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WCS
