Socialist beats top-ranking Democrat

Last edited:
Lots of countries that were expected to grab their ankles ... didn't.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Venezuela is being subjected to economic warfare. The US government is handing over Venezuelan bank accounts and oil assets that it has power over (that are owned by Venezuela but are outside of Venezuela and held in places that the US has political influence over).

86% of Venezuelans oppose military intervention and 81% oppose US sanctions.

How the US made Guaido.
Click to expand...
Greg Palast's take on the situation ("stupid hat" notwithstanding):
On January 23, right after a phone call from Donald Trump, Juan Guaidó, former speaker of Venezuela’s National Assembly, declared himself president. No voting. When you have official recognition from The Donald, who needs elections?

Say what?

I can explain what’s going on in Venezuela in three photos:

First, we have Juan Guaidó, self-proclaimed (and Trump-proclaimed) president of the nation, with his wife and child, a photo prominently placed in The New York Times.

20190131182852_36261487_0_body-1.jpg


Next, the class photo of Guaidó’s party members in the National Assembly, white as snow…

960X540_Guaido%E2%80%99s-Opposition.jpg


…especially when compared to their political opposites in the third photo, the congress members who support the elected President Nicolás Maduro. The Maduro supporters are nearly all of a darker hue.

960X540_Maduro%E2%80%99s-Chavista-Constituent-Assembly.jpg


This is the story of Venezuela in black and white, the story not told in The New York Times nor the rest of our establishment media. This year’s so-called popular uprising is, at its heart, a furious backlash of the whiter (and wealthier) Venezuelans against their replacement by the larger Mestizo(mixed-race) poor.

Four centuries of white supremacy in Venezuela by those who identify their ancestors as European came to an end with the 1998 election of Hugo Chavez who won with the overwhelming support of the Mestizo majority. This turn away from white supremacy continues under Maduro, Chavez’ chosen successor.

In my interviews with Chavez for BBC beginning in 2002, he talked with humor about the fury of a white ruling class finding itself displaced by dark-skinned man who was so visibly “Negro e Indio,” a label he wore loudly and proudly.

Why did the poor love Chavez? (And love is not too strong a word.) As even the US CIA’s surprisingly honest Fact Book states:

“Social investment in Venezuela during the Chavez administration reduced poverty from nearly 50% in 1999 to about 27% in 2011, increased school enrollment, substantially decreased infant and child mortality, and improved access to potable water and sanitation through social investment.”

What should be added is that, even more than the USA, race and poverty are linked.

But just as Maduro took office in 2013, the price of oil began its collapse, and the vast social programs that oil paid for were now paid for by borrowing money and printing it, causing wild inflation. The economic slide is now made impossibly worse by what the UN rapporteur for Venezuela compared to “medieval sieges.” The Trump administration cut off Venezuela from the oil sale proceeds from its biggest customer, the USA.

Everyone has been hurt economically, but the privileged class’s bank accounts have become nearly worthless. So, knowing that the Mestizo majority would not elect their Great White Hope Guidó, the angry white rich simply took to the streets — often armed. (And yes, both sides are armed.)
Click to expand...
 
redrumloa said:
Click to expand...
Would that be the same sort of "humanitarian aid" the Americans send into every place they want to overthrow - food and money and communications equipment for rebels(the guns come by "entrepreneurs" - but that's what the money is for)?
 
Robert said:
That's what he said:
Click to expand...
The great irony (not an unexpected one) is that my country fully supports the coup - in fact must have been in on it - and all the while pretending that they are intersectional (even pushing intersectional training material into various departments) - but really they just do what's best for the oil and mining companies and f*ck the poor and the brown.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Would that be the same sort of "humanitarian aid" the Americans send into every place they want to overthrow
...
Click to expand...

That's certainly what Maduro is claiming:
Venezuela's embattled President Nicolás Maduro has called Donald Trump's government a "gang of extremists" and blamed the US for his country's crisis.

In an interview with the BBC, Mr Maduro said he would not allow humanitarian aid into Venezuela as it was a way for the US to justify an intervention.

"They are warmongering in order to take over Venezuela," he said.

"This is part of that charade. That's why, with all dignity, we tell them we don't want their crumbs, their toxic food, their left-overs."
Click to expand...
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Would that be the same sort of "humanitarian aid" the Americans send into every place they want to overthrow - food and money and communications equipment for rebels(the guns come by "entrepreneurs" - but that's what the money is for)?
Click to expand...

Funny how these situations always become "blame Trump". Fluffy specifically will always be "always blame America", but everyone else only goes after the US when a Republican is in office, and most certainly when orangemanbad is in office. Metalman and I were pointing out Venezuela's collapse during the Obama years, but i don't seem to remember much if any reaction at all here. Crickets. Now orange man is in office? His fault.

When it Comes to Venezuela, Trump Follows in Obama Footsteps

JUNE 1, 2017, 2:16 PM

Protests against the government of Nicolás Maduro are entering their third month. Over 60 people have been killed in faceoffs between protesters and security forces, at least 1,000 have been jailed, and 75 percent of Venezuelans lost an average of 19 pounds over the past year.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top