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Bullettyme wrote:Alright Irish Bimboman.
This is one of the keys of the misunderstanding around this conflict. When most europeans talk about "socialism" they think about modern social democratic nations.julian wrote:Of course it is not a socialist country, not even in the european sense of it. There has never been a socialist country in LATAM, none in the very pure sense of it.Glaston wrote:John McDonnell on Venezuela “I don’t think it was a socialist country”
So now we know why its a failed regime.
Most of the time people tend to confuse populist leftist latinamerican dictatorships with mild center left european socialist. Two different animals.
Venezuela is the first case, a very very rich country that has been governed for the past decade by some mad thieves, they have been doing socialism in benefit of their own pockets.
except a Zebra, Domino, or a grand pianoNolanator wrote:Nothing's black and white, regardless of whether you've a left wing or right wing outlook. Anyone claiming things as that simple are idiots.
Nolanator wrote:Nothing's black and white, regardless of whether you've a left wing or right wing outlook. Anyone claiming things as that simple are idiots.
You're thrashing about. Was that aimed at me or Bullett?Mullet 2 wrote:Better than just another ignorant fool who never left the Student Union, walking around in a Ché t-shirt.
I'm sure the family of your girlfriend lining up for bread are still thinking that the Pinkos are doing a great job on balance.
Nolanator wrote:You're thrashing about. Was that aimed at me or Bullett?Mullet 2 wrote:Better than just another ignorant fool who never left the Student Union, walking around in a Ché t-shirt.
I'm sure the family of your girlfriend lining up for bread are still thinking that the Pinkos are doing a great job on balance.
The US has nothing to gain from a military engagement in Venezuela. They already know the oil they buy won't dry, since Venezuela needs to sell it to them to keep their only foreign currency source open. Most overseas companies are in survival mode in Venezuela, just stocking up and selling as little as they can to keep their local workers on the job... hardly any income for the regime there.Mullet 2 wrote:Of course they'll intervene.Puma wrote:As long as the US keeps buying oil from Venezuela at market prices, they won't intervene. And Venezuela won't stop selling them since they're their only paying customer at the moment.RichieRich89 wrote:It all sounds pretty terrible.
Surely time for another US-led "liberation" of another oil-rich country?
Both Russia and China are getting Venezuelan oil as a repay from previous loans, so no current cash income for the country fro those operations...
If they get their boy into the Presidential Palace the oil is hardly going to dry up.
What the fudge are you ranting about you pig ignorant dope?Mullet 2 wrote:Better than just another ignorant fool who never left the Student Union, walking around in a Ché t-shirt.
I'm sure the family of your girlfriend lining up for bread are still thinking that the Pinkos are doing a great job on balance.
He's more likely to go to Cuba, who have basically captured the Venezuelan state without a shot fired. Fairly sure all of his security guards are Cubans and he's spent a lot of time there. The thing is is he's fudged if he goes there, he's no value to the Cubans in Cuba - in power in Venezuela he keeps the cheap oil flowing, in Cuba he becomes a nice bargaining chip with the US who will either try him for drug crimes in the states or transport him back to Venezuela to be tried there.julian wrote:The only thing that Russia and China needs is a reassurance that money will keep flowing, it does not matter whether Maduro or Guaidó.
In any case, news say that Maduro has his belongings and family ready to escape to Russia in case the turba reaches Miraflores.
What facts?bimboman wrote:
Facts hurt their feelings, she created modern Britain.
eldanielfire wrote:What facts?bimboman wrote:
Facts hurt their feelings, she created modern Britain.
Th UK is so deeply flawed the country has had to import millions of workers due to the unbalanced and untrained workforce we have and run such an unbalanced economy even in good times parts of the country are in recession.
Give yourself an uppercut cupcake!Mullet 2 wrote:Your idiocy.
That's down to what Thatcher did was it? The 2019 employment levels are entirely due to a Pm not in power for around 30 years?bimboman wrote:eldanielfire wrote:What facts?bimboman wrote:
Facts hurt their feelings, she created modern Britain.
Th UK is so deeply flawed the country has had to import millions of workers due to the unbalanced and untrained workforce we have and run such an unbalanced economy even in good times parts of the country are in recession.
We have a record number employed , we're still the 5th largest economy in the worled. The main imbalance is,having a truly global city in London which is a draw for Europe as well as rest of UK.
Add in the amazing university , a legal system which is the worlds arbiter in business and you've a fantastic country.
The main economic issue is the debt burden , something you'd want to increase .
Any ways sick man to super star not in some small part because of Thatchers economics.
Venezuela shows Corbyn’s socialism in action
philip collins
Labour’s admiration for a regime that has squandered its resources and left its people in penury should be a warning
‘Chávez . . . showed us that there is a different, and a better way of doing things. It’s called socialism.” That’s what the man who is now leader of the Labour Party told a rally in London. “I think the importance of Venezuela,” said Diane Abbott in 2012, “is that it shows another way is possible.” It would be nice, now that the Venezuelan way has turned out to be a via dolorosa, if Mr Corbyn and Ms Abbott and all the other Labour cheerleaders for the Chávez and Maduro regimes — John McDonnell and Seumas Milne among the top brass and some of the foot-solders too — were to let it be known that they had been taught a valuable lesson.
As thousands of protesters take to the streets to demand the end of Nicolás Maduro’s presidency, let’s spell that lesson out, because the British left has a tin ear for egregious regimes on its own side. When the grand and noble idea of social democracy is pushed harder towards truer socialism, this is how it ends. This is how it always ends.
The decline of Venezuela is not a contingent accident, to be explained by malign imperial forces or the infirmities of the men in charge. It is intrinsic to the creed. It is the fatal, defining trait of authoritarian politics of a left-wing kind. If the band who aspire to govern Britain regarded this nation as an exemplar, it matters. Labour MPs once looked to Sweden for inspiration. Ed Miliband wanted a Neue Labour cover version of Germany. The embodiment of the Corbyn world view has been, instead, Venezuela and its descent into chaos therefore demands their response. The justification of the use of state power and the transfer of resources from private to public, central precepts for the Corbynite left, are thrown into question by its demise.
The scale of the collapse really cannot be ignored by anyone who has ever been its cheerleader. In the nation with the world’s largest oil reserves, production has almost halved since 2013. The government has presided over a contraction in GDP that, in the four years from 2013, was more severe than that suffered by the United States during the Great Depression. Inflation is running at 1.7 million per cent. By the end of last year prices were doubling every three weeks. It is a negative achievement of historic standing.
The human costs of this economic collapse are heart-breaking, Infant mortality rose 30 per cent in 2016 and malaria, which, in 1961, Venezuela had been the first country to eradicate is back. So is diphtheria. HIV and cancer patients are going without treatment or clean water and parents are surrendering their hungry children to orphanages.
The nights are dark because light is too costly. A rich nation, in which observers reposed their utopian hopes, has been catapulted backwards. It is no wonder that Venezuela has a murder rate like nowhere else and even less of a surprise that so many people are getting out. Three million people, 10 per cent of the population, have left the country since 2014, according to the United Nations.
The companion of economic decline in Venezuela, as it always is, has been political repression and constitutional vandalism. The opposition won parliamentary elections in 2015, but in 2017 Mr Maduro established a new constituent assembly, which has taken over legislative powers. Mr Maduro was sworn in for a second term earlier this month after a vote that was widely regarded as fraudulent. The only surviving democratic institution in Venezuela is the national assembly, whose president is the opposition leader, Juan Guaidó.
The stakes have now risen because President Trump, along with Canada and a host of Venezuela’s Latin American neighbours, has recognised Mr Guaidó as the rightful interim president. Mr Maduro instantly broke diplomatic and political relations with what he calls “the gringo empire”. Ricardo Hausmann, a wise former minister for planning and now a professor of economics at Harvard, has the best answer for what would ideally happen next: the national assembly should designate a new interim government and a new military high command to usher back democratic politics. It is unlikely to be so easy. Mr Maduro still wields a formidable security apparatus and a great deal will now rest on the reaction of the military.
According to state media, which does the bidding of the Maduro government, all the bad news is a hoax and the US is an imperial behemoth. The Venezuelan regime has had its useful idiots abroad to wash its ideological linen. Mr Milne, for example, wrote that Venezuelans who protest against food and medicine shortages are either spies funded by the CIA or members of the elite eager to restore their lost privileges. Internal critics are usually silenced: a dozen leaders of news outlets have been either exiled or charged with crimes since 2015 and six newspapers have stopped publishing this year.
It was never meant to be like this and the denizens of the British left naively never expected disaster. They thought it would be different this time. Oil revenues might be fairly distributed, to pay for social programmes and to the lasting benefit of the poor. The early gains in literacy and health care appeared to show, as they had in Cuba, that left-wing populism could redeem both of the competing promises of equality and liberty. Those on the British left kidded themselves that Venezuela was an embodied critique of neoliberalism (their term). They thought it was the discovery, after a few false trails, of a different path.
The important point here is not, as the witless Tory attack has it, that the British left is staffed by dreadful people who are all motivated by envy of the elite. The truth is much deeper, more sophisticated and insidious than that. It certainly is a road to hell that the left is travelling but it is paved with good intentions. It requires an act of imagination, and a reassessment of your political principles, to understand that, as Karl Popper was the first to point out, utopian fantasy always ends in violence. Much easier to pretend to yourself that repression serves the greater good or that the capitalist hegemon America is at fault.
This is how, when a favoured nation is on the brink of collapse and some bedrock principles about democracy and freedom are at stake, the British left, which is normally so voluble, can be reduced to guilty silence.
The Optimist wrote:Give yourself an uppercut cupcake!Mullet 2 wrote:Your idiocy.
eldanielfire wrote:That's down to what Thatcher did was it? The 2019 employment levels are entirely due to a Pm not in power for around 30 years?bimboman wrote:eldanielfire wrote:What facts?bimboman wrote:
Facts hurt their feelings, she created modern Britain.
Th UK is so deeply flawed the country has had to import millions of workers due to the unbalanced and untrained workforce we have and run such an unbalanced economy even in good times parts of the country are in recession.
We have a record number employed , we're still the 5th largest economy in the worled. The main imbalance is,having a truly global city in London which is a draw for Europe as well as rest of UK.
Add in the amazing university , a legal system which is the worlds arbiter in business and you've a fantastic country.
The main economic issue is the debt burden , something you'd want to increase .
Any ways sick man to super star not in some small part because of Thatchers economics.
It wasn't. She did some things right and some things badly wrong. You only have to see how polarising she was to see how many people hated her because of her actions.
There is some stiff competition for the most idiotic Saffer these daysLemoentjie wrote:Probably the sort of idiocy supported by the ANC
bimboman wrote:eldanielfire wrote:
That's down to what Thatcher did was it? The 2019 employment levels are entirely due to a Pm not in power for around 30 years?
Well apparently it's relevant:
It wasn't. She did some things right and some things badly wrong. You only have to see how polarising she was to see how many people hated her because of her actions.
Julie Owen Moylan
@JulieOwenMoylan
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Hugo Chavez’s daughter is worth $4.2 billion dollars.
That’s all...
9:20 PM - 24 Jan 2019
I assume you'd know since you'd be involved in this 'competition'Big Nipper wrote:There is some stiff competition for the most idiotic Saffer these daysLemoentjie wrote:Probably the sort of idiocy supported by the ANC
How do we call cold war now that we have global warming?Lacrobat wrote:Geopolitical lines are firming up...
Newsome wrote:Thank God Greenland are on our side! Game changer.
Lukewarm waterjulian wrote:How do we call cold war now that we have global warming?Lacrobat wrote:Geopolitical lines are firming up...
Don't worry they have refined the plan in Iraq, Libya and Syria - what possibly could go wrong?paddyor wrote:They're closing the embassy so the isolationist is probably gonna move soon. Civil war with a foreign backed power is about the worst possible outcome here.
From hearing some voices on the ground Guaido has the popular support, with Maduro retain support of the military which is key. People want him gone, but there's too much to lose of him and people in the military who are benefiting from criminality.Brumbieman wrote:So how much longer till the US go in and bomb the shit out of the place? There doesn't seem to be enough crazy jihadis to give millions of dollars and weapons to, so it's all a bit old school on this round of 'fudge a country for fun'. They certainly wont stop until either Maduro is dead or they get their man Guaido in.
Taking out the power grid was brutal, but Maduro still has too much support atm
February 5th:This round of sanctions has immediate effects
Earlier this week, Caracas Chronicles published my analysis on the shift in US policy towards Venezuela’s oil markets.
We’re already seeing effects. There are gasoline shortages that are likely to get worse in the coming weeks. Foreign oil traders have cancelled their contracts. Oil inventories are building up at ports. The fight to seize PdVSA crude around the Caribbean is heating up. Maduro is desperately looking for new markets to replace US buyers.
Sanctions don’t often show immediate effects, but these particular sanctions are hitting hard and fast. Contending with the gasoline shortages and lack of cash will place significant additional pressure on Maduro and on the Venezuelan population.
February 8th:Lima Group statement supports Guaido and humanitarian aid
Yesterday’s Lima Group statement on the Venezuela crisis was a solid demonstration of international pressure to reestablish democracy. The Lima statement was signed by Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Peru. Two key points stand out.
They call upon the National Armed Forces of Venezuela to demonstrate their loyalty to the Interim President in his constitutional functions as their Commander in Chief. Similarly, they urge the National Armed Forces not to impede the entry and transit of humanitarian assistance to Venezuelans.
I absolutely agree with this and believe this point is lost on far too many analysts who question whether Guaido is pushing too far. Guaido is the commander-in-chief as recognized by the Venezuelan constitution, a majority of the Venezuelan people and most of the international community. The military has a constitutional duty to follow the orders of the interim president. Further, the military should not block humanitarian aid from Venezuela’s population when the population is out of the streets requesting that aid be delivered.
Finally, they reiterate their support for a process of peaceful transition through political and diplomatic means without the use of force.
Nearly every actor in the international community wants a peaceful resolution to the current crisis that doesn’t involve the use of force. As the Lima Group statement reiterates, most policymakers and analysts are proposing real solutions to create non-violent pressure for change and improve the lives of Venezuela’s people. Importantly, Juan Guaido is trying to obtain a peaceful transition of power that is currently being blocked by Maduro and his inner circle. I think the fact that nearly everyone wants this done peacefully is lost on a few extreme voices wasting their time arguing for or against military intervention. We should be focused on discussing non-violent solutions that are preferred by Venezuela’s people and the international community.
To that end, sending food and medical aid is a great solution and much better than sending in tanks and bombs or calling for a violent transition of power. Sending humanitarian aid helps alleviate the immediate suffering of the Venezuelan people and creates pressure for a full transition back to democracy. The fact a hemispheric coalition including members of the Lima Group are coordinating the delivery of significant humanitarian aid in the coming weeks is an important step that more countries should sign on to.
February 15th:This round of sanctions has immediate effects 2
Two interesting points come from today’s NYT article on Venezuela sanctions:
Rosneft’s trading arm also agreed to continue providing Pdvsa with vital oil products in exchange for Venezuelan crude, partly replacing the lost American supplies, according to two oil traders and two partners of a Venezuelan firm familiar with the matter. They discussed internal company matters on condition of anonymity.
The fact Rosneft continues supplying oil products today goes against the increasing number of reports that Russia is backing away from Maduro. Then again, Rosneft may just be in it for the money. I’m sure they’re taking cash on delivery, burning away whatever limited funds Maduro has left.
Pdvsa officials told partners this week the country had secured gasoline supplies until late March, avoiding the imminent energy crisis caused by the American sanctions.
The potential for gas shortages in the coming week was a major concern for Maduro, the military, and every logistics network in the country including food supplies. They’ve managed to delay that disaster for a few weeks, but that’s going to be a very difficult effort to maintain.
February 23rd:This round of sanctions has immediate effects 3
In this week’s newsletter I highlighted that the strong early impact of financial sanctions against Maduro and the fact Guaido’s government is moving to gain control over PDVSA and Citgo accounts are both factors that indicate Maduro is more likely to leave power.
Two more stories this morning add to that analysis. Bloomberg reports that the US is considering new sanctions that would prohibit foreign firms from working with the Maduro-controlled portion of PDVSA. Reuters reports that Trafigura has halted its oil trades with Venezuela.
The hemisphere is only three weeks in to this sanctions process and it is already having a major impact on the financial stability of Maduro and his allies. Maduro’s cruel decision to block humanitarian aid is preventing the shipments of much needed food into the country. At some point, as fuel and food run out and the military is not paid, Maduro’s unwillingness to change course is likely to backfire on him.
UPDATE: After I published this post, Treasury announced a new round of sanctions against the heads of DGIM, FAES and SEBIN, all of whom have been responsible for some rather brutal repression tactics. They also hit the head of Maduro's PDVSA unit.
To all the bolded, it's all about power dude.Short notes on 23 February in Venezuela
If the question is who is up or down, Guaido benefited the events this weekend and Maduro lost ground. The chances of Maduro maintaining power in 2019 continue to decline. That said, it was far from a “good” day for Guaido or the Venezuelan people.
After a very positive concert on Friday that included an appearance by President Juan Guaido standing next to several other regional leaders, Saturday became much more difficult and violent. Guaido and his supporters worked to push humanitarian aid across the border. Maduro responded with violent repression that included tear gas, rubber bullets, live munitions and the burning of humanitarian aid. The idea and image of Maduro and his inner circle ordering the aid destroyed in a country where children lack food and sick people lack medicine is absolutely horrifying.
Among the more significant events was that several dozen members of the security forces flipped recognition from Maduro to Guaido. That includes an Army major, a member of FAES and multiple members of the GNB. The most violent repression appeared to be done by colectivo and paramilitary thugs as well as the police. The number of defections by Venezuelan security forces over the weekend was small but significant. Don't underestimate how a daily trickle of movement could quickly become a significant shift in the balance of power.
Further delivery of humanitarian aid has been suspended given the violent repression by Maduro. Guaido remains in Colombia for the moment and will meet with the Lima Group today to discuss further actions.
From my point of view, the discussion should focus on four areas:
1. Actions that help deliver humanitarian aid to the Venezuelan people including actions to secure that aid against attacks.
2. Actions that encourage additional military personnel to recognize the constitutional legitimacy of President Guaido.
3. Sanctions against those who committed and ordered serious abuses of human rights including the repression of protesters and destruction of humanitarian aid.
4. Opening up negotiations about the conditions for Maduro and his allies leaving power.
Guiado and his international backers want a deal without military action required. The problem is Maduro knows this and is staying put. Thus why humanitarian aid gets destroyed. Meanwhile thousands upon thousands of Venezuelans leave the country heading for Columbia, Peru, etc. and that becomes a problem for those countries while Venezuela's own problem servicing all these people becomes less. If the international goal is for the military to turn on the president so that he is forced to leave power (the Mugabe route)...they've already been waiting awhile, this guy's heels are dug in. This thread is about to celebrate its 2nd birthday.Venezuela's electrical collapse
The electrical outage in Venezuela is almost certainly caused by a lack of maintenance and personnel. The system has been on the verge of collapse for years. The fact this collapse didn’t happen sooner says something about the resilience of certain legacy systems and the ingenuity of a few brilliant workers who sometimes duct taped stuff together to keep it running.
Critical infrastructure systems are cross dependent. It’s one of the most basic points of analysis. We all know it and it seems almost too basic to point out. But that point needs to be highlighted, bolded and underlined in cases like Venezuela’s.
•Emergency services: Hospitals are running on generator power, which only works for a limited time. Communications for police and fire are also limited, meaning their ability to respond is impacted.
•Water: Water supplies requiring electricity for pumps and filters are impacted.
•Transportation:The public transportation system, particularly the electricity dependent metro system, is shut down. Gasoline pumps don’t work, meaning people can’t fill up their cars. The airport has had to cancel flights.
•Financial services: Transactions with debt and credit cards can’t be completed. Banks are shut down.
•Communications: Cell towers are running out of power. Wifi doesn’t work most places.
That final point about communications has become absolutely critical to the ongoing political clash. Guaido’s people have lost much of their capabilities to coordinate protests and actions across the country. Maduro has lost his ability to communicate with security forces and the security forces are limited in how they can communicate with each other. The lack of communications increases the potential for mistakes on all sides.
Additionally, Venezuelans have lost the ability to communicate with family in the country and abroad. In a country where family is all people have left, the inability to communicate increases the tensions and the fear.
The failures of the electrical system and all the cross-connected CI systems points at some major challenges for the next Venezuelan government. Maduro’s people may get a temporary fix in place in the coming days, but the fragility and lack of resilience in the system has been laid bare. This is a problem that requires billions in investment, from the turbines at Guri to the generators at hospitals, not a simple fix of a transmission line.
Faced with a full electrical system collapse, the country should try to leapfrog technology and get solar and battery backup systems into microgrids around the country to build something much less centralized and more resilient. That may seem like magical thinking today given the multiple overlapping tragedies that are occurring right this moment, but this is a big problem that needs big and ambitious solutions.
The first step is a new government in place and fully in control of all the levers of power.
I've had that argument a couple of times with some Venezuelans, and tbh I don't think it is something that should be wanted either on very recent evidence. However that want comes from a fairly sad and hopeless position. There has been a lot of innuendo and signalling, particularly from Bolton and Pompeo, but I think theyre shaking the tree a bit.And no, the U.S. is not putting boots on the ground.
A coup to a coup.Brazil wrote:It appears a coup is underway.