Venezuela

[Denny Crane]

33 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

There are plenty of articles detailing the wealth the family have amassed -- if you are worried about whether she is the richest - not sure.

Certainly she would have to be close - not a whole lot of super wealthy Venezuelan women are there?

 

That's weak. A specific claim was made that she is the richest woman in Venezuela not about family wealth. A quick google search highlights the claims originate to one article mentioned above and further articles churn the details like a shit football transfer piece on hitc. This article doesn't suggest moderate wealth it state's 4.2 billion. To put that in perspective there are apparently 2200 billionaires in the world according to Forbes.

 

If say infowars specifically said Chelsea Clinton or Malia Obama was worth an equivalent sort of money. I would like to think someone would expect some evidence for the claim they were making before treating it as fact. I thought maybe some new evidence had been found. 

[TheHowieLama]

That's fair - agreed -- that specific claim may be false.

 

I don't think it is far from the truth though as she is the oldest living child and controls the family assets and I am sure we can agree that they stashed away a little money right? Or built a few (this article says 17) mansions:

 

The late-president's family owns 17 country estates, totalling more than 100,000 acres, in addition to liquid assets of $550 million (£360 million) stored in various international bank accounts, according to Venezuelan news website Noticias Centro.

While ordinary Venezuelans suffer growing food shortages and 23 per cent inflation, the Chavez family trades in US dollars that now fetch four times the official bank rate on the black market.

Living in numerous mansions in Alto Barinas, the city's most affluent district, the family and their children live a life of privilege.

 

It's good to be the King.

[Boss]

Communism / Socialism has always been about that though. Turn the proles against the wealthy and then hoodwink the poor into giving you power, after which point you assert yourself as the new nobility and live a life of opulence at the proles expense.  

 

[cloggypop]

2 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

There are plenty of articles detailing the wealth the family have amassed -- if you are worried about whether she is the richest - not sure.

Certainly she would have to be close - not a whole lot of super wealthy Venezuelan women are there?

Depends who all the Miss Worlds ended up marrying. 

[Red Phoenix]

2 hours ago, Boss said:

hoodwink the poor into giving you power, after which point you assert yourself as the new nobility and live a life of opulence at the proles expense. 

 

That sounds like almost every single capitalist country on the planet right now though, and it's a reason why there's trillions in offshore tax havens. So imo I'd say it's more about leaders and parties lying to the voters than it is about either socialism or capitalism. It's fake socialism/communism and also fake/crony capitalism.

 

It actually gives me pause about simply writing off capitalism fully as impossible, even though I don't think it's the best way of doing things at all. That's because if you did somehow completely remove the cronyism then maybe it really could work to some extent in a way that's a lot better than what we see.

 

Bakunin (and many current anarchists) would agree with you though in several ways with state socialism and I also agree that it's a valid concern : that once socialist governments get into power they usually lose sight of what they're supposed to be doing and instead become entrenched as the new obstacle, one that's then more removed from the people and favouring holding on to their positions and the benefits they bring. That instead of what they intended to do, the power just corrupts them and leads to what you've described.

 

That's supposed to be a big reason why Bakunin split with Marx and favoured just dismantling the state altogether, instead using workers federations in a de-centralised way. I think this worked in Spain for a short period of time to an extent (Revolutionary Catalonia) before fascists and so-called communists (Stalinists) jointly destroyed it, so it is actually possible but would be insanely hard to sustain in the present. If capitalist governments right now are going against Maduro so much, they'd likely go full on apeshit if anarchism took place on a similar scale instead.

 

This would've been a whole lot shorter but I think it's interesting how your argument (and many other people's arguments, even if they're from the right) also aligns with what a lot of anarchists would think too when they're at the opposite end of the spectrum.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

7 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Here's John Bolton confirming that US intervention in Venezuela is about oil.

 

 

Well, I never!*

 

*tries to pull a convincing "shocked" face.

[Red Phoenix]

[AngryOfTuebrook]

7 hours ago, SasaS said:

US interventions usually are about protecting American political and economic interests.

Americans already buy half of Venezuelan oli. They would probably buy even more if Venezuela could pump more.

Half is never enough. And buying is never as lucrative as looting.

[TheHowieLama]

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - PetroChina Co plans to drop Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) as a partner in a planned $10 billion oil refinery and petrochemical project in southern China, said three sources familiar with the matter this week.

The company’s decision adds to state-owned PDVSA’s woes after the United States imposed sanctions on the company on Jan. 28 to undermine the rule of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

However, dropping the company was not a reaction to the U.S. sanctions but follows the deteriorating financial status of PDVSA over the past few years, said two of the sources, both executives with China National Petroleum Corp, the parent of PetroChina.

SPONSORED

[SasaS]

2 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Half is never enough. And buying is never as lucrative as looting.

The US was for a while a net oil exporter while the oil was at top prices (and Venezuela was still afloat).

Bolton is and old neocon as far as I remember, their shtick used to be solving world problems by exporting democracy after violent regime changes, whilst Trump's people have so far been more isolationist. My guess is Bolton is trying to sell involvement in Venezuela to the public by talking about business opportunities once the hostile regime is gone. Their main motivation is probably that they sense the opportunity to do away with the said regime because it has never been weaker, due to the economic crisis, questionable legitimacy and lowest popular support to date for Maduro. You don't need to take over countries to take their oil, you can do deals.

[polymerpunkah]

Yes, just read the NAFTA treaty.

 

Quote

The North American Free Trade Agreement’s (NAFTA’s) energy proportionality rule (Article 605) gives the U.S. virtually unlimited first access to most of Canada’s oil and natural gas. According to the NAFTA rule, Ottawa must not reduce oil exports to the U.S. like it did during international oil shortages in the 1970s to divert these supplies to Eastern Canadians who relied on imported oil then, as they still do now. Under NAFTA Article 605, Ottawa must continue to export the same proportion of oil (and natural gas and electricity) as it has in the past three years even if eastern Canadians are running short and freezing in the dark.

 

 

[TheHowieLama]

In other news:

 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

12 hours ago, SasaS said:

The US was for a while a net oil exporter while the oil was at top prices (and Venezuela was still afloat).

Bolton is and old neocon as far as I remember, their shtick used to be solving world problems by exporting democracy after violent regime changes, whilst Trump's people have so far been more isolationist. My guess is Bolton is trying to sell involvement in Venezuela to the public by talking about business opportunities once the hostile regime is gone. Their main motivation is probably that they sense the opportunity to do away with the said regime because it has never been weaker, due to the economic crisis, questionable legitimacy and lowest popular support to date for Maduro. You don't need to take over countries to take their oil, you can do deals.

And if they don't do deals on the terms you want - like Iraq or Libya - then you can just bomb some democracy into them.

 

You don't have to support Maduro to see that US intervention in the name of regime change is the worst thing that could happen to Venezuela right now. 

[SasaS]

53 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

And if they don't do deals on the terms you want - like Iraq or Libya - then you can just bomb some democracy into them.

 

You don't have to support Maduro to see that US intervention in the name of regime change is the worst thing that could happen to Venezuela right now. 

 

I agree, as I said, I don't support meddling into their affairs and anything beyond diplomatic pressure or helping the opposition would indeed be disastrous. The current government probably has little support beyond its own apparatus, military, police and client population segments and it should fall on its own.

Iraq and Libya were, however, not about oil.

[TheHowieLama]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47101291

[Rico1304]

On 2/1/2019 at 1:02 AM, polymerpunkah said:

Yes, just read the NAFTA treaty.

 

 

 

I thought you lot loved Trudeau?  

[Jairzinho]

On 2/1/2019 at 11:26 AM, SasaS said:

 

I agree, as I said, I don't support meddling into their affairs and anything beyond diplomatic pressure or helping the opposition would indeed be disastrous. The current government probably has little support beyond its own apparatus, military, police and client population segments and it should fall on its own.

Iraq and Libya were, however, not about oil.

They were about money. 

 

It amounts to the same thing.

[Red Phoenix]

On US sanctions since 2017 :

Quote

Though the government’s economic policies have played a role in Venezuela’s woes, the Trump sanctions have made things considerably worse since August 2017, decimating the oil industry and worsening shortages of medicine that have killed many Venezuelans. The Trump sanctions also make it nearly impossible for the government to take the necessary measures to exit from hyperinflation and depression.

Though the U.S. media is quiet on the matter, it’s important to note that the Trump sanctions are both violently immoral — again, they kill people — and illegal. They are prohibited under the Organization of American States Charter, the United Nations Charter, and other international conventions that the U.S. is party to. The sanctions also violate U.S. law, since the U.S. president must state, absurdly, that Venezuela presents “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States in order to impose these measures.
 

https://theintercept.com/2019/02/02/venezuela-us-trump-sanctions/

[polymerpunkah]

20 minutes ago, rico1304 said:

I thought you lot loved Trudeau?  

NAFTA was negotiated and signed by the Conservatives under Brian Mulroney.

 

(Justin Trudeau, for me, is a bit of a nonentity whose popularity relies on the legacy of his much more intelligent, ruthless, and charismatic father, for what it's worth.)

[SasaS]

Pierre or Fidel?

[Aventus]

On 1/31/2019 at 4:49 PM, Nelly-Torres said:

Well, I never!*

 

*tries to pull a convincing "shocked" face.

 

[aRdja]

On 1/31/2019 at 9:11 PM, SasaS said:

The US was for a while a net oil exporter while the oil was at top prices (and Venezuela was still afloat).

Bolton is and old neocon as far as I remember, their shtick used to be solving world problems by exporting democracy after violent regime changes, whilst Trump's people have so far been more isolationist. My guess is Bolton is trying to sell involvement in Venezuela to the public by talking about business opportunities once the hostile regime is gone. Their main motivation is probably that they sense the opportunity to do away with the said regime because it has never been weaker, due to the economic crisis, questionable legitimacy and lowest popular support to date for Maduro. You don't need to take over countries to take their oil, you can do deals.

Why would you do deals if you can just take over the countries though?

[stringvest]

On 1/24/2019 at 10:02 PM, Section_31 said:

Where's Monty when you need him? Monty would be all over this shit. In fact he's probably there now, ginger beard down to his bollocks and trying to talk to the guerillas about Radio Head.

 

he's busy being gangmaster to a load of Venezuelans making sure our trains run on time

[stringvest]

Corruption in politics?  It could never happen here.  

[SasaS]

1 hour ago, aRdja said:

Why would you do deals if you can just take over the countries though?

 

Because it's generally cheaper and safer, and eventually you have to do deals anyway.