Venezuela

[TheHowieLama]

40 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

Yeah aid/business, I get what you mean. I'm wrong on how I posted that if it's just been paid for, that's fine. Are Venezuelans all doing fine? Nope. Are we all doing fine in the UK? Nope. US? Nope. Maybe we should ask for someone to ram aid through our borders and hope for military intervention and a coup? If Venezuela are being controlled by a right wing government and loads of people are poor and lacking but business is good for the US that's fine, but if it's a left wing government that nationalizes oil it's instantly a big problem.

 

I'm opposed to any interventionism if it's done in the same way the US does it. As in, doing it to serve a few greedy scum and making things worse for the country as a whole and killing a load of people in the process. Why am I usually going on about the US? Because it's usually the US that does it. They're consistently the worst on the planet for it.

 

And yeah I have a problem with your last part about a presidential palace/wages. Not much different to the US or UK though where the average wage doesn't do much better either. That's partly why Corbyn and Sanders are so popular.

 

Do you have any issues with what the US is doing here given their record, or do you think the main focus should be on Maduro? Because he and/or socialism does seem to be your main focus. And do you think it's mostly his doing the current state of the country, or socialism, or do you accept that US sanctions have made things a lot worse?

 

I side with wanting countries the US target not being destroyed by them, I don't think that's the wrong side to be on. If it's really about the US caring for people being oppressed, countries like Israel and Saudi Arabia would be in serious trouble. I wonder why we're not worrying about those people?

 

Iran like Venezuela, have a lot of oil and it's nationalized. Same old shit. So no, Maduro isn't my main concern, not by far.

 

20 years is not instantly -- it became a problem due to a universally condemned electoral process. Pretty sure that the US cannot mobilize the kind of support Guaido has locally - there is an issue.

 

Is there any other kind of interventionism? Russia supports its interests - not a whole lot of wealth re-distribution there. Cuba supported coups all over South America.

Do you think OPEC manipulating oil prices is interventionism? Pretty small circle of greedy scum profiting there. Seems interesting that nearly all of the OPEC states suffer from similar social shortcomings and economic imbalance.

 

Of course, our history is shameful. So we are either the worst, or the best. 

 

Corbyn and Sanders are both minority bit part players. In any case, neither the UK or the US has anywhere near the economic discrepancies that Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran have. And neither of them live in a palace.

The state of the country is down to Chavez mate, Maduro is a fortunate nobody, regardless of what happens to him his life is blessed a trillion times over compared to his countrymen. I did enter this discussion on the premise that caudillismo is the antithesis of socialism and was met by people praising lifelong dictators.

Sanctions? Sell to somebody else then.

 

As you stated there are plenty of people being oppressed by their own governments - the US is neither worse nor better, just bigger. 

 

Apparently for millions of Venezuelans Maduro is the main concern.

[Red Phoenix]

35 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

 

20 years is not instantly -- it became a problem due to a universally condemned electoral process. Pretty sure that the US cannot mobilize the kind of support Guaido has locally - there is an issue.

 

Is there any other kind of interventionism? Russia supports its interests - not a whole lot of wealth re-distribution there. Cuba supported coups all over South America.

Do you think OPEC manipulating oil prices is interventionism? Pretty small circle of greedy scum profiting there. Seems interesting that nearly all of the OPEC states suffer from similar social shortcomings and economic imbalance.

 

Of course, our history is shameful. So we are either the worst, or the best. 

 

Corbyn and Sanders are both minority bit part players. In any case, neither the UK or the US has anywhere near the economic discrepancies that Venezuela, or Saudi Arabia, or Iran have. And neither of them live in a palace.

The state of the country is down to Chavez mate, Maduro is a fortunate nobody, regardless of what happens to him his life is blessed a trillion times over compared to his countrymen. I did enter this discussion on the premise that caudillismo is the antithesis of socialism and was met by people praising lifelong dictators.

Sanctions? Sell to somebody else then.

 

As you stated there are plenty of people being oppressed by their own governments - the US is neither worse nor better, just bigger. 

 

Apparently for millions of Venezuelans Maduro is the main concern.

 

I think Venezuela became a problem when Chavez got in because he didn't go along with what the west wanted. I don't buy that it was as bad with him in charge as has been made out. I don't think he was some type of perfect leader though. What bothers me is that we never get to see how things would've turned out because of all the interference, the coup attempts, sanctions, etc. Maybe things would have been a whole lot better if those things didn't happen.

 

OPEC manipulating oil prices definitely sounds like scum, I'm not going to pretend I know a whole lot about how that's set up though.

 

Corbyn and Sanders would of course have a lot better chance if they didn't have to battle all of the think tanks, mainstream media and their own party members so much, and maybe there's still hope for one or both of them yet to prove that.

 

The most important thing here is the Venezuelan people and if millions are against Maduro then it'd be good if leaders on either side could talk and arrange some way past this that doesn't involve the US and other outside influences being so involved. From some of the stuff I've read/watched though it looks like attempts to negotiate aren't the main focus with Trump and Guaido so that's also a big problem.

 

Am not pretending to know the best way how this should be solved, I just don't think it's the way we're currently seeing.

[Red Phoenix]

Watched this a bit ago, seems like there's quite a lot of good info here on what's actually going on as opposed to what so much of the media are saying.

 

 

[TheHowieLama]

4 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

The most important thing here is the Venezuelan people and if millions are against Maduro then it'd be good if leaders on either side could talk and arrange some way past this that doesn't involve the US being so involved. From some of the stuff I've read/watched though it looks like attempts to negotiate aren't the main focus of Trump and Guaido so that's also a big problem.

 

Yep - agreed. It is worth noting that Maduro was given the opportunity to have another election before the Venezuelan Congress took action and before any outside countries recognized Guaido, and refused.

That palace is probably pretty sweet so I can't really blame him. It took them two years to get Chavez' daughter to move out.

Get some sleep fella.

 

[TheHowieLama]

5 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

Watched this a bit ago, seems like there's quite a lot of good info here on what's actually going on as opposed to what so much of the media are saying.

 

 

Mate, this series was funded by and hosted by the Maduro government - she also works for the Russians.

You will totally dig her because she is also a 9/11 conspiracy advocate.

[Red Phoenix]

1 minute ago, TheHowieLama said:

Yep - agreed. It is worth noting that Maduro was given the opportunity to have another election before the Venezuelan Congress took action and before any outside countries recognized Guaido, and refused.

That palace is probably pretty sweet so I can't really blame him. It took them two years to get Chavez' daughter to move out.

Get some sleep fella.

 

 

That video I posted has a different take on the electoral process than what a lot of the media have been saying. It's something I've read on that Venezuela analysis site too I think and have seen others posting about. I'm not sure how right or not it is though.

 

2 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Mate, this series was funded by and hosted by the Maduro government - she also works for the Russians.

You will totally dig her because she is also a 911 conspiracy advocate.

 

Ah telesur. Yeah I can remember now and that's a good point. I think it's still worth looking into what she's saying and I don't see her being ripped by other left wing journos I follow for any factual errors either. Maybe there's a left wing journo conspiracy? Who knows, I've followed her work a bit over the years though since 2012 when she was protesting a Bilderberg meeting so am familiar with a fair amount of her views. That protest was mainly cool, I do remember Alex Jones turning up with a bullhorn/tannoy though and screaming about them eating babies, etc. That kind of sucked.

 

Was just gonna post before going, that it'd be funny if Ocasio-Cortez tweeted something like :

 

"Good job Maduro isn't proposing a Green New Deal over there and keeping oil in the ground. He'd be fucked instantly with all the shitehawks around here."

[Red Phoenix]

5 hours ago, TheHowieLama said:

Mate, this series was funded by and hosted by the Maduro government - she also works for the Russians.

You will totally dig her because she is also a 9/11 conspiracy advocate.

 

Empire Files is now a crowdfunded series due to US sanctions, you can see more here : http://mediaroots.org/us-sanctions-shut-down-the-empire-files-with-abby-martin/

 

They have a patreon and also this, which seems to have been the main source of funding for the time being : https://www.gofundme.com/keep-empire-files-going

 

I don't think she works for Russians either, she has been employed by RT in the past though. I can't see many western outlets allowing her to report on what she has been doing in the past either. Anyway maybe the sanctions have been the best thing for her series because she can now be more independent, unless telesur still own the series in some way that I'm not aware of.

[Red Phoenix]

Warren said : "we make it clear that we know that Maduro is a dictator and does not have our support, we join our allies in supporting the opposition."

 

Yeah, I didn't think she'd be much good at foreign policy either.

[Strontium]

Imagine a democrat opposing a dictator. Whatever next.

[Red Phoenix]

4 hours ago, Strontium Dog said:

Imagine a democrat opposing a dictator. Whatever next.

 

A "dictator" who's in charge of a "regime" in another country that the US could get a load of oil from. Hmm, sounds familiar.

 

She's sided with the guy the right wing Trump regime are trying to install to fuck the country over, she should not be supporting him. Here's a better take for Sanders and Warren, if they have enough courage :

 

24th Jan :

 

 

14th Feb :

 

 

22nd Feb :

 

 

 

Here's what Andrew McCabe has Trump down as saying. Is he lying maybe?

 

 

Fuck supporting neocon regime change wars for oil.

[Strontium]

53 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

A "dictator" who's in charge of a "regime" in another country that the US could get a load of oil from. Hmm, sounds familiar.

 

Doesn't the USA already buy about half of Venezuela's oil?

 

Do you approve of the Venezuelan regime killing and brutally repressing its civilians?

[Red Phoenix]

1 hour ago, Strontium Dog said:

Do you approve of the Venezuelan regime killing and brutally repressing its civilians?

 

Nope, and I'd never trust a right wing, oil craving, insanely corrupt US gov to provide the answer to that problem.

[TheHowieLama]

So who would you trust?

[Bjornebye]

1 hour ago, Strontium Dog said:

 

Do you approve of the Israeli regime killing and brutally repressing Palestinian civilians?

?

[Red Phoenix]

5 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

So who would you trust?

 

I wouldn't really trust any of them, but I'd prefer it if the countries trying to get a peaceful solution to this could arrange a way of getting both sides to speak with each other. Maybe it'd go to another election or something if that happened. And if the right wingers trying to take over still don't want dialogue, then fuck them. They can't just say they want to take over the country with the backing of Trump and his gang instead of having any type of talks to work out a solution and expect to be taken seriously.

 

It's a blatant regime change op for oil anyway and shouldn't ever have been taken seriously in the first place. The dems and media have a lot to answer for as usual, who attack Trump for two years on almost everything then almost fully back him as soon as it's oil time. That's why Sanders and Warren have irritated me with this, they could've started changing the narrative on this in a big way by just calling it out for what it is.

[Strontium]

The "right wingers trying to take over" literally being Labour's Venezuelan sister party.

[Red Phoenix]

5 minutes ago, Strontium Dog said:

The "right wingers trying to take over" literally being Labour's Venezuelan sister party.

 

You're supporting Trump trying to take over a country for oil and pretending it's about other stuff. Guaido is a horrible scheming far right cunt, no matter who or what else he pretends to be.

[Strontium]

1 minute ago, Red Phoenix said:

You're supporting Trump trying to take over a country for oil and pretending it's about other stuff. Guaido is a horrible scheming far right cunt, no matter who or what else he pretends to be.

 

Quite sure that I'm not, and if you're making that claim then you're not basing it in anything I've said.

 

I support the calls for Maduro to stand down and for fresh elections to take place.

 

While you're at it, some evidence to support your claim that Guaido is "far right" rather than the centre-left social democrat he shows every sign of being should be forthcoming too.

[Red Phoenix]

Trump and co are trying to install a "centre-left social democrat" in Venezuela. Yeah that sounds realistic.

 

I'd prefer to agree with Greenwald's take on it instead : "the level of gullibility required to believe that Donald Trump, John Bolton, Elliott Abrams and Jair Bolsonaro are motivated by benevolent concerns for the welfare of The Venezuelan People cannot be adequately described within the confines of the English language."

[Strontium]

Nobody said any of those people were "motivated by benevolent concerns for the welfare of The Venezuelan People". Why do you keep introducing red herrings to the conversation?

[Red Phoenix]

If Guaido was "centre-left" the Trump admin wouldn't ever have given a shit about him. We'd never have even heard of him and this wouldn't be happening.

[Strontium]

Nope, still not evidence. Try again.

[TheHowieLama]

1 hour ago, Red Phoenix said:

 

 Guaido is a horrible scheming far right cunt, 

Mate - get off the internet for awhile.

 

Or at least rotate your bookmarks.

[TheHowieLama]

48 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

 this wouldn't be happening.

You do understand that the US has bet on both horses for decades in South America right?

[Red Phoenix]

2 hours ago, Strontium Dog said:

Nope, still not evidence. Try again.

 

Ok he might not be far right, maybe that's me getting wound up at the stupidity of your posts that are basically supporting this and then trying to make out he's left wing, but he is right wing and there's clear evidence for that. Trump supporting him is 100% evidence. Trump is right wing and it'd be stupid to think that he all of a sudden supports the installation of a center-left government anywhere. Then you have all the other right-wing leaders that support him, that's more evidence.

 

Then the fact that he declared himself as the new president without even checking to see if the Venezuelan people support that. Doesn't sound too democratic.

 

Then you can have a read of some of his past and tell me if this is social democracy in action : https://www.mintpressnews.com/the-making-of-juan-guaido-how-the-us-regime-change-laboratory-created-venezuela-coup-leader/254387/