Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Venezuelan security agents arrested two key opposition leaders in a midnight raid on their homes, making good on President Nicolas Maduro's promise to crack down on dissent following a vote that gave him broad authoritarian powers.
In the middle of the night, armed men took Leopoldo Lopez and Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma from their respective homes in the capital. The leaders had been highly critical of Maduro and had only recently been released from jail on politically motivated charges. The two, however, remained under house arrest.
The wife of Leopoldo posted a video on Twitter showing flak-jacketed agents bundling her husband into a vehicle marked "Sebin" — the name of Venezuela's intelligence agency — and then speeding off.
[...] Tuesday night, President Trump condemned "the actions of the Maduro dictatorship."
"Mr. Lopez and Mr. Ledezma are political prisoners being held illegally by the regime. The United States holds Maduro – who publicly announced just hours earlier that he would move against his political opposition – personally responsible for the health and safety of Mr. Lopez, Mr. Ledezma, and any others seized. We reiterate our call for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners."
On Monday, the Trump administration imposed sanctions on Maduro himself, marking only the fourth time that the U.S. has sanctioned the sitting leader of another country.
Previously: Voting Company Finds Manipulation in Venezuela Election.
Related Stories
Venezuelan election turnout figures manipulated by one million votes: election company
Turnout figures in Venezuela's Constitutional Assembly election were manipulated up by least 1 million votes, Smartmatic, a company which has worked with Venezuela since 2004 on its voting system, said on Wednesday.
"We know, without any doubt, that the turnout of the recent election for a National Constituent Assembly was manipulated," Smartmatic CEO Antonio Mugica said at a news briefing in London.
Also at Al Jazeera.
Venezuela soldiers abandon posts at Colombia border
Soldiers from the Venezuelan national guard have left their posts ahead of an opposition-led effort to bring aid into the country, Colombia's migration agency said. In a separate development, Venezuelan troops have fired tear gas at people looking to cross into Colombia to work. Tensions have been rising over a row about the delivery of humanitarian aid.
President Nicolás Maduro said the border with Colombia is partly closed to stop aid being delivered. But self-declared interim president Juan Guaidó has vowed that hundreds of thousands of volunteers will help bring in the aid deliveries, which include food and medicine, on Saturday. The first delivery of aid has already entered Venezuela through Brazil, Mr Guaidó tweeted. The delivery of aid to the stricken country has proven to be a key area of contention between the two men who see themselves as Venezuela's leader.
National Guard fires tear gas amid Venezuela border tension
Venezuela's National Guard fired tear gas on opposition activists at a barricaded border bridge to Colombia on Saturday, and two protesters were killed near the border in Brazil, as the opposition tried to execute a high-risk plan to deliver humanitarian aid over the obstinate refusal of President Nicolas Maduro.
(Score: 4, Funny) by BasilBrush on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:18PM (31 children)
Unlike Trump, Maduro was legitimately elected and with a majority of the votes.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:29PM
...short of a million votes give or take...
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:30PM (21 children)
I think the election observers might disagree with you regarding that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:34PM
the ones from trumplandia?
(Score: 4, Informative) by n1 on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:41PM (11 children)
As far as i'm aware, while there has been much fuss made about Venezuelan elections, the international observers have not made any case that the results were invalid/manipulated or anything else. For the last referendum, i have not seen any international observer body rejecting the vote. I have seen foreign nation states opposed to the existing government dismissing it, but that is not the same thing.
This is not the case for strategic allies such as Turkey.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/17/turkish-referendum-opposition-plans-appeal-against-last-minute/ [telegraph.co.uk]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:47PM (5 children)
Pretty hard to observe electronic voting machines getting hacked...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by n1 on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:54PM
I am in no way saying the vote in Venezuela is legitimate, just pointing out the very selective nature of the sham elections, power grabs and authoritarianism the 'international community' is concerned about.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:54PM (3 children)
No, it's not. Not when the company providing the service outright says they were tampered with to the tune of over a million votes.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by n1 on Sunday August 06 2017, @07:11PM (2 children)
It is interesting that a Venezuelan owned company, based in Delaware and London would even be tasked with running electronic voting systems and then would come out and then make the statements like that in the same authoritarian and repressive country.
Much like how there is a lack of free press in the country, however...
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Abby-Martin-Busts-Open-Myths-on-Venezuelas-Food-Crisis-Shelves-Fully-Stocked-20170711-0031.html [telesurtv.net] [teleSUR is a state media outlet for several South American states, including Venezuela]
I'll say it again, I do not support the government in Venezuela or have much faith in the validity of the referendum, but Venezuela is only singled out due to it's lack of economic with more powerful states and multinational corporate interests. It does not appear to be a genuine attempt to secure a representative democracy and sustainable economy for the people of the country.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @10:10PM
Venezuela is only singled out due to [its]* lack of economic [alignment] with more powerful states and multinational corporate interests
Yes, Venezuela is a self-described Bolivarian (Anti-Imperialist) state, and your statement is true for the broad strokes.
There is, however, a big "but".
While Venezuela has "communes"[1], those aren't worker-owned cooperatives; they are wealth redistribution councils. 8-(
Now, if the government of Venezuela was actually nurturing worker-owned cooperatives[2] at a prolific pace in order to produce its own manufactured goods and food, that would be a big boost to their economy and the wellbeing of The People.
[1] 1620 of them, according to a November 2016 count.
The count was 1000 before Chavez died.
With that kind of start, you'd think Maduro could have gotten a geometric enlargement.
[2] ...say, the way that Italy has been nurturing those since 1985. [google.com]
...BUT a significant portion of Venezuela's government procurement is instead handed to the Capitalist companies owned by The Oligarchs, which import goods.
The Oligarchs are the opposition, so Maduro is funding his adversaries, to include Capitalist foreigners.
Not smart.
.
* A pronoun never needs an apostrophe to make it possessive.
(Lazy man's delight.)
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 07 2017, @01:18PM
The lack of a free press in Venezuela might have something to do with the previously more-free press being heavily involved in the coup against Hugo Chavez. That understandably makes his successor nervous about the media and what they're saying.
The simple fact, though, is that there ain't no such thing as objective reporting on Venezuelan politics. The Venezuelan private press almost universally support the opposition and will routinely flat-out lie to make Maduro and his party look bad. The Venezuelan state-owned TV, of course, supports Maduro unconditionally. The international press varies from allies tends to support Maduro unconditionally. The international press from enemies, which include the US, tends to oppose Maduro unconditionally, because they're trying to make it so another coup attempt against Maduro and his party will be supported by the general public.
The least-bad thing would be Maduro leaving office voluntarily after losing an election. He doesn't seem to be interested in allowing that to happen, and I'm not entirely sure what would convince him. It sure doesn't help that the opposition isn't playing fair, either: The threat of a CIA-backed coup is always present.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday August 06 2017, @11:48PM (4 children)
As far as I can tell, Venezuela's major problem is that it is in the Western hemisphere, so within the sphere of influence of the US.
Any country in Central or South America that tries to become independent from the US faces a backlash of some sort or other.
Governments have been overthrown to keep the price of bananas down [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @02:28AM (3 children)
The US has done nothing since the Chav took power. It's their fault and the problem they have is called "socialism". Point me to one single instance where it's failed to produce mass suffering amongst those it's meant to represent. We both know that you cannot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @04:42AM
The suffering in Scandinavia has been heart-breaking. Ingvar Kamprad escaped in time, but millions did not.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 07 2017, @01:28PM
"The US has done nothing since the Chav took power."
Nothing except give approval at least to a military coup against Chavez [theguardian.com]. The coup plotters lost, but Chavez was arrested and could easily have been killed during those events. Plus the plot involved firing into crowds of civilians. So I'm not sure what kind of nothing you're referring to.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday August 08 2017, @01:02AM
That entirely depends how you want to define Socialism really. If a single payer health system is socialist (and I presume for Republican sympathisers it always is) then I live in a socialist country, but have never observed mass suffering here.
I am going to assume that you are from the US and have limited experience of the rest of the World. I have some bad news for you: No one does propaganda like the US, you have some of the biggest, most profitable corporations ever dedicated to a constant barrage of affirmations about how perfect the US is, and how your ways of doing things are the best ways.
Your country has also spent a fair bit of it's history invading your neighbours, but I don't expect you to know much about that, see the bit about propaganda.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by n1 on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:48PM (7 children)
Here's something to consider...
I typed in google: "Venezuela opposition arrests" and got 1.7m results
I typed in google: "Turkey opposition arrests" and got 0.6m results
Actual reported arrests in Turkey: 47100
Actual reported arrests in Venezeula: 'hundreds'
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday August 06 2017, @10:13PM (3 children)
What has "number of Google search results" got to do with actual number of events?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday August 06 2017, @11:35PM (2 children)
He's pointing out that there are a huge number of hits for the arrests of very few opposition actors in Venezuela, while in Turkey, there were tens of thousands, and far less coverage. It is interesting, but perhaps it's coverage of violence in the Middle East, or strikes in France.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @03:48AM (1 child)
Try making that per capita instead of raw numbers. Otherwise you have a possible false equivalence bias.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday August 07 2017, @01:31PM
Turkey: 80 million
Venezuela: 32 million
So if they were proportional, Turkey would have 2-3 times as many political prisoners, when in fact they have something like 10-15 times as many political prisoners.
The real reason for the disparity is probably that Turkey is a NATO ally of the US and most EU nations, while Venezuela has oil and a government that is not friendly with the US or EU.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @10:27PM (2 children)
Add to that that the violence in Turkey is being done by the regime.
The violence in Venezuela[1] is largely being done by the Anti-Bolivarian opposition (The Oligarchs and their minions).
In Turkey, arrests are overt political repression.
In Venezuela, arrests are being made to quell lawlessness and violence.
N.B. Lamestream Media is doing a horrible job reporting this (as you might expect).
[1] You spelled it wrong the 2nd time; hope you entered it into Google correctly.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @03:55AM (1 child)
The violence is being done by the people in response to Maduro and the oligarchs - you are an idiot if you think that he can do anything without their backing. Seizing power via imprisoning the opposition, and threatening and creating violence is heinous, and you know it. Government forces have killed hundreds, and are starving a majority of the population - care to address those *facts* about the "Bolivarian" criminals and thugs you praise so stupidly? You are one of those died in the wool morons who support totalitarians, as long as they are of the right "flavor" (socialist in your case, fascist in Trumps case). People like you have blood on your hands whether you realize it or not.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @05:24AM
the oligarchs - you are an idiot if you think that [Maduro] can do anything without their backing
Your complete lack of any grasp of the situation would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
The Oligarchs are the opposition.
They had total control of the country before Chavez and they want that back.
violence
When The Oligarchs and their minions stop throwing molotov cocktails and stop stringing wires across roads at throat height [google.com] we'll have a point at which to start a discussion.
died in the wool
Try again, junior, after you've completed your education. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:32PM
But just like With Trump, the vote was fraudulent. The democrats committed fraud in their primaries and handed the presidency over to Trump. Intentional? Probably. The democrats weren't about to let an actual liberal win the election. And they sure don't want a super majority in congress. Otherwise they can't blame the other side for their own failures to pass humane legislation, like universal health care for instance.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @07:24PM (4 children)
In other news [judicialwatch.org] at least 11 counties in California have more registered voters than eligible adult citizens. Counties include LA, San Francisco, San Diego. Perhaps one county name sums up quite well: Yolo county.
I wonder who all these mysterious voters cast their ballots for...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @10:39PM (3 children)
On his radio/TV program, Thom Hartmann has mentioned recently that, when he has moved to another state, he never thought of notifying his former state/city/precinct that he had moved.
Do any of those checklists that are supposed to help folks who are moving include that?
Do any Registrar of Voters anywhere have a place on the registration form for the location of old voting place so that those folks can be directed on official letterhead to remove the non-resident's name?
I don't think so.
Voting/registration in the USA, not being a -national- system, is a complete mess.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 07 2017, @04:22AM
there is an item in the voter registration form where one can declare where one previously registered.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @04:47AM (1 child)
Are there laws against being a registered voter in more than one state?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @05:41AM
There are laws against voting someplace where you don't live.
(Republicans Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Todd Akin, and Ann Coulter have gotten in hot water over this.)
There doesn't appear to be a requirement to un-register when you move.
That's why I think that the state-by-state rule system WRT elections is crap.
N.B. I also think UK's national police force is the proper way to do policing.
Hmmm. Now I'm wondering if Michael Moore covered this stuff in his movie. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @09:55PM
So was Kim Jong Un. (Elected with an amazing majority of the vote.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @02:20AM
Also unlike Trump, Maduro is a dictator and had the backing of current and former socialist states.
(Score: 5, Informative) by n1 on Sunday August 06 2017, @06:36PM (29 children)
I certainly do not support the actions of the Venezuelan government suppressing political opposition, this hypocrisy and double standards still needs highlighting. Military and economic allies are given a complete pass on denying free speech, political opposition and maintaining dictatorships.
Today:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/saudi-arabia-protests-execution-uk-police-training-saudi-forces-torture-theresa-may-a7878361.html [independent.co.uk]
Last month:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/theresa-may-foreign-terror-funding-report-uk-extremists-saudi-arabia-isis-security-intelligence-a7822121.html [independent.co.uk]
March this year:
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1071086/saudi-arabia [arabnews.com]
In May
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/05/22/wilbur-ross-saudi-arabia-trump-238672 [politico.com]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Sunday August 06 2017, @07:26PM (28 children)
I tried to bring up Saudi Arabia [soylentnews.org] as an illustration of hypocritical foreign policy, and got nothing but trouble from the moderators for it. Funny how things work out sometimes.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday August 06 2017, @07:32PM (27 children)
You call one downmod trouble? I call it "I haven't posted in three days".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday August 06 2017, @07:54PM (26 children)
It's the principle of the thing :-) I stepped on somebody's editorializing narrative, and somebody showed displeasure for doing so. Overall the system is fine, in fact, better than the green site. I consider this a harmless 'glitch' more than anything, just had to vent a little.
I'm just a soul whose intentions are good
Oh Lord, please don't let me be misunderstood...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 06 2017, @09:57PM (3 children)
Downmod was justified. There are 195 countries, many of them scum. "What about... [wikipedia.org] Saudia Arabia" is a way to sweep the topic under the rug.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday August 06 2017, @11:51PM (2 children)
No, singling out the ones that aren't allies is sweeping the topic under the rug.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @12:16AM (1 child)
Oh sure, we are singling out the country with an active war that has caused hundreds of thousands of casualties.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 07 2017, @01:00AM
Yeah, you're right, we can ignore Saudi Arabia's invasion of Yemen, body count isn't high enough, right? And nobody famous is getting killed. Sorry, there is still no one to single out, and there is no good guy either. It's all bad news, and you avoid seeing the forest for a single tree.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 07 2017, @01:55AM (21 children)
The problem here is that the off-topic mod was appropriate. This wasn't a story about Saudi Arabia. And you didn't try to tie your observation in with the story at all.
Further, let us remember that of the many countries of the world, Syria distinguished itself as being one of the few that was substantially worse than Saudi Arabia. After all, the Syrian civil was triggered by a drought so bad that it was heralded as the worst in 900 years and it was all self-inflicted by really bad Syrian agricultural policies (like encouraging people to grow cotton in a desert).
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Monday August 07 2017, @02:52AM (20 children)
Syria distinguished itself as being one of the few that was substantially worse than Saudi Arabia
No, it hasn't. First off, all droughts are self inflicted (especially now for any country that has a coastline) The civil war may have started because of the drought, but it continues and spreads because of the financiers and arms merchants (most notably Saudi Arabia* (yeah and Russia too), hmm, that's weird). No, this is all bullshit. The only real issue to the US/Europe/Russia is which way the gun is pointed. Nobody cares about the "atrocities". There is nobody you can legitimately single out once you quit placing bets. And by the way, who has Syria invaded outside their borders?
* (more correctly the US through Saudi Arabia)
So here we are, playing the same game with Venezuela. If the regime was an ally, we would sell more weapons to kill off the opposition, just like in the times before Chavez.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 07 2017, @04:18AM (19 children)
Lebanon and Israel. They're also probably encouraged ISIS to invade Iraq.
And? Always the same moral relativism, but only about actions of the US. It's interesting that the Wikipedia article on "Whataboutism" mentioned earlier claims it was started by the USSR. Sounds like more of the Russian propaganda. They're not going to use it on themselves, of course.
First off, your assertion about droughts is patently false. They've happened long before humans existed and there were anyone around to be at fault. Second, desalinization is not a cheap thing to do (particularly when the shoreline is the Mediterranean which is more salty than normal ocean water and thus higher energy cost to remove said salt and particularly when used for agriculture which is heavily dependent on water). The contributing factors are that Syria pumped out the water from the water table and used it to grow crops, like cotton, that are heavy consumers of water. That probably turned a normal drought into a once in 900 year drought with subsequent loss of life, creation of a massive refugee problem, and the civil war.
Saudi Arabia simply doesn't have that sort of problem.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 07 2017, @05:42AM (18 children)
You are playing the part of the apologist. Not that I can blame you. You are expected to root for the home team after all. Doesn't matter the fouls they commit...
They're also probably encouraged ISIS to invade Iraq.
*sigh* no response for that one... This is exactly what I'm talking about. They probably did this and that... That's how you make the sale.
And there's more than enough free energy to do whatever they want with the water. The money issue is bogus. All that's necessary is to prioritize.
Always the same moral relativism, but only about actions of the US.
You are wrong again. Your relativism is only about the actions of the others, while ignoring your own. You are merely taking sides. That's okay. You just need to recognize it...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 07 2017, @12:05PM (15 children)
Maybe if you'd stop playing the role of the Assad apologist and introduced this subject in a relevant, on-topic way, we could have a grown up discussion?
Sorry, energy is not free. Even for sunlight, you need infrastructure to convert sunlight to sufficiently pure water and the opportunity cost of the land used for the purpose (meaning that land is not used for other purposes, such as agriculture).
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 07 2017, @02:11PM (14 children)
I'm not the one who is attempting to dismiss the evils that Assad's government has done
:-) Ah! Speaking of dismissive projection! Sorry, this has become tiresome. Believe what you want.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 07 2017, @08:46PM (13 children)
Saudi Arabia does have a shitty government, but a shitty government that has figured out how to feed its people and make them relatively wealthy which is a hell of a lot more than Syria under Assad managed. As to the war in Yemen, it's still more than an order of magnitude less deaths than Syria and probably likely to stay that way unless the Saudis can't win the war.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Monday August 07 2017, @09:52PM (12 children)
Man, get that log outta your eye... Clean your own house...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 08 2017, @12:09PM (11 children)
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Tuesday August 08 2017, @01:05PM (10 children)
Holy shit! I never expected to run into *I know you are, but what am I?* around here! Okay, you win, Pee Wee. I should know better than to try to argue with a sports fan.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 09 2017, @03:37AM (9 children)
Then you disagreed. Just with various deflections not facts. Droughts suddenly were all "self-inflicted". Suddenly, it mattered whether a war were an invasion of another country or an internal conflict - as if the latter were somehow a better war no matter how many people died in it (the Syrian civil war has killed more than ten times the Yemen civil war, which you roundly ignored). I think that's nonsense. And there was the peculiarly irrelevant observation that "nobody" cares about the atrocities in Syria (while somehow that same consideration never came up in your criticism of Saudi Arabia's atrocities). Well, presumably the surviving family members and friends would differ on that.
This crap just kept going. It no longer mattered that Syria had invaded anyone or that all droughts are self-inflicted. Instead, we see the end game where you started ad hominem attacks on me . Suddenly your sensitive antenna detected "making the sale" because I had an opinion on collusion between Assad and ISIS, using the telltale word "probably" no less, during the invasion of Iraq (why exactly did ISIS think it could fight Assad and invade Iraq, an ally of the US, at the same time?). Then it became one liner slams about my alleged hypocrisy.
There is this curious detachment from the arguments you made in sequence. So many of them were made and then never mentioned again. It's like they didn't matter.
It's a good thing you've decided to stop arguing, because you were turning out to be a real piece of work in this thread.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday August 09 2017, @04:12AM (8 children)
No, it wasn't offtopic. In fact it was exactly about the topic (the editorial in the summary). And here you are merely interjecting with highly biased and emotional opinion to the contrary based mostly on mass media propaganda. Like I said, *sports fan*. It is pointless to argue with one. You are always going to be right. Your vibe is very transparent, so one sided, as if there is a 'good' side. I only said that there isn't. Unlike you, I'm not trying to justify any of it, simply because there is nothing to justify. But here you are making shit up about what I posted. You're like those people who say that anyone who criticizes Clinton is a Trump supporter and vice versa, which of course is bullshit, but it hasn't stopped you from doing effectively the same thing. Everything you have stated here only reflects your own personal preference. Sorry to tell you this, but evil is evil, no matter who practices it. You still can't single any one of these guys out. You only picked your favorite and ran with it.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 09 2017, @10:52AM (7 children)
The news (neither the execution of the Syrian blogger or the more recent one about arrests in Venezuela) wasn't about Saudi Arabia. It wasn't an editorial either.
Asserting something doesn't make it true. I find it remarkable how often you bandied this accusation about without coming up with a case where my opinion was supposedly shaped by mass media.
In my defense, there is here. Those who would refuse to arrest others in the middle of the night for merely disagreeing with the country's leaders may not be 'good' in an absolute sense, but they are better than those that do. Those who go through the effort of an expensive, public trial before executing someone for a crime are better than those who do so in secret.
If you think there's something wrong with what I and you posted, we can discuss that. But I notice yet again a peculiar lack of detail to your accusations.
Then practice what you preach. Not "You shouldn't condemn Saudi Arabia, because you refuse to condemn Syria."
You are an utter fool here. Not only can you, but you must. How will Assad ever come to justice, if we never focus on the evil acts rather than generic ones? Or any of the others? We don't have infinite resources to bring to justice every political leader who arrests innocents because of their political speech. Police don't go out and arrest all murderers or all embezzlers. They do it a case at a time as evidence of a crime allows.
Here, Assad is very vulnerable. If he had been left to twist in the wind rather than propped up by Russia, we'd already see justice of some sort applied to him. Meanwhile Saudi Arabia is in a much more established position with the US and other countries as allies. What justice is found for Syria can in the future be applied to Saudi Arabia, but only if we establish it somewhere first. That is the power of precedent. Because please remember, this moral relativism works against you. Why are you singling out Saudi Arabia or the US?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday August 09 2017, @12:47PM (6 children)
Why are you singling out Saudi Arabia or the US?
That is not happening. It's exactly what I said about you making shit up. I can hardly argue with things you imagine.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 10 2017, @12:34AM (5 children)
Sorry, we have your very first post [soylentnews.org] on the subject which mentions only Syria and Saudi Arabia. Then when you replied the first time in this thread, it was to complain that you got dowmodded (once!) for bringing up Saudi Arabia in your previous post. So Saudi Arabia gets mentioned again. Since then, you have not mentioned any other countries comparable to Saudi Arabia in terms of its evil. You've mentioned Yemen, Russia, the US, generic Europe, Venezuela (finally gets a mention as another slighted country like Syria), and ISIS. That's it, a handful of countries and would-be countries. And none of those countries was equated to Saudi Arabia. So you can claim all you want that you didn't single out Saudi Arabia, but you have posted a dozen times here and not once have mentioned any other country that was like Saudi Arabia. That's singling out, folks.
And I think the US is singled out here by implication. They are after all Saudi Arabia's primary ally and the most significant party hostile to Assad's regime in Syria. Not much point to speaking of the alleged hypocrisy, if we're from China, for example, and had nothing to do with it.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 10 2017, @01:47AM (4 children)
You are a silly goose. Am I supposed to enumerate everything? You really are grasping at straws here. Your attempts at differentiating the players is a complete farce.. It's fanatical.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:01AM (3 children)
Yes. You should at least be able to enumerate past one.
I'll note also that before I made my first post in this thread, I had posted several times in the Syrian blogger discussion. There was a clueless AC pushing the "what about Saudi Arabia" line pretty hard there in discussion following your post. Here's what I had to say:
If we can fight the wicked acts of countries like Syria through laws and international enforcement of those laws, we create the precedence to fight the wicked acts of countries like Saudi Arabia or the US. You aren't thinking the long game here.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 10 2017, @01:26PM (2 children)
*sigh* hopeless... I just can't tell if you're twisting what I say intentionally or if you really don't understand. Considering the past, I'm tempted to go with the former. You're just too one sided to see it logically.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:44PM (1 child)
I think you'd be better served getting a clue. You ran out of anything relevant to say half a dozen posts back and now resort to telling me what I supposedly think. If you didn't want your words "twisted" this way, then you shouldn't have said those words. Let us review one final time for the reader:
1) Off topic introduction of the favorable treatment of Saudi Arabia.
2) Sanctimonious and immature wailing because you got downmodded (correctly) once.
3) Repeatedly bringing up arguments in posts and then never mentioning them again.
4) Singling out Saudi Arabia for its alleged evils while completely ignoring the evils described in the story. Do you not agree that a Syrian blogger was kidnapped by Assad's secret police and likely executed some months later? Are Venezuelan opposition candidates not being arrested in the night? Should we not be concerned about these things?
5) Gaslighting like hell. Replying "That is not happening." when I point out how you singled out Saudi Arabia and the US (while mentioning no one else in the same class as Saudi Arabia, which fits the definition of singling out). " Am I supposed to enumerate everything?" (you couldn't enumerate your way to two!)
Similarly, when I show consistent, extensive patterns of misbehavior through numerous posts, it is "picking and choosing little bits of *this and that* to justify yourself". Now, I'm "twisting" what you say (means that what I say is at least mostly true, but somehow ignores a context). But that still means you said it, you just don't like how it looks when I describe what and how you said it.
6) Clueless. You didn't know that Syria has invaded other countries? You didn't know (or perhaps didn't care) that the Yemen civil war has killed something like 20,000 people, while the Syrian civil war has killed something like 400,000 people?
7) Projection. You blatantly took sides against Saudi Arabia. This involved among other things repeatedly moral equivalence of actions of Saudi Arabia to actions of Syria. Yet then you complain "Your relativism is only about the actions of the others, while ignoring your own. You are merely taking sides." Sorry, you were the only one doing that.
There were several places where you accuse me of hypocrisy without bothering to provide even the slightest support for the argument while simultaneously playing games with ad hominems (your above post which this is a reply to, for example) and red herrings (whataboutisms and a variety of irrelevant arguments that came and went).
While it would be interesting to learn why you are so tirelessly presenting a one sided piece of dishonest propaganda, I have come to accept that I probably will never find out.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:55PM
Since you continue to falsify and misinterpret what I said, I shall concede victory out of pure pragmatism. Some other time perhaps...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday August 09 2017, @03:08AM (1 child)
I see you completely blew off the invasions of Lebanon and Israel. As to ISIS's strategy, we need to keep in mind that they opened a new front in Iraq. They had some reason to try that even though it meant a fight with a US ally. My bet is that there was an informal agreement that Assad wouldn't immediately take advantage of that to attack them in the back while their forces were so diverted. But I guess that sort of thing is beyond your ken.
That is the relativism of which I speak. To you, it doesn't matter what others have done. My "own" actions (which let us note aren't my own or particularly evil either) damn me from ever judging the evil of others.
Well, in that case, you aren't qualified to judge me. Eat your own dog food.
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday August 09 2017, @03:21AM
Yeah, yeah, Keep on picking and choosing little bits of *this and that* to justify yourself.
And ISIS? Please!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday August 07 2017, @12:13AM (1 child)
President Maduro has seized power. He is now a dictator. I have signed a bill to "sanction" him for his actions. If anything more is necessary, he can call me. I am sitting in the Oval Office with a pen in hand. I congratulate him on his bold, decisive leadership! 🇺🇸
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @06:35PM
No MAGA this time?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 07 2017, @12:21PM (3 children)
Look, Venezuela is a classic petrostate. Their economy lives and dies on the price per barrel. The fact that the govt owns all oil production also means it has (used to have) a bottomless well of money in good times for the connected politicians to help themselves to. The govt years ago got rid of those in the petroleum industry who rebelled against the govt, and their lackey replacements can't manage it properly. If the price of oil were to shoot up, the govt could buy whatever it wanted for the people. But at current prices...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 07 2017, @08:55PM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 08 2017, @01:08AM (1 child)
The rebuttal to that is that MOST petrostates are corrupt: Libya, Iran, Iraq, Saudia Arabia, Nigeria, etc.
The exceptions seem to have had stable, functional democracies for a couple of centuries before they found oil. I can think of Norway. Can you name any others? (Britain wouldn't count because their economy isn't oil dominated.)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday August 08 2017, @12:17PM
And how was that supposed to be a rebuttal? Venezuela isn't even meeting the low standards of that group. It doesn't make sense to complain that Venezuela is having this much trouble with their economy because oil prices are down when nobody else is having this kind of trouble due to low oil prices.