from the how-dare-you-try-and-help-my-people? dept.
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.
Opposition leader Juan Guaido pulled himself onto a semitruck and shook hands with its driver as he and Colombian President Ivan Duque gave a ceremonial send-off to an aid convoy looking to transport nearly 200 metric tons of mostly U.S.-supplied emergency food and medical supplies from the Colombian border city of Cucuta. "Our call to the armed forces couldn't be clearer: put yourself on the right side of history," he said in an appeal to troops constituting Maduro's last-remaining major plank of support in a country ravaged by hyperinflation and widespread shortages.
Amid the aid push, Maduro struck back, breaking diplomatic relations with Colombia, whose government he accuses of serving as a staging ground for a U.S.-led effort to oust him from power. "My patience has run out," Maduro said, speaking at a rally of red-shirted supporters in Caracas and giving Colombian diplomats 24 hours to leave the country.
The opposition is calling on masses of Venezuelans to form a "humanitarian avalanche" to escort the trucks across several border bridges. But clashes started at dawn in the Venezuelan border town of Urena, when residents began removing yellow metal barricades and barbed wire blocking the Francisco de Paula Santander bridge. Venezuela's National Guard responded forcefully, firing tear gas and buckshot on the protesters who demanded that the aid pass through. Some of the protesters were masked youth who threw rocks and later commandeered a city bus and set it afire. At least two dozen people were injured in the disturbances, according to local health officials in Urena.
Related: Voting Company Finds Manipulation in Venezuela Election
Venezuela Agents Arrest Opposition Leaders in Midnight Raids
U.S. Bans Venezuela's Cryptocurrency
Venezuela Blocks Access to the Tor Network
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.
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.
U.S. bans transactions with Venezuela's digital currency
President Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order barring any U.S.-based financial transactions involving Venezuela's new petro cryptocurrency, as U.S. officials warned that it was a "scam" by President Nicolas Maduro's government to further undermine democracy in the OPEC country.
"The 'petro' is a desperate effort by a corrupt regime to defraud international investors," a senior U.S. administration official told reporters, strongly warning that any transactions in the petro digital currency would violate U.S. sanctions. "Investing in the 'petro' should be viewed as directly supporting this dictatorship and its attempts to undermine the democratic order in Venezuela," the official added.
Trump's order bars "all transactions related to, provision of financing for, and other dealings in, by a United States person or within the United States, any digital currency, digital coin, or digital token," issued by Venezuela's government since Jan. 9, the White House said in a statement.
Also at the New York Times.
Previously: Enter the "Petro": Venezuela to Launch Oil-Backed Cryptocurrency
Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Access Now's partners have confirmed that the Tor network — a widely used tool allowing users to browse the internet anonymously — was blocked in Venezuela last week over the government-owned internet service provider CANTV, by far the largest ISP in the country.
Direct access traffic on the Tor network steadily increased in Venezuela over the past two months, and even more sharply this month via Tor bridges — alongside a new wave of online censorship from the Maduro government. These most recent blocks have affected several major Venezuelan news outlets, including El Nacional and La Patilla, among others.
While previous online censorship in Venezuela could often be avoided by switching DNS settings from a local Venezuelan server to an international service (like Google's public DNS), this has not been possible for the most recent blocks. Instead, people have needed to rely on using virtual private networks (VPNs) and Tor to circumvent government censorship. This increased use of Tor to access blocked content is likely what triggered these new restrictions to the tool.
"It seems that the government of Venezuela has found out how to do a very sophisticated block for the Tor network. It's not only on the direct access channels, but also the bridges Tor provides to bypass that blocking," said Melanio Escobar, Venezuelan technologist and journalist, and founder of Redes Ayuda. "The government is moving forward to be as closed as China or Iran."
"This is the latest escalation in Venezuela's internet censorship efforts, as it blocks higher-profile sites with more sophisticated methods. This is one of their boldest internet censorship actions yet," said Andrés Azpúrua, Director of Venezuela Inteligente, an organization documenting technical evidence of the Tor block and other censorship events in Venezuela through its project VE sin Filtro. Reports further analyzing the technical details of the Tor network block are forthcoming.
Source: https://www.accessnow.org/venezuela-blocks-tor/
Venezuela Crisis Live Updates: Clashes Erupt After Opposition Leader Calls for Uprising
• Clashes between anti-government protesters and law enforcement officers erupted in Caracas on Tuesday after the Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaidó, appeared alongside soldiers at a military base and called for the population to rise up against the president, Nicolás Maduro.
• Mr. Guaidó has urged the Venezuela military to join his side since he declared himself interim president more than three months ago. But it was a new step for him to make the declaration with men in uniform by his side. Still, it is unclear how much of the military supports him.
• The Trump administration, which has backed Mr. Guaidó since he first declared himself interim president in January, expressed immediate support for his latest move. President Trump tweeted, "The United States stands with the People of Venezuela and their Freedom!"
• Video and photos showed at least one instance where an armored vehicle rammed protesters. It was not immediately clear how many people were injured.
See also: Venezuela's Guaidó accused of coup attempt by government
Previously: Turmoil in Venezuela Surrounding Aid Deliveries
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:21AM (5 children)
Democratic nations build the walls to keep people out, socialist nations build the walls to keep people in.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:10PM (4 children)
Maduro ordered troops to shoot at their own people and blew up bridge to stop the aid supply coming in, all because the desperately needed aid makes him look bad. The fucker's raising a wall to keep people in indeed.
How's that a flamebait?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:24PM (1 child)
I heard Gozilla shot down an entire village in Japan. Took quite a bit of effort with those small arms.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:29PM
It was the mothra shooting flames down, you ignint waste of electron.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by driverless on Monday February 25 2019, @12:14AM
That's why I can't see him lasting much longer, when El Presidente asks the troops to choose between their starving brothers and mothers and cousins and loyalty to El Prez, it's El Prez who gets to experience what a summary execution is like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @11:48AM
Hi, random stranger on the internet! I'm curious what your sources are?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:42AM (13 children)
Once again the US is sticking their nose into another country's affairs. We said we're pulling out of the Mid East because we don't want to do this shit anymore, but I guess Trump doesn't have financial ties he needs to placate in South America like he does in the Middle East.
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 24 2019, @12:30PM (10 children)
Right, because donating food to people who are starving to death is totally the same as blowing their shit up.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday February 24 2019, @01:43PM (1 child)
It is if you were involved in arranging for them to starve to death, which there's substantial reason to think the US is involved in doing.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @02:59PM
Ridiculous. Sanctions were a response to shitty behavior, expect more. [businesstimes.com.sg]
3.5 Million refugees is the reality. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @01:44PM (7 children)
Wow. You can really selectively ignore the US's recently enacted sanctions? What about its comments about recognizing someone other than the elected president as the leader of the country? And don't forget Trump's threats of possible military intervention. But you only see "donating food"?
Here's a tip: the US government does nothing out of the goodness of its heart. Venezuela has the most oil reserves in the world and the US would love for them to drop out of OPEC and/or start producing a few million more barrels of oil a day.
(Score: 2, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 24 2019, @03:25PM (5 children)
US sanctions mean not a fuck in this case; they're entirely symbolic. Welcome to 2019 on Earth, trade is global and if one country doesn't want to trade with you, plenty of others are happy to. Especially if what you're trading is oil. OPEC are the ones who tanked shit for Venezuela by driving oil prices down. You put all your eggs in the oil basket, you better have a plan for when OPEC says "Oh? Is that so...".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @04:28PM
food aid can totally be symbolic and good propaganda as well
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @07:24PM (2 children)
So, you're ignoring sanctions because you don't think they mean anything (they certainly mean something to Venezuela). What about recognizing a self appointed leader? And what about the threats of military intervention? Are those "symbolic" too?
The current administration wants to punish a country whose people look like the people they are trying to punish at the Southern US border.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @01:30AM
What are you talking about? Venezuela is selling debt to Russia and China. Did Trump collude with Russia in the election but is now taking a stand against Russia owning Venezuela's oil? Is Trumps America worse than a country that puts muslims in concentration camps? You people are fucking retarded!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 25 2019, @02:02AM
I'm ignoring sanctions because they really, truly aren't hurting them. What's hurting them is basing the socialist utopia on oil revenue and OPEC tanking oil prices.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:17PM
eesh, I guess this isn't overly much crazier than other things you've said but it is up there
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 25 2019, @01:14AM
I disagree with TMB. But these sanctions hurt in the first place because Venezuela is a shitty country at present. A lot of the sanctions wouldn't be effective, if Venezuela could produce the basic infrastructure and fixed assets they need to run their economy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @06:26AM (1 child)
Yeah, we left that feastering shithole alone for almost 20 years, because idiots there loved their socialism. Now every coutnry in the region has to deal with the fallout. But you right, US doesn't have to do anythign, that empinada-eating-fuck-tard will do something so vile that even the leftards of SA will recoil and take action.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 25 2019, @12:37PM
Nah, they'll double down and support him even if he decides to solve widespread hunger by executing every third person.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 24 2019, @12:40PM (20 children)
Coming soon to a Scandinavian country near you! No, seriously. None of the nations on Europe's wang would be able to afford their "free shit for everyone!" programs were they not paying for it with oil money. Now they wisely saved their money for a rainy day rather than blowing it all up front and having to live year to year but it's not going to last forever, what with the same people cheering them on with one side of their mouth calling them planet killers and demanding everyone stop using oil right now out of the other side.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday February 24 2019, @01:13PM (14 children)
"Money" and "paying" are worthless abstractions on macro-economic scale. Only flows of goods matter. Oil is more of a curse than blessing for Venezuela because it makes them a target for US loonies who are even more insane than me. Each country can set up a self sufficient economy eventually irrespective of their natural resources, but only if random idiots don't stage coups there every decade.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 24 2019, @01:24PM (13 children)
You seem to be laboring under the false impression that each country is an island with sufficient levels of all resources for its people and that global trade is not a thing. If allow your currency to become so debased that you cannot buy anything from other nations, you are very quickly going to find out that you do not have the internal infrastructure for all the needs of your people.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday February 24 2019, @02:11PM (12 children)
Global trade for sure exists, but each country would aim for self-sufficiency at least for basic needs like food. Any global market fluctuations would cause only temporary disruption. And for sure most countries won't perform global trades in local currency. If things go really bad barter is an option too. In any case we should also remember that most trades that are made from particular country are not actually controlled by its government and in that respect they are more of an observer than an actor.
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 24 2019, @03:41PM (11 children)
This fantasy land you live in, what are the immigration policies? Many places in the world are physically incapable of producing enough food for their population. Resources that don't have the good manners to be evenly distributed across the globe? Yeah, they're a problem too.
You don't have a very good grasp of socialism, do you? It comes about in the first place because those at the bottom with little to contribute to society envy and despise those at the top who contribute enormous amounts. Do you really think those at the bottom are going to vote away their government-granted free shit because there's no longer oil money to pay for it or do you think they're going to start eyeing the wallets of everyone above them? Would you stay in a nation where you work very hard and do enormous good for everyone and the government comes along and takes 90% of what you've rightfully earned? All the real producers are going to say bugger this for a game of soldiers and skip over to a country that doesn't steal as much from them. All they'll be left with are the ones without enough going on upstairs to do the same. How do you think the country is going to fare when all the people smart enough to leave do exactly that? Or maybe they'll close the borders and cease allowing expatriation like East Germany did way back when.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday February 24 2019, @06:57PM (8 children)
No, it is you who is living in a fantasy land. Very idea of "how much you contribute" to society is pretty subjective. Nobody agrees about it. The root cause of this is that there is no particular of goal entire society works for. Each person makes up own stuff. They will never agree. Even money has no inherent value since amount of stuff you buy with each unit varies wildly due to many reasons such as transport expenses and buyers proficiency at haggling or countless other factors. Money per se is just abstract number that facilitates movement of goods from places of excess to places of lack. By itself it has no meaning but when people pretend it does it might do something useful. Sometimes.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:19PM (2 children)
There's no point in arguing with TMB about any of this. He has a total blind spot about what he thinks is 'Communism" or "Socialism" and it aligns completely with the propaganda the ruling class of the United States has been churning out for more than 100 years.
He has never asked himself why we (in the West) have to go in and kill anyone who decides to call themselves communist as quickly as possible.
We have been doing this since 1919, when Britain, France and the US invaded Russia during its Civil War in support of the brutal Romanovs, not that he cares.
Don't expect any shades of grey, or understanding from TMB, as far as he is concerned Communism has killed more people than the plague, and must be wiped out.
Completely ignoring the fact that for many people Communism is a much better option than the shitty, brutal ruler we impose on them.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:54PM (1 child)
"Decides to call themselves communist"? No. Everyone who don't align. Mosaddegh and Lumumba for sure didn't call themselves communists yet still got killed.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday February 25 2019, @12:30AM
I had forgotten about them. I was thinking more about the western hemisphere guys like Salvador Allende who were murdered for not toeing the line enough.
If I was a young man in Honduras in 1050 (for instance) I would be a Communist because the alternative was to be a slave for the United Fruit company.
Not so different to how people felt in Vietnam in 1956 when Diem cancelled the elections really.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 25 2019, @04:47AM (4 children)
How much you contribute is easily measured. "What would it cost to adequately replace you" is the precise measure of your worth to both an employer and to society. If you're doing a job a dipshit teenager could do after two hours of training, you're not worth any more than a dipshit teenager to anyone except maybe your mother. If you're doing something very few people can do and it betters society enough that they trip over themselves to give you money for whatever you're doing, they've all just voted you extremely valuable. It's not rocket surgery to figure this out.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by loonycyborg on Monday February 25 2019, @08:22AM (3 children)
"adequately replace you" is the subjective part here. This measure can wary wildly depending on whether dipshit teenager in question is company's founder's son. Someone who got everything done for them will always "succeed" and never put in any effort. So people who are unrelated to someone important will never put in any effort either. Since it's pointless. Nobody in any long running society will ever pay attention to any actual performance, since all worthy jobs are taken by people with money that they inherited and putting in effort will not be competitive way of earning money since inheriting from parents is so much easier.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 25 2019, @12:39PM (2 children)
You, sir, are just making excuses for you dissatisfaction with your life. Nepotism and cronyism certainly exist but they don't remotely fill every decent job and most employers can tell a good employee from a shitty one.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Touché) by loonycyborg on Monday February 25 2019, @12:55PM (1 child)
There is most definitely wiggling room in this determination, otherwise nepotism and cronyism couldn't exist. Everyone fruitlessly fight to ensure that their determination of which person is decent and which is not holds more sway but there is no way to satisfy everyone. So don't even try. This is consequence of advances of civilization. Excellency in everything is no longer necessary for survival so everyone suck but pretend that they don't. And they will always suck because they're insulated from their faults by all those advantages conferred by being a part of civilization.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 25 2019, @03:36PM
"Everyone" does not get a say in which person is decent and which is not. Only the employer does and only the employer should. The rest isn't really worth responding to, it's just garden variety nihilism.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @12:18AM (1 child)
*snort* lol!
The Seattle General Strike proves otherwise. Workers of the world produce all of society's wealth. It is the parasites at the top--the PHBs and MBAs and CxOs and Algores with their private jets--we do not need.
Hopefully this time around, the workers of the world will choose the road that leads - NO ONE KNOWS WHERE! [marxists.org]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 25 2019, @04:41AM
If you can be replaced by a mindless machine, how much is what you contribute worth? The people who create things, the people who take an idea and turn it into a hundred thousand jobs and a better standard of living for the entire nation? Those are the people who contribute a lot. If you're not using your mind, you're not contributing. Unskilled labor is all but worthless both in dollars and to society.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fritsd on Sunday February 24 2019, @02:00PM (4 children)
Sweden doesn't have oil.
Sweden has iron ore.
It's not as profitable. Actually what Sweden sells is very diverse, e.g. Volvos and Saabs, paper, matches, electronics (Ericsson), chemicals from pine wood, etc.,
Maybe some oil refining (from Norwegian crude).
I think Sweden has no really valuable resources except for its nature and its people. Maybe that's why it's so rich: it doesn't attract the sharks in human form, unlike e.g. the DRC which has all the most expensive resources in the world, and ranks as a disaster zone, where we probably don't even know the worst atrocities (e.g. southern Kivu province).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @02:52PM (1 child)
You forgot blondes. And amazing guitar players. And Norway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @10:57PM
Who is the guitar player?
(Score: 1, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 24 2019, @03:43PM (1 child)
Sweeden sells shovels (in their refineries) instead of digging for gold. When there's no more gold, there's no more need for shovels. Same problem but one step removed.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Sunday February 24 2019, @04:21PM
How can there ever be "no more gold"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @01:41PM
Step 1 is soldiers leave there posts before opposition appears to handle aid delivery.
Step 2 is they coordinate with the opposition to improve the orderly distribution of aid.
Step 3 is they join the opposition.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @03:39PM (4 children)
The TFS sounds like a US propaganda blurb. Conveniently not mentioning how many were there supporting the government, and how many were supporting the self-declared president by the grace of Bolton.
Traitors exist everywhere: If the Chinese tried to engineer a coup like this, you can be sure that you will see neighbors, bosses, priests, professors and uncles betray their country when President Trump obstinately refuses to leave.
An obvious sign that the fractures in control are deep, and traitors are numerous, is that the US embassy is still operating and its staff haven't been ejected, and that Guaido hasn't yet been arrested for treason, or shot as an outright danger to the country's sovereignty.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 24 2019, @03:45PM (3 children)
Starving people are very cranky people unless you're pointing a gun at them. Sounds like Venezuela is getting hungry enough to not even care about the guns pointed at them anymore.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @08:51PM (2 children)
As someone who lives close to the ven-col border, and who has to deal with venezuelans asking for money on a daily basis, the situation is complex, it's a real rabbit hole.
I ask you this: if venezuelans are starving, where are the vids? They post on youtube all the time. So where are these starving masses? It's easy to take photos of an empty shelf, and ignore the full ones.
Now, lets get one thing clear: Maduro is a fucking idiot. And I am not going to say that the venezuelan people have it easy.
Lets get another thing clear: what you read about in the west is propagandised to the hilt. And the levels of BS are truly astounding, as are people's inability to read and think.
Those anti-maduro protests are not as big compared with the pro-maduro protests. If he's such a "brutal dictator", they wouldn't be able to protest. The robocops do not attack, only react.The press is free to hang shit on him, and tbey rightfully do.
The west claims maduro is a dictator, yet at the same time when Guaido declared himself president - this is the word "dictator" defined - you westerners back him!
The aid is a publicity stunt. Venezuela has 35 million people. What the fuck is a dozen trucks with 20000 dollars worth of aid going to fix, exactly? And Guaido has been gifted with 2 billion dollars! Who do they really care about?
Venezuela is already accepting aid through the UN, since December last year. So the US and my stupid country and Brazil could go through official channels if they actually cared about the people, and not their own image.
The borders they tried to use in the first round had been closed via mutual agreement, for over two years. The recently torched trucks went through borders that were not equipped for customs inspections, arrived without prior notification, and from local accounts they were torched by the "brave" defectors, and some unknown antagonists. Note that the defectors aso drove over civillians on the way out, killing two and injuring more. Cunts.
I feel sorry for the average Venezuelan. Rock and a hard place. Maduro's authoratarian hell-hole or a US backed dictator..
And for you armchair experts, safe in your houses far away, just remember the blowback that the little people like myself will have to suffer...years of random car bombings, the FARC will get an influx of new recruits, farmers murdered by paramilitary gangs, political arguments in bars resulting in murders...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:43PM
It's worse than that, Manuro is financing the downfall by selling the countries debt to Russia and China. Who are the imperialists now? Who will take Venezuela's natural resources if the US and USAN allow it?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday February 25 2019, @05:15AM
Sounds like they're in Colombia bumming money off of you. And if one is starving, how exactly is one posting YouTube videos (particularly in the below "authoritarian hell-hole")? And what exactly is the point of relying on YouTube videos instead of regular media supposed to accomplish?
Looks like the home-brew dictator sucked more. Somehow most of the rest of the Americas have figured out how to avoid this situation.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Captival on Sunday February 24 2019, @05:33PM (2 children)
"It's all the United States' fault that the anti-US dictator turned his wealthy oil-rich nation into a starving totalitarian hellhole!"
--Every retarded America-hating Communist
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @06:14PM
Venezuelans have literally been complaining for years. When the oil price was high, maduro was like fuck your sanctions. But now that has come home to roost and everyone feels it. Whatever is happening I'm sure they don't want a CIA backed coup either.
(Score: 2) by Pav on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:14PM
MAYBE you've got an argument concerning eg. Assad, but 1) he's not communist or socialist, and 2) even with support from ISIS, the USA, Israel and Saudi Arabia that was not enough to overcome his support from people on the ground. Perhaps "support" is too strong a word, but they'd much rather see Assad in control than ISIS, which is why he has mostly won the war at this point.
Maduro in Venezuela certainly has far less support than 50% of the people, as would be expected in such dire economic circumstances... but the opposition has significantly less support than even Maduro - the opposition refused to be part of the elections for this reason. There were some opposition figures who didn't honour the election boycott, but they were handily defeated. These latest elections weren't observed by the UN (because they didn't send observers despite requests by the Maduro government due to US pressure), but previous elections were judged free and fair.
BTW, the lot of the average person in Venezuela became MUCH better under Chavez... the food riots under neoliberal Perez were real enough, and this was happening WITHOUT US sanctions. This is why a politically disillusioned public still support Maduro above this other guy, as does the army leadership.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @06:48PM (2 children)
I think people rarely see things from the perspective of the socialist Venezuela. I'm not going to tell you what to believe or who to root for, but I was a big admirer of Huga Chavez, may he rest in peace.
This source I am presenting has its own meta-level where you can attack it and it would be justified. These are videos from Abby Martin who left Russia Today and you can read plenty of things on her Wikipedia page that would let you derail things into her being a conspiracy nutter and that her show The Empire Files was sponsored by Telesur of Venezuela. That's all fair. I just ask you to watch the videos. It is not horrible propaganda of death and destruction. On the contrary. She is on the street talking with protesters and supporters alike. She gets tear-gassed, so atleast you will get to enjoy that. She also has interviews with people from the Government who explain things from their perspective.
I present a few videos in the order I think they should be viewed:
Abby Martin Meets the Venezuelan Opposition // Empire_File058
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig6yFP8HjVQ [youtube.com]
Abby Martin in Venezuela - Supermarkets to Black Markets // Empire_File059
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUYWrPiUeWY [youtube.com]
Venezuela Economy Minister— Sabotage, Not Socialism, is the Problem // Empire_File056
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk1qlKu_RJo [youtube.com]
Head of Venezuela National Guard on Insurgency & US Threats // Empire_File061
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4PpOtRcA7Q [youtube.com]
Constituent Assembly Dictatorship or Democracy in Venezuela? // Empire_File060
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9BoZmuhDKA [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @07:47PM
Who fails at it, is a total failure, and not all the excuses in the world can change it any.
Who succeeds at it personally, at the expense of those he/she led to ruin, is totally despicable.
No deeper analysis is ever needed.
Anyone and everyone can talk and write all sort of thing. It is what they DO and what RESULTS they get, that do matter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @12:24AM
Washington’s “aid” provocation reportedly claims first victims in Venezuela [wsws.org]
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 24 2019, @11:53PM
If Venezuela wasn't part of the Soviet Union, they wouldn't be running out of food and toilet paper.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by shortscreen on Monday February 25 2019, @12:28AM
After imposing sanctions and gloating endlessly about the poor economic conditions, the US has the sudden urge to deliver "aid" right after their carefully groomed puppet has crowned himself. It's difficult to think of a more transparent scheme than this, and that's before considering that Bolton and Abrahms are in the cast of characters. They might as well send Wiley Coyote to the border with a shipping container labeled "bird seed" or a giant wooden horse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 25 2019, @03:47PM
Making Molotovs:
https://twitter.com/tictoc/status/1099415428496011264/video/1 [twitter.com]
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1099414409435381766/pu/pl/640x352/8uWYziHf9o5jyx5d.m3u8 [twimg.com]
Not very good at throwing molotovs:
https://twitter.com/graffitiborrao/status/1099540683575185408/video/1 [twitter.com]
https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/1099540517057150976/pu/pl/852x480/JVcDrTOgCsYXFHjj.m3u8 [twimg.com]