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[LordBaal]

Oh fuck, I had a sinking feeling about the video when the guest had a "film" about the assassination of Hugo Chavez.

At this point I'm pretty jaded and became very intolerant for this kind of stupid leftist shit. He's obviously proMaduro and in my book that puts you on the retarded list.

The truth about Venezula is that people like me can't feed correctly their families even if working like a mule 24/7 because the horribly corrupt and misguided or even malicious administration this mafia implemented. Period.

This people that run the country are criminals. This is a fact no douche with a horrible and stupid hat can conviceme otherwise. Period.

Everyday I have to make choices about how many can I eat to stave off starvation in order to left as much food possible for my wife and kid. This horrible reality is something I'm sure this  pro-comunist jerk surely didn't check on their Pleasantville tour

As for the pictures of those huge red protest against the US intervention:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/bc.marfeel.com/maduradas.com/ridiculo-los-milagros-del-photoshop-vtv-muestra-una-avenida-bolivar-repleta-la-realidad-otra-imagen/%3fmarfeeltn=amp

Slide down to the Twitter videos and see the official channel "truth" vs reality.

[Reelya]

well, have the same thing but from the right:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pDAxKrSvPQ

Makes the same point near the end about the Guaido rallies being populated by very white people well-dressed with cellphones, rather than the starving masses that you'd assume from the media. The different racial profile of the two parties seems to be a thing that commentators on both the right and left are noticing. The pro-Guaido politicians are very white people in a very non-white nation.

It's the elite who want Guaido. They'll send all your oil to Texas and all your money to Miami. That's the plan, basically. They want the good old days back, when about 5% of the Venezuelan population are reaping about 95% of the oil money, who all have holiday homes in Florida and send their kids to ivy-league colleges in the USA.

Sure Maduro sucks. Maybe he's Stalin. But, that doesn't mean you nod and say "Maybe Mr Hitler over here would do a better job". The plan actually is that they starve you down with sanctions until you're willing to accept the blatant oil-company lackeys taking over the country with open arms.

EDIT: Actually, the core problem probably comes down to the oil industry, and virtually every other difference of policy is meaningless before that:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2019/01/29/charting-the-decline-of-venezuelas-oil-industry/#67dd5cce4ecd

Guaido's plan is to return to past policies of bringing in foreign companies to pump the oil. i'll just note that in the good old days, oil companies paid only 1% of the value of oil in royalties to Venezuela, and oil is a capital-intensive industry, so creates almost no jobs:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3732224.stm

BBC: Venezuela has announced that it is increasing the royalties paid by foreign oil companies from 1% of the sale price to 16.6%.

Given that basically before Chavez foreign oil companies paid nearly zero percent of the oil-revenue as taxes, then the decline in revenues can't really be blamed on falls in oil price/oil production. It is in fact down to the sanctions mostly.

Here's the general pattern of oil-rich nations:
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/avoiding-the-curse-of-the-oil-rich-nations/
... which pretty much describes Venezuela even before the socialists had anything to do with it. Back when oil companies paid a whopping 1% of the value of the oil to the nation that owned the oil.

[Kagus]

Isn't it Guaido (no Chrome, I do not mean "emoji")?


Anyways, I can't help but get a niggling feeling that neither of those Youtube channels is a particularly trustworthy source...

[Reelya]

I think that last point is unfounded. An untrustworthy source is one that chops up, takes out of context or misrepresents the news or public figures. That's not true of these sources. The first is a live unedited interview with Greg Palast, who is a pretty well-reknowned investigative journalist:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Palast

Long history working with the BBC and The Guardian. It's not like this guy is Infowars or Daily Kos or something. If the guy says some things you haven't heard of, it's maybe worth looking into how or why he thinks that, rather than say "who's this schmuck, he disagrees with what I, mr nobody, happens to already believe".

The second source is the direct channel run by Ron Paul, who isn't some nobody, he's a retired US Congressman, and he served on the "United States House Committee on Foreign Affairs" which, you'd assume, would give him some plausibility when talking about US foreign affairs policy and the CIA, considering he would have been getting official intelligence briefings on foreign affairs directly from the CIA.

I think these sources are in fact more credible than some hacked-up news reports that chops peoples statements up into word-salad then presents it with a pre-decided narrative. Sure, they're not as polished as the sleazy TV evening news, but that doesn't make them non-credible.

[smjjames]

It'd be an extreme stretch to compare Maduro and Guaido to Stalin and Hitler since neither Maduro or Guaido have done anything remotely close to being labelled as genocide.

Guaido kind of sounds more neoliberal or neoconservative rather than right wing.

Meanwhile, Venezuela is undergoing it's second day of near total blackout, due to problems at what appears to be the only power source for the entire country (that's the impression I got), a hydroelectric dam.

Also, Bolsonaro (or 'Pockets' as I think you guys in Brazil nickname him, sometimes. It was discussed earlier in the thread) is being hosted by Trump at the WH on March 19th.

[Reelya]

Yeah, when the hydro dam runs dry they have electricity problems, due to drought.

But, most stories won't mention the drought just "socialism" for being to blame. I guess it rains more when you have good old fashioned capitalism.

Or, more likely they'd use "market forces" and jack up the price so only the people in the rich suburbs can afford electricity. Which would be fine and dandy according to the typical mainstream commercial media in Venezuela.

For example, here's a Reuter's article:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-blackouts/venezuela-begins-power-rationing-as-drought-causes-severe-outages-idUSKCN1GS2M5

Venezuela begins power rationing as drought causes severe outages
Anggy Polanco, Isaac Urrutia

SAN CRISTOBAL, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela imposed electricity rationing this week in six western states, as the crisis-hit country’s creaky power grid suffered from a drought that has reduced water levels in key reservoirs needed to run hydroelectric power generators.

Then, of course, the BBC runs the same thing, except excludes mention of the drought completely:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-47504722

The power cuts, which started on Thursday, have been caused by problems at a major hydroelectric plant.

Venezuela depends on its vast hydroelectric infrastructure, rather than its oil reserves, for its domestic electricity supply. But decades of underinvestment has damaged the major dams, and sporadic blackouts are commonplace.

Uh, there being no water in the dams because of the drought is apparently not worth mentioning. the detail of rationing due to limited water supplies, which Reuters tells you about, is conveniently omitted entirely. It's just the dams don't work so there are sporadic blackouts, according to BBC.

[hector13]

Well they are right, a drought is a problem at a hydroelectric dam, which will cause it not to really work well.

[Kagus]

And drought is a case of poor balancing between (water) supply and demand, which is indicative of not having enough (wet) capitalism.

[hector13]

Exactly. If people weren’t selfish and using the water to live, maybe they’d have electricity.

[wierd]

No silly, drought can be a sign of serious climatic changes, especially given that Venezuela is an equatorial region nation.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/where-climate-change-fits-into-venezuela-rsquo-s-ongoing-crisis/

What they really need to do down there, is stop with the corruption, stop with the bullshit, build wind and solar energy production, and drop in some desalination plants.  If they dont, they are going to experience ever increasing agrarian hardships, food shortages, and other significant upsets from the persistent changes in their climate induced by anthropogenic climate change.

Maduro would rather ignore all those things, and just continue being a fiscally inept despot.
It remains to be seen what Guaido will do.

[smjjames]

@reelya: Eh? I didn't say anything about socialism being involved, just dinging the overreliance on hydro. They have oil, they could be burning oil (yes, I know, global warming and all) for power in an emergency.

[Kagus]

@reelya: Eh? I didn't say anything about socialism being involved, just dinging the overreliance on hydro. They have oil, they could be burning oil (yes, I know, global warming and all) for power in an emergency.

But is it midnight oil?

[ChairmanPoo]

@reelya: Eh? I didn't say anything about socialism being involved, just dinging the overreliance on hydro. They have oil, they could be burning oil (yes, I know, global warming and all) for power in an emergency.

They have oil, I dont think they have enough oil refineries. I dont think crude oil is appropiate for most types of generators

[Teneb]

@reelya: Eh? I didn't say anything about socialism being involved, just dinging the overreliance on hydro. They have oil, they could be burning oil (yes, I know, global warming and all) for power in an emergency.

I have no doubt that the people pushing a casus belli against Maduro (please do not mistake this as support for the cretin) would then go and say "Look! The Communist Leftists are BURNING THE OIL! How heinous!"


As a whole, though, this Maduro business is yet another example of some corrupt and inept fuck hiding behind Comunism and other Left-leaning ideologies, helping the reactionaries further vilify anyone who dares to wear red.

[smjjames]

@reelya: Eh? I didn't say anything about socialism being involved, just dinging the overreliance on hydro. They have oil, they could be burning oil (yes, I know, global warming and all) for power in an emergency.

They have oil, I dont think they have enough oil refineries. I dont think crude oil is appropiate for most types of generators

Yeah, that's probably a good point if they don't have the refineries to do that. editwhiletyping: I've also heard that the type of oil that they extract is the real heavy crude that takes more effort to refine, so it gets sent elsewhere to be mixed with lighter crude.

@reelya: Eh? I didn't say anything about socialism being involved, just dinging the overreliance on hydro. They have oil, they could be burning oil (yes, I know, global warming and all) for power in an emergency.

I have no doubt that the people pushing a casus belli against Maduro (please do not mistake this as support for the cretin) would then go and say "Look! The Communist Leftists are BURNING THE OIL! How heinous!"


As a whole, though, this Maduro business is yet another example of some corrupt and inept fuck hiding behind Comunism and other Left-leaning ideologies, helping the reactionaries further vilify anyone who dares to wear red.

Of course though, the reactionaries never vilify corrupt and inept fucks hiding behind right leaning ideologies. Not meant solely at Trump, just in general.