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[Guardian G.I.]

Cuba proposed the Czech Republic that it can return the 276 million USD of its sovereign debt back Tropico style - not with cash... but with rum!

"If that proposal becomes reality, the Czech would have enough Cuban rum for well over a century"

[martinuzz]

But Czech beer is so much better than rum. In fact, the category of beer called 'pils' originates from it.

[Reelya]

http://www.news.com.au/world/south-america/ecuador-candidate-wants-julian-assange-out/news-story/1cb2a71cc5691933fcedfe75c424eb50

Mr Lasso also promised he would take a firm stance against the government of crisis-hit Venezuela, which is closely aligned with outgoing president Rafael Correa’s leftist Country Alliance Party.

Ecuador would also advocate that the Organisation of American States push for elections in the fellow OPEC nation, Mr Lasso said.

Heh, this is the sort of thing you get when the internatinal corporate media doesn't like you. While Venezuela has a lot of problems, not having elections isn't the issue. And the last time the opposition tried to take power it was full-NAZI-mode no Godwin. The same opposition candidates they're running now were directly involved in the attempt to instigate a military junta in 2002. Yet they're not in prison.

Chavez was once challenged in a recall referendum partway through his term (2006 i think) and the media said that he was trying to undermine the process. ... Except for the fact that it was Chavez himself who put the recall referedum law in place. There was no such possibility before his presidency. So he's the sort of "dictator" who specifically created a law for himself to be expelled from office partway through his term based on a referendum. In fact, in the opposition staged a coup in 2002 in which they abolished the constitution among other changes. They themselves tried to negate the law about recall referendums. In fact if you look into the matter there were no referendums in Venezuela at all before Chavez. He created the system in 1999, in which the recall referendums became a constitutional right, and all constitutional changes were required to go to referendum. Before that, Congress could rewrite the constitution at will.

Documentary: The Revolution will not be Televised has footage of the Venezuelan coup leaders in 2002 announcing the abolition of the constitution, supreme court, electoral commission, human rights ombudsman, and national assembly. Basically to be replace by rule by decree of a military-backed president, while cops in the streets firing actual shotguns at people to maintain "order" against angry citizens. It's basically everything they accused Chavez of, but 100 times worse. Meanwhile, US TV reported "freedom has been restored". It's a really fascinating watch, as a film crew was present when the coup happened and managed to stitch the whole story together.

[ChairmanPoo]

Meanwhile in Spain ( Spain is in Latin America right?) the "gag law"  allows the police to prosecute people for sharing (or "liking") police brutality videos on social media

[scriver]

Is that's what's going on in your avatar?

[wierd]

Naw, it's a scene from the Arnold Schwartzenegger film (made from a book written by L Ron Hubbard! Wait, it was Phillip K Dick!? I could have sworn...) called Total Recall.

That is the female protagonist suffocating in the near vacuum of the rarefied martian atmosphere.

[Reelya]

BTW, a great slap in the face of the "Venezuela has no elections" argument is that in december 2015 they had a full legislature election, and the opposition parties won that, and now control their parliament. So, the so-called dictators had an election and lost that, acceding defeat to the other party, yet for the first time in 2016 it's been labeled a "Not Free" country by a major NGO, and other nations are called for "elections".

Seriously? You're labeled a dictator and have elections which your side doesn't even win, then after that they label your country "not free" and call for elections ... how does that even work?

[wierd]

Post Truth.

That's how.

[andrea]

Well, clearly the opposition parties rigged the election. That is why it is not a free state.

[wierd]

...

Yes. The parties that were not only maligned by the local press (due to despotic control by a dictator), but also under intense local pressure to fall into compliance using actual threat of physical violence by a superior armed regime... Somehow managed to CHEAT, and win the election.

Yes, that makes total sense. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the horrible interventionist politics of a certain wealthy nation north of the equator. No sir. Not at all.

/s

[Reelya]

if you look at the TV clips near the start of the documentary about Venezuela, the media there is basically wall-to-wall FOX News type shit**. Literally, that's what all the regular TV is like there, because it's all owned by a small group of wealthy families who don't like Chavez. I actually think the American conservative media picked up anti-Obama memes from the anti-Chavez memes in Venezuela. e.g. they shopped Chavez + the Ayatollah, Chavez + Hitler etc, all the same ones they did for Obama. Basically when Obama came along they appropriated all the anti-Chavez tricks and memes for that.

Also, poor Colombia being next to beligerent Venezuela. Venezuela spends $3 billion a year on defense. That's billions with a 'b'. And they have 115000 active front-line personnel. That's a lot of thousands. Meanwhile poor beleagured Colombia has has to ramp up spending to $12 billion and recruit 445000 frontline troops, just to stave off the threat of being invaded by Venezeula.

Venezuela is often accused of militarily threatening it's neighbours (Colombia and Brazil). It does it in the sneakiest way possible: by spending less on arms and maintaining a much smaller army than they do, while signing so called "defense alliances"*! What could be more sneaky and unexpected that that?

* seriously, the media tried to claim Venezeula was strong-arming Brazil when they signed a defense pact. Despite the Brazilian army being absolutely monstrous in comparison to Venezuela's. This is the sort of bullshit you get, when you build up a media narrative that a quite small and not-really-that-militarized nation is in fact the biggest threat to the hemisphere.

** btw: when it comes to covering Latin America, the "liberal" press in USA is as bad as FOX covering domestic politics. e.g. at the nytimes it seems verboten to mention UNASUR (you get 1 Unasur per 100 Kardashians or so), which is like the EU+NATO but for South America. It's a pretty important development in Latin politics, but one the corporate press in the USA has decided you're better off not knowing about - probably because a rival Western Hemisphere bloc doesn't fit the USA's objectives. It's not just "Anti-Chavez" the US media is literally "Anti anything good that happens in Latin America" unless it's about cute sloths or something.

[Teneb]

Unfortunately, Chavez is dead and Maduro is now in power. And Maduro seems to be trying his best to be Glorious Leader of Best Venezuela by jailing all his political opponents and driving the country into the ground. What went through Chavez's head when he made this asshole his vice-president is beyond me.

* seriously, the media tried to claim Venezeula was strong-arming Brazil when they signed a defense pact. Despite the Brazilian army being absolutely monstrous in comparison to Venezuela's. This is the sort of bullshit you get, when you build up a media narrative that a quite small and not-really-that-militarized nation is in fact the biggest threat to the hemisphere.

Kek. Everyone capable of strong-arming Brazil is outside South America. If anything, we are strong-arming them, since I doubt my government would just sit around if Venezuela decided to stop exporting that sweet petroleum.

I suspect the US media cares so much about trying to look Venezuela look bad because they may have the larges oil reserves in the world and are not in the pocket of the US.

[Helgoland]

PTW. May I suggest changing the thread title to something about Venezuela specifically?

[Teneb]

PTW. May I suggest changing the thread title to something about Venezuela specifically?

Done while also being cheeky.

[TempAcc]

Maduro is trying and failing to pull a Glorious Leader^tm facade but he knows he's barely keeping himself on power. Hopefuly venezuela will be finally walking toward a brighter future under a not utterly ugly and incompetent dweeb wearing the most idiotic looking track suit in the history of the world, in due time. Hell, at this point, I bet many venezuelans would be ok with becoming a US puppet, because US puppets usualy have something to eat.