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[smjjames]

Yeah, how dare governments try to give basic rights such as healthcare for free.

Stuff like that never comes for free. There is no such thing as a free lunch - someone has to pay for it. Healthcare is, ideally, paid for by the whole society in a distributed manner, roughly proportional to their available wealth - which is to say, it's ideally paid through taxes - but it's never actually free.

Nobodys realistically saying that healthcare should be free, which isn't what universial healthcare is about anyway.

[Sergarr]

Yeah, how dare governments try to give basic rights such as healthcare for free.

Stuff like that never comes for free. There is no such thing as a free lunch - someone has to pay for it. Healthcare is, ideally, paid for by the whole society in a distributed manner, roughly proportional to their available wealth - which is to say, it's ideally paid through taxes - but it's never actually free.

Nobodys realistically saying that healthcare should be free, which isn't what universial healthcare is about anyway.

In case you didn't notice, I was responding to a comment which, in fact, did say, or rather, imply, that healthcare should be free:

Yeah, how dare governments try to give basic rights such as healthcare for free.

Even if they didn't actually imply that, it's still useful to point out that, no, healthcare cannot actually be free, so that other people may not be misled/misinformed by statements like these.

[smjjames]

Yeah, how dare governments try to give basic rights such as healthcare for free.

Stuff like that never comes for free. There is no such thing as a free lunch - someone has to pay for it. Healthcare is, ideally, paid for by the whole society in a distributed manner, roughly proportional to their available wealth - which is to say, it's ideally paid through taxes - but it's never actually free.

Nobodys realistically saying that healthcare should be free, which isn't what universial healthcare is about anyway.

In case you didn't notice, I was responding to a comment which, in fact, did say, or rather, imply, that healthcare should be free:

Yeah, how dare governments try to give basic rights such as healthcare for free.

Even if they didn't actually imply that, it's still useful to point out that, no, healthcare cannot actually be free, so that other people may not be misled/misinformed by statements like these.

Given the wording, pretty sure Teneb was being sarcastic there. More like 'How dare they give affordable healthcare for all.'. Though okay on your point on pointing that out.

[Reelya]

The problem with Venezuela is that the opposition is objectively worse in every way even compared to the most alarmist reading of Maduro.

In the 2002 coup, the opposition staged an unplanned march which came under sniper fire. They then blamed Chavez and used that as a trigger for the coup. A rally was pre-planned but the march too a "spontaneous" change of route, after which they came under sniper fire. That's suspicious enough, but the damning evidence is that the top coup generals *pre-recorded* a speech specifically condemning the government for the protest coming under sniper fire, but this was recorded several hours before the rally even began. So basically they staged a protest then had their own forces shoot their own supporters to justify the coup, and pre-recorded an outrage statement because they needed to be in place to carry out the coup. (this was on an SBS news Australia report, and the whistleblower was a CNN Spanish reporter who witnessed the recording). Basically this and other bits of evidence strongly suggest police snipers were pre-placed on the day of the coup to shoot at both pro- and anti- government rallies, then they manipulated the footage and commerical news coverage to make it look like the elected government was responsible.

And as for the opposition leader's views on separation of powers, we have their chosen man being sworn in during the coup they all signed on to. Luckily for us he gave a speech listing the things which would be abolished. Basically everything (46 minutes, 30 second in):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEsSf7ARpw8

I mean, it's all right there on video in their own words, with cheering from the opposition top people:

The National Assembly - abolished
The Supreme Court - abolished
The Electoral Commission - abolished
And a few other offices.

They also announced they were going to get rid of all pro-Chavez mayors and governors who had been elected in the 1999-2002 period.

They also announced the suspension of the entire constitution. That's mentioned elsewhere but not shown on that clip. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmona_Decree

https://williamblum.org/chapters/freeing-the-world-to-death/us-coup-against-hugo-chavez-of-venezuela-2002

On April 11, a military coup toppled Chávez, who was taken to a remote location. Pedro Carmona, the chairman of Venezuela’s largest chamber of commerce, was installed as president. He proceeded to dissolve the legislature, the Supreme Court, the attorney general’s office, the national electoral commission, and the state governorships. Carmona then decreed that the 1999 constitution, which had been written by a constitutional assembly and ratified by a wide majority of voters, following the procedures outlined in the previous constitution, was to be suspended. On top of all this, the new regime raided the homes of various Chávez supporters.

On the video, coup leader Carmona calls conquest down the barrel of a gun "a mandate more valuable than any referendum". Alluding to the fact that Chavez favored referendums to ratify government decisions.

Carmona turns up in this Wikipedia list of politicians who have suspended the constitution for example:

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

So that's who the opposition are: 1930s style fascists, with the full "burning the reichstag" false-flag operations in which they murder their own supporters in order to establish a dictatorship.

[Wolfhunter107]

And that was fifteen years ago.


Right now, it's not the opposition that's trying to establish a dictatorship.
It's not the opposition that's arrested dozens of its political opponents without trial, or even a veneer of due process.
It's not the opposition that has methodically dismantled Venezuela's democracy.


It's the Venezuelan government--that you've so vigorously defended--that has done all of those things. And while you were busy making excuses for them and attacking anyone who dared stand up to them, they got away with it.

Think about that for a little bit.

[Reelya]

nytimes is questionable on anything to do with latin america. I already pointed out that once UNASUR was ratified, nytimes had a moratorium on any mention of it's existence for the next four years. Basically I don't trust them to be an objective source because they seem to have a strong pro-US bias in all Latin reporting.

Most of the institutions that the Venezuelan socialists are accused of wanting to dismantle are in fact ones they created. For example, referendums. They didn't exist in Venezuela before Chavez. An act of Congress was how constitutional amendments worked before that. When Chavez wanted to change some constitutional thing by referendum they often accused him of wanting to be a dictator. But the fact is, if he wanted that he wouldn't have put that pesky referendum law in place.

But these stories have been running for 15 years too and almost none of them actually have meat. Give me some examples of specific people who are being held and we can look at the specific cases. An article which claims X number of nameless people are held could be scuttlebut. Let's look at some names and details. Who are the scores of prisoners? No articles seem to think that detail is important enough to tell you even one single name.

I mean if "scores" of political prisoners have been arrested without trial then that's like ... 60+ politicians from other parties. Who? Why aren't there articles detailing this? There should be news stories on every one of these people, but you can only find news articles detailed a couple of arrests.

For example, googling "venezuela opposition leader held without charges" the only articles come up are about Leopardo Lopez. He was arrested for inciting riot. Mainstream news calls him a victim, but other news sources claim his supporters set up barricades and 43 people died in relation to their actions:

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/11502

Venezuelan judge Susana Barreiros found Lopez guilty of public incitement to violence and association to commit crimes. In particular, Barreiros cited over 700 tweets which she says urged supporters to take the streets to demand the “exit” of democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro.

Beginning on February 12, 2014 and lasting several months, the protests saw opposition supporters set up violent street barricades that led to the deaths of 43 people, over half of whom were security personnel and passersby.

Lopez was arrested on February 14 after clashes saw armed opposition backers attack the Public Prosecutor’s office and other government buildings, leading to several deaths and widespread public property damage.

Born into one of Venezuela's wealthiest families, Lopez is also well known for playing an active role in the US-sponsored 2002 coup which saw then-president Hugo Chavez briefly ousted from office. The arrest of the Harvard-educated lawyer has attracted widespread coverage from international news outlets, which have drawn comparisons between the rightwing politician and both Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela.

If you're constantly tweeting incitements to violence and that caused the death of 20 police officers, you fucking well deserve to go to prison. Plus, this guy was involved in the coup back in 2002. He was still doing this shit, so they charged him for it. Wouldn't you expect a zero-tolerance policy to this shit perpetrated by previous coup leaders?

But this is one of the only examples of an opposition leader "wrongly" arrested I could find. Find some better ones then maybe I'll take them seriously. But I'm not going to take media outlets with a history of anti-chavez hysteria seriously about unnamed people hypothetically wronged by the socialists, because that's not real news. Either document the details or it's just propaganda.

[Wolfhunter107]

You done writing your post yet?

[Reelya]

I'm still waiting for some details of all the wrongful arrests of people held without trial. Google isn't bringing much up.

[Wolfhunter107]

If you'd actually look in good faith instead of ignoring anything that tells you what you don't want to hear, you'd find plenty.

[Reelya]

Show me some articles, I'm googling general statements such as "venezuela arrest of opposition leader" and all I get is about the arrests of people who were prominent supporters of the (2002) coup, being arrested for further coup-plotting.

e.g. Leopardo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma. There's pretty decent evidence against both of them. e.g. from 2008:
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3695

One of the men with whom the IRI (USA's International Republican Institute) team met, former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, called the coup “a lost opportunity for Venezuela.”

which was recorded by IRI in interviews back in April of 2002. Ledezma was arrested for being involved in another coup attempt in 2015, and there was actually quite a bit of documentary evidence include phone recordings (and the stated confession of an arrested military officer) linking him and others to that. Especially given his previous pro-coup statements in 2002, which were reported in 2008, it's not actually that far-fetched. The MO of the purported 2015 coup was actually similar to what they set up in 2002.

Show me what I'm missing here.

[Wolfhunter107]

Show me some articles, I'm googling general statements such as "venezuela arrest of opposition leader" and all I get is about the arrests of people who were prominent supporters of the coup, being arrested for further coup-plotting.

e.g. Leopardo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma. There's pretty decent evidence against both of them. e.g. from 2008:
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3695

One of the men with whom the IRI (USA's International Republican Institute) team met, former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, called the coup “a lost opportunity for Venezuela.”

One sentence is an incredibly shaky cause to arrest somebody. Combine that with the fact that's he's a prominent opposition leader, and it's incredibly obvious that this is a politically motivated arrest.

So that's one for you right there.

which was recorded by IRI in interviews back in April of 2002. Ledezma was arrested for being involved in anothert coup attempt in 2015, and there was actually quite a bit of documentary evidence include phone recordings linking him and others to that. Especially given his previous pro-coup statements in 2002, which were reported in 2008, it's not actually that far-fetched. The MO of the purported 2015 coup was actually similar to what they set up in 2002.

I find it more than a little hypocritical that you're perfectly happy to use sources that are blatantly biased in favor of the Venezuelan government when you were complaining about bias literally on the same page.

[Reelya]

No I'm happy to consider any sources, but the allegations don't seem to have any citable sources.

[Wolfhunter107]

There are plenty of perfectly good examples of opposition leaders being arrested.
These were in January

[Wolfhunter107]

Show me some articles, I'm googling general statements such as "venezuela arrest of opposition leader" and all I get is about the arrests of people who were prominent supporters of the (2002) coup, being arrested for further coup-plotting.

e.g. Leopardo Lopez and Antonio Ledezma. There's pretty decent evidence against both of them. e.g. from 2008:
https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3695

One of the men with whom the IRI (USA's International Republican Institute) team met, former Caracas Mayor Antonio Ledezma, called the coup “a lost opportunity for Venezuela.”

which was recorded by IRI in interviews back in April of 2002. Ledezma was arrested for being involved in another coup attempt in 2015, and there was actually quite a bit of documentary evidence include phone recordings (and the stated confession of an arrested military officer) linking him and others to that. Especially given his previous pro-coup statements in 2002, which were reported in 2008, it's not actually that far-fetched. The MO of the purported 2015 coup was actually similar to what they set up in 2002.

Show me what I'm missing here.

Still haven't answered the question.

Yes, actually, I just did.

[Reelya]

One of the problems with the Maduro did it argument is that a lot of the mentioned arrests have absolutely no connection to national politics, and they're conducted by local police forces which Maduro has zero control over. e.g one of the arrests in those three in January was of a local council member, Jorge Luiz Gonzalez, in the remote city of Maracaibo, on illegal weapons charges

Maracaibo is in Zulia State:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governor_of_Zulia
Zulia State has always been ruled by the Opposition
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_New_Era
Zulia State has it's own state police.
http://think-venezuela.net/police.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enforcement_in_Venezuela

each of Venezuela's 23 states has its own police force, numbering around 50,000 officers altogether. Finally, since 1989's decentralization legislation, many municipalities have set up their own police forces.

Linking an arrest in Zulia State by the State Police to Maduro makes no sense, at all, since the police there are hired and run by the opposition. There was an attempt to create a national police force, but they're limited to a couple of thousand officers in the capital city. Everything outside that is under state/city jurisdiction. Another Maracaibo local councilman was also detained but not arrested around the same time as Jorge Luiz Gonzalez according to a related article by reuters. But like I said, law enforcement in Zulia has always been under the opposition's control.

And the other guy was in Bolivar State, which at least actually has a socialist elected governor, so could be linked to Maduro's party, at least in principle. The arrested guy was a local councilman from an opposition party. But they also arrested a local mayor from the same party as the governor for corruption, not that long ago.

This is another trick the media pulls: blaming Chavez & Co for all the local police forces' actions. This is more clearly shown to be a lie when you consider that they blame Chavez / Maduro for the state & city police arresting people in opposition political strongholds, where Chavez's party has never held power in any form.