[QUOTE=Big Bang;51902373]Do you hold any opinions that aren't shit? How the fuck is it the fault of the Venezuelan people that they were deceived by their leaders? The system failed them.[/QUOTE]
The socialist system certainly failed them I agree with you. The Venezuelan opposition was a disjointed affair and people were not concerned as long as petro-dollars made them rich. They thought being rich was enough to not make them poor. The majority are the ones who kept Chavez and Maduro in power.
Its amusing to see Grauniad articles like this one - [url]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-dcemonises-venezuelas-democracy[/url]
Social programs cost money (even if you use the money for the people) and people won't support candidates who would take that away from them. If your entire system is based on social programs, it's a race to the bottom.
[QUOTE=Meester;51908999]The socialist system certainly failed them I agree with you. The Venezuelan opposition was a disjointed affair and people were not concerned as long as petro-dollars made them rich. They thought being rich was enough to not make them poor. The majority are the ones who kept Chavez and Maduro in power.
Its amusing to see Grauniad articles like this one - [url]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/03/why-us-dcemonises-venezuelas-democracy[/url][/QUOTE]
You don't understand the situation and I don't know why you're distorting what I'm saying. I never said it was the so called socialist system that failed the country, what I was saying is that democracy failed Venezuela. Hugo Chavez manipulated democracy to create a new type of autocracy, while the entire world stood watching. You can post articles by Mark Weisbrot all you want but I've been posting articles about Venezuela for more than 4 years and not [I]once[/I] have I seen a legitimate attempt from either right or left to try and stop Chavez, the official policy of both the Bush and Obama administrations were to ignore Venezuela, and thus the did, and that's how things got to where they are right now.
I spent all of my life waiting for the opportunity where I could vote to get the opposition into power, and when I finally did, when at last, the opposition got an overwhelming victory, the international community, including the nations of the American continent, the OAS, the UN, the Vatican and basically anyone that could have done anything to support governmental change failed to act, and instead intensified the political, social and economic crisis of the country. It wasn't some bullshit about "social programs" that killed the country. It was, and it continues to be, how the systems that are meant to deter autocracies from forming completely fucking failed.
Took a look at a quality of life chart per country. Venezuela is literally 0%.
I guess it's just a matter of time until the whole country falls apart and the military takes over?
[QUOTE=SebiWarrior;51911937]I guess it's just a matter of time until the whole country falls apart and the military takes over?[/QUOTE]
when the military stops being paid and mid-level officers see an opportunity I guess
[QUOTE=SebiWarrior;51911937]I guess it's just a matter of time until the whole country falls apart and the military takes over?[/QUOTE]
Military may take over, but they won't be able to fix the financial situation anymore than the current government. They'll look after themselves first, then the people.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;51912628]Military may take over, but they won't be able to fix the financial situation anymore than the current government. They'll look after themselves first, then the people.[/QUOTE]
The military has already taken over. The Venezuelan government is a military dictatorship in everything but name. There's barely any civilians in power that are not Chavez cronies.
[QUOTE=Big Bang;51912710]The military has already taken over. The Venezuelan government is a military dictatorship in everything but name. There's barely any civilians in power that are not Chavez cronies.[/QUOTE]
I guess the next step is civil war, then, unfortunately.
[QUOTE=Emperor Scorpious II;51912767]I guess the next step is civil war, then, unfortunately.[/QUOTE]
By who? The armed civilians are thugs who only care about themselves, the military elements that may possibly subvert can be dispatched extra-officially without anyone batting an eye, it's not like civilians are fond in any way of the military. There is no endogenous threat to Maduro's power other than the people's dissatisfaction and a weak, toothless opposition that squandered all of its political capital in bullshit talks with the government.
What you're seeing is a refugee crisis in the making and an intensification of the radical elements of Maduro's dictatorship. The region is going to have to care when people start pouring into Colombia and Brazil in droves to escape hunger, sickness and death. The US is gonna have to care when they pull off the lid off the government's drug trade ties and realizes how deeply rooted that is, and how it ties them with even Islamic terrorism.
There was a time where people said "Chavez wants to turn Venezuela into Cuba!", and I didn't believe it, because it sounded impossible for a country like Venezuela to fall so low without uprisings surging to stop it. Venezuela is now poorer than Haiti, let alone Cuba. There is no happy ending, there will not be a change in government without external action.
It's weird hearing figures like this. Because I can never help but project them aside other figures for other subjects, using the same amount of money.
Ten billion for the space program.
Ten billion for the networth of a corporation.
Ten billion for the remaining treasury in an entire country.
The way these scales clash have always fascinated me, in a way. When you hear how big a number is in one place, and see that same number tossed around like candy in another.
The idea of an entire country going bankrupt is so strange.
[QUOTE=F.X Clampazzo;51898058]So really they only have $3.2 billion left then? Not like they're going to pay up but I mean, if I have a loan for $3000 and I have $4000 in the bank I don't really have $4000, I have $1000.[/QUOTE]
No, you have $4000 in assets and $3000 in liabilities, which gives you $1000 in equity. But if you needed to pay a bill of $2000 tomorrow you could still do it, because you have $4000 in cash.
[QUOTE=Big Bang;51911901]You don't understand the situation and I don't know why you're distorting what I'm saying. I never said it was the so called socialist system that failed the country, what I was saying is that democracy failed Venezuela. Hugo Chavez manipulated democracy to create a new type of autocracy, while the entire world stood watching. You can post articles by Mark Weisbrot all you want but I've been posting articles about Venezuela for more than 4 years and not [I]once[/I] have I seen a legitimate attempt from either right or left to try and stop Chavez, the official policy of both the Bush and Obama administrations were to ignore Venezuela, and thus the did, and that's how things got to where they are right now.
I spent all of my life waiting for the opportunity where I could vote to get the opposition into power, and when I finally did, when at last, the opposition got an overwhelming victory, the international community, including the nations of the American continent, the OAS, the UN, the Vatican and basically anyone that could have done anything to support governmental change failed to act, and instead intensified the political, social and economic crisis of the country. It wasn't some bullshit about "social programs" that killed the country. It was, and it continues to be, how the systems that are meant to deter autocracies from forming completely fucking failed.[/QUOTE]
No-one stopped Chavez because he was the legitimate leader of Venezuela. I agree Chavez was a horrible ruler focused on rhetoric. Much like plastic face Kirchner of Argentina, people only vote to change when they are in the shit caused by their forced ignorance. Democracy didn't fail Venezuela, Venezuela failed Venezuela because people didn't give a damn as long as they had an easy life and voted themselves out of a democracy by voting for someone who once launched a coup. As Winston Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other methods that have been tried".
[QUOTE=Meester;51915900]No-one stopped Chavez because he was the legitimate leader of Venezuela. I agree Chavez was a horrible ruler focused on rhetoric. Much like plastic face Kirchner of Argentina, people only vote to change when they are in the shit caused by their forced ignorance. Democracy didn't fail Venezuela, Venezuela failed Venezuela because people didn't give a damn as long as they had an easy life and voted themselves out of a democracy by voting for someone who once launched a coup. As Winston Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other methods that have been tried".[/QUOTE]
You're trying to explain Venezuela's situation to an actual Venezuelan. I suggest you reconsider your line of argument for a bit before coming back.
[QUOTE=Headhumpy;51915906]You're trying to explain Venezuela's situation to an actual Venezuelan. I suggest you reconsider your line of argument for a bit before coming back.[/QUOTE]
He said the opposition got an overwhelming victory. I never heard of this victory and short of a Madurist/Military takeover, no-one is going to advocate military intervention on Venezuelans behalf if they think Venezuelans are the cause of the problem. Anyway intervention in other countries problems gets the cold shoulder from folk these days.
[QUOTE=Meester;51916023]He said the opposition got an overwhelming victory. I never heard of this victory and short of a Madurist/Military takeover, no-one is going to advocate military intervention on Venezuelans behalf if they think Venezuelans are the cause of the problem. Anyway intervention in other countries problems gets the cold shoulder from folk these days.[/QUOTE]
Never heard of this? It was on every spanish news outlet when it happened. It was HUGE. Venezuelans actually went to their embassies to celebrate. We all thought that the regime was [B]finally[/B] going down.
But then Maduro began to block every movement the opposition tried to make. The the opposition tried to dialoge with Maduro, getting nowhere. All of this, while the country continued to implode.
At least for us, peruvians, Venezuela's crisis is a painful reminder of our own economical crisis in the 80s. Between local terrorism and hyperinflation, thousands fled overseaa to send back money for those who remained here. Ask any peruvian, they know at least aomeone who did just that. And Venezuela was one of the primary destinations for a lot of folks.
It really pains us to see a xountry that lend us a hand in difficult times to have fallen so low. If the chance comes up for military intervention, I personally would volunteer inmediately. My family owes the venezuelan people a lot. And I have family there, as well.
[QUOTE=T553412;51916049]Never heard of this? It was on every spanish news outlet when it happened. It was HUGE. Venezuelans actually went to their embassies to celebrate. We all thought that the regime was [B]finally[/B] going down.
But then Maduro began to block every movement the opposition tried to make. The the opposition tried to dialoge with Maduro, getting nowhere. All of this, while the country continued to implode.
At least for us, peruvians, Venezuela's crisis is a painful reminder of our own economical crisis in the 80s. Between local terrorism and hyperinflation, thousands fled overseaa to send back money for those who remained here. Ask any peruvian, they know at least aomeone who did just that. And Venezuela was one of the primary destinations for a lot of folks.
It really pains us to see a xountry that lend us a hand in difficult times to have fallen so low. If the chance comes up for military intervention, I personally would volunteer inmediately. My family owes the venezuelan people a lot. And I have family there, as well.[/QUOTE]
You have a link to an english speaking newspaper?
From the wiki it asserts that "The National Electoral Council (CNE) had found no discrepancy with the initial results and confirmed Maduro's electoral victory.".
[QUOTE=Meester;51916079]You have a link to an english speaking newspaper?
From the wiki it asserts that "The National Electoral Council (CNE) had found no discrepancy with the initial results and confirmed Maduro's electoral victory.".[/QUOTE]
No, the victory wasnt for the presidency. It was a legislative election. With 2/3s of the National Assembly, the opposition had a real chance to tur things around.
Then the roadblocks began to pop up...
[QUOTE=T553412;51916092]No, the victory wasnt for the presidency. It was a legislative election. With 2/3s of the National Assembly, the opposition had a real chance to tur things around.
Then the roadblocks began to pop up...[/QUOTE]
The opposition won the national assembly and Maduro created the National Communal Parliament but does the National Communal Parliament actually have any real power? From the wiki it says "The process to hold a Venezuelan recall referendum to vote on recalling Maduro was started on May 2, 2016. As of July 2016, the Venezuelan government had stated that if enough signatures were collected in the second petition stage, a recall vote would be held no sooner than 2017."
Maduro launched a legal challenge against it [another legal challenge against a democratic decision but I digress] but it is now 2017.
[QUOTE=Meester;51915900]No-one stopped Chavez because he was the legitimate leader of Venezuela. I agree Chavez was a horrible ruler focused on rhetoric. Much like plastic face Kirchner of Argentina, people only vote to change when they are in the shit caused by their forced ignorance. Democracy didn't fail Venezuela, Venezuela failed Venezuela because people didn't give a damn as long as they had an easy life and voted themselves out of a democracy by voting for someone who once launched a coup. As Winston Churchill said "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other methods that have been tried".[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Meester;51916023]He said the opposition got an overwhelming victory. I never heard of this victory and short of a Madurist/Military takeover, no-one is going to advocate military intervention on Venezuelans behalf if they think Venezuelans are the cause of the problem. Anyway intervention in other countries problems gets the cold shoulder from folk these days.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Meester;51916124]The opposition won the national assembly and Maduro created the National Communal Parliament but does the National Communal Parliament actually have any real power? From the wiki it says "The process to hold a Venezuelan recall referendum to vote on recalling Maduro was started on May 2, 2016. As of July 2016, the Venezuelan government had stated that if enough signatures were collected in the second petition stage, a recall vote would be held no sooner than 2017."
Maduro launched a legal challenge against it [another legal challenge against a democratic decision but I digress] but it is now 2017.[/QUOTE]
God damn you're a fool, you really don't know about the situation, yet you're trying to school me on it, like if I somehow missed any details before I was forced to leave the country because of the encroaching violence and famine. I've posted about a dozen threads about this exact same thing too, I provided constant coverage about the roadblocks the opposition faced, the unconstitutional actions of Maduro and his complete disregard for the separation of powers, I'm not going to search them for you, you do that yourself, they have articles in English.
The National Communal Parliament is a joke, it doesn't exist nor it has any relevancy. In December 2015, parliamentary elections were celebrated in Venezuela, and in those, for the first time ever, the opposition managed to secure a resounding victory, acquiring a supermajority of 2/3rds of the total deputy count. In reaction to this, since the results took the government by surprise, the incumbent parliament did a series of illegal sessions during what was supposed to be their Christmas vacation, to appoint magistrates for the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ), many of which failed to follow any of the requisites, one of them was even a current deputy. This was done obviously with the purpose of stacking the seats with regime sympathizers.
Once the new National Assembly was inaugurated, the TSJ immediately declared that electoral fraud had taken place in the Amazonas state (one of the least developed, most remote states in the country) and that the Amazonas deputies must resign until new elections are scheduled, which immediately threatened the supermajority that would have legally allowed the opposition to remove these illegally appointed magistrates. To this date, no new elections have been performed in Amazonas, and thus the opposition never recovered the supermajority. While the opposition stood defiant of that ruling, the TSJ simply declared every action the new parliament did to be in contempt of the law, and thus prevented any laws from being passed, gimping the parliament.
The opposition attempted to employ three different methods to remove Maduro, all perfectly legal, the first is through constitutional reform, which they apparently gave up on rather quickly; the second of which was through a Constituent assembly, which wasn't really ever attempted; the third was the recall referendum, which ended up what they insisted on as the largest parties of the MUD (The opposition bloc) preferred it.
There are many reasons as to why the recall referendum procedure is flawed. First of, it requires the CNE to collaborate, which also happens to be stacked with government lackeys and has been so for nearly a decade, the procedure has an implicit time limit of 1 year for it to result in new elections, if it takes place after January 2017 the Vicepresident will continue the recalled president's term. It additionally requires signatures of 20% of the total voter registry for it to even happen (Years before, when a recall referendum was attempted against Chavez, these signatures were "leaked" and became what is now known as the "Lista Tascón", which was used to fire public employees who didn't support the revolution, so there was significant skepticism about it.), and in order to successfully remove the president, the total of "yes" votes must exceed the amount of votes the acting president got elected by, so to remove Maduro, something around 7.5 million votes must be collected.
The procedure faced numerous roadblocks, starting with the bizarre demand of asking for a "voter's organization" to be created first, with 1% of the total voter registry [I]of each of the 24 states[/I], to be collected in 3 days. This isn't part of the procedure as the constitution says, but nevertheless the opposition agreed to it, and successfully completed it. The CNE took an unreasonable amount of time to verify those signatures, claiming it was due to the opposition giving them more than the 200000 they had asked for (The CNE declared that more than 60% of the supplied signatures were illegal anyway so the overhead was necessary). By the time preparations were starting for the collection of the 20% of signatures however, several state courts abruptly introduced lawsuits against the opposition claiming that electoral fraud had taken place, and the TSJ used that as an excuse to promptly kill the entire thing.
This caused massive outrage as it was simply, an autocratic move. Many asked for immediate action, they wanted to march toward the presidential palace and demand Maduro's resignation. Instead, the Vatican and the US proposed bilateral talks, a move which I loudly criticized as being just a way for the government to get some oxygen so they can sit out this one crisis and come out a couple months later unharmed. On December, 2016, the opposition announced they were not continuing with the talks, claiming the government had not stuck to any of their agreements. It is now March 2017, the parliament is muffled, the government now rules strictly through the TSJ, and all of the procedures that could have removed Maduro are no longer possible. Famine and sickness are widespread, crime continues to soar.
Now tell me, which part of this mess was my fault? Was it the part where I completed my civic duty and voted for the local MUD deputy to the National Assembly?
Blaming the Venezuelan people is flat out [i]nonsense[/i]. And blaming "Socialism" alone, is equally foolish. There are quite a few factors that contributed to the economic problems of Venezuela, depending on oil as your only source of cash and export isnt entirely the smartest move ever.
I really hope people stop using the country political agendas and actually try thinking of solutions for the people there. It is sad to see any country in such a state of affairs
[QUOTE=Killer900;51898053]How is this different from the US being in debt over 17 trillion? Can't they just do what we do and not default?[/QUOTE]
The US has assets which it can use as proof they can pay it back (otherwise, like civilian debt - those assets are sold off).
Venezuela doesn't have any assets left, or the assets remaining aren't worth much (Oil). The problem is, when they ask for a loan to help pay off another debt, their own lack of assets guaranteeing the repayments isn't helping in the slightest (as it's putting off potential lenders). Their low credit score is another factor. This results in uncertainty, and no guarantee the money will ever be paid back and with no assets to sell, the lender is left in the cold (ala Greece and how they refuse, or are limiting their repayments on the bailout the EU gave them).
There's also the problem of corruption, which is making lenders edgy as there's no guarantee the money will actually be used for its agreed purpose in full.
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.
