I am not an uncritical supporter of Venezuela. Asserting sovereignty is good, at least for Venezuelans – the following, presumably, is not:
- Financing the budget by printing money
- Asset stripping your state oil company and replacing everyone competent there with cronies.
- Ad hoc nationalizations of supermarkets.
- All of which led to hyperinflation and a GDP collapse deeper than Russia’s in the 1990s.
- Developing one of the world’s homicide rates.
Still, it needs by now to be definitively acknowledged that the Bolivarian Revolution is more “real” and has more staying power than CIA gigolo Guaido and the larping lolcows that pass for American mercs these days.
It’s especially noteworthy that the latter were detected and turned in by socialist fishermen.
But what’s even more noteworthy is that it has done this even while being exceptionally and unusually “soft” by the standards of early revolutionary socialist regimes (Maduro hasn’t killed many more people than Macron). In contrast, not cracking down hard enough undid Evo Morales.
Anyhow, if it has survived to date, then it is almost certainly here to stay. The economic crisis is now global, and the cold war between China and the US should be good for countries like Venezuela.
Please keep off topic posts to the current Open Thread.
If you are new to my work, start here.
“Soft” isn’t the word I would use…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_by_country
Venezuela 5287 32,381,000 1632.7
El Salvador 609 6,380,000 954.5
United States 933 329,450,000 28.4
Not to mention the dark rumors about all those other non-police homicides in Venezuela and who might be backing these very energetic and active “criminals.” The concept of the “Deep State” was not invented in the US and it’s not restricted to there either.
It seems to work fine in Japan
Japan has an interesting economy. They do print ots of money, but they produce lots of other things too and are able to sell them to the world. The latter makes the difference.
Is that supposed to help the Venezuelan regime? Are Venezuelans at starvation levels supposed to be pacified by the fact that people in other countries are suffering moderately too now? And oil-dependent countries will surely be hit especially hard?
According to the IMF April forecast real GDP growth in Venezuela will be -15% this year, while in neighboring Colombia it will be -2.4%. Sure, forecasts aren’t that accurate, but with a difference that large…
Your anti-western bias is getting pretty absurd when you support a dictator completely destroying his country just because he’s anti-western. Surely in the end his regime will end up creating pro-western sentiment? Especially among the 6 million Venezuelans in the diaspora who may return one day.
Evo Morales was done in by failing to build any sort of support in the capitol on the level of the paramilitary Chavismo fan clubs supporting Maduro. When the coup came for Evo his supporters did mobilize, but… the long march to the halls of power really slowed them down.
In fact, the US strengthened Venezuela government and shored up its internal support by a string of short-sighted actions. First, pathetic Guaido, whose internal support is in single digits, was appointed by the US a “president”. Second, to strengthen government narrative of US aggression, the US stole Venezuelan assets to the tune of >$10 billion and introduced sanctions. Finally, the US organized and paid for Venezuelan version of Bay of Pigs, which turned out to be exactly the same kind of abject failure as the original anti-Cuban Bay of Pigs. Arguably, without idiotic US actions Castro regime in Cuba would have never survived this long.
There is a saying that fools learn from their own mistakes, whereas smart people learn from the mistakes of fools. Now, what do we call people who do not learn even from their own mistakes?
Sorry to disappoint, nobody is starving in Venezuela. In sharp contrast to the US “friend” Colombia. That’s why American TV showed footage of long lines for free food in LA, claiming that it’s Venezuela. Naturally, that fake was promptly debunked, further decreasing the trustworthiness of American MSM.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortages_in_Venezuela#Hunger
Wiki lies more than used car salesmen. So many Wiki entries contain lies (or mostly consist of them) that it’s probably easier to make a list of Wiki pages where no lies were detected: it would be a lot shorter.
How is Maduro a dictator? There was an election held with international observers present, and he won. The international observers acknowledges some voting irregularities, as happens in every country, but nothing that would have changed the result. Just as was the case with Morales.
“Dictator” has become as meaningless as “racist”, or Auntie-Shem-ite. It’s a shutdown attempt to divert attention from the real issue: the (((West))) will never allow a competing economic system to succeed. The (economic) war on Germany started in 1933. Once they were tossed, the war on the Soviet Bloc started in earnest. Once the USSR was out of the way, the war on Cuba and the Bolivarian Revolution started in earnest. The problem the (((West))) has with China, is that Chinese culture is deeply ingrained. They have dealt with wars for thousands of years, some successfully, some not. The two hundred years under the (((Western))) thumb has been studied to death. They knew what the (((West))) was doing, and used it to their advantage. The (((West))) is now panicking, as their usual tactics won’t work with China.
Maduro and Morales, irrespective of their own personal shortcomings are not the issue. Moving away from the international banking cartel, is.
Another clever-sounding, content-less “rebuttal” from AnonFromTN. Maybe he and Mrs. AnonFromTN should consider Caracas for their next vacation, once all this COVID business dies down. Could be a fact-finding mission of sorts (if he can manage to survive the trip from the airport to his hotel, that is).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Venezuelan_presidential_election#Disqualifications
Do you honestly believe that the guy who presided over the worst peacetime economic collapse in modern history would win 68% of the vote fair and square?
Yeah, because no Jews support socialism, right? Karlin listed the reasons for Venezuela’s economic collapse in this post, no western sabotage necessary.
“Developing one of the world’s homicide rates.”
You mean “world’s largest homicide rates”, correct?
As for Evo Morales, didn’t the Bolivian Supreme Court make some sort of ruling against him?
BTW, wouldn’t you prefer a CIA gigolo to Maduro as your own president, Anatoly? I mean, Maduro is more similar to a Venezuelan Yeltsin or even to a Venezuelan Gorbachev than to a Venezuelan Putin, is he not?
If Trump can win, so can anyone else.
It’s not anti western, its anti jew. Nobody western can seriously say they care what happens in Venezuela, the (((neocons/neoliberals))) do, but they are not western.
I have no idea what you are trying to say, the figures sure look, er, long? and you quote that great paragon of humanitarian pride, that truly impartial and unbiased and ever correct website run by congenital censors at WikiPedia? Might as well quote the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Daily Mirror.
if you want to refute things by quoting other people, at least choose your plagiarism sources better.
https://mises.org/library/myth-japans-lost-decades
That isn’t what Japan does.
They could have left it alone and the people would have had a good go at toppling the socialist fools, given the dire straits they are in. Of course the racial angle needs to be taken in to account, not enough Whites, or kinda White people, left in Venezuela.
The numbers, left to right, are the reported number of killings by law enforcement in that country, the country’s population and the per-capita rate of law enforcement killings. Follow the link above the numbers for further details.
The attempts to portray Venezuela as benign, even in relative terms, are absurd. Its government is one of the most violent on Earth and so are its people. Ask any of the countless Venezuelan refugees now streaming into Europe and North America and they will tell you the same. Some places are bad even though the US government says they’re bad.
This is exactly what AK’s British passport is for.
In the not very probable case that, in Russia, comes to power true Chavez-Maduro style sovereign government that would confiscate AK’s bitcoin stash, or true patriotic government that would conscript AK and send him to front line to regather lost Russian lands, loyal Queen’s subject Karlin could be back home in London as fast as airplane flies.
A Maduro style Government in Russia would only drive it to ruin, but that’s fine to tunnel vision retards like you I suppose
Patriotism and good intentions are worthless if they lead to total geopolitical failure, starting a large war in Eastern Europe which would inevitably lead to another mass slaughter to Slavic peoples is not a cause worthy of championing
Not being poked at as often by the US due to Corona the Corona crisis is beneficial to the Venezuelan Government
US color revolutions often create worse situations then existed before
Some examples: Syria, Libya, Yugoslavia and Honduras
Venezuela will likely descend into civil war before Maduro is overthrown, and if it’s bad now I do not see how that will improve it in any way
For the time being the better choice for the Venezuelan people is to be under Maduro, these are the consequences for previous bad choices
The Westophilic Cuban diaspora has not yet overturned the Castros, so I don’t think it’s impossible that Venezuela will stay like this indefinitely, especially when it has China, Cuba and Russia to prop it up
It’s good to see a Nationalist like Karlin actually showing some principle, as opposed to some of the commenters here. Russia is under no threat from Venezuela, and thus the proper response from a principled Nationalist to a kleptocrat on the other side of the world doing some mild Social Democracy should be, “Who care?”
It’s funny how some of these people suddenly become Globalists when someone stands up to Uncle Sam.
He didn’t say “who cares” though, he said he actively supports Venezuela[‘s regime]:
In other words, as long as a leader “asserts sovereignty” he’ll support him despite economic collapse, the people going hungry and getting murdered. Does he apply the same logic to North Korea, Maoist China and Stalinist Russia?
Sounds like projection. Once can say the same about your posts.
For example:
ttps://www.unz.com/akarlin/donbass-or-death/?highlight=cars#comment-2499199
“Isn’t it curious that only Japanese (Toyota), Korean (Kia), and German (VW) cars are now assembled in the US, whereas “American” cars are now assembled in Mexico? ”
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/donbass-or-death/#comment-2499610
Everybody assembles in Mexico, but very few assemble in the US. There are no American car makers among these few.
Meanwhile in Tennessee:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Hill_Manufacturing
General Motors looks to expand the plant’s facilities and influence in the North American and Global Auto industries, and is currently the company’s largest plant in North America/
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/helsinki-meeting/#comment-2421459
“Funny when people who know nothing about the US use it as an example. There is NO official federal language in the US, period. NO official language in any state. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States#Official_language_status
… 32 states of the United States, in some cases as part of what has been called the English-only movement, have adopted legislation granting official status to English.
You live in Tennessee, one of the states that has English as an official language:
http://www.languagepolicy.net/archives/tenn.htm
English is hereby established as the official and legal language of Tennessee. All communications and publications, including ballots, produced by governmental entities in Tennessee shall be in English, and instruction in public schools and colleges of Tennessee shall be conducted in English unless the nature of the course would require otherwise.
:::::::::::
AnoninTN is quite the clown.
Well, it is kind of a tricky business.
Let’s say you live somewhere in the Americas. You might not particularly give a damn what type of government Venezuela has, except when hundreds of thousands are fleeing the country and possibly going to your country. The number the media is giving is like 4-5 million. That is a lot of Venezuelans to possibly have in your backyard.
I was thinking more of the concept of national self-determination as a principle, rather than anything practical.
Venezuela could be a real flashpoint as the new cold war gets going. Such a juicy target for the Chinese in the USA’s “sphere of influence.”
Where exactly did I say I approve of Maduro? That said, Maduro > Guaido so far as Russian interests are concerned, in particular with Rosneft having made large and highly risky investments into Venezuela, so it’s not like my position is inconsistent with nationalism.
My crypto stash is unfortunately decidedly modest, though the main point of them is that they are not confiscatable by governments.
How is subsidizing ruin of country on the other side of the world going to be beneficial for Russia?
I assume you are not so naive to imagine that any “investments” in Venezuela will ever be repaid in monetary terms.
Everything can be confiscated. Bitcoin is secure (as far as we know), but there are many methods ancient and modern how to hack bitcoin holder.
Any additional cooperative countries that diverts hostile US attention away from Russia is beneficial for Russia.
This has to be a troll. AK has been critical of the socialist gov. in Venezuela for as long as I’ve been reading him.
Trump is about to preside over one of the worst economic downturns in American history. If he wins the incoming election, does that make him a dictator? Lol.
Russia isn’t subsidizing the “ruin” of Venezuela.
America, on the other hand, engages in bombing campaigns that actually physically reduce countries to ruins throughout the world. Uninvited. Russia is in Venezuela at the request of Venezuelans. If Americans don’t like it when the people they would victimize stick up for each other, then, well, they can toss off.
The US Department of State probably has a bit of excess capacity.
I’m not sure this battle for Afromestizos makes sense. Looking back at the global conflict during the Cold War, it seems to have been pretty senseless. Did it benefit the USSR to have Somalia as a Cold War ally? Or the US (as Somalia switched hands)? How about each side in Afghanistan? Or Vietnam? Or Korea? Or in the Middle East? I don’t think NATO benefited Americans or Europeans in the long run. It is not clear to me that any of it made sense, in the long run.
The plum of the Soviets was Cuba, and it cost them about $200 million/year. Russians continued the relationship until about 2001-2002. That’s like 50 years – at least $10 billion dollars. I don’t know if it was worth the pin-ups of Cuban girls at the beach and the expensive sugar. Maybe, the SIGINT station, but communications are more deeply encrypted now.
Exactly. Soviet Union that comprised with 20% world GDP at its maximal comparative strength, ruined itself in Cold War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_largest_historical_GDP#Russia
Should RF with 3% of world GDP continue playing the great game?
You are forgetting that times have changed. The Empire used to be strong and run by relatively capable presidents. Now it is run by morons (and I don’t mean only figurehead “presidents”) along the suicidal path.
Both superpowers were countries with universalist ideologies.
Not competing around the world was basically admitting that your side lost unless there was some kind of detente.
That is not an issue for the RF, but OTOH it deals with a more powerful hostile power which would like to isolate a Russia that is not a client state as much as possible.
Encouraging that by not pushing back ensures a worse outcome as it allows the opposite side to engineer one regime change after another.
Compare the results of the events in Libya and Syria. Which were better for Russia?
Not even an ally. That is why the USSR backed Ethiopia against them.
Why would anyone believe Wikipedia on a topic like this?
I didn’t say Maduro was a genius, I said he won the election. That many in opposition chose to boycott the election, is not Maduro’s fault.
It’s clear that you, and perhaps Karlin do not understand what the Bolivarian Revolution is. It’s about eliminating the international banking cartel from controlling the economy and trade. To as great a degree possible, Venezuela was trading oil and other commodities for commodities or services. That means their oil, on those transactions, isn’t sold in US dollars, and the other commodities are not settled in US dollars. It’s really no different than Iraq selling oil in Euros, Iran’s oil bourse, or Qaddafi’s African gold dinar. It’s a challenge to the current economic system. The internationalists/globalists and the US and elsewhere were never going to allow that to happen. They have been working hard for a quarter century to undermine Venezuela, including “scandals” in Argentina, Brazil, the coup in Bolivia, and seizing massive revenue held at the New York Fed for their international trade settled in dollars. How do you think the US would be doing if a third of its international trade revenue was being seized? Michael Hudson stated years ago, that the US had weaponized its reserve currency status.
Learn from history. International Jewry declared an economic war on Germany in 1933. It had sfa to do with persecuting the Jews. The NSDAP made its economic policy clear, and it didn’t include international bankers. They were, and did, trade commodity for commodity with great success, it was catching on. Germany, and to a lesser degree Italy, were killing the banker’s business. That could not be allowed to happen.
Whatever the internal politics of Venezuela, they are nobody’s business outside of Venezuela, whether you like it or not.
Seems as though the main arguments are to be made for the arms industry. Of course, it is not entirely inconsequential, but nuclear weapons limit the danger of domestic invasion, so the military utility of it seems to be limited, and come at a possible political cost. I’m not sure that Russia can recoup this cost within Syria – perhaps outside.
Of course, Russia cannot be fully isolated because of China, so it has its own breathing space.
IMO, rather than American-friendly regimes, the real danger is the cultural threat of globohomo. Arabs (and many others) produce practically nothing within this sphere, so to fight over them doesn’t make strategic sense. Sadly, neither Russia nor China seem to be be tooled, orientated, or inclined to fight this threat on a global level. Probably for fear of insulting their trade partners in Africa and in Europe.
These things are fluid. During the Ogaden War, Ethiopia was still using American stock and the Somalis had weapons like the T-34.
US capable and smart during Cold War?
Was Korean war a good idea?
Was Vietnam war a good idea?
Was siding with Israel against Arabs a good idea?
Was siding with Pakistan against India a good idea?
The only smart and capable move the West did during the cold war was allaince with Mao’s China against USSR. Of course, it was absolutely cynical betrayal of any values it was allegedly fighting for.
LOL. Bolivarian revolution stands for viking style pillage of your own country to enrich Maduro and few of his cronies. As AK said, just like Russia and other post-Soviet countries in the nineties, only much worse.
When you ruin your country to such degree that one fifth or one quarter of your people emigrate, it is no longer your “internal affair”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_refugee_crisis
Remember, the refugees from Venezuela are generally high IQ white, skilled, educated, capable and active people. If HBDIQ means anything, it means that these people are the strength of your nation, and you shall cultivate them, not drive them out.
If/when US Republicans get some brains (not guaranteed) they will welcome Venezuelan refugees, and gain strong and loyal voting bloc of millions of people. People who will hate Russia with burning heat of thousands suns for their whole life.
Smart move for Russia…not.
The main purpose of nuclear weapons is to discourage the other side from escalating the conflict beyond a certain threshold, they do not protect from domestic regime change or attacks below the threshold.
The intervention in Syria, on the other hand, did help to fight regime change operation by preventing their success in Syria and moving on.
North Korea-level of isolation is only little better than being fully isolated.
They are the primary state supporter of that.
Perhaps the Yanks are not so confident things are moving their way without their overt intervention, however clumsy? And from what I have seen of Guaido, why should “the people” prefer him to Maduro? He has that slick, rich kid look and his puppet strings to Washington and Brussels are quite visible.
Perhaps the Yanks are not so confident things are moving their way without their overt intervention, however clumsy? And from what I have seen of Guaido, why should “the people” prefer him to Maduro? He has that slick, rich kid look and his puppet strings to Washington and Brussels are quite visible.
US interventions in Latin America, including military ones, have been frequent when the government in a particular country is not to US liking, whatever the people might think about it.