BlueHeronDruid wrote: 
Indeed. Too bad you are offended by my posts showing a little light to an issue that a lot of people don't know anything about. If you are educated on the topic and you don't want to get involved, that's up to you. I have seen a lot of posts from a lot of people talking about political issues that I don't either agree with or care anything about. I don't go after them and tell them to bugger off just because I choose not to be concerned with that issue.

Did I bug you? Sorry about that. Then you should probably not read my posts until this thing is over, for I will probably be sharing a lot more information about what is going on here. If you don't want to know, don't read.

 Mugro wrote: 
You probably wouldn't dare post such an article, because A: it doesn't fit the narrative, B: might create some confusion among those that you'd really like to believe, and finally C: you might get called to answer to some boss-man when your name comes up in the Google. Remarkably, you keep on emphasizing the fact that you're in Venezuela - and ironically in an official capacity - and thus what you say must be considered objective. Pretty funny, but I'm sure most people with at least some critical thinking skills can see that such an argument isn't very sound.

As an aside and somewhat interesting, I've also seen that same argument used on occasion in this forum when people had the audacity to criticize American (both domestic and foreign) policies. "Pshaw, he/she probably never even visited the US of A". And variations regarding 'objective experience' or lack thereof.

But let's get back to the writer Belén Fernández (both entries are from February 2010):

Back in February I attended a rally in Caracas of the Venezuelan anti-government opposition, where various protesters took it upon themselves to educate me as to President Hugo Chávez’ latest transgressions. These included consulting Cuban assassins on the issue of the electricity shortage in Venezuela and emulating Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. (...)

While hitchhiking through Venezuela last year, my friend Amelia Opalinska and I visited a number of Barrio Adentro (Inside the Barrio) clinics, part of the joint Venezuelan-Cuban health initiative begun by Hugo Chávez. The clinics, it turned out, offered free services not only to sick Venezuelans but also to non-sick foreigners who were merely intrigued by the concept of not having to pay for medical procedures—and by clinical decorative schemes, which included portraits of Latin American revolutionaries as well as colorful construction paper calendars advertising the birthdays of staff members, Hugo Chávez, and Fidel Castro. (...)

So, from a cursory glance of her blog I believe we can deduce (among other things) that she's been there at least in 2009 and 2010, as well as that once more your argument is shall we say a 'least untruthful' one.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
You can do what you want. Obviously I struck a nerve.

I don't know what else to say. I am passionate about what I see here, because it is affecting me and everyone around me. I am not going to apologize for that. And if you feel guilty about it, that's on you. If you choose not to care about it, then that is your choice.

I didn't call YOU out, Scott. I am calling the collective "you" out.

You can think what you want of my posts. This shit is still happening here, whether I post about it or not.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
My remark was directed at those posting, not those not posting.

You take false umbridge.  Get over it.

 kurtster wrote: 

Venezuela is the darling of the Liberal / Hollywood / Media establishment.  To even mention that there is anything going on there is to have to eat crow.

Where is Sean Penn and Oliver Stone and all their buddies ? 

Better to be silent and ignore it than to have to reassess their beliefs regarding socialism.  That is their way, ignore what embarresesses them or doesn't fit their needs anymore.

 Mugro wrote: 
Ah, the old Mugro is back. You and Kurt are clearly The Only Ones Paying Attention. I don't know what you want me to say. But you two just should keep on calling me apathetic: that's a fanfuckingtastic way to get me to think more of your posts.

 Mugro wrote: 
Who the hell are you to presume that we're not paying attention, merely because we don't use THIS site as our sounding board? How dare you make that implication. How dare you belittle the struggles of any other group, niche or otherwise.

You want us to apologize because we can't carry everything on our shoulders? You want us to feel less than because we choose to put our actions, feelings, and concerns into something that just doesn't happen to be in front of YOUR face at the moment?

Bugger off. YOU are not the arbiter of what we need to concern ourselves with. That's up to each of us.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Well, I have to say, I haven't seen much going on on American college campuses to rally the cause of freedom for Venezuela yet. Nothing much in the American media either, except that wild eyed CNN reporter recounting how the Chavista thugs held them up at gunpoint and stole their camera equipment. lol.

It's funny how little George Takei has to say about the elimination of the freedom of sexual identity under a repressive leftist regime in Venezuela, as I have posted about previously. Interesting how most of his time is spent talking about Russia, which is interestingly no longer leftist but more fascist.

It is interesting that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch haven't mobilized to condemn the elimination of the freedom of the press here. Or the jailing and sodomizing of the student protesters here. Or the brutal beating of a Catholic priest who dared to speak out against the regime. If there have been statements, they have been tepid ones that have not been widely distributed.

Is this my one tune now? You bet. I've seen enough here to scar me for life. It's about time that some of you paid attention too.

 kurtster wrote: 
Your one tune gets pretty old sometimes, Kurt.

 Mugro wrote: 

Not really.

Note the apathy and resignation on display as well.

too predicable.

:sigh:

Interesting that a topic about a Socialist Republic has turned to how "crony capitalism" is capturing America.

 ScottN wrote: 
...and it grows more bitter with each election cycle.

 Red_Dragon wrote:I agree.  The political climate fueled by the super-pacs isn't about ideology or principle.  It's about gaining power.  A bitter partisan divide is very useful to that end. 

 Mugro wrote: 
It will happen here when it suits the purposes of the corporate/banking overlords.

 RichardPrins wrote: 


This is pretty funny - I read that article already and thought of you, Richard! Actually I was going to post it for you to save you the trouble. Are you sure you didn't write it under a nom de guerre? The writer clearly has never been to Venezuela, or she would not write so flippantly about the food shortages. Even the Chavistas are angry and sensitive about that, even though they of course attribute the causes to things other than what I would...

Towards another coup in Venezuela?
Protests are initiated by ultra-right factions of the opposition in the hope of an eventual systemic overhaul.

Five days after violent anti-government incitement in Venezuela led to the deaths of three people, the US State Department issued a press statement declaring: "The allegations that the United States is helping to organise protestors… is baseless and false. We support human rights and fundamental freedoms - including freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly - in Venezuela as we do in countries around the world."

Of course, US commitment to such freedoms is called into question by its own operating procedures, which have included police beatings of peaceful protesters and the incarceration and torture of whistleblower Chelsea Manning.

Maduro might  - meanwhile -  be forgiven for associating the US with efforts to overthrow the Venezuelan government given said country's intimate involvement in the 2002 coup d'etat against Maduro's predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez - not to mention its general history of fomenting opposition to less-than-obsequious Latin American regimes.

George Ciccariello-Maher, a professor at Drexel University and the author of "We Created Chavez: A People's History of the Venezuelan Revolution", remarked to me yesterday that, although "there's no reason to think that the US is directly involved in organising or calling these protests… we need to bear in mind that {it} continues to fund the very same opposition groups that have participated in violent, anti-democratic actions before and that continue to do so".

The great cake famine

The opposition cites insecurity, food shortages, and inflation as factors driving the protests. 

However, pinning the blame for all of Venezuela's ills on chavismo - the left-wing political ideology developed by Chavez and continued by Maduro - is transparently disingenuous. Or rather, it would be transparently disingenuous if the dominant international media were not intent on parroting opposition propaganda.

In 2010, for example, the New York Times horrified the world with the news that Venezuela under Chavez was deadlier than Iraq. As noted in Richard Gott's Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution, "much of the violence stemmed from the police itself (the highest crime rates were registered in the states of Miranda, Tachira and Zulia, where opposition governors ruled and controlled the local police forces)". (...)

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
I have to disagree with you there. Respectfully of course. Things are bad in the US, I agree with you there, but we aren't anywhere near what's going on in Venezuela. But I am with you as far as being really concerned for how things are going.

 sirdroseph wrote: 
Well, Israel is the most obvious one. But, you may be right about one thing: Obama has continued Bush's policy of non-engagement with the Chavistas. After Bush's more aggressive first term (and the events surrounding the 2002 coup attempt), the administration took a sharp turn away from open engagement with the Chavez regime. The feeling was that the more you ignore the guy, the less ammunition he can use to whip up his supporters against El Diablo. In some ways it worked, but of course in other ways it led to Chavez continuing to demonize the US anyway. Mocking and kicking out our Ambassador in 2009-2010, for example. Obama has continued this policy line of trying to diffuse tensions wherever possible and look for areas of agreement. Of course, that policy has not been a complete success either, as recent events can attest.

The United States doesn't need to take aggressive action anyway, as Maduro is destroying the Chavez dream faster than any outside power could have. By destroying the economy, he has created vast discontent in his own citizenry and has a vastly reduced international influence due to his inability to buy other nations' loyalty with free or reduced price oil. Venezuela is imploding under its own weight in a similar fashion to that of the Soviet Union in the late 80s.

 Mugro wrote: 
I expressed no doubt about your first-hand accounts. What's happening there will be happening here soon enough.