Recently Venezuela held its presidential elections with Maduro "winning" again. There has been widespread allegation of fraud, with a lot of western public figures also calling the election a sham. Certain south American leaders (those that you would consider on the right, Argentina, Chile, etc) believe the elections were rigged and publicly are challenging the results. Of course the US which has been wanting to get rid of Maduro for years, both due to his ties with Russia/China and the fact that it's a commie gov't is also calling the election a sham.

Feels like a powder keg right now. Lots of protests, neither side is accepting defeat. If this escalates and the military gets mobilized it could turn bad real fast.



Thoughts on if we had our hands in this?

https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-presidential-election-maduro-machado-edmundo-results-acee6c8cd3a8fc88086c2dd71963b759

Wait for the "freedom fighters" who're gonna be armed by uncle Sam's humanitarian "aid".
CIA wouldn't let go of such an opportunity to get rid of Maduro. Venezula has got lots of oil =>another reason to bring "democracy" to the country.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Jul 30 2024 07:19am

I do think we had at least some hand in this, at least in amplifying dissatisfaction and propping up the opposition. But both things can be true simultaneously, we want to get rid of him and he also cheated. Worst case outcome would be if this breaks out into some revolution with the US/Argentina and others funding one side while on the other you have the embattled Maduro with Russia/China/Cuba/other leftist SA countries support. I think it's unlikely because the US can't afford for oil to spike higher 3 months ahead of an election.

Venezuela has the biggest oil reserves in the world so the game is worth playing.

The Prize by Daniel Yergin has great historical account of Venezuelan oil discovery, the setting in of “Dutch disease” and subsequent series of economical mistakes that all led to rise of unsustainable socialism which led to where we are now.

I would watch closely efforts of Milei in Argentina to reform socialism and if Milei succeeds, Venezuelans should copy it.

America has the Second Amendment and so long as it continues having it, this can't happen in America.

The people of Venezuela had their firearms taken away while Maduro was in power and look what happened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_regulation_in_Venezuela
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicol%C3%A1s_Maduro

This post was edited by Mondain on Jul 30 2024 08:17am

Socialism is never going to work. People who want power are always the corrupt ones seeking personal gain. Socialism allows them to exploit public funds or anything related to taxes paid by the public. At some point, you have so much corruption, inefficiency and nepotism/clientelism that the state collapses and turns into a dictatorship to keep the ones in power safe.
The idea of communism isn't bad per say, and we, homo sapiens, the ones who made us into the people we are, were of collective mindset doing everything possible not only for themselves but for their own tribe/village. At city level, socialism/ communism fails hard, so true communism would be the abolishment of countries worldwide in favour of small communities. That's never going to happen. The elites would lose their "slaves".


Sad state of affairs, my friend. I'm afraid it's going to become much worse before the situation will stabilize again.

This post was edited by babun1024 on Jul 30 2024 10:27am

you can tell Venezuela isn't real socialism because they bother to even have the sham election. Democratic socialism is the "jumbo shrimp" of the political world.

hard to see a non-violent solution, we can't exactly start embargoing countries because they hold sham elections. if so by proxy we'd have to embargo all authoritarian regimes that wont hold elections at all. and there goes 3/4 of the world. seems like a good spot for a navy seal to get a solid tan, go on vacation, and maybe come back or maybe not.

never forget the biden admin went to Venezuela for oil...

inb4 but mondain they reinstated the sanctions.
They were the ones who lifted the sanctions you derp!
Biden/Harris went to an enemy for oil.

This post was edited by Mondain on Jul 30 2024 12:22pm

Venezuelan Criminal Gang (Tren del Llano) orders Nicolas Maduro to respect the real vote, otherwise they will begin their attack.



There you have your freedom fighters

Didn't the regime as well as Iran, tell Biden to go get fucked?