Venezuela’s Political Crisis Is Coming to a Head

[amw]

This Sunday, Venezuelans will vote to elect a constituent assembly that will be charged with rewriting the country’s constitution, which President Nicolás Maduro claims is the only way to restore stability to the troubled country after months - well, years - of unrest. The Venezuelan opposition, however, and much of the international community have

Comments

[ishumy]

Pretty sure the government will do whatever the fuck they want, because that mess hasn't been a democracy ever since they completely undermined the Parliament even though it was chosen by the people. It's incredibly shameful how they threatened State employees and people receiving food help to force them to vote in an election nobody wants. Hope all of them and their enablers die painfully.

[icetypejim]

Trying to stay abreast of the Venezuelan situation really just feels like a crapshoot of whose obvious self-serving propaganda I'm supposed to believe this week: Maduro's or the US-back right wing opposition's.

[ishumy]

Oh please, there's nothing that annoys me more when non-Venezuelans try to call out our opposition for being "US-backed" and "right-wing." It is insulting to our automony as people and as a country, and it is inaccurate, since most of the prominent opposition leaders, barring Lilian Tintori, haven't done anything to approach the US government for actual help. And calling them right wing is a slap to the face to the big political minds like Teodoro Petkoff and the late Pompeyo Márquez, who founded the Venezuelan Communist Party and have being against Chávez from day one.

[icetypejim]

How is it inaccurate when the US is openly discussing the fact that it funnels money to forces opposing Maduro in Venezuela and deliberately trying to undermine its economy, just like it's done to Latin American countries for years? I would think the consistent self-serving involvement of the US in Venezuela specifically and Latin American politics generally for decades upon decades through similar tactics would be more offensive and insulting to a Venezuelan sense of autonomy than me pointing that fact out? Like, is your argument that the US is not an imperialist country with a history of interfering in Latin America, that they're not financing the opposition because it suits their interests, or that said financing and other meddling has had no impact at all on the opposition

[ishumy]

You are doing what every US-centrist person who has some sympathy for the Venezuelan government does: go to the simplistic explanation of pushing the narrative that US interventionism is the main player in the Venezuelan crisis. It IS dismissing our autonomy and it is a huge contradiction, considering how US intervention was probably at its lowest during the Chávez government past the failed coup d'etat. You are ignoring the political corruption, the effects of the currency control and the governmental disinterest in investing in any industry other than the oil sector - because as far as I know, the US wasn't to blame for that mess. Blaming the formely overt US interventionism in the continent for every current problem is myopic and infantilizing

[soleiltropiques]

I agree that Maduro has done a lot of things that just aren't acceptable. OTOH the Bolivarian movement did achieve some important reductions in poverty under Chavez (for instance achieving a large reduction in infant mortality rate(1,2)). I'll concede however that it's doubtful that improvements in poverty are purely a result of his policies (especially given the fact that oil prices increased drastically in the early 2000s (4-6

[ishumy]

Chávez improved life for the poorest people will simultaneosly caging and bringing down what used to be a strong middle class. His contributions to wellfare and the fight against extreme poverty were commandable but ultimately failed to hold due to the same corruption and mismanagement of resources that brought the country to the current crisis. Sad to say, but true. However, he did redistribute resources amongst the poor in a better way than the governments before him, so there was that.

I do agree that US intervention is something we don't need, and I cringe at the bunch of dumbasses who want the US to sanction the country. Sanction the corrupt politicians in your territory by freezing their accounts, but the US has no right to apply any other kind of punishment to the country itself.