Venezuela

wwkirk

Divine
The CIA has already been caught shipping arms into Venezuela, so clearly it's more than plausible - it's policy:



We've done the same thing countless times in countless countries where we foment a US-sponsored coup. Elliott Abrams (Trump's recently appointed Special Representative for Venezuela) was convicted for withholding information from Congress when he did the same thing in Central America with the Iran-Contra affair (and was later pardoned by GH Bush, because our warmongering CIA/government supports this kind of covert warmongering BS - which is why warmongering CIA spook Mike Pompeo is now our Secretary of State).

I don't trust Democracy Now or the Venezuelan government.
 
I don't trust Democracy Now.
...but you trust the lying US corporate news media, the lying CIA and their warmongering spooks like Elliott Abrams and Mike Pompeo and John Effing Bolton, the lying State Department, etc...gotcha.

How many times does the US public need to be lied to - and then have those lies exposed (the imaginary WMD's in Iraq, the terrorist chemical weapons attacks in Syria falsely blamed on the Syrian government, the Iran-Contra affair, etc., etc.) before we realize that our government lies to us via their sycophants in the corporate news media constantly in order to manufacture consensus for more mass murdering in foreign lands?

What's it going to take before people wake up to the fact that the US is not a benign advocate for peace and prosperity in the world? We're the single greatest threat to human life and political stability all around the world, and we have been for at least 70 years.
 
I disagree. I see us as the exact opposite.
^ And billions of your tax dollars have been spent to ensure that you and millions of other Americans hold precisely that view, despite the mountains of empirical evidence to the contrary.

Note: Good work, CIA and NSA and establishment puppets in the corporate news media: some people are still convinced that you're benevolent angels making the world a better place even as we murder millions of innocent people all around the world in the pursuit of oil, money, and power.
 

wwkirk

Divine
^ And billions of your tax dollars have been spent to ensure that you and millions of other Americans hold precisely that view, despite the mountains of empirical evidence to the contrary.

Note: Good work, CIA and NSA and establishment puppets in the corporate news media: some people are still convinced that you're benevolent angels making the world a better place even as we murder millions of innocent people all around the world in the pursuit of oil, money, and power.
Nothing you say will change my mind. I just think it's sad you have such a negative view of your own country.
 
Nothing you say will change my mind.
^ That's called "brainwashing." The moment your viewpoint becomes impervious to change via new information, you've stopped being an autonomous mind and become somebody's robot. In this case, the military-intelligence-media cabal's robot.

I just think it's sad you have such a negative view of your own country.
I have a great love for the Constitution and the founding principles of our nation...all of which have been grossly subverted and overturned in every way imaginable over the last century or so.

I think that it's unspeakably tragic that our country has turned Iraq and Libya and Syria from prosperous and safe nations into ISIS-infested hellscapes of death and despair...and we're now ramping up to do the same thing in Venezuela...and yet millions of Americans still think that endless mass murder operations represent a benevolent and humanitarian foreign policy.
 

wwkirk

Divine
^ That's called "brainwashing." The moment your viewpoint becomes impervious to change via new information, you've stopped being an autonomous mind and become somebody's robot. In this case, the military-intelligence-media cabal's robot.


I have a great love for the Constitution and the founding principles of our nation...all of which have been grossly subverted and overturned in every way imaginable over the last century or so.

I think that it's unspeakably tragic that our country has turned Iraq and Libya and Syria from prosperous and safe nations into ISIS-infested hellscapes of death and despair...and we're now ramping up to do the same thing in Venezuela...and yet millions of Americans still think that endless mass murder operations represent a benevolent and humanitarian foreign policy.
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No you missed my point completely.

I'm not saying that people who submit their intellectual autonomy to The State are Nazis. I'm saying that submission of intellectual autonomy to The State is an indication of brainwashing. The Nazi's employed brainwashing through their propaganda machine, and the US does the exact same thing through our corporate news media (which is now nothing more than a megaphone for the US war machine).

That's the only rational explanation for the millions of Americans who have watched our monstrous military machine reduce entire prosperous nations to smoldering ISIS-infested hellscapes (and each time under false pretexts that were later disproved)...and yet still think that we're "helping" people in foreign lands by murdering them indiscriminately for money, oil, and other natural resources.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Venezuela made its own bed in this case, the socialist dictatorship starting with Hugo Chavez destroyed that country...
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Kchoo

At Peace.
This is a global progress, and there are many facets that go way beyond American involvement or lack thereof.

Pointing fingers at any one entity demonstrates a staged opinion, no matter where it comes from. The truth is in the middle. The reality is the outcome. I think in 50 years, history will show American involvement to be an asset to a positive long term result and for overall progress and pretty much every nasty circumstance we see ourselves in right now will find a global equilibrium.
 
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Toroid

Founding Member
The US is withdrawing its diplomats from Venezuela.
US is withdrawing all remaining diplomatic personnel from Venezuela | Daily Mail Online
US State Department first withdrew all dependents in January and reduced embassy staff to a minimum
  • Said its decision this week 'reflects the deteriorating situation in Venezuela, as well as the conclusion that the presence of US diplomatic staff at the embassy has become a constraint on US policy'
  • It did not specify what exact day the personnel would be withdrawn from the embassy in capital Caracas
  • Venezuelans started looting supermarkets in Caracas on Sunday, as power outages reached their fourth day
  • At least 15 patients with kidney disease died after dialysis machines stopped working during power outage

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFB6SSkkR0g
 
Venezuela made its own bed in this case, the socialist dictatorship starting with Hugo Chavez destroyed that country...
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Ever notice how everyone starts calling democratically elected politicians "dictators" and their governments "regimes" once the CIA sets its sights another disastrous regime change operation abroad? That's called "manufacturing consensus for war," step one in the US imperialism playbook.

Chavez won re-election in 2006 with 63% of the vote, in an election that the Organization of American States and the Carter Center deemed to be among the highest in election integrity in the world (by comparison, the US elections consistently rank at the bottom among the developed nations).

Economists cite the drop in oil prices around 2012 as the leading cause of economic decline in Venezuela.

The real reason the US hates the Venezuelan government - and is imposing crushing economic sanctions on them to destroy the country - is that they've been fiercely opposed to major US corporations like Exxon. And like Norway, they nationalized the ownership of their oil reserves to fund healthcare and education and food programs for their people.

I don't agree with all of their policies - they've done some stupid things (but so do we - like spending >$700B/year on a war machine that we can't afford while imposing austerity on the electorate), but history clearly demonstrates that US intervention in these kinds of situations always yields calamitous results. When Hillary Clinton allowed the coup of the democratically elected President Zelaya in Honduras in 2009, the entire nation crumbled into chaos and unleashed a massive immigration crisis that we're still struggling with.

Now Trump is actively trying to do the same thing to Venezuela because he wants their oil to go to US corporations. The leaders of both major US political parties are shit stains upon humanity, warmongering imperialist corporatists, and none of us should be parroting CIA talking points in favor of even more catastrophic wars in nations where we have no business intervening and where the populace opposes our involvement.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
Ever notice how everyone starts calling democratically elected politicians "dictators" and their governments "regimes" once the CIA sets its sights another disastrous regime change operation abroad?

Nope I haven't noticed because I'm not parroting anyone's words, I'm telling you he is a dictator because that is my viewpoint of him ever since he was "elected" which was anything but democratic and he stayed in power using the same tactics that got him the power to destroy his country...The Venezuelan government destroyed that country, not the US, it's been on a self guided path of destitution for many years without US involvement, that's what socialism does when a dictator is at the helm, the people suffer as a result...

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Nope I haven't noticed because I'm not parroting anyone's words, I'm telling you he is a dictator because that is my viewpoint of him ever since he was "elected" which was anything but democratic and he stayed in power using the same tactics that got him the power to destroy his country...The Venezuelan government destroyed that country, not the US, it's been on a self guided path of destitution for many years without US involvement, that's what socialism does when a dictator is at the helm, the people suffer as a result...
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Well if the opposition party hadn't opposed the presence of UN election observers, maybe we'd have some empirical data to question the election results - but they did oppose UN election monitoring, so all we have is their word for it, and obviously they're biased.

And Venezuela's Supreme Tribunal of Justice ruled the National Assembly's attempt to install the unelected Juan Guaidó as President, as unconstitutional.

Sure it's a mess. But the only reason the US cares is because Venezuala is sitting on huge oil reserves, and the Venezuelan people don't want our brand of "help."

The US doesn't give a damn about the suffering of the Venezuelan people - and the Venezuelan people know it. The US doesn't even care about our own people - we're the only developed nation without universal healthcare and we could abolish homelessness for $20B/year but it's not even brought up for a vote...while we shovel over $700B/year to the rapacious war machine that's been setting the world on fire for the last 20+ years.

There are far more violent and oppressive leaders around the world - funny how we don't care about them unless they're sitting on top of huge oil reserves. Must be a coincidence. After all, the media has convinced the masses that we're the Boy Scouts of global justice...even as we leave a trail of smoldering terrorist-infested hellscapes behind everywhere we get involved.

The Venezuelan people need to work out their own problems - and that's exactly what they want to do. The only reason this story is even in the media is because the Trump administration and our warmongering corporatist political leaders in both parties and the CIA want to exploit and exacerbate the instability to secure their natural resources.

I can't fathom how any American can see the horrific carnage and the global terrorism epidemic that we've created by pursuing these kinds of CIA-sponsored "regime change operations" in Iraq and Libya and Syria...and yet support more of the same kind of calamitous involvement in Venezuela. The shortest path to a smoldering ash heap littered with corpses in Venezuela, is via US involvement there.
 

nivek

As Above So Below
I can't fathom how any American can see the horrific carnage and the global terrorism epidemic that we've created by pursuing these kinds of CIA-sponsored "regime change operations" in Iraq and Libya and Syria...and yet support more of the same kind of calamitous involvement in Venezuela. The shortest path to a smoldering ash heap littered with corpses in Venezuela, is via US involvement there.

I've not denied your assessment of the CIA or our government's 'tactics' in meddling with the affairs of other countries, to a certain extend I agree with you which is why I liked your initial post...I think in this case the blame for Venezuela's current condition lays not with the CIA nor our government but solely it is a self-destruction by both the people and those they "elected"...

Indeed there are countries that are directly or indirectly affected by US meddling, like Iran, Iraq, and Libya, the one of those three I actually feel more sympathy for is Libya for some reason I cannot explain...That country was rich and was on a good path to stability and peace, Muammar Gaddafi wanted to see Africa United and I think he could have set that path in motion...

No, I don't think we can blame the US for the condition Venezuela is currently in, this one is self-inflicted...

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I've not denied your assessment of the CIA or our government's 'tactics' in meddling with the affairs of other countries, to a certain extend I agree with you which is why I liked your initial post...I think in this case the blame for Venezuela's current condition lays not with the CIA nor our government but solely it is a self-destruction by both the people and those they "elected"...

Indeed there are countries that are directly or indirectly affected by US meddling, like Iran, Iraq, and Libya, the one of those three I actually feel more sympathy for is Libya for some reason I cannot explain...That country was rich and was on a good path to stability and peace, Muammar Gaddafi wanted to see Africa United and I think he could have set that path in motion...

No, I don't think we can blame the US for the condition Venezuela is currently in, this one is self-inflicted...
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Yeah I think we destroyed Libya because Qaddafi's proposed Gold Dinar as a new African oil-trading currency threatened the PetroDollar. We've either destroyed, or are presently extremely hostile to, every nation which has posed a threat to the PetroDollar - the Fed loves making trillions in profits by printing greenbacks for oil purchases, and imo the banks use our military as a mercenary army to protect those profits.

I'm not convinced that any of the narratives about Venezuela's economic woes being pitched by the corporate news media are accurate. Economists blame dropping oil prices for the initial decline in their economy. But regardless of how it all started, our current sanctions are making the situation far, far worse, as intended.

Here's the State Department's list of sanctions imposed on Venezuela since 2014:

Venezuela-Related Sanctions

And the latest oil sanctions are clearly aimed at staging a US-led economic-political coup of the country:

U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Venezuela’s Oil Industry
Actions aimed at crippling President Maduro’s government and empowering an opposition leader


"Meanwhile, Venezuela's government, which relies on oil exports for 90% of its revenue, is searching for other customers for its crude."
How US sanctions on Venezuela are rippling through oil markets - CNN

This is exactly the kind of thing we always do to destabilize a country before we reduce it to a smoldering cinder of death and despair.
 
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