Yes the Right wingers are going nuts making the case against Maduro….of course using socialism as the premise for the failure of the government….but nothing they are doing is new…..the US has a game plan for regime change that has not changed in decades.
Seriously! It is the same plan almost every time.
We should all beware of those regime change charlatans….all of them…..
The tragedy of U.S. foreign policy has been that in its quest to do good globally, it has invited all kinds of charlatans to lobby Washington to do their bidding. The language of these actors is seductive and frequently plays on Americans’ reverence for freedom and democracy. In the Middle East, the cacophony of voices demanding U.S. support has time and again entangled America in regime change wars that can’t be won.
While these foreign actors purport to support U.S. interests, their narratives are often self-serving and their policy alternatives detrimental to the livelihoods and democratic aspirations of regional peoples. Indeed, the track record of U.S. interventions is pretty poor, especially for the Iraqi and Iranian people, who for years have suffered under the weight of policies spearheaded by Washington-based special interests and expats.
Like they say……some things never change…..especially when we allow neocons near the power center….
On September 15, 1970, U.S. President Richard Nixon and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger authorized the U.S. government to do everything possible to undermine the incoming government of the socialist president of Chile, Salvador Allende. Nixon and Kissinger, according to the notes kept by CIA Director Richard Helms, wanted to “make the economy scream” in Chile; they were “not concerned [about the] risks involved.” War was acceptable to them as long as Allende’s government was removed from power. The CIA started Project FUBELT, with $10 million as a first installment to begin the covert destabilization of the country
U.S. business firms, such as the telecommunication giant ITT, the soft drink maker Pepsi and copper monopolies such as Anaconda and Kennecott, put pressure on the U.S. government once Allende nationalized the copper sector on July 11, 1971. Chileans celebrated this day as the Day of National Dignity (Dia de la Dignidad Nacional). The CIA began to make contact with sections of the military seen to be against Allende. Three years later, on September 11, 1973, these military men moved against Allende, who died in the regime change operation. The United States “created the conditions,” as U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger put it, to which U.S. President Richard Nixon answered, “that is the way it is going to be played.” Such is the mood of international gangsterism.
American economic warfare is causing more damage to the people of Venezuela than on the government…..
Alfred de Zayas, who last year became the first UN rapporteur to visit Venezuela for 21 years, also suggested in his recently published UN report, that US sanctions on the country are illegal and could amount to “crimes against humanity” under international law.
Mr De Zayas, an American lawyer, writer, historian and former secretary of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC), presented his Venezuela report to the HRC in September.
In the report, which can be read in full here, Mr De Zayas recommended, among other actions, that the International Criminal Court investigate economic sanctions against Venezuela as possible crimes against humanity under Article 7 of the Rome Statute.
Trump has picked a new “enemy” and he will use a tried and true tactic…..sanctions!
But ask yourself just how effective are sanctions?
Plus what is meant by economic sanctions?
These are……
restrictions, i.e., a form of punishment, which a country or group of countries impose on another nation. The sanctions aim to persuade it to change policy.
The most common economic sanctions include trade barriers and refusing visas. Governments may also restrict financial activities.
An embargo may be placed on just one product, as occurred in the 1970s when OPEC imposed an oil embargo.
And here is the telling part of the Trump policy…..The country initiating economic sanctions may not necessarily have noble motives. It could well be using its economic might to coerce another nation into doing what it wants
With that said and defined….the BBC did an excellent analysis of the policy of economic sanctions….
Professor Adam Roberts is a research fellow at Oxford University – one of the great British figures in the study of international relations.
“There are very few cases where you can definitely identify sanctions as having had a success, except sometimes in combination with other factors,” he says.
“Arguably they contributed something to the change in white minority Rhodesia that led to black majority rule; arguably the sanctions against South Africa were one factor that contributed to change there.”
But, he insists, sanctions were only one factor among many, including guerrilla opposition in the country itself.
Then the Brookings released a report on sanctions…..
Economic sanctions are increasingly being used to promote the full range of American foreign policy objectives. Yet all too often sanctions turn out to be little more than expressions of U.S. preferences that hurt American economic interests without changing the target’s behavior for the better. As a rule, sanctions need to be less unilateral and more focused on the problem at hand. Congress and the executive branch need to institute far more rigorous oversight of sanctions, both prior to adopting them and regularly thereafter, to ensure that the expected benefits outweigh likely costs and that sanctions accomplish more than alternative foreign policy tools.
Sanctions are a great slogan but do very little to change things….one good example was Iraq of the 1990s…they faced sanctions but the only thing it did was make things worse for the Iraqi people…..
In August of 1990, Saddam Hussein sent Iraqi troops into Kuwait, Iraq’s oil-rich neighbor, mistakenly assuming that other Arab countries in the region and the United States would offer no support to Kuwait. The United Nations reacted immediately and, at the urging of the US and the UK, put in place economic sanctions through Resolution 661 along with a naval blockade to enforce the sanctions with Resolution 665. In November, the UN passed Resolution 668 giving Iraq until January 15, 1991, to withdraw or face military consequences from United Nations troops.
Challenging United States hegemony is never an easy course. A county need not be socialist — it is enough to either voice aspirations toward socialism, or merely demonstrate a pattern of not doing as Washington dictates.
So here we go again, this time with Venezuela. Ironically for a country that the corporate media insistently claims has been ruled by two “dictators” (remember that Hugo Chávez was routinely denounced in the same ways that Nicolás Maduro is today) it would be difficult to find a country with more opportunities for grassroots democracy and for everyday people to participate in the decisions that affect their lives and neighborhoods. There has been backtracking on some of this, and there are legitimate complaints about the top-down manner in which the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) is run. The U.S. government is in no position to point fingers, however, given its history in Latin America and the widespread voter suppression that is a regular feature of U.S. elections.
Socialist is a great theme to prey of the fears of idiots…use it liberally and the people will accept anything….not matter how stupid it is…….
Since you have become more educated on the economic sanctions things we move on to call it something different….a form of WMD.
American economic sanctions have been the worst crime against humanity since World War Two. America’s economic sanctions have killed more innocent people than all of the nuclear, biological and chemical weapons ever used in the history of mankind.
The fact that for America the issue in Venezuela is oil, not democracy, will surprise only those who watch the news and ignore history. Venezuela has the world’s largest oil reserves on the planet.
America seeks control of Venezuela because it sits atop the strategic intersection of the Caribbean, South and Central American worlds. Control of the nation, has always been a remarkably effective way to project power into these three regions and beyond.
Time to watch the Hawks in the country, Bolton, Pompeo and a president that cannot move beyond some political symbol like a “wall”……if this continues then it could not end well for all involved.
Our cracker jack Chief of Staff Bolton seems to to hunting along those lines…….
During a Monday White House press briefing national security adviser John Bolton was photographed carrying a notepad — presumably as he was fresh out of a national security meeting — and one of the things which appears to be handwritten on the pad is “5,000 troops to Colombia.”
The contents of the notepad were spotted almost immediately by multiple journalists online after an NBC news release featuring the AP photo was published. More precisely the full contents appear to read:
Personally and I am not alone do not think that US troops need to participate in any any shape of form in the situation in Venezuela.By Dou
The Trump Administration is backing Juan Guaidó, the 35-year-old leader of Venezuela’s National Assembly as the legitimate leader of the country.
Many in Washington, like Sen. Marco Rubio, who has urged the Trump Administration to publicly support Mr. Guaidó, are hopeful that the groundswell of support across the international community for Maduro’s political opponents will lead to Maduro’s removal from power by forces inside Venezuela. This would be the best outcome.
For others, the role of the Reagan Administration in removing Ferdinand Marcos from power in the Philippines is a useful precedent. The problem with this approach is that the Trump Administration risks getting caught in the unsavory trap of backing regime change via an internal coup d’etat cloaked in the legitimacy of the National Assembly, designed to confirm Washington’s preference regarding who enjoys the support of the Venezuelan People and who precisely should rule in Caracas.
This just keeps getting closer and closer to all out conflict…..time for the US to step back and let the people of Venezuela decide their own future……I am thinking about eh cluster fuck the US caused in Chile in the 1970s…..it was not pretty and Venezuela will not be pretty.
Nicolás Maduro was re-elected Venezuela’s president last May by fraudulent means, as regional governments and independent observers noted at the time, and his leadership lacks legitimate authority. Maduro, in office if not in power since 2013, has proved himself an incompetent and unimpressive successor to the late socialist president, Hugo Chávez, on whose name and reputation he shamelessly trades.
Maduro has disastrously mismanaged Venezuela’s potentially wealthy economy, overseeing severe shortages of food and medicine and hyperinflation. His authoritarian rule, enforced by violence, has exacerbated social divisions, undermined democratic institutions and free media, caused millions to flee abroad and alienated neighbouring countries.
My small expertise is in the Middle East….but these days the US seems to be beating the war drums for Venezuela…..I wish I could give an expert comment but I will have to depend on the writings of others….
The president has committed to sanctions against the Venezuela, economic sanctions……
The Trump administration imposed sanctions Monday on the state-owned oil company of Venezuela, PDVSA, a potentially critical economic move aimed at increasing pressure on President Nicolas Maduro to cede power to the opposition, the AP reports. National security adviser John Bolton and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced the measures against the company. They are also aimed at boosting Maduro’s rival, opposition leader Juan Guaido, whom the administration recognized last week as Venezuela’s legitimate leader. The sanctions will include a freeze on any assets the firm may have in US jurisdictions and bar Americans from doing business with it. Senator Marco Rubio, a vocal critic of Maduro who has called for such sanctions, welcomed the move even before it was announced.
This economic war against all the Troubles in Venezuela……the problems they are having is a direct response to past sanction……
The political and economic crisis facing Venezuela is being endlessly pointed to as proof of the superiority of the free market.
Images and portrayals of Venezuelans rioting in the streets over high food costs, empty grocery stores, medicine shortages, and overflowing garbage bins are the headlines, and the reporting points to socialism as the cause.
Indeed, corporate-owned, mainstream media advises Americans to look at the inflation and food lines in Venezuela, and then repeat to themselves clichés they heard in elementary school about how “Communism just doesn’t work.”
Okay we know of Trump’s ideas for the future of Venezuela…..then there are those that laugh at them….
Ever since the Trump administration announced that it was no longer recognizing the legitimacy of the elected government of Venezuela I’ve been arguing with people on social media about this president’s brazen coup attempt in that country.
The people arguing with me in favor of Trump’s interventionism are almost exclusively Trump supporters, with leftists and antiwar libertarians more or less on my side with this issue and rank-and-file centrists mostly preferring to sit this one out except to periodically mumble something about it being a distraction from the Mueller investigation.
The saga of the fate of Venezuela is on-going….I have been waiting to see the response of the Dems to the policies coming up around Trump.
So far nothing…..those wanting my vote in 2020 need to get their butts in gear and formulate a response to Trump’s war drums……so far Tulsi and Bernie are the only ones that have a voice.
As President Donald Trump’s administration backed the overthrow of President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Democratic senators and representatives in Congress were largely silent.
Some influential Democrats sided with Trump and expressed support for Juan Guaido, the right-wing opposition figure who declared himself interim president of Venezuela on January 23. But only three Democrats—Representative Ro Khanna, Representative Tulsi Gabbard, and Senator Bernie Sanders—spoke out against the decision by the U.S. government to give a green light to Guaido and the opposition to oust Maduro.
Representative Julian Castro, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Senator Kamala Harris, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, all Democrats who have announced they will run for president in 2020, apparently had nothing to say about the right-wing coup attempt supported by the Trump administration.
The party that use to be a party that would buck any unnecessary wars….those were the days that are now dwindling with each new “war”…..
As the nation continued to reel from President Donald Trump’s shock decision last month to remove all U.S. troops from Syria, news came Wednesday that an unknown number of US soldiers were among at least 15 killed in a bombing in northern Syria. Amid such continued violence, one would think the president’s withdrawal would have ever more urgency. And yet, just about everyone in Washington has attacked his decision to pull out.
The reflexive hatred for Trump that dominates the national conversation is bad for the US, especially when it comes to foreign policy. This is not to say that the president isn’t a flawed figure; after all, I’ve spent the better part of two years critiquing most of his policies. Still, when the man demonstrates prudent judgment—as in his recent calls to pull US troops out of Syria and Afghanistan—he should be applauded. But that’s unlikely to happen in a divided America, as long as an interventionist, bipartisan consensus runs the show in Washington.
While I was watching the Neocons go after Iran…….Venezuela appeared from behind the curtain…..
Before the US can move into violence mode they need to generate sympathy for such a move….we have done it for Iraq in 1991, Iraq in 2003, Libya, Syria, etc etc……
And now the US is got Venezuela in its sights….that is nothing new…they have been in those sights ever since the people of Venezuela elected Chavez as their leader.
Let me digress a bit…..we have this thing called the Monroe Doctrine…..a document that was released in 1823…. four basic points: (1) the United States would not interfere in the internal affairs of or the wars between European powers; (2) the United States recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere; (3) the Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization; and (4) any attempt by a European power to oppress or control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States.
Interesting and yet the US seems to be free to interfere any time they dislike the doings in the countries f the Western Hemisphere.
Okay digression is over……fast forward to the last couple of years….
Now that you are caught up…..after the most recent election in the country and the US has a message to the winner…..
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the US is going to ignore Nicolas Maduro’s demand for all American diplomats to leave Venezuela within 72 hours—because the US no longer considers Maduro to be the president of Venezuela. Pompeo said in a statement after Maduro’s ultimatum that the US will conduct its affairs through Juan Guaido, who declared himself to be interim president on Wednesday. Reuters reports. “The United States does not recognize the Maduro regime as the government of Venezuela,” Pompeo said. “Accordingly the United States does not consider former president Nicolas Maduro to have the legal authority to break diplomatic relations.”
Maduro, who was inaugurated for a second term Jan. 10, said the opposition leader’s claim to the presidency was part of a US plot, the New York Times reports. “I am the only president of Venezuela,” Maduro said Wednesday. “We do not want to return to the 20th century of gringo interventions and coups d’état.” The US recognized Guaido as the troubled country’s new leader Wednesday, as did Canada and numerous Latin American countries, including neighbors Colombia and Brazil.
(Is the US using our diplomats as fodder against Maduro?)
The US says that Juan Gauido is the president of Venezuela……who?
Let’s meet “el presidente”…….
(GPA) — Now that the latest term of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has started and the western powers and their proxies refuse to recognize the Bolivarian government, the imperial states are in a mad dash to find a new face for the Venezuelan opposition. Now it seems that man has been found and the race is on, with state after state anointing the 35-year-old engineer Juan Guaidó.
Guaidó, now being called the “interim President” by everyone from Jair Bolsonaro, the Organization of American States (OAS), to Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau, is the current president of the Venezuelan National Assembly. However, according to the states looking for a regime change in Venezuela, Guaidó isn’t just head of the parliament but also the rightful leader of Venezuela.
Now that the US has chosen who will lead Venezuela they start with the chest thumping (a typical neocon tactic that Trump is embracing)……
It’s to the point where President Trump says “all options are on the table” against Maduro, with the immediate focus being some way to divert Venezuela’s money from oil exports to Guaido, instead of the Maduro government.
John Bolton was setting that out as a priority earlier in the week, though he conceded that officials weren’t clear yet how that would be accomplished. Citgo, Venezuela’s main foreign energy asset, is already gearing up for a fight, envisioning attempts at the company being taken over on behalf of the Guaido government, or otherwise trying to hijack their revenue stream before it gets back to Venezuela.
(antiwar.com)
Battle lines being drawn……a video is call for…..
But for real the battle lines are being drawn…..
Below is a summary of support for the rival leaders.
And to make this a neocon threat of regime change Trump has sent a Ultra warhawk as special envoy…..
Elliott Abrams, a controversial neoconservative figure who was entangled in the Iran-Contra affair, has been named as a Trump administration special envoy overseeing policy toward Venezuela, which has been rocked by a leadership crisis.
Abrams’ appointment, announced Friday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, is something of a surprise — President Donald Trump nixed his 2017 bid to be deputy secretary of State after learning that Abrams had criticized him.
What gives the US the right to decide who leads a country in South America? The Monroe Doctrine has been used many times by the US for regime change….Guatemala, Cuba, Chile, Haiti, etc etc…….
The problem for the US is that other powerful country are not in the boat with the US……..Maduro still has the support of powerful countries including China, Turkey, Russia, and Iran, the AP reports. China urged the US to stay out of the crisis Thursday, saying it “opposes external intervention in Venezuela.”
All this faux bravado may be just idle words…..
Events in Venezuela shook the world on Wednesday, with many left wondering if January 23 was the beginning of the end for the government of President Nicolas Maduro and the beginning of a new chapter of U.S. interventionism.
Here are five reasons why it’s unlikely that this latest drama in the South American nation is the “endgame” that the mainstream media is hyping up.
But one cannot keep an accurate scorecard…..the players pro and con….
Below is a summary of support for the rival leaders.
MADURO
* The top brass of Venezuela’s military has shown no sign of leaving Maduro’s side. Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino reaffirmed his support in a Tweet on Wednesday, saying Venezuela’s armed forces disavowed any self-proclaimed president.
* The Supreme Court, stacked with Maduro loyalists, has remained solidly behind the socialist leader, ruling earlier this week that all actions taken by the congress – led by Guaido – are null and void.
* Russia called Maduro the country’s legitimate president and accused the United States of trying to usurp power in Venezuela, warning Washington against military intervention.
* President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey stood by Maduro, urging him to “stand tall”, Erdogan’s spokesman said.
* China voiced support for Maduro, saying it opposed outside interference in Venezuela and backed efforts to protect its independence and stability.
* State oil company PDVSA [PDVSA.UL], which accounts for most of Venezuela’s export earnings, stood by Maduro. “We have no other president” besides Maduro, said PDVSA President and Oil Minister Manuel Quevedo, a career military officer.
* A few left-leaning governments in the region, including Cuba and Bolivia, continue to back Maduro. Mexico, where leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador took office last year, has dropped the previous government’s opposition to Maduro and said it will follow a policy of non-intervention.
* A diehard core of “Chavistas” in Venezuela, including armed gangs in poor urban areas, remain core to late leader Hugo Chavez’s exhortation to support Maduro come what may.
(ONe point “stacking the Supreme Court with loyalists…..is that not what the parties in this country do?)
GUAIDO
* The United States recognised Guaido shortly after he proclaimed himself president, saying it would use its “economic and diplomatic power” to restore democracy in Venezuela.
* Numerous right-leaning Latin American governments, including Brazil, Colombia and Argentina, also recognised Guaido.
* The European Union’s executive called for new elections but declined to explicitly recognise Guaido as president. An EU statement urged authorities to respect his “civil rights, freedom and safety” and allow Venezuelans to freely determine their future.
* French President Emmanuel Macron saluted the courage of Venezuelans marching for freedom and called Maduro’s 2018 election victory illegal.
* A spokesman for British Prime Minister Theresa May said Maduro’s election was neither free nor fair, and expressed support for Guaido as national assembly head.
* The German government said Venezuela’s parliament had “a special role” to play in securing Venezuela’s “free future”.
* There are some signs that support for the opposition is expanding beyond its traditional middle- and upper-class areas. Several protests against Maduro have broken out in working-class neighbourhoods and slums this week.
* Some low-ranking military officers have expressed discontent with the government. The government on Monday said it suppressed a military revolt after a group of officers stole weapons, kidnapped officers, and demanded Maduro’s removal.
Watch This Story! It will get worse before it gets better.
These days it seems that the US just throws a dart at a map of the world and where it lands we will attack in some form or another.
Apparently the dart flew straight and true and hit the South American country of Venezuela.
For about 20 years the US government has been dropping not so subtle hints of some form of “action” against Venezuela….It was not just from Our Dear Leader…no as far back as GW Bush Venezuela has been in our sights.
Pompeo declined to offer any specifics, which is probably going to lead to speculation of something major coming, since recent reports of US policy toward Venezuela has been uniformly hostile.
None of this is to say that the new actions are liable to be anything so grand. The fact that the US has been known to be talking about such measures, however, is likely to add to serious concerns about US intentions ahead of any announcements.
(antiwar.com)
True to his Neocon upbringing Pompeo has pretty much threatened everyone with some sort of American violence.
When did we become the country that dictates everyone’s internal policies?
Over the weekend while I was lounging with my honey, daughter, granddaughter and son-in-law news came about that the elected president of Venezuela had been a target of an assassination attempt…..
“This was an assassination attempt, they tried to assassinate me,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said in blaming a drone attack Saturday on a far-right plot. As Reuters reports, an explosives-laden drone detonated at a military event in Caracas as Maduro was speaking, leaving the leftist leader unharmed but injuring seven members of Venezuela’s National Guard.
The event was to celebrate the 81st anniversary of the National Guard. Maduro said he saw a “flying device” that he thought might be part of a fireworks display in his honor; the AP describes him as “visibly shaken” after two explosions were heard. Maduro is blaming rightist detractors he says are linked to Colombia and Florida; he says some “material authors” of the attack are in custody.
My first thought was….”did the Trump people try to assassinate Maduro?”
That post has a bunch of historical facts in it……especially the Monroe Doctrine…..but let’s look at the US and its involvement in conflict in the hemisphere…..
The US has a long rich history of interfering in the affairs of South and Central America…..is this incident just another?
Keeping with the Hispanic tone that I started with my last post……
Most of us old farts remember all the problems we had with Venezuela when it was lead by Chavez…..then a new guy was elected president….both here in the US and in Venezuela…..and the new US president wanted to push up his sleeves and invade Venezuela……
As an August meeting in the Oval Office to discuss sanctions on Venezuela was concluding, President Trump turned to his top aides and asked an unsettling question: With a fast unraveling Venezuela threatening regional security, why can’t the US just invade? The suggestion stunned those at the meeting, including Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security adviser HR McMaster, reports the AP. According to a senior administration official familiar with what was said, McMaster and others took turns explaining to Trump how military action could backfire and risk losing hard-won support among Latin American governments to punish President Nicolas Maduro. But Trump pushed back. Although he gave no indication he was about to order up military plans, he pointed to what he considered past cases of successful gunboat diplomacy, like the invasions of Panama and Grenada.
The idea, despite his aides’ best attempts to shoot it down, would persist in Trump’s head. The next day, Aug. 11, Trump alarmed friends and foes alike with talk of a “military option” to remove Maduro from power. The public remarks were initially dismissed in US policy circles as bluster, but shortly afterward, he raised the issue with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, per the US official. Two high-ranking Colombian officials confirmed the report. Then in September, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Trump discussed it again in a private dinner with leaders from four Latin American allies that included Santos, saying, “My staff told me not to say this.” Trump then went around asking each leader if they were sure they didn’t want a military solution, per the official, who added that each leader told Trump in clear terms they were sure. Eventually, McMaster pulled Trump aside and walked him through the dangers of an invasion.
We came back from a brink…but now the people that talked the “Very intelligent” Trump from launching an invasion of Venezuela have been replaced with yes men…..will common sense prevail now?
Time for me to venture into the arena of the region of the Monroe Doctrine……all that just means I am going to offer a bit of info about the region of Latin America.
For a couple of decades Latin America has moved toward a growing democracy movement…..and in the last few years that trend has evaporated and now more and more autocrats are coming to power.
Recently Venezuela just held an election and as usual something went wrong…..meaning that Washington will not appreciate the outcome……
Despite Venezuela’s people starving and refugees pouring out of the country, President Nicolás Maduro will stay in office for now. In a deeply flawed election marred by low voter turnout and opposition abstention, Maduro bested his opponents with nearly 70 percent of the vote. With his re-election, dictatorship is on the march in Latin America for the first time in a generation.
Democracy in Latin America has taken a beating over the past century. Every country in the region has toyed with it and periodically discarded it. But with the exception of Cuba, every Latin American country also returned to democracy in recent decades, marking a sea change in freedom and political competition. As recently as a few years ago, some expressed optimism that the end of dictatorship in Latin America was nigh.
Maudro of Venezuela has not been a friend to the US, neither was his predecessor, Chavez (amazing that few can remember the name when 10 years ago he was about to start a war with the US)…….so what happens when someone is elected that DC dos not want in power?
Don’t hurt yourself. We meddle into their elections.
Watching the current eruptions and flowing lava in Hawaii is strangely similar to observing the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.
In both cases, the situations are fiery, unpredictable and very, very dangerous. And both seem to be moving in slow motion, but manage to convey a sense of a true disaster looming ahead.
Over the past weekend, incumbent Nicolas Maduro won an obviously rigged presidential election with a record low turnout; inflation is too high to sensibly measure; there are widespread food and medicine shortages; the oil industry is effectively out of commission; and millions of Venezuelans are fleeing the country. Violence levels are thought to be the highest in the world, surpassing those of Afghanistan, Somalia and Central America.
