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Dvoralai's avatar

The latest news from Venezuela is of the high security prison that wasn’t. A failed state indeed.

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Tom Dabney's avatar

The Venezuelan diaspora prompts two thoughts, the first simply noting many conscientious welders who have arrived in Virginia, their conscientious work contributing to sky-high projects in Manhattan and elsewhere in the US.

The second leans literary, imagining a Venezuelan author who, like James Joyce, will capture, perhaps in a day’s stroll around Caracas, the spirit and odyssey of a country and its people long seeking authentic independence. Your thoughts?

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Freddie deBoer's avatar

Too bad the opposition party is objectively, undeniably run by members of the rich white former ruling class, and have campaigned more or less explicitly on the promise to restore white control over the country at the expense of the far poorer and browner Venezuelan population, huh?

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Noah Millman's avatar

I agree: it is too bad. Venezuela is a very unfortunate country.

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Wolfy Jack's avatar

You might opine as to why, a harder question. We all know it is a disaster, but I think the rise of left populist authoritarians in Latin America- Nicaragua, Venezuela, and right populist authoritarians in Hungary, Slovakia, is a distressing trend.

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Wolfy Jack's avatar

Sounds like an apologist for authoritarianism. The opposition in Venezuela is made up of 12 different parties. The main party of the opposition candidate Juan Guaido, Popular Will, is a left of center social demcratic party

It is described in WIkipedia as "Popular Will is a political party in Venezuela founded by former Mayor of Chacao, Leopoldo López, who is its national co-ordinator. The party describes itself as progressive and social-democratic[2][3][4] and was admitted into the Socialist International in December 2014,[5] although observers have also described it as centre[4][6][7][8] to centre-left.[9][10]

Maduro stripped the elected national assembly of powers and then was re elected in 2018 in an election which observer countries found was fraudulent. Venezuela ranks low in all freedoms, so what is the difference if you have a bone to pick with the opposition which by the wording sounds like leftist speak , when Maduro is in power by dictatorial fiat rather than popular support.

It is not unusual for dictators to play the race card and champion the poor and brown and then run the country into the ground for everybody.

I am nominally on the left of center, but it keeps me in the center to see the left constantly apologizing for Maduro.

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