Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was in tough shape this time last week. Public protests and violence have been soaring, the nation’s economy is on life support, and virtually all of the rest of Latin America is unified in opposing his recent attempts to consolidate power in his party.
Today, he’s got a very clear way out, and it emerged on Friday, when President Trump threatened to attack Venezuela militarily. This threat was virtually the best-case scenario for Maduro, whose party has a long history of positioning itself as in opposition to US aggression.
Trump’s threat, then, provides Maduro with an idea political lifeline, allowing him to both dismiss the country’s economic woes as America’s fault, and to paint the opposition as secretly in league with the United States.
The opposition absolutely saw this coming, and warned the US not to say anything about Maduro’s recent actions specifically because they feared it would divide regional opposition and offer Maduro a pretext for a crackdown. This is a lesson that the US could’ve learned any number of times in Venezuela over the years, but it still seems lost on them.
I can understand the opposition in Venzeula might not wished to be tied to the U.S.government . As the United States is not very popular any where because of interference in every bodies business .
The opposition in Venezuela, as it is the upper-half of society and owns all the land and wealth, surely it knows full well that without the brutal imperialism of Empire USA, nationalized would be most everything that they own.
Did you notice — Those Charlottesville fascists:
1) All were white.
(2) All were men of the middle-class, all too smart to do an honest day’s hard manual labor,
all too dumb to ever be rich.
(3) All were well fed.
(4) Most all were muscle bound.
(5) All were aggressive, belligerent, obnoxious and forceful.
(6) All had a superiority complex toward the weaker, the poorer,
the uneducated and those with less whiteness of skin.
(7) All exemplified this class dictatorship called Empire USA.
“Trump’s threat, then, provides Maduro with an idea political lifeline, allowing him to both dismiss the country’s economic woes as America’s fault, and to paint the opposition as secretly in league with the United States.”
Yeah, the problem is that the country’s economic woes do, at least in part, stem from American sabotage and much of the opposition is quite openly in league with the United States vis a vis the National Endowment for Democracy. You don’t have to be a disgruntled Chavista such as myself to realize that Maduro isn’t the only problem in Venezuela, he’s not even the worst. Just follow the money and abandon your tired anti-communist bias.
Jason Ditz — Fiction
The upper-half of society in Venezuela, they own all the land, wealth, political power and until 2002, only they received an education, only they received healthcare.
So, Trump threatening a military invasion, this made the upper-half feel good, the lower-half feel bad and it changed nothing in the political realm.
The Socialist Party represents the impoverished lower-half of society, the Opposition Party represents the upper-half that owns all the land and wealth and because the elections are so close, the major issues effecting the economy never get resolved.
For though President Maduro wants to nationalize all the millions and billions of the rich and achieve full socialism, he needs a larger support of the voters.
Japan has a large middle class. I believe S. Korea does as well. Japan kept out immigration, so their wages rose. Japan also allowed the US military to defend it, didn’t need to pay for defence. Supporting Japan’s elderly is expensive though.
Few like to admit, but part of NK’s problem is it spends so much on defence. SK, similarly, lets the US defend it.
I’m not a believer that they built their societies themselves in a sense. What’s happened is the US transferred its productive capital to them. SK kept its people poor, so in a sense they lived below their means. And it protected industry. As a result, it grew rich. Now, they earn pretty well.
I agree there are serious problems in the power balance of capitalist states. I just meant that it’s good to copy their success to attract US capital. Once you have it, then you could switch to another model, try it out.
A model has to work though. People don’t realise, but slavery worked extremely well in the US. It would have spread to the North had the climate been suitable. It’s tough to resist a system that works. Those who said “No” remained poor. Those who used slaves grew rich. That inability to resist slavery suggests we almost can’t resist modern society as it is. We can try to improve it though.
If slavery is progress then count me out. As for Japan and Korea, their middle classes are shrinking with the rest of the capitalist world and they remain prisoners of the American military machine. Ask Jeju and Ryukyu how safe they feel with their farmlands demolished, their shores polluted and their daughters raped. The last great Japanese isolationist was Yukio Mishima and he committed ritualistic suicide to protest his country’s subjugation.