United States Politics Thread 47

[rotting bones]

Trump is not dictator of Venezuela, though he seems to think he is.

Trump is dictating policy to Venezuela under threat of violence, policy that's detrimental to Venezuelan interests. I don't understand how inviting him to invade Venezuela is resisting injustice. Not only that, Machado promised maximum exploitation of natural resources by global corporations. She promised that "good people can make lots of money" in Venezuela.

How is any of this justified if the goal is to resist Maduro? Resisting Maduro is something I can get behind. I can even understand seeking foreign military aid. But Trump, apart from harming Venezuelan interests, is invading his own cities and talking about undermining the midterms. Giving him the Nobel medal isn't strategy. It's the cocksucking behavior that the far right mistakes for intelligence.

[zompist]

Trump is not dictator of Venezuela, though he seems to think he is.

Trump is dictating policy to Venezuela under threat of violence, policy that's detrimental to Venezuelan interests.

Which the "left-wing" regime is accepting.

My whole point is that labelling these people Left and Right and choosing sides depending on which one is Your Side is foolish, and ends up supporting one immoral opportunist or another.

I don't understand how inviting him to invade Venezuela is resisting injustice. Not only that, Machado promised maximum exploitation of natural resources by global corporations. She promised that "good people can make lots of money" in Venezuela.

I don't understand how describing Machado as sucking up to Trump is taken as an endorsement. Giving him her medal, for no return, is both pathetic and foolish. But you understand that she is not the dictator of Venezuela, she is not the winner of the previous election, she is not Trump's favorite? She doesn't deserve much sympathy, but I don't get the need to pretend that she is worse than the actual dictator sucking up to Trump.

[Torco]

it's not like i want to defend the woman, but when your mission is getting the us to invade your country, it's not irrational to tribute the king of the us

Or maybe she is, like many Venezuelans, sick of the dictatorship, as well as personally offended by its fake election.

Oh wait Venezuelans are supposed to support the dictatorship, celebrate the deterioration of their country, repudiate the bourgeois idea of being able to determine their own fate, because the regime belongs to the correct side, the Red Side. Machado is the Wrong Side and thus must be slandered and opposed, maybe eliminated. Keep supporting the only good side, the Red Side, which is cooperating with Trump and continuing to rule under him because of proper Red reasons. Machado sucking up to Trump is is Bad because she is on the Bad Side. Rodríguez sucking up to Trump is Good because she is on the Red Side.

there is no or here: for sure she has reasons to be on a mission to get the us to invade her country, but this does not mean that she is not on a mission to get the us to invade her country. i'm saying nothing that is slanderous here, merely the facts. like, read what i wrote, where is the slander? is it slanderous to say machado calls for the us to invade venezuela? is it slanderous to point out that, because she is, giving gifts to the person who decides whether or not venezuela gets invaded is not dumb? have i stanned rodriguez?

oh you probably mean the possible hidden motivations i listed (?). sure, maybe she's against the regime, wants the us to invade, and that's why she makes a gift to the person who decides if the us invades or not. are you saying the other possibilities are impossible?

You have eaten rats all these days. Try dung this time. (Bengali idiom)

Better a native dictator than a foreign dictator like Trump. The far right thinks they can get along with far right parties in other countries, but they are wrong about that.

as can be seen rather clearly from all the other times the us has regimechanged countries. i can't think of a time it made the country better.

Trump has always wanted to invade Venezuela. Machado has always been sucking up to Trump.

precisely, the point is it's not irrational for her to do so, which is what's suggested by "sucking up being its own reward". no, sucking up is -can be- a means to get what she wants: regime change.

Resisting Maduro is something I can get behind. I can even understand seeking foreign military aid. But Trump, apart from harming Venezuelan interests, is invading his own cities and talking about undermining the midterms. Giving him the Nobel medal isn't strategy. It's the cocksucking behavior that the far right mistakes for intelligence.

what do you mean mistakes for intelligence? courting us intervention has been a very effective strategy for the latin american right, said the chilean

[rotting bones]

as can be seen rather clearly from all the other times the us has regimechanged countries. i can't think of a time it made the country better.

Japan improved because it got a lot of military hardware contracts, jump-starting its economy. I heard this from the Marxists first, but the capitalist finance professor Patrick Boyle agrees.

precisely, the point is it's not irrational for her to do so, which is what's suggested by "sucking up being its own reward". no, sucking up is -can be- a means to get what she wants: regime change.

Trump wanted to exploit Venezuela for American interests already. Why gild the shit lily with extra excrement?

what do you mean mistakes for intelligence? courting us intervention has been a very effective strategy for the latin american right, said the chilean

IME fascists seem to think it's smart and courageous to suck up to conservative overlords. Being effective and being brilliant are two different things.

[Torco]

japan's a good point. I suppose we could add germany to the pile of countries that have benefited from us regime change.

IME fascists seem to think it's smart and courageous to suck up to conservative overlords. Being effective and being brilliant are two different things.

i wouldn't go as far as to call machado brilliant lmao

[zompist]

there is no or here: for sure she has reasons to be on a mission to get the us to invade her country, but this does not mean that she is not on a mission to get the us to invade her country. i'm saying nothing that is slanderous here, merely the facts. like, read what i wrote, where is the slander? is it slanderous to say machado calls for the us to invade venezuela? is it slanderous to point out that, because she is, giving gifts to the person who decides whether or not venezuela gets invaded is not dumb? have i stanned rodriguez?

oh you probably mean the possible hidden motivations i listed (?). sure, maybe she's against the regime, wants the us to invade, and that's why she makes a gift to the person who decides if the us invades or not. are you saying the other possibilities are impossible?

I think all of this is answered by the paragraph just above your post:

I don't understand how describing Machado as sucking up to Trump is taken as an endorsement. Giving him her medal, for no return, is both pathetic and foolish. But you understand that she is not the dictator of Venezuela, she is not the winner of the previous election, she is not Trump's favorite? She doesn't deserve much sympathy, but I don't get the need to pretend that she is worse than the actual dictator sucking up to Trump.

I do think the habit of inventing corrupt and evil motivations only for Bad Side people is cheap and slanderous, yes. Politics being what it is, maybe some of your speculations are true; what's telling is that you don't do the same for the Red Side. What's Rodríguez getting for sucking up to Trump?

Machado was personally oppressed by the Venezuelan regime— in exactly the sorts of ways Putin deals with his critics, and Trump would love do to his. Red Side and Bad Side dictatorships use the same playbook. She was kept out of the opposition leader slot by bullshit, won the election anyway, and saw it stolen. Plus, chavista administration has not exactly been good for Venezuelan oil— it will take billions of dollars to repair and modernize. Just possibly she objects to those things for moral reasons, not because someone is paying her off. People can be wrong, even bad, without being personally corrupt. I don't think you're being paid off for cheerleading the Red Side plus, when it appeals to you, Putin and Trump.

[Torco]

i get what you're saying, i think, but all i said is that she might be paid off, not that she was. for all i know she wants the us to invade her country out of the sincerest of benevolences, or yeah, maybe she's a morally normal person, no more ethical or unethical than you or me, and she's, internally but sincerely, sees her role as doing the best out of a shitty situation. but it's not unthinkable that the us president, or the CIA or someone, pays people off to get them to do certain things, such as being the political opposition of countries it doesn't like, either

in fact, we know that that kind of thing happens, don't we? and anyway, taking foreign money to oppose a government you deeply oppose isn't even that bad, given we're talking people who are, as the kids say, big time. elites, relevant politicians, etcetera. lemme check what i wrote

More: show

a man in black tells machado give him the price or get suicided
she got 100kusd to her personal account
she got six million more to her already us funded org, whatever it is
she got promises of more american boots on the ground which will happen
she got promises of more american boots on the ground which will not happen, but she doesn't know

oh come on, man, in fully four fifths of my guesses she's a perfectly moral person. or neutral; of course you do it if it means your party gets funding, that's dosh to fight the good fight! of course if you think it's good for the us to invade, seems perfectly moral you do it if it means the invasion happens. of course you do it if men in black threaten you, especially if you think it's a good thing to do anyway.

[Travis B.]

For everything bad about her, where is the evidence that she only was doing what she was doing at the US's instigation? From all appearances, she sincerely opposed the (most definitely authoritarian) indigenous regime, and in that she hoped that a foreign regime would help rid her country of said indigenous regime and restore democracy. When taking her perspective into account, this is fully rational and requires no prodding from said foreign regime. Of course, said foreign regime is awful, but how truly awful it is was not fully apparent until relatively recently. That said, she had said objectionable things about Israel and Palestine, but she is not alone there, and other leaders who are, all things considered, better than Netanyahu or Trump have said similar things.

[rotting bones]

For everything bad about her, where is the evidence that she only was doing what she was doing at the US's instigation? From all appearances, she sincerely opposed the (most definitely authoritarian) indigenous regime, and in that she hoped that a foreign regime would help rid her country of said indigenous regime and restore democracy. When taking her perspective into account, this is fully rational and requires no prodding from said foreign regime. Of course, said foreign regime is awful, but how truly awful it is was not fully apparent until relatively recently. That said, she had said objectionable things about Israel and Palestine, but she is not alone there, and other leaders who are, all things considered, better than Netanyahu or Trump have said similar things.

She explicitly supported maximum exploitation of Venezuela's natural resources by global corporations. Since when has that that worked out well for a country?

[Travis B.]

For everything bad about her, where is the evidence that she only was doing what she was doing at the US's instigation? From all appearances, she sincerely opposed the (most definitely authoritarian) indigenous regime, and in that she hoped that a foreign regime would help rid her country of said indigenous regime and restore democracy. When taking her perspective into account, this is fully rational and requires no prodding from said foreign regime. Of course, said foreign regime is awful, but how truly awful it is was not fully apparent until relatively recently. That said, she had said objectionable things about Israel and Palestine, but she is not alone there, and other leaders who are, all things considered, better than Netanyahu or Trump have said similar things.

She explicitly supported maximum exploitation of Venezuela's natural resources by global corporations. Since when has that that worked out well for a country?

Probably to entice some external power to intervene in Venezuela ─ which is rational when one's goal is to rid Venezuela of its indigenous regime.

[rotting bones]

For everything bad about her, where is the evidence that she only was doing what she was doing at the US's instigation? From all appearances, she sincerely opposed the (most definitely authoritarian) indigenous regime, and in that she hoped that a foreign regime would help rid her country of said indigenous regime and restore democracy. When taking her perspective into account, this is fully rational and requires no prodding from said foreign regime. Of course, said foreign regime is awful, but how truly awful it is was not fully apparent until relatively recently. That said, she had said objectionable things about Israel and Palestine, but she is not alone there, and other leaders who are, all things considered, better than Netanyahu or Trump have said similar things.

She explicitly supported maximum exploitation of Venezuela's natural resources by global corporations. Since when has that that worked out well for a country?

Probably to entice some external power to intervene in Venezuela ─ which is rational when one's goal is to rid Venezuela of its indigenous regime.

Name one country invaded for its natural resources that turned out well for the natives.

[zompist]

Name one country invaded for its natural resources that turned out well for the natives.

Dubai and the UAE.

This is a silly game, though. Trump is a bully but also an idiot; if there is a continuum between better and worse outcomes for interventions, his will be on the worse end every time.

[rotting bones]

Dubai and the UAE.

1. Based on my rapid skimming of Wikipedia, Dubai doesn't seem to have been invaded for oil. It was a marginal city in a general protectorate region that got relatively wealthy from trade. Oil was discovered late, in 1966, by which point development had already been underway. Could you explain what you meant?

2. Either way, Dubai got rich from being a trade nexus. It's not a populous country like Venezuela. Libertarian low tax regimes don't scale to large, populous countries.

PS. Also, Dubai is an authoritarian regime, etc.

[zompist]

Dubai and the UAE.

1. Based on my rapid skimming of Wikipedia, Dubai doesn't seem to have been invaded for oil. It was a marginal city in a general protectorate region that got relatively wealthy from trade. Oil was discovered late, in 1966, by which point development had already been underway. Could you explain what you meant?

Dubai and the UAE were once the "Trucial States", considered part of the British Empire by 1892. Pearls were the important resource then, but oil exploration goes back to the 1930s.

PS. Also, Dubai is an authoritarian regime, etc.

With a per capita income PPP of $82,000, which is hardly miserable. It is much worse for the migrants who do the actual work, of course, but that's what having too damn much money will do.

Also, please avoid the red herrings. Colonialism is bad mmmkay? But I think the former Trucial States are a valid answer to your question. Still no relevance to Venezuela.

[rotting bones]

Dubai and the UAE.

1. Based on my rapid skimming of Wikipedia, Dubai doesn't seem to have been invaded for oil. It was a marginal city in a general protectorate region that got relatively wealthy from trade. Oil was discovered late, in 1966, by which point development had already been underway. Could you explain what you meant?

Dubai and the UAE were once the "Trucial States", considered part of the British Empire by 1892. Pearls were the important resource then, but oil exploration goes back to the 1930s.

PS. Also, Dubai is an authoritarian regime, etc.

With a per capita income PPP of $82,000, which is hardly miserable. It is much worse for the migrants who do the actual work, of course, but that's what having too damn much money will do.

With the bottom 50% getting 5.8% of the income, apparently: https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-th ... -emirates/

That aside, how do you think the 1892 protectorate for luxury items affected the per capita income following the discovery of oil 74 years later, longer than the country of Bangladesh has been in existence? Basically, I'm asking how the two are related. Don't you think the protectorate was an earlier era?

Also, please avoid the red herrings. Colonialism is bad mmmkay? But I think the former Trucial States are a valid answer to your question. Still no relevance to Venezuela.

I understand no one is saying colonialism is good. This is purely a nerdy line of inquiry.

I only mentioned this afterwards because I could think of an interpretation of your post that goes around this.

[zompist]

With a per capita income PPP of $82,000, which is hardly miserable. It is much worse for the migrants who do the actual work, of course, but that's what having too damn much money will do.

With the bottom 50% getting 5.8% of the income, apparently: https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-th ... -emirates/

That article seems to miss the distinction between foreigner and citizens. There are not millions of Emiratis! 89% of the population is noncitizens.

That aside, how do you think the 1892 protectorate for luxury items affected the per capita income following the discovery of oil 74 years later, longer than the country of Bangladesh has been in existence? Basically, I'm asking how the two are related. Don't you think the protectorate was an earlier era?

I don't understand what distinction you're making. European colonialism goes back 500 years-- the UAE was actually one of the last acquisitions of the Brits.

Also, I misremembered the status of Dubai-- it's part of the UAE. I was remembering that Bahrain and Qatar left or refused to join.

You're right that oil was discovered late in Dubai, but that seems like a quibble; oil was found in the country in the 1930s. The Brits didn't grab the place for oil specifically.

Generally being very rich in resources is no boon to a colony-- cf. the silver mines of Bolivia. The Brits found Bengal lucrative: they used its revenues to conquer the rest of India-- with negative benefit to Bengalis. But being a very small nation with very large resources can create prosperity... for awhile. The UAE is one example. Another used to be Nauru, but it's gone downhill in the last fifty years... probably a warning for the petrostates.

[rotting bones]

I skimmed the Wikipedia article on Dubai because that was the first name you mentioned. It said development was already underway using trading-based wealth when oil was discovered. It did not say Dubai was wealthy because that oil existed elsewhere in the region or anything of that nature. The way the article was written seemed to indicate otherwise. Namely, that Dubai's pre-oil wealth came from trading. That's why I asked for clarification.

All these other places you mention will have to wait. I'm sure a wide region with multiple small emirates has a complex history. For example, the type of luxury resource matters. Pearl diving doesn't use up much space on land. In Bengal, the dyes and drugs the British forced farmers to grow and bought at an artificially cheap price (resulting in a low nominal valuation of the colonial economy) destroyed their livelihoods.

[Torco]

With a per capita income PPP of $82,000, which is hardly miserable. It is much worse for the migrants who do the actual work, of course, but that's what having too damn much money will do.

With the bottom 50% getting 5.8% of the income, apparently: https://borgenproject.org/poverty-in-th ... -emirates/

That article seems to miss the distinction between foreigner and citizens. There are not millions of Emiratis! 89% of the population is noncitizens.

that's not such a big point in its favor tho.

______________

can us regime change, invasion or no, be beneficial for the country's citizens? this is an interesting abstract question, but as to the question of will, or would us regime change be beneficial for venezuela, i think it is clear that no. it will probably look more like lybia than like japan. the chavez regime is pretty shite -though what part of that is due to sanctions and the need to defend from imperialism, and what part is genuine incompetence and corruption, is not obvious: my guess is half and half- but it's not been catastrophic. life expectancy numbers have, as i understand, stagnated since 1999, but not dropped, and child mortality rates have gone up not after 1999, when chavez assumed, but after 2016, shortly after obama signed a thingie declaring venezuela was a national security threat. none of this is to say viva el PSUV, though of course it'll be thusly read.

[zompist]

can us regime change, invasion or no, be beneficial for the country's citizens? this is an interesting abstract question, but as to the question of will, or would us regime change be beneficial for venezuela, i think it is clear that no. it will probably look more like lybia than like japan. the chavez regime is pretty shite -though what part of that is due to sanctions and the need to defend from imperialism, and what part is genuine incompetence and corruption, is not obvious: my guess is half and half- but it's not been catastrophic. life expectancy numbers have, as i understand, stagnated since 1999, but not dropped, and child mortality rates have gone up not after 1999, when chavez assumed, but after 2016, shortly after obama signed a thingie declaring venezuela was a national security threat. none of this is to say viva el PSUV, though of course it'll be thusly read.

As I said above, "Trump is a bully but also an idiot; if there is a continuum between better and worse outcomes for interventions, his will be on the worse end every time." All Trump wants is the oil, and the oil companies are not very interested. Even capitalists are not jazzed about multi-billion-dollar investments that could be expropriated or blown up at any time, and at a time when oil prices are low.

[Torco]

Yup, looks like his incompetence will trump him this time. kidnapping maduro but allowing his successor, and the PSUV in general, continue to rule isn't likely to reassure US capital.