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It’s official: Venezuela is a dictatorship
- empy 10y agoSure, it is. Just like the future Democratic Party America.
- smegel 10y agoWas it ever in doubt? More interesting questions include whether Turkey or Saudi are dictatorships.
- tptacek 10y agoThe Turkish situation is tragic and complicated, but is there any doubt that Saudi Arabia is a dictatorship?
- finid 10y agoAccording to Hillary Clinton, Saudi Arabia is a kingdom.
- JabavuAdams 10y agoThe conventional long-form name of Saudi Arabia is "Kingdom of Saudi Arabia". This isn't some thing that Clinton made up, and I'm not sure why it's relevant to mention her. The country is referred to as "The Kingdom" by many. Of course, that doesn't preclude it being a dictatorship, as the two are not mutually exclusive. Did I just miss an attempt at sarcasm, here?
- finid 10y agoNo, it was not an attempt at sarcasm. That was her response to a dig about why we're not pushing for democracy in Saudi Arabia. It was her way of saying they don't need democracy.
- Crito 10y agoIn light of that, every dictator around the world should declare their kin to be the next in line. (Well not really, since that implies ideological consistency. You'd actually have to be a fool to expect that.)
- tptacek 10y agoAll real kingdoms --- not the UK, for instance, which is not in fact governed by a regent --- are dictatorships. Saudi Arabia is, and is.
- gozur88 10y agoIsn't that sort of a no true Scotsman argument, though? You've eliminated a whole bunch of countries with constitutional monarchies where the king, though not an absolute dictator, has significant political power. Kuwait, for instance.
- tptacek 10y agoThe headline conceals the subtext of the piece, which is that the author feels the courts did Venezuelans a favor by acknowledging what he says residents have suspected for over a decade: Venezuela has been a dictatorship for some time now.
- JumpCrisscross 10y agoVenezuela'a foreign exchange reserves stand at less than $12 billion [1]. They pay over 15% of that this month to bond holders [2]. This makes no sense until one considers that the bond holders might be regime insiders. Venezuela is a state structured to maximise the transfer of wealth from the many to the few. Shockingly, as recently as 2004 Venezuela boasted fair elections [3]. The degree to which Venezuelans are to blame for their predicament (and the related probability that they will recreate it in spite of aid) is a difficult moral question. [1] https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/venezuela-new-roadblock-recall-referendum-emerges https://www.stratfor.com/analysis/venezuela-new-roadblock-re... [2] http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-venezuela-602c9bb4-8989-11e6-8cdc-4fbb1973b506-20161003-story.html http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-venezuela-602c... [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_recall_referendum,_2004 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuelan_recall_referendum...
- robk 10y agoWhen a democracy transitions to a dictatorship in a decade how do you not hood the electorate responsible? They made the choices continually to allow this.
- tptacek 10y agoWhat does it even mean to "hold an electorate responsible"?
- argonaut 10y agoSomething like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_collective_guilt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_collective_guilt? (obviously what is happening in Venezuela is substantially less tragic and not directly comparable)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- davidw 10y agoProbably the difference between something like Brexit, which no one doubts was a free and fair election, and, say, Assad, who is not really the 'fault' of the Syrian people.
- ekvintroj 10y agoIf Venezuela is a dictatorship, oh lord, what a wonderful dictatorship! They don't invade any country like usa do.
- tptacek 10y agoFor the last 60 years or so, few of the world's worst dictatorships have. In fact, the worst instance of the USA invading another country was sparked by the rare instance in which a terrible dictatorship did attempt to invade another country. Few would praise the Union of Myanmar, for instance, despite its hermetic demeanor towards the rest of the world.
- iand 10y agoTrying to work out which invasion you are thinking of. Neither Iraq nor Afganistan were triggered by dictators invading other countries. Vietnam was triggered by a dictatorial invasion but the US were essentially invited in. There have been lots of minor invasions in between but I'm struggling to place which one you mean.
- supahfly_remix 10y agoGulf War I: Hussein into Kuwait?
- Rapzid 10y agoThe Gulf War man, common.
- tptacek 10y agoGulf War 2 was a continuation of Gulf War 1, which was prompted by Hussein's invasion of Kuwait --- in which Iraq annexed the entire country of Kuwait. I'm choosing my words carefully when I say this was the worst instance of the USA invading another country. Gulf War 1 was justified, if any war can be justified --- you don't get a much clearer casus belli than invading and annexing an ally. Gulf War 2 was a disaster of world-historical proportions.
- DominikR 10y agoA country with one of the greatest oil reserves in the world, fertile land, good climate, access to the sea (world trade) and no military conflicts for a century was turned into a population of homeless people hunting dogs and cats on the streets in order to not starve to death - only possible with Socialism. I remember how ten years ago people on my university (in a Western country) were trying to convince me that Chavez's version of Socialism is the future for humanity. And when he came to give a speech he was celebrated like a pop star.
- narrator 10y agoNow you guys get to see what Chile would have turned into if it hadn't been for a certain general. Maybe after 50 years of poverty, famine and secret police your country will get back to where it started.
- tptacek 10y agoYou're being vague here, so I can't be sure what you're implying, but if you're suggesting that Pinochet was a positive thing for Chile, that's a nightmarish thing for anyone to sign their name to. What am I missing?
- ced 10y agoI've met some reasonable, leftist-leaning people who lived through the coup, and who told me that "Something had to be done" because the country was in a state of crisis. Of course, the crisis was manufactured, Pinochet committed crimes against humanity, etc. etc. Pinochet won a referendum in 1980 to stay in power. It may have been manipulated, but judging by the number of people I've met longing for the days of Pinochet, I wouldn't be surprised if he had a true majority supporting him. People told me variants of "He kept the trains running on time".
- tptacek 10y agoThat's what people said about Mussolini.
- CptJamesCook 10y agoJust three years ago: https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/309124649244057600 https://twitter.com/mmflint/status/309124649244057600
- tptacek 10y agoDude is wrong on the Internet. More news at 11.
- andrenth 10y agoMore like "Dude and the whole leftist intellectual elite are wrong on the Internet, will never acknowledge being wrong and will be wrong again the next time the same thing happens. News at 11."
- tptacek 10y agoHow seriously am I supposed to take someone who implies that the leader of a "leftist intellectual elite" (whatever that is) is Michael Moore?
- oh_sigh 10y agoWhere did OP imply that MM was the leader of the leftist intellectual elite?
- andrenth 10y agoI have never implied that.
- tptacek 10y agoI think you did. It's hard to imagine why you'd have cited Michael Moore in the same breath as "leftist intellectual elite" otherwise. How credible would I sound talking about a right-wing intellectual elite after referencing something Ann Coulter had said? Because that's who Michael Moore is: the Ann Coulter of the left.
- jackcosgrove 10y agoUnrestrained equality leads to dictatorship. Unrestrained liberty leads to dictatorship. Democracy requires a balance between equality and liberty, and the political pluralism that is inherent in the vying for power. Partisan fanatics who breathlessly wait for the total victory of their side would do well to remember this.
- Kenji 10y agoI strongly doubt that liberty & equality (before law) lead to dictatorship. Unless you mean liberty that goes as far as harming others. But that would infringe on other people's liberty.
- jackcosgrove 10y agoMore and more liberty leads to extreme wealth imbalances and eventually the rich form an oligarchy.
- joncrane 10y agoThere's something to be said for the statement of "the tyranny of democracy." Put more power into the hands of the common people and you end up with someone like Trump as a nominee. Don't you think in a weaker country with more classism like Venezuela, that if a Trump were elected, that you'd end up with something like this?
- NetStrikeForce 10y agoI believe it is the tyranny of the majority, hence why legal frameworks like a constitution are so important. The majority can turn a democracy into a dictatorship.
- tptacek 10y agoVenezuela had a constitution. The author of this piece is mourning its ineffectiveness. What's important is the continuity of the constitution.
- 0xcde4c3db 10y agoAs is too often the case, the "it's official" in the headline really means "it's not actually official, but this makes the headline more provocative". The article goes on to describe the remaining fig leaf of a supposedly independent judiciary.
- tptacek 10y agoThe authors of these pieces almost never get to write their own headlines.
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoAren't most dictatorships usually called "The Peoples Democratic Something or Other". I mean, does any dictatorship say "Constitutional Dictatorship" on their official letter-head. Like, North Korea even calls itself "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".
- flycaliguy 10y agoIt's amusing to see "It's Official" written directly beneath the word "Opinion".
- andrenth 10y agoWhere is the worldwide leftist intelligentsia that supported this totalitarian regime from the beginning with wet dreams of "21st century socialism"? They are all quiet now and will surely soon claim that things went wrong there and misrepresent the original intents of the "revolution". It's time to recognize that, once again, socialism resulted in the same results that it has always achieved: hunger, death, lost freedom. And this is not because "things went wrong". It's by design.
- tptacek 10y agoHopefully in the same place as the worldwide right-wing intelligentsia that so actively supported death squads in central America just a few years prior to Chavismo.
- andrenth 10y agoWho is this right wing intelligentsia that supported death squads?
- tptacek 10y agoThe entire American foreign policy establishment of the 1980s.
- jimmywanger 10y agoDifference is, right wing governments seem to recover much more easily than left wing ones. Chile, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, they all had people who got "disappeared" but all their citizens are currently fed, which means it's fairly possible to switch out of that mindset somehow. The only left wing country I can think of that led its economy to recovery is China. Other than that, Venezuela, DPRK, Argentina, and Brazil don't seem to be doing so well.
- MichailP 10y agoTotally unrelated rant follows. I wonder how a world without main stream media would look like... Would it be a better place? So much negativity, hidden agenda, pay for play, etc. is present, that one would probably be better off staying uninformed, than reading articles with God knows what agenda.
- MichailP 10y agoWhat triggered the downvotes? Pay for play phrase? It is popular these days...
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- pavlov 10y agoI'm struggling to understand how a world without professional journalists (because that's what "mainstream media" means) would be better. Given the choice of getting my reporting from either pseudonymous posters writing on random blogs, or professional journalists who write under their own name, abide by an ethics code, and are supported by a publishing organization that includes editors and fact checkers -- well, I'll rather pay for the latter in any world.
- jjawssd 10y agoI surmise that the OP implies that in his hypothetical, ethics codes hold no merit
- RandyRanderson 10y agoI wonder which has the higher correlation to instability: 1 formOfGovernmentX - ie democracy, socialism, dictatorship, etc 2 On america's shit list ?
- TheSpiceIsLife 10y agoSomeone(s) down-voted you, but I think you have a point. In 10 years we'll probably find out that the CIA orchestrated this whole fiasco. I mean, that's pretty much the story of, like, every thing that ever goes wrong in every country. Or near enough. I don't mean to sound hyperbolic, but yeah c'mon.
- finid 10y agoNo, you're not off the mark. What's happening in Venezuela is a direct result of economic sabotage. We wanted Hugo Chavez out so bad but invasion was not an option, so we started on the other front. All those demonstrations by the so-called opposition were not by accident. On the contrary, they were well orchestrated. The same stunt we tried to pull off in Cuba just late last year. Fortunately for Cubans, they arrested the lead front man, who was operating under the guide of a member of a Jewish religious group.
- njharman 10y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Venezuelan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat_attempt#Allegations_of_US_involvement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Venezuelan_coup_d%27%C3%A...
- gozur88 10y ago... which, based on all the actual evidence, the US had nothing to do with beyond having an official position that Chavez shouldn't be removed by extra-constitutional means. If the CIA had staged a coup Chavez would have been killed when he was captured. They're not amateurs. And Eva Golinger makes a lot of accusations in her book that are literally crazy, particularly surrounding Chavez's death.
- 10y ago
- joncrane 10y agoI lived in Venezuela as the son of a diplomat in the late 80s. It was a wonderful country. As a middle schooler (grades 6-8) I rode my BMX bike all over Caracas with my buddy with no fear in the world. The funny thing is, at that time, Venezuela was known to have suffered quite a decline from it's heights in the late 70s and early 80s when it was on the cusp of being a 1st world country thanks to the oil boom and (relatively) smart investment in infrastructure. Even back then they had price controls, where the prices of things were printed on the packaging of all products. It's always a shame when a country suffers, and it's particularly sad to me because I know the country well, and there are a lot of great things to celebrate about the country.
- tomjakubowski 10y agoWere you living there in 1989 for the Caracazo?
- joncrane 10y agoNope, I was in another country by then.
- sjg007 10y agoThis is amazing and tragic. How did the US let this happen?
- meira 10y agoDo US have something to do with it? From what I followed, US helped a lot making the situation worse.
- coliveira 10y agoWhy do you think the US has the right to police states throughout the world?
- utku_karatas2 10y agoLOL. I, too, sometimes forget HN is an American majority community and get enraged by the occasional foolishly bold comment like parent's. But then the reality sets in... I am on American soil here on HN! What was I expecting?
- atmosx 10y agoI think he was trolling (war on terror, advancing democracy through oil contracts and all that...)
- cloudjacker 10y ago> Francisco Toro is executive editor of the Caracas Chronicles blog reporting from Caracas and Montreal. Well, nice knowing ya
- pastProlog 10y agoMaduro was elected president. There's no vote upcoming, just yet another recall referendum, this one which failed to get going in the courts. Honduras on the other hand had an elected president. Obama bankrolled his generals, who overthrew him in a coup in 2009, and then he continued bankrolling them. Where are the US newspaper headlines about the Honduran dictatorship? The Organization of American States, with the exception of the US, is who was condemning this. Insofar as Venezuela's oil business doing badly...what country is the the energy business doing well in? Fracking and North Dakotan energy businesses are going bankrupt left and right, which is said to be the fault of Arabian oil flows, but when Venezuela's economy suffers from the same thing it's said to be due to mismanagement or whatever nonsense. Billionaire Jeff Bezos has his newspaper spin things in the interests of American billionaires, what a shock. The majority of Venezuelans don't give a damn what the yanquis think, they can just look to what they did to Honduras, a real dictatorship, seven years ago, and what they're still doing. Americans loooove to get up and pontificate in some kind of imperial self-satisfaction. Like how the Osama bin Laden and the mujahideen would overthrow Afghanistan's secular government in the 1980s with America's arms, money and blessing. Kind of hit Americans in the ass when they strung Arabia with military bases, causing a response of a plane flying through the Pentagon from those guys they bankrolled in the 1980s like bin Laden. Blowback from America's imperial pretensions.
- coliveira 10y agoCorrect. Venezuela is suffering as a result of being an oil-producing country, and the same has happened to similar economies. And saying that Maduro is a dictator is nonsense. First because he is an elected representative, and second because America never cares about supporting dictators, as long as they play nicely according to their interests. For example, right now we had a soft-coup in Brazil and the president-in-office is extremely unpopular, but I hardly hear any complains from the mainstream media.
- coliveira 10y agoThe other thing that needs to be understood is that Venezuela has decided to become a socialist country. When that happens, it is normal that the GDP decreases as the economy reorganizes itself. But as income is shifted from the rich to the rest of society, most of the population will benefit, even if there is no real GDP growth.
- madengr 10y agoI assume they have already confinscated firearms in Venezuela? That's the point it becomes a dictatorship.
- hcarvalhoalves 10y agoIts been illegal for 4 years now.
- pessimizer 10y agoCan't wait until an election to declare the end of democracy? A recall referendum was thrown out by the courts, and the opposition haven't won an election in nearly 20 years. It's official: Washington Post declares Venezuela a dictatorship on a monthly basis for past 17 years, is now openly encouraging a(nother) coup. At least the editorial isn't written by Donald Rumsfeld, like it was in 2007[1]. "[..]a relatively large, relatively sophisticated major oil producer just three hours’ flying time from the United States has just become the second all-out, no-more-elections dictatorship in the Western Hemisphere." Seems like a bit of a hysterical speculation based on the judicial rejection of a recall referendum between elections. I realize that the opposition placed a lot of their hopes of turning over the results of the last election on this, but just because their plan failed doesn't mean democracy has ended. And anyway, they've clearly fallen to plan B, the same plan for if the referendum was defeated, to get the US to help with another coup. Clinton has probably indicated that she's into it. She loves that sort of thing. [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/30/AR2007113001800.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11...
- rayvd 10y agoVenezuela's been a dictatorship for a long time. How quickly people forget Hugo.
- JohnLeTigre 10y agoThat didn't seem very journalistic, especially considering how things are extremely complicated over there. ah well