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Community => Politics and Government => Topic started by: Chaos Undivided on January 12, 2019, 08:50:51 pm

Title: Presidential Crisis in Venezuela
Post by: Chaos Undivided on January 12, 2019, 08:50:51 pm
https://apnews.com/f1df9924783f49859874f5fc97f0f534 (https://apnews.com/f1df9924783f49859874f5fc97f0f534)

I hope this doesn't cause a civil war.
Title: Re: Presidential Crisis in Venezuela
Post by: DarkPhoenix on January 13, 2019, 01:33:05 am
But let's be completely honest here; the current US government LOVES dictators.  But Venezuela's is a SOCIALIST dictator, and that makes him the enemy.  If he were a capitalist dictator, like Vlad, the US would probably be calling him a "strong leader".
Title: Re: Presidential Crisis in Venezuela
Post by: Art Vandelay on January 13, 2019, 02:01:37 am
But let's be completely honest here; the current US government LOVES dictators.  But Venezuela's is a SOCIALIST dictator, and that makes him the enemy.  If he were a capitalist dictator, like Vlad, the US would probably be calling him a "strong leader".
It's not about ideology, it's about oil. Venezuela is selling their oil exclusively to China, which is no bueno according to the US and A.
Title: Re: Presidential Crisis in Venezuela
Post by: Askold on January 13, 2019, 02:37:28 am
I remember a theory that the Iraq war was started because Iraq had plans to sell oil for Euros and that would have threatened the petrodollar... Now that China is also using a different currency for oil sales US Dollar is getting weaker but it's not like USA can do much to China.

What they can do is pick on smaller countries that try to do deals with China.
Title: Re: Presidential Crisis in Venezuela
Post by: rookie on January 13, 2019, 08:29:40 am
I remember a theory that the Iraq war was started because Iraq had plans to sell oil for Euros and that would have threatened the petrodollar... Now that China is also using a different currency for oil sales US Dollar is getting weaker but it's not like USA can do much to China.

What they can do is pick on smaller countries that try to do deals with China.
In all fairness, we've been messing with smaler South and Central American countries for decades.
Title: Re: Presidential Crisis in Venezuela
Post by: Chaos Undivided on January 13, 2019, 01:08:11 pm
I remember a theory that the Iraq war was started because Iraq had plans to sell oil for Euros and that would have threatened the petrodollar... Now that China is also using a different currency for oil sales US Dollar is getting weaker but it's not like USA can do much to China.

What they can do is pick on smaller countries that try to do deals with China.
In all fairness, we've been messing with smaler South and Central American countries for decades.

TBF tho, that hasn't happened nearly as often after the Cold War ended.

Also, even if the petrodollar theory is true, it doesn't explain why Canada and a whole bunch of Latin American countries are also denouncing Maduro's government.
Title: Re: Presidential Crisis in Venezuela
Post by: dpareja on January 13, 2019, 09:25:27 pm
But let's be completely honest here; the current US government LOVES dictators.  But Venezuela's is a SOCIALIST dictator, and that makes him the enemy.  If he were a capitalist dictator, like Vlad, the US would probably be calling him a "strong leader".

There are arguably 49 dictatorships in the world today (per Freedom House).

The US provides military assistance, in some form or another, to 36 of them as of FY 2015.

https://truthout.org/articles/us-provides-military-assistance-to-73-percent-of-world-s-dictatorships/

(https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/images/Images_2017_09/2017_0923_Whitney_chart_1.png)
(https://truthout.org/wp-content/uploads/legacy/images/Images_2017_09/2017_0923_Whitney_chart_2.png)

The US loves dictators--as long as they're US-aligned dictators. Not only that, but it hates democracy whenever democracy produces a result it doesn't like. (Just ask Chileans old enough to remember September 11, 1973.)
Title: Re: Presidential Crisis in Venezuela
Post by: Kanzenkankaku on January 13, 2019, 11:48:06 pm
But let's be completely honest here; the current US government LOVES dictators.  But Venezuela's is a SOCIALIST dictator, and that makes him the enemy.  If he were a capitalist dictator, like Vlad, the US would probably be calling him a "strong leader".
It's not about ideology, it's about oil. Venezuela is selling their oil exclusively to China, which is no bueno according to the US and A.

But the reason they aligned like that was both governments being (nominally) socialist and striking up an ideological and economic deal. So that's like 2x the reasons for the US gov to not be fond of that happening.
Title: Re: Presidential Crisis in Venezuela
Post by: Art Vandelay on January 14, 2019, 01:02:02 am
But let's be completely honest here; the current US government LOVES dictators.  But Venezuela's is a SOCIALIST dictator, and that makes him the enemy.  If he were a capitalist dictator, like Vlad, the US would probably be calling him a "strong leader".
It's not about ideology, it's about oil. Venezuela is selling their oil exclusively to China, which is no bueno according to the US and A.

But the reason they aligned like that was both governments being (nominally) socialist and striking up an ideological and economic deal. So that's like 2x the reasons for the US gov to not be fond of that happening.

I think it's the other way around. They're aligned against the US entirely for political and economic reasons, and those Cold War era "socialist" trappings are just a way of flying the flag, so to speak.