>Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced a sweeping crackdown on Saturday under a new emergency decree, ordering authorities to seize factories "paralysed by the bourgeoisie," and to arrest their owners.
>He also ordered military exercises to "prepare for any scenario," a day after declaring a state of emergency to fight what he called "foreign aggression" that he blamed for an economic crisis that has pushed the country to the brink of collapse.
>The move comes after the largest food and beverage company in Venezuela, the Polar Group, halted production of beer, saying government mismanagement meant it was no longer able to import barley for production.
But my perfect infallible version has never been tried!
Hudson Bailey
Jesus fucking Christ. Meanwhile the UN is bitching about something related to the internet again.
Isaiah Peterson
Feelin' the Bern.
I will always remember that stupid, naive leftists living comfortable in the West supported this murderous regime even when it was obvious Chavez had a totalitarian long-term plan from the very beginning.
the worst was when he nationalized food distribution companies last year.
Jace Carter
>Tfw We are trying our best to solve this like civilized people >Tfw the government wants us all to chimpout What the fuck man
Lincoln Johnson
They change the definitions around to whatever the fuck they want. They try to be shifty so when it inivitably fails they can lay off blame.
Camden Reed
Let me tell our story: when Dilma appointed Lula to minister trying to bail him out of investigations, everyone spontaneously flooded the streets against it. You know what labor's unions, student unions and all sort of parasitic organizations did? Schedule their own protest at the same place opposition was at. They wanted blood. Most of the people protesting found this outrageous and wanted to stay, but fortunately the organizers convinced everyone to leave. It was hard to swallow that, but it was for the best at the end.
Jeremiah Bell
Fuck off JIDF
Samuel Powell
In the end we won anyways because the lefties here don't work so they were just doing their shit and didn't affect anyone
James Taylor
Honestly, senpai, given the current state of Venezuelan economy, I'm surprised a state of emergency wasn't declared sooner. There are no simple answers for anything, and this situation is no exception. Their economy has been heavily dependent on oil exports almost since it was discovered in the country, and the current stagnation of demand for that commodity group would have tanked any government that hadn't heavily invested in national development toward a more integral economy. The Bolivarians have been in power for less than two decades—15 years?—and have actually been investing in national development. Their biggest mistake was obviously not putting away a larger cash surplus from oil revenues, but the charisma of their rule depended on popular programs. I would say they should have seen this coming, but they probably did. That aspect of seems more tragic than blameworthy.
All of those troubles taken into account, the recent loss of majority in the legislature, and the precedent set by Rousseff's ouster make this a pretty sensible move for Maduro as a PSUV president. The political history of Venezuela is rife with coups and coup attempts, so I can't see anything unusual in political preparations to fend one off. One is probably coming, after all.
Colton Murphy
Just nuke everything senpai
Colton Turner
Is this going to affect Brasil or no?
Samuel Brown
No,why would it?
Camden Robinson
Other than straining relations with the new government, I don't see how. That was slated already, though, considering how the power-shift was brought about and the political alignment of the new regime.
Colton Bell
oil barrel was over $90 until August 2014. The Venezuelan economic crisis, of high inflation and shortages, dates back to the end of 2013.
Alexander Johnson
That wasn't real socialism, though. Neither were North Korea, USSR, China, Cambodia, Cuba, Vietnam, or Laos. Real socialism has never been tried, and all failed attempts are just examples of crony capitalism or foreign intervention from capitalistic-owned nations.
Zachary Roberts
>real socialism What is that even? Most socialists nowadays are free market socialists of some kind no?
Wyatt Foster
I feel bad for a classmate I went to college with who moved back home to Venezuela after graduating. It's been 5 years give or take, but even then she knew it was all bullshit.
Daniel Thomas
The crash in oil prices has been ongoing for over a decade with ups and downs throughout. I get that there are other factors, but they previously existed as well, and became exacerbated with the drop in oil and the recent trouble with the dam. It's a cascade failure, and its date was only pushed to 2013.
Jackson Bennett
come on, venezuela, do it i wanna see a big fucking war down there
Isaac Lewis
so shit hits the fan when the beer company stops making beer?
kek
That must be one shitball place if beer was the only thing keeping law and order.
Nathan Hughes
>The crash in oil prices has been ongoing for over a decade with ups and downs throughout.
As I said it was over $90 before August 2014. Why do you think the opposition got 49% of the votes in the presidential election the year before? Because it was all going smooth?
They had inflation of 55% in 2013.
Anthony Bell
See:Double checked briefly after posting and noticed I'd fucked up. Sorry 'bout that, senpai.
>Why do you think the opposition got 49% of the votes in the presidential election the year before? Because it was all going smooth?
Naw, I know the legislature changed hands in December, likely as a response to massive inflation. I was attributing the inflation to the government responding to a loss of projected revenue from state oil sales, which I thought had begun earlier.
Lucas Jones
yeah this narrative gets pushed a lot. Venezuela was going broke regardless. Bureaucracy must be sustained by the private sector and an ever-expanding bureaucracy will inevitably lead nations to failure. The oil crash just accelerated the process.
Alternative you can send people to concentration camps and essentially enslave them to make such a model affordable.
Austin Ward
Must be my Portuguese blood, but I want to invade and "free" you guys.
Angel Morris
For all the times this phrase gets spammed, I've never heard someone misuse it like that.
Ian Morris
>They >implying most Western socialists support Mao/Stalin/etc
Nolan Clark
Notice how this isn't the media panic other situations have been
Blake Ross
Why does he share a last name with a tobacco leaf?
Elijah Parker
>Can't make beer because you literally can't obtain raw materials to manufacture beer >Government: It is your fault you are not making beer because we will not let you obtain it's most basic component we are taking over >Party flunky is given job to produce beer without components and knowledge >Flunky either joins opposition, signs up for CIA or flees nation to save his own life >Government: It is all the evil Yankee's fault!
Ian Rodriguez
>Maduro is a poor mans Chávez
Zachary Gray
Why does Maduro think we'd need to influence Venezuela? He's doing a perfect job of destroying it himself.
Like we literally could not do a better job.
Parker Hernandez
To some point the government does need to run things.
Angel Gutierrez
fuck the UN
Ryder Stewart
The country was heading there anyway regardless of who ran it. This fucker just had the luck of dying while things were still going good, so now lefties will blame Maduro for destroying the economy, instead of the socialism that drove it there.
Aiden Myers
This is how the Soviet Union dysfunctioned. Natural and logistical obstacles were always the deliberate sabotage of some identifiable and disposable man. It's like a bad spy movie where the underlings are terrified of informing the villain of bad news.
Actually it is worse than the USSR, the beer brewing facilities were deliberately shut down by the government ordering it's party members to attack anyone who worked there and denying all the employees access to government benefits. They also cut all access to electrical power to the Brewery and made it illegal for them to use a generator.
>Can't import ingredients to make Beer >Can't hire workers >Anyone who works for you gets beat up, prevented from using public transport, denied ration cards and healthcare. >Cut power to Brewery. >Prohibit brewery from making it's own power. >No workers, ingredients or power. >"YOU EVIL CAPITALISTS ARE SABOTAGING PRODUCTION!"
Fuck, even North Korea can get it together enough to make a decent beer.
Chase Wright
>People are so hungry under Communism that they're hunting dogs, cats and pigeons to avoid starving to death
Yet people still fucking want Communism in this day and age.
Connor Sullivan
socialism is the quintessential ideology of the bureaucratic class, which often controls education. The idea will never die, it must be constantly kept in check.
