Quote from: Lizzylove1 on May 09, 2019, 11:28:18 AM

I think the major sin of this troubled Maduro is his allegiance with Russia and US government don't want to see Russians calling the short in this South America country, and Maduro decision to stop accepting dollars for oil trade, can't tell if this was fully implemented. US government will hunt any top oil producing countries that are not super power, that plan to drop the USD for crude oil trade. Maduro has not helped his country economically.

Well that actually started with Chávez, Putin has been around all along these last couple of decades, either as president or vice-president. Since the very beginning the USA banned arms sales from American companies to Venezuela so Chavez went to the Russians back then and kept buying weapons, so you can say there is a business client relationship.

The "vice-president" Tareck is also supposedly close to certain groups from the middle east. such as Hezbollah, some opposition leaders even claim he harbors them.

The aftermath of the failed uprising on Apr 30th is that they are now imprisoning national assembly representatives. Parliamentary immunity? Overrated, they ignore the rule of law because no one dares to stop them, besides anyone objecting is thrown to prison as well, even judges...

Quote from: Al Jazeera

Venezuela detains senior opposition leader Edgar Zambrano

"But what we know so far is that 15 lawmakers were stripped of their immunity, and three of them have already been detained."

The de-facto government de-facto dissolved the legislative branch when they lost the votes back on Dec 2015. After losing the votes, within that Christmas holiday season when the national assembly was supposed to be on vacation, the Maduro supporters who were meant to leave by January, appointed close political friends (and party members) as "judges" to the supreme court, in a process blatantly illegal. But they did it anyway and soon after, this de-facto "supreme court" proceeded to nullify any acts done by the national assembly. This is more or less how Maduro seized power completely for himself and his gang. One of these "judges" (the top one) even has past criminal records, go figure...

But, you have to see people still defending Maduro, implying he was somehow "democratically" elected, ignoring the previously stated facts of how obscenely rigged that "election" was, and then proceed to ignore the rest of the events that unfolded, such as the democratically elected National Assembly (which is considered the last "fair" election) where the majority voted for the opposition that was immediately cast aside by the regime.

Quote from: Azure Spark on May 09, 2019, 02:40:40 AM

Quote from: theymos on January 25, 2019, 04:29:35 PM

Quote from: Artemis3 on January 25, 2019, 02:38:37 PM

What Venezuela has never seen, is a classic liberal system.

Agreed! Is anyone in Venezuela working toward that?

Carlos Andres Perez, a former president of Venezuela, attempted a liberalization of the economy in the late '80s to early '90s. The result? Widespread demonstrations, vandalism and looting, and the rise of Hugo Chavez, who attempted a coup. The liberalization failed mainly because, firstly, the first price control to be removed was that of oil, understandably a sacred cow for Venezuelans, and, secondly, he campaigned against economic liberalism while running for office (and was a big economic interventionist during his first term), then went ahead and instituted it, at the behest of the IMF, World Bank and the US.

Hmmpf. I lived thru that and it was well over within a week. From that myth came free gasoline, from free gasoline came the corrupt military generation who now happens to be high ranked, and unsurprisingly defend he who lets them a share of the pie...

The problem with Perez is that he actually came from a social democrat (reformist) party, and as you correctly point, he went against his party policies. Lets just say a "troyan" horse politician. But he had a good reason: Winning an election in this country without pledging yourself to socialism one way or another, is/was impossible. The socialist mentality of Venezuela starts in the 60ies, all politicians won votes by offering "free stuff", not a "better economy" which sounds dumb to the uneducated majority. This is typical populism, and is a culture that degenerated into what we have today. The sin started much earlier than Chávez.

I don't justify Perez methods, but a true honest pro capitalism free market politician never won any elections, and several tried. And yes, if he had remained a bit longer, perhaps Venezuela would be much better now. But back then the executive wasn't all mighty invincible, and he was trialed and made resign, something impossible today...

Why do you think so many had given up, packed and left?