Here’s some unpopular truths and keep in mind that the article linked tells of 2 ladies who’ve won local Mayoral elections despite being hardline supporters of this armed illegal insurrection and whose husbands are under arrest for unlawful participation in them. Everybody keeps spreading stories on how undemocratic the Venezuelan government is behaving… hmmm. I wish we had such a well-functioning democracy in the US!
Opposition leader and former lawmaker Maria Corina Machado, left and mayoral candidate Patricia Gutierrez greet supporters at a campaign rally in San Cristobal, Venezuela, May 22, 2014.
The democratically elected government of Venezuela has lost some of its massive support in recent years after accomplishing quasi-miraculous progress on many fronts and most notably reduction of poverty and advancing democracy in South America in the past decade.
Recently, economic difficulties have eroded this support to some extent some legitimate opposition leaders have made some respectable gains in national and local elections. In the past few months there has been an uprising against the elected government that is portrayed by the majority of the media as a popular revolt being crushed by the government but this is the usual corporate-imperialist media BS.
See several previous posts with lots of details (just click the “Venezuela” tag on the left) but here’s the skinny: While there are many bone-fide middle class Venezuelans who are caught up in the middle of this, this is a CIA backed “soft-coup” run by billionaire oligarchs who want to take Venezuela back to the old days of mass poverty and oil riches for the 1% in Miami. The government has shown remarkable restraint in dealing with these groups of violent thugs and has kept the democratic institutions open. All the BS stories on Facebook and twitter about internet closures and lack of due-process are propaganda. In fact, as has been the case since 2002, the government is doing everything it can to restrain the masses of poor people it had liberated and protect the upper classes from their righteous rage.
Imagine a people subjugated brutally since the Spanish conquest finally having democracy and being told that they cannot re-take what’s rightfully theirs but must remain in their slums and patiently wait as economic opportunities are being slowly created for their children. The legal loyal opposition has been having increased influence and are now politically damaged by these generally upper-middle-class insurgents supported by foreign corporate interests. The only reason the insurgency has not been violently crushed is that the government is restraining the majority poor Chavista as best it can.
I know I’ll piss some people of with this and the Venezuelan government deserves to be criticised. But 99% of the coverage by mainstream media and social-network hype is BS and people are being caught up in it and unable to have an intelligent discussion. Happily there are a handful of people on both sides who are helping me understand what’s going on and I’m passing it along.
https://news.vice.com/article/wives-of-ousted-mayors-emerge-victorious-in-venezuela-elections
Punkonomics (@DearBalak) 