Venezuela Discussion With Evidence

I want to like Venezuela, I want to like Maduro. But I see pictures like this and it's very hard for me to believe that all of these people are bourgeois funded opposition.

Of course a mass movement does not necessarily mean the mass involved is correct, but why are this many people agitated and angry enough to do this? Surely they must have some legitemate grievances?

Of course I understand the CIA and the US in general do everything they can to undermine Latin American countries, but I'd like to see why exactly Chavez/Maduro are taking the actions they have in terms of militant suppression, why they havent taken the socialist program further, etc. Bolivia for example has socialist Evo Morales but they seem to be doing much better but Bolivia doesnt have any oil I dont think

Maduro is a tyrant that continues his forbearer's oppression: do not defend him, you only hurt the left by doing so.

No Bolivia doesn't have oil, but it does have other amazing natural resources.
Anyway, Bolivia is doing ok because it's a country where the majority of the population is amerindian, so they put an amerindian into office.
Instead of Peru and Colombia where they elect USA cocksuckers

There's nothing to like about Venezuela. The opposition leadership is funded by US organizations, but this doesn't justify the absolutely retarded management of the country by the supposedly socialist party who is bourgeois to hell. It is a question of neoliberals and corrupt social democrats. No left to speak of.

The party's socialism only exists in fantasies. Every expropriated company is simply nationalized, which is as simply as a change in master, you are no closer to socialism than before.

Hugo Chavez made massive investments in oil, didn't diversify the economy, and there was an oil crash. Of course the economy fucking crashed.
The means of production aren't controlled by workers or the people but by the government, it's a state capitalist economy run by idiots.

Is it that he is the same race, or is it because his policies actually help the population? Im sure him being indigenous Andean is part of it, but it doesnt seem like all ethnic nationalism. He has made material changes benefiting the (mostly indigenous) working class, peasants and tribals, am I wrong?

maduro is still paying debt to foreign capital and he tried to privatise the oil. hell, his attempt to disband the parliament was because of this.
Dilma too was doing the same shit, cuts and all.
nationalist bourgeoisie gonna nationalist bourgeoise

he's full of idpol shit. he even repressed ethnicities different to his own.
he's done good stuff tho

B-B-BUT HE'S A SOCIALIST! SAYS SO IN THE NAME!

But I see pictures like this

Are you sure those are real pictures? The oposition has already used pics from Egipt to deceive people

Doesn't Venezuela's government change literally every time oil prices drop because I swear that's how the Socialist party got in power there

Venezuela is social democracy fuelled by petrodollars, what's there to defend? It's like a poorer and economically mismanaged Norway.

Why would anyone want to like Maduro?

Just like Dilma and the rest of Bolivarians he is SocDem. And any SocDem regime is ultimately reliant on threat of real Socialist Revolution that forces Capitalists to compromise. But Maduro doesn't have revolutionary Socialists to keep himself in power. Populist practices of Chavez - and then Maduro - subverted Venezuelan Left into Centrist position. Consequently, there is nothing Maduro can do to make things work. Capitalists have no reason to stop their sabotage, and there is no Marxist cadre to take over economy.

Venezuelan government dug their own grave by leaving the only radical ideology in Venezuela to be the Fascist one.

That only happened when Chávez got to power, but it was because the oil crash let people see how unbelievably shitty the AD-COPEI bipartisanship was. Even businessmen were supporting Chávez back then.

And it's going to happen again: People are starting to see how Chávez and Maduro didn't actually fix anything, they just patched the holes with oil. Now that the oil prices have dropped, the boat is sinking.


There are rarely any fake pictures from opposition marches.


Use the correct flag. See, it's this one ^

Use the correct flag. See, it's this one ^


That only happened when Chávez got to power, but it was because the oil crash let people see how unbelievably shitty the AD-COPEI bipartisanship was. Even businessmen were supporting Chávez back then.

And it's going to happen again: People are starting to see how Chávez and Maduro didn't actually fix anything, they just patched the holes with oil. Now that the oil prices have dropped, the boat is sinking.


There are rarely any fake pictures from opposition marches.

they're corrupt, but all elites are corrupt. The benefits of natural ressources are at least in good part shared with the people, which doesn't stand for US&co, hence economic & political warfare. And despite these massive destabilization, maduro is still acting like a democrat (a dictator stepping down from power and asking for elections ?). Porky medias are crying that rioters literally destroying hospitals are getting arrested, so I'd say press freedom is definitely still there.
The upper middle class are the ones whining, but they won't get anywhere because they don't have support of the majority of the poorer people, that understand the benefits they got from chavism, despite being massively funded by CIA.
Sadly most of my news on the subject is in french translated from spanish, so I dunno if it's useful for me to post it there

Are those from May 1 or May 2? This is important.

Was he trying to privatize oil? Sounds like some kind of attempt to reduce the economy's reliance on it.

Can Venezuela even be socialist? Maybe in the Cuban sense, as in pretty low standards of living though generally manageable with some notable upsides (high access to healthcare and a pretty good life expectancy). But Venezuela needs access to goods that the west won't provide if it can't expand capital in the country. Besides that, if Venezuela trades with the outside for goods it will probably be pushed to exploit workers to some extent to make surplus goods, even if more of that surplus goes back to the workers than may have before.

I don't know enough about it, but I'm just under the impression that Venezuela is too backwards and it's leadership not innovative enough to create meaningful solutions to making socialism in a relatively small and poor country. The USSR had the benefit of a massive area of satellite states and huge population with great access to resources. I don't know how much access to resources Venezuela has, but I'm guessing it is pretty limited. If all they are doing is setting prices, haphazardly nationalizing industries and making weird labor laws that probably just creates confusion.

venezuela have a fuckhuge oil reserve, and some rare metals too iirc

It's almost like Socialism never works isn't it?

This and this. Any serious leftist has to be extremely critical of Venezuela.