Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro declared a 60-day state of emergency on Friday due to what he called plots from within the OPEC country and the United States to topple his leftist government.
Maduro did not provide details of the measure. A previous state of emergency, implemented in states near the Colombian border last year, suspended constitutional guarantees in those areas, except for guarantees relating to human rights.
Earlier on Friday, U.S. intelligence officials told reporters they were increasingly worried about the potential for an economic and political meltdown in Venezuela and predicted Maduro was not likely to complete his term.
Venezuela's opposition is seeking to recall the unpopular leader, 53, amid a worsening crisis that includes food and medicine shortages, frequent power cuts, sporadic looting and galloping inflation.
But the former union leader and bus driver has vowed to stick out his term, and accuses the United States of fomenting an undercover coup against him. He pointed to this week's impeachment of fellow leftist Dilma Rousseff in Brazil as a sign that he is next.
"Washington is activating measures at the request of Venezuela's fascist right, who are emboldened by the coup in Brazil," Maduro said during a Friday night broadcast on state television.
It's been collapsing for a while, and it was never a "socialist paradise"… I have a lot of respect for Chavez but a lot of mistakes were made from the beginning.
Jaxson Phillips
Oh, leftys, will you ever learn.
Isaiah Kelly
Are you implying that because something calls itself something it is therefore necessarily exactly the same as all other things that have called themselves that name?
Jeremiah Watson
The country was never socialist nor claimed to be socialist, Chavez and Marudo themselves said they were trying to build socialism, but there were no conditions for socialism yet.
They should however be supported as a progressive element in Venezuelan politics.
fuck you sectarian liberals, I swear you know absolutely nothing about political posturing.
the alternative is the far right and liberals that want to sell everything under the sun. While Marudo's building of socialism is flawed as fuck it is better than what I mentioned above.
But what would you know, I actually fucking talked to the ambassador of Venezuela
Chase Thompson
Then you would know that under Maduro's corrupt direction Venezuela has been getting worse every day.
I don't care that you spoke to a representative of the same government that refuses to print higher denomination bills due to inflation as that would implicitly acknowledge rapid inflation is happening.
Maduro has made no effort to work towards socialism and has only made the situation worse. I don't agree with Chavez but at least under him the economy was more or less stable.
I'm not a liberal. I know you want to hate your boogeymen but focus on what's important.
Cameron Kelly
Marudo failed at policing the Venezuelan economy but did a great job at social reforms. Under his administration family violence was reduced by a whopping 40 percent and many unemployed women were given jobs, and effort was made to stop the influence of the USA in their still very private economy.
Aiden Howard
Listen to yourself.
Joshua Barnes
That's great.
Did you know that Caracas is among the top three cities in the western hemisphere with both the highest rates of murder and impunity?
Respite from domestic violence must sure be a wonder when you're at risk of being a victim of a random murder everyday
Superb.
Do you know how much you might expect to make working in Venezuela?
If we highball it you might get 13000bsf for a month's work in a 9-5 job five days a week.
That comes to about $11 earned in a month.
Last month.
With rapid inflation, that same 13k is worth even less this month.
So wow, you're right. Thank God for Maduro. Thanks to him, thousands of women can now afford two pizzas a month.
Maybe instead of talking to people representing and protecting the corrupt government's interests you should speak to the people actually suffering under the regime of an incompetent bus driver.
Charles Martinez
Did you know that Caracas is among the top three cities in the western hemisphere with both the highest rates of murder and impunity? Respite from domestic violence must sure be a wonder when you're at risk of being a victim of a random murder everyday I already adressed this The murder rate dropped under Marudas' administration.
You are either very naive or have never been in a crisis, I was in Yugoslavia when it was breaking apart and was as bad if not worse as Venezuela. Trust me, having a job fucking matters even when everything is going down the drain.
Oliver Wilson
It's actually risen. Try again. There's no incentive to work when payment is so low and murder can get you a sucker's month's pay in a single mugging and has a near zero chance of getting you arrested.
No, I can't trust you. Explain how having a job that doesn't make you even close to having 1/30th of the amount you need just to survive is in anyway important.
Why are you scrambling to find any excuse to defend Venezuela's leadership when the problem more than anything is one of corruption and incompetence?
If Venezuela isn't socialist then why are you making every effort to defend your 'socialist' leader? Instead you attack the boogeymen instead of the guy who let inflation rise to almost 1000% under his rule.
This can't be the fault of the US as Chavez had to deal with the same shit and it never got this bad until Maduro took over.
Aaron Walker
...
Kayden Green
yea, Holla Forums now is for trans rights
Anthony Jackson
Seriously, explain to us how Venezuela was in any way "socialist". It lacked any kind of coherent economic policy, period.
Tyler Sanchez
waiting to see that sweet, sweet ==USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST== in OP
Carson Lee
This tbh.
Constant corruption and mismanagement killed Venezuela. Not its pretend socialism.
Joshua Cox
tfw Latin Americans reformists realize revisionism is bullshit, and Shining Path was right about everything and did nothing wrong.
Aaron King
I made a new meme.
It's called
I have a lot of respect for Hitler but a lot of mistakes were made from the beginning.
If only America didn't intervene. 25000 Reichmarks for each child born. No traffic control.
Oliver Edwards
I literally never said that.
Top quality strawman, though.
Benjamin Perez
Please, Useful Idiot was the only actual Not Socialist who was a socialist.
Jaxson Wilson
wasn't arguing with you fam. Was actually agreeing with you about what you called Venezuela's "pretend socialism"
Ryan Sullivan
It's incredibly disappointing.
The no true scotsman crowd in this thread need to accept that there will never be a perfect government in a perfect country with a perfect population. Chavez had tremendous power and made radical changes, many of which seemed good, but now we're here.
If a Latin American country with so many financial advantages can't turn it around and break free of US rule, which one can?
I feel there's more to the Venezuelan failure than we know right now. I don't know if the CIA engineered this or it was bad actors from within or oil prices killed it or shit just got real. Whatever the explanation, it's not going to make me feel better.
Andrew Hill
Daily reminder that most of these poor countries have been suffering crises for all of their existence.
Daily reminder not to be surprised when these problems suddenly start being reported when the leader of one of them starts doing anything remotely leftist.
Ian Green
What financial advantage? Oil accounted for 95% of the nation's exports and 50% of their GDP. So when the international price of oil tanked, Venezuela was left holding the bag.
A country like the United States can afford to import more than they export because the international market has faith in the US Dollar. They have faith that they will be able to purchase something of value in the future for those US Dollars.
The international market doesn't have that kind of faith in the Venezuelan Bolivar. So the Venezuelan government and corporations must obtain "hard currency" (US Dollars, Euros, UK Pound Sterling, etc.), what they call "trusted currency", in order to purchase imports. Now how do you obtain hard currency? You sell exports.
And Venezuela doesn't export much else of value other than oil and oil doesn't fetch much of a price anymore. So that means that Venezuela is going to have low hard currency reserves. Which means they can't buy the imports they need. Even if you want to make goods yourself, factories and farmers need imported material. So if you can't establish trade with the outside world, your standard of living is going to be very low.
And the price controls of the Maduro government isn't helping. Because you have food producers smuggling food out of the country to sell in neighboring Colombia, where there are no price controls. With the price controls, the food producers can't afford to cover their expenses and they go out of business.
It would make far more sense for the Maduro government to allow food producers and merchants to set their optimal market price. And give the poor "food stamps" so that they can afford to purchase basic foods.
Jaxson White
That would make sense if local producers had much faith in the Bolivar (which ultimately back the food stamps) which is being radically destabilized, thanks to financial warfare in the guise of speculation. Ironically for all the circle-jerking about sound money and the virtues of the private sector they earned only 1% of the dollars that entered the country.
I'm not saying that this is the only factor but the notion that this is all the result of normal market fluctuations is garbage.
Even if they trusted the money that assumes there are producers able to supply and willing to sell. The Polar company is Venezuela's largest beer producer and they are shutting down production and blaming it all on the government. The key fact is that the government gives the beer industry a billion dollars to buy barley and then they turn around produce less, now their largest producer is threatening to produce nothing at all. Polar doesn't export much either. There are similar examples of deliberate sabotage based around hoarding or ripping of the state.
More classcuckery then 19th century whigdom.
When food producers directly own their land disguised usually within disguised within their profit is a form of monopoly rent that comes from owning a portion of the Earth which is a factor of production. Only when the land is so rundown and marginal to the point no one really wants is a farmers profit purely derive from the production process, from employment of constant capital and variable capital. In the real world, many, if not most food producers surrender a portion of their profits to landlords or are leveraged up to their eyeballs in debt.
Just letting the market decide without any interference or regulation is to effectively surrender a nation's food supply to rentier interests. Columbia isn't better off for not having price-controls, it has been described as Latin America's most feudal country and has been the scene of a 50 year-long peasant insurgency.
Michael Morgan
What's left/pol/ think of the claims of US meddling in Venezuela to this very day?
