Venezuela looks to S.American leaders as toll hits 20
Source: AFP
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro urged a meeting of South American leaders over the growing turmoil facing his country, where the death toll from a month of anti-government protests hit 20.
The under-pressure leader's move on Thursday came a day after he broke off relations with Panama, following its call for the rival Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS) to convene on the crisis.
The latest fatalities were a police officer who succumbed in hospital to a gunshot wound to the chest after clashes in Caracas, and a civilian who was reportedly shot when riding a motorcycle in the capital.
Street protests erupted in Venezuela on February 4 and have continued every day since in the biggest challenge yet to Maduro's nearly year-old, socialist-inspired government.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-looks-american-leaders-toll-hits-20-021335079.html
I guess Panama won't be invited.
= new reply since forum marked as read
than they were before Venezuela elected a socialist government. Waaaay better off.
Better off and worse off are relative, and a matter of perspective. The average worker in Venezuela may consider being better off as having enough food, education, and medical care, while the average worker in the US might consider being able to afford to take a vacation as better off.
However, the 1% in Venezuela is definitely far worse off than they were before Chavez became President, for sure.
Unfortunately, the average worker in the US today is far worse off economically than they were when Clinton was President. The 1% in the US, however, are massively better off than when Clinton was President.
Even the fascist WSJ agrees.
The 1% Captures Most Growth From Recovery
You don’t have to be an Occupier to understand the two-speed nature of the recovery. While the one percent has rebounded strongly (thanks to stock markets), the 99% has fared less well due to weak jobs and housing.
A new report, however, shows that the two recoveries may be even further apart than we thought. A study by Emmanuel Saez shows that in 2009 and 2010, the first year of the current “recovery” the one percent captured 93% of the income growth. That’s right, 93%.
Forget two-speeds. It’s more like the one percent is in a fast lane and the rest are stalled in the parking lot.
Here are the numbers:
CYCLE TOP 1% INCOME GROWTH 99% INCOME GROWTH
1993-2000 – 98.7% 20.3%
2001 Recession – (30.8%) (6.5%)
2002-2007 – 61.8% 6.8%
2007 Recession – (36.3%) (11.6%)
2009-2010 – 11.6% 0.2%
http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2012/03/06/the-1-captures-most-growth-from-recovery/
snip---
Yale professor and economist Robert J. Shiller, who was among three Americans who won the Nobel prize for economics in 2013, believes that rising economic inequality in the United States and other countries is "the most important problem that we are facing now today."[24] Pope Francis echoed this sentiment in his Evangelii Gaudium, stating that "as long as the problems of the poor are not radically resolved by rejecting the absolute autonomy of markets and financial speculation and by attacking the structural causes of inequality, no solution will be found for the world’s problems or, for that matter, to any problems."[25] President Barack Obama
referred to the widening income gap as the "defining challenge of our time."[26]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
Things in Venezuela not going the way you want them to?
Here, have a cookie.
I support the Bolivarian movement, just not that clown in power right now, he's calling me a pretend lefty.
Absolutely you can have one.
Here, take his.
My grandfather has been dead for over half a century, so you do the math, Skippy.
Post your "article" that you "just read," why doncha? Let's see your source for that crazy assertion! Yeah, I'm sure the students are flying to FL between demonstrations--that have been happening every day for the past month, without let-up. That's a sweet trick!
You really ARE mad, aren'tcha? Following me round like a little puppy dog, nipping at my heels? Ooooooooooh, foot-stomping mad, I'd say!
Surely you can't be so obtuse that you're missing this?
This is the face of VZ these days:
The current protests in Venezuela are reminiscent of another historical moment when street protests were used by right-wing politicians as part of an attempt to overthrow the elected government. From December of 2002 through February 2003, there was strike of mostly white-collar workers at the national oil industry, along with some business owners. The US media made it look like most of the country was on strike against the government, when, in fact, it was less than one percent of the labor force.
The spread of cell phone videos and social media in the past decade has made it more difficult to misrepresent things that can be easily captured on camera. But Venezuela is still grossly distorted in the major media. The New York Times had to run a correction last week for an article that began with a statement about "The only television station that regularly broadcast voices critical of the government …" As it turns out, all of the private TV stations "regularly broadcast voices critical of the government". And private media has more than 90% of the TV-viewing audience in Venezuela. A study by the Carter Center of the presidential election campaign period last April showed a 57 to 34% advantage in TV coverage for President Maduro over challenger Henrique Capriles in the April election, but that advantage is greatly reduced or eliminated when audience shares are taken into account.
Although there are abuses of power and problems with the rule of law in Venezuela – as there are throughout the hemisphere – it is far from the authoritarian state that most consumers of western media are led to believe. Opposition leaders currently aim to topple the democratically elected government – their stated goal – by portraying it as a repressive dictatorship that is cracking down on peaceful protest. This is a standard "regime change" strategy, which often includes violent demonstrations in order to provoke state violence.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/04/venezuela-protests-not-ukraine-class-sturggle
I find it very disturbing that so many DUers are supporting another RW coup attempt in Venezuela. It's like cheering on a Teabaggers coup of our government.
or are part of the colectivos paid by the government.
Big plans tomorrow:
This is happening on SAT:
This is happening on Sunday:
Christiane Amanpour has landed an interview with Maduro--it will air tomorrow, I am hearing.
Last edited Fri Mar 7, 2014, 02:59 PM - Edit history (1)
The people "crashed into the barricades" because they were shot by the colectivos.
People have been shot in the streets more recently than that--if you go to the Anonymous VZ feeds, they even take pictures of the "asesinos" and put them up. Frequently they're ID'd by people who know them and disapprove of their conduct.
Any time you see a "motorcycle driver" killed or wounded, that's not some schmuck on his way home, that is a colectivo--they are armed, they're paid by the government to shoot people and disrupt peaceful demonstrations with violence, and they are assholes. That "thug on a bike" paradigm is common in Iran, too, AhmadiNejad probably taught it to Chavez way back when.
A saying in VZ these days is "The only refrigerators that are full are at the morgue."
Edited to add a list of names of the fallen:
It is a shame that extremely wealthy 1% RW extremists like Lopez, Capriles, and Machado, (etc.) have co-opted the original student protests and tarnished their legitimacy, and are now using them as a possible means for the RW to take control of Venezuela.
Nothing good can come from a RW takeover of any country, anywhere.
Remember this covert RW coup, my friend? And the consequences past, present and future?
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 5–4 decision, stated that the Supreme Court of Florida had violated the U.S. Constitution when it ordered the recount only in certain districts, and that the recount had already been tainted by shifting methods of vote-counting. Both of these, it said, violated the equal-protection guarantees of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court then said that there was no way to hold an acceptable recount by the final election deadline. As a result, it ordered the recounts abandoned, effectively naming Bush the winner of the national election. By the time of the decision, a month had passed since the nation had cast its ballots.
The Court's decision ended the speculation on who would be president, but it remains a highly controversial moment in the Court's history. Even the Justices themselves couldn't agree on many aspects of the case. Two majority opinions and four minority opinions were filed, each citing different reasons for its author's decision. Some people argue that the Court had no business taking on the case at all, and that it should have let the Florida Supreme Court's decision stand without comment. Others have said that the way that the judicial decisions throughout the case split along party lines—Republicans sided with Bush, and Democrats sided with Gore—provided evidence that the case was decided by politics, not by law.
The details of Bush v. Gore will probably be argued over for a long time. However, the decision was made, and history was made with it.
As they say, the rest is history, and the history resulting from RW government is never good.
Great post, btw!
Still posting those photoshopped pics?
