Maduro regime blocks international bridge to prevent aid from getting into Venezuela Read more her
Source: Miami Herald
Venezuela’s determination to stop humanitarian aid from entering the country was on full display Wednesday, after the military dumped shipping containers and a tanker truck on a bridge that was supposed to be a thoroughfare for food and medicine pouring into the country.
Starting on Tuesday, Venezuela’s National Guard blocked the three-lane bridge that connects with Colombia, and there were reports Wednesday that the military was actively patrolling the Venezuelan border to keep aid out.
Venezuela’s Interim President Juan Guaidó is trying to bring food and medicine into the country against the will of Nicolás Maduro, who also claims to be president. Maduro insists the humanitarian effort, which has the backing of Washington, Colombia and others, is cover for an invasion that aims to topple his six-year administration.
Read more: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article225610920.html
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DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)It's the same thing Bush did to New Orleans during Katrina.
Calista241
(5,586 posts)
ripcord
(5,536 posts)I couldn't help but notice his fat ass isn't starving.
GulfCoast66
(11,949 posts)DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)Our government likes to take down any western hemisphere government that dares not comply with our greedy capitalist standards. Then they try to take the high ground by attacking them for behaving in the exact same manner our government has behaved in in crisis after crisis, like Katrina and Sandy and Andrew, etc., etc.
Who are we to call out other governments for doing what we do all the time? It's all to take down a non-conforming non-capitalist state that dares step out of the capitalist line.
Look at what we've done to Cuba for DECADES while they treat their citizens better than we treat ours in many respects. Universal healthcare. Free education. Even under the strictures this hypocritical greedy so-called capitalist "democracy" does NONE of that for our citizens.
Getting the picture? It's all done to protect the greedy capitalist asses of the top few families in the USA at the expense of all the rest of us.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)If "capitalist standards" are what concerns you, perhaps you ought to take a whiff of what passes of for "socialist standards" in Venezuela?
???
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)If capitalist standards are to your liking, with it's boom and bust cycles and market crashes and tax policies that never seem to affect the wealthy, then you should be aware that the capitalist leaders of the USA have been fomenting revolution in Latin America since there has been a Latin America.
Money is the root of all evil and capitalism's god is the almighty dollar. At least the unfettered greedy capitalism we're allowing them to get away with here.
I'm pretty sure even the founding fools never had this capitalist hell in mind.
Poor Venezuela. Just like every other Latin American country that ever dared step outside the American capitalist box.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)If you are so concerned about the capitalist standards in Venezuela, please describe for us the glorious "socialist standards" under Chavismo.
Infrastructure? Electrical, water, roads
Food?
Medicine?
Education?
Press freedom?
Currency and inflation?
Please elucidate on the big Marxist WINS in Venezuela.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)Until the capitalists started their usual anti-socialist economic attacks. Venezuela used to donate fuel to poor Americans before then.
How is any of this deflecting? Or are your capitalist tendencies just stronger than your moral beliefs?
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)Inflation at 1.7 million percent... last year. 10,000,000 expected this year.
And how about that "free healthcare" brought by Bolivarian Socialism?
But Chavez used to sell cheap heating oil to some Americans.... awesome
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)Have you considered doing work for the "right to lifers"?
They use photos like that too but just for effect, right?
The Venezuelan government and people are the victims of a centuries-long, concerted U.S. effort to end any regime that doesn't tow the line of capitalism.
I can show you plenty of photos of the atrocities and indecencies that occur EVERY DAY in the USA but I'm not as big an asshole as the "right to lifers".
Are you? Oh, you've already answered that question. Thanks for showing exactly who you are. Warning taken.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)Google "Venezuela hospitals" images. See for yourself.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)You'll have a lot of trouble finding any in rural areas where they can't make MONEY.
After all, in a "pure" capitalist society like America, health care, like everything else, is about the almighty dollar. Everyone else can drop dead. Ask any U.S. "health" insurance company.
What kind of nation pays a middle man to tell you you can't have the treatment you need to live because it's too expensive - too expensive largely because they have to take their thirty percent cut off the top. And then there are the drug companies.
Isn't American health care grand? Yeah, if you can afford it.
I'm also surprised you'd call the New York Times, which I read every day, a right wing rag. Shame on you.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)Medicare?
Medicaid?
Social Security?
Am I missing something?
EX500rider
(10,855 posts)DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)capitalist economic system sabotaging their evil socialist efforts it's sometimes tough to maintain the services Americans mostly don't have either depending on their personal financial status, of course.
Check out Cuba. After DECADES of capitalist oppression they still have free medical and education for all. But they're evil socialists too. Not like our saintly capitalist billionaires. Right?
Given an even playing field, socialism is a win FOR THE PEOPLE every time. I'm really surprised to hear some of the capitalist crap come out of the mouths of people who are supposed to be Democrats. I grew up in the 50s and 60s when Democrats knew who they were. This country has been pulled so far to the right, the Democratic Party is now where the pubicans were when I grew up! And the pubicans are just total capitalist vultures.
How soon before they pull us further? Not long, apparently, judging by some of the opinions I read here.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)When has that occurred. EVER? In the history of mankind, when has there EVER been a level playing field in the life experience.
That is the problem with your argument. Life doesn't occur in a vacuum. It isn't sanitary and it isn't fair. And suggesting that pure socialism would be an epic win, if capitalism would just "roll over and die" is high farce.
Even in societies where socialistic programs are embraced far more successfully than in the United States (ie the Nordics), the paradigm needs to be financed. Socialism has financed NOTHING. Even your precious police state of Cuba requires outside finances to prop up its version of Utopia.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)Because capitalists never will allow that to happen. They vandalize and terrorize any emerging nation that DARES attempt to break the capitalist stranglehold on wealth.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)Venezuela is entirely the doing of the Chavistas. They took the best of everything and "nationalized" in the name of Bolivarian Socialism over the last 20 years. They eviscerated anything profitable.
Marx for the win!
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)(if that's really your way of dealing with things) over the way the capitalist billionaire pigs from the USA have overthrown Latin American democracies over and over again since there's been a Latin America (oh yeah, but we're the kings of democracy here in the fuck yeah USA! LOFL).
Salvatore Allende ring a bell? Read a book called Bananas. It outlines how U.S. corporations through their own planted and supported Latin American dictators were actually given the FULL power of government over their own sovereign lands.
Then there's tricky dick nixon's failed trillion dollar war on drugs we're still fighting even though nixon has been gone from office for 47 odd years! If you'd bother to take a break from your capitalist dogma long enough to find out, you'd know that tricky dick nixon's failed war on drugs is the MAIN reason for people fleeing Latin American countries. But we don't have to do anything about that do we? Here in the capitalist heaven we can lock up people for petty drug crimes and make a FORTUNE locking up minority drug users while we provide Narcan to those poor helpless white junkies. LOFL
The oligarchs have done the same time and again whenever a socialist economy has a chance of succeeding just to protect their power base and fortunes.
Edit: BTW, I'm a Democratic Socialist. You're a brainwashed capitalist. Unless you're a billionaire. Then you're a brainwashing capitalist.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)One day you'll learn to support your allegations with objective evidence rather than calling people names simply because they hold a different opinion.
The first is rational, critical thought. The second is simply appealing to emotions with sound bites. "Have you considered doing work for the "right to lifers"? They use sound-bites like that too but just for effect, right?" (maybe the irrelevant petulance will be easier to see when six of one is illustrated as half a dozen of the other).
T-shirt slogans and bumper stickers are not arguments. 
EX500rider
(10,855 posts)... did the US cause the hyperinflation, the huge drop in oil production, the huge drop in food production, the spiraling crime rate (Caracas now tied for most dangerous city in the world) the jailing of opposition leaders, the bizarre currency controls drying up the supply of dollars needed for imports, the govt corruption, the censoring of the press, etc...?
Facts rather then rhetoric please.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)on DU that you in fact have no idea of what is going on in Venezuela. Don't try and use this humanitarian tragedy to bolster whipping your hobby horse of "greedy American capitalist pigs".
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)That you're just another one of those greedy American capitalist pigs too.
COLGATE4
(14,732 posts)DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)
myohmy2
(3,176 posts)...and
...I think most countries would stop CIA operatives, money, weapons and MAGA Men form entering their country to over-throw their government and ferment unrest ...
...our frightened MAGA Man stops women, young children, sick and old people at our border...our MAGA Man wants billion dollar medieval walls not just simple semi's across a bridge...
...shameful...
EX500rider
(10,855 posts)...and that horrible Hospital Ship we sent to treat Venezuelans, how horrible of us!
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/12/11/675356758/u-s-navy-sends-hospital-ship-to-colombia-to-treat-venezuelan-migrants
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)EX500rider
(10,855 posts)Like her sister ship USNS Mercy, Comfort was built as a San Clemente-class oil tanker in 1976 by the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company. Her original name was SS Rose City and she was launched from San Diego, California.
Her career as an oil tanker ended when she was delivered to the U.S. Navy on 1 December 1987.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USNS_Comfort_(T-AH-20)
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)That can be a true AND it can be true that our government has done evil.
Don't understand the Chavez/Maduro apologists.
dhill926
(16,355 posts)he's thru...
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)Certainly not every response to every thread in every forum.
Trump (as disgusting as he is) cannot organize a two car parade. He can't possibly be responsible for every ill on the planet.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)If you don't realize that you're going to find it out the hard way.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)Because I don't want to risk running into anyone like you.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)You won't be at this party too long either.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)You're not much different from the other guys. Well, it's not a suspicion anymore. You just proved it.
question everything
(47,532 posts)what are you doing living here? Under the "capitalistic" regime?
Ever lived under a socialist one?
Why not move to Venezuela and try to help there?
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)I never thought I'd hear love it or leave it from a "progressive" or whatever liberals who are too afraid to say liberal are calling themselves these days.
I'm a liberal Democratic Socialist. I believe in sharing the wealth. Capitalists believe in hording it.
Socialism would do much better, and does in parts of the world NOT under direct U.S. control like Latin America, if the capitalist pigs who have taken over the USA would stop declaring economic war on anyone who threatens their lofty economic positions.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)It is an authoritarian kleptocracy with socialist window dressing. Don't be the mark.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)And I refuse to capitulate to those who have ruined it.
I'll stay and do whatever I can to help fix it. You keep supporting this bastardization of democracy. You obviously don't know any better. Or you've totally forgotten what America once was.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)What was it that you miss? The Marxist/Leninist/Trotskyist workers paradise of... when?
What do you want to go back to? The 1950's, with Ozzy and Harriet? Ward and June Cleaver?
The 1930's? The Great Depression and The Grapes of Wrath?
What exactly are you pining for? You see Venezuela as something we should be emulating?
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)Who had more interest in their future than staring into a "smart" device 2600 times per day.
I miss Americans who welcomed immigrants.
It was never perfect but it was never this bad.
And Americans are just stupid for the most part now.
BTW - you sound like you hated America long before I ever did.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)How is the weather in Belarus today, Oleg?
I don't hate America
But thanks for your confession.
DirtEdonE
(1,220 posts)"What do you want to go back to? The 1950's, with Ozzy and Harriet? Ward and June Cleaver?
The 1930's? The Great Depression and The Grapes of Wrath?"
The name is Robert. I live in New Jersey. We have one of the highest immigrant populations in the USA. I help in whatever way I can whenever I can.
You sound like a pubican attacking a Democrat for being a communist even though I emulate democratic socialist governments. What are you afraid of? That someone will actually start taxing the wealthy to improve society instead of letting them horde their fortunes while society crumbles?
I can't believe some of the crap I'm reading here. I read the rules when I joined. We're supposed to support Democratic ideals, not defend the oligarchs who are tearing our nation to shreds for their own greedy profit.
It makes me wonder where the hell some of you are posting from.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)and have been on this forum for about two weeks.
You admit that you hate Americans and hate America.
I think you might just be another troll from RT or Sputnik. Perhaps their forum would make you feel more at home?
Response to GatoGordo (Reply #66)
Post removed
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)Capitalism isn't the problem in Venezuela. WHICH IS WHAT (VENEZUELA) THIS THREAD IS ABOUT. Capitalism is the enemy of Chavismo, and Chavez/Maduro have been doing everything they can to eradicate it in Venezuela.
Do you realize that the minimum wage in Venezuela is 18 cents per day? And even with that paltry wage, the vile Oligarchs and Capitalists are fleeing Venezuela! How in the FUCK can vile profiteers pass up such slave labor wages? Why aren't GM, Kellogg, Smurfit Kappa, Clorox, Kimberly Clark, Pirelli, Bridgestone and hundreds of other multinationals flooding back into Venezuela to make a killing off of the lowest minimum wage on the planet? Yet every day, more businesses close because they cannot survive paying 18 fucking cents per day per employee?
PdVSA is down to 1/3 of its oil output from 20 years ago. "Nationalized" heavy industries Venelum, Carbonorca, Orinoco Iron, SIDOR, Alcasa, and Bauxalum are for all intents shut down. Formerly highly profitable. Now, pure SHIT.
And 80% of Venezuelans are living in extreme poverty. 95% live in just "regular old poverty"
That is what you are defending. Congratulations. A HUGE WIN FOR KARL MARX.
Perhaps, if you are nearly alone in your "Democrat/Socialist" worldview, you ought to take a look in the mirror, eh?
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)Be wary of media spin. Maduro blocked the border with Colombia in 2015 due to FARC rebels stirring up shit. Chavez had been friendlier. That year alone, he sent 1 million Colombians back home. Again, when you hear 3 million refugees, 1 million of those in 1 year alone were Colombians being 'repatriated'. The amnesty for FARC rebels in 2016 set the conditions for many more to return home. Some didn't - they are the 'bad' FARC that have taken over many of Venezuela's gold mines. If this is starting to sound like the exact same Petrie dish as ISIS, consider also that the tribe that lives on the Venezuelan/Colombian border does not recoginze the border.
In 2016 Maduro opened the border again for foot travel only. Guaido knows all this. His expecting truck loads through that border is a provocation.
cstanleytech
(26,319 posts)a "cover for an invasion that aims to topple his six-year administration." from Maduro?
Surely if that was the case it would be relatively simple to check the cargo for weapons as I doubt things like flour is going to suddenly turn into 50 cal machine guns.
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)They make it sound like the army just arrived to foil the 'plot' or whatever - They've been there for 4 years.
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)I feel sick for these peoples being used as barter.
from the article in the OP link:
While there’s still no aid on the Colombian border, expectations are running high. Yolanda Ruíz, a 54-year-old mother, traveled for six hours from Tucani, Venezuela in hopes of getting free food and medicine. She was disappointed to hear that it won’t be distributed in Colombia, but only on the Venezuelan side of the border.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)who the fuck does he think he is, Somoza?
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)They have re-branded themselves the ELN and now are putting their propaganda on CLAP boxes being distributed in Venezuela.
LAUGHABLE that Maduro should blame "terrorists" in Colombia for closing a bridge. It is the Chavistas who have given these blood thirsty killers a home.
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)Chavez did let the FARC take refuge in Venezuela. In 2015 Maduro waged a campaign to kick them out after National Guards were killed. He closed the border completely in December of that year. After much pressure, he opened it to foot traffic. The area around the bridge is largely occupied by a native group that doesn't recognize the border. The smuggling of oil, food, aluminum, gold and cocaine is a huge problem - largely due to that nasty 50+ civil war in Colombia. Everyone seems to be on the take here - including the military. And they are all armed. I can't help but thinking of FARC to ELN like Taliban to Al Queda and ISIS. I am praying calmer heads prevail and don't get mired in all this. It would help to make illegal trade less lucrative - maybe like getting rid of sanctions? And stop buying all that coke. Tell the CIA to cut it out! And tell people in Miami to stop buying all that bling. Kinda like blood diamonds. You wouldn't want one of those, right?
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)I wanted to see who this guy was - who his buddies are. More to confirm my suspicions. Here's a neat series of events he attended sponsored by Maine AFIO 2014 (Association of Former Intelligence Officers) The topics range all over the place, but emphasis is heavy on the overthrow of Maduro and using communication technology for those ends.
http://www.afiomaine.org/upcoming-afio-and-intelligence-community-events/
EX500rider
(10,855 posts)question everything
(47,532 posts)but since I would not know how to link to his segment, I searched for a print link.
I don't think any of us would dispute the sorry treatment of the people of Venezuela.
For some here to criticize Trump for his - words only, so far - willing to intervene is sad, indeed. Would they have objected to intervene to remove Hitler?
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)First, the US did object to intervening in WW2 and entered the war against Japan. That out of the way ...
It was the Weimar republic that was hurting the middle class with inflation. Hitler came up through the parliament as a member of the German Worker's Party
- one of 70 right wing parties that formed in the years of hyper-inflation. He tried a 'coup' in 23 that failed and it would take another 10 years before he could unite the right.
Let's go to Venezuela now. In 2002, there was an attempted coup on Chavez. The right wing had a bunch of parties who couldn't consolidate power. In 2015 under Caprilles the coalition MUD gained control of the house.
If you want to do analogies, you might consider that Guiado shares more similarities with Hitler. If you really must go the 'Hitler' route.
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)Hyper inflation (you may have seen the pictures of wheelbarrows of money to buy a loaf of bread) was due to the inability to repay large loans taken out after WW1. The stock market crash didn't help. Consider what would happen if the debts had been forgiven? As in after WW2. Lessons learnt.
Hyper inflation after the orchestrated flooding of cheap Saudi oil has left Venezuela in great debt to China (and a lesser degree Russia). Sanctions are exacerbating the problem (orchestrated).
I think the US/China trade talks are going to be very interesting. Also note that Canada relies heavily on Chinese investment for its pipeline dreams. Perhaps this is all a great big tit for tat negotiation?
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Because you're stretching the hell out of your analogies.
EX500rider
(10,855 posts)Hyperinflation, as always, is caused by the govt printing too much money.
Also their horrible inflation rate predates the drop in oil prices, cause by the US and Canada producing more oil due to fracking. The US is now the #1 producer of oil & natural gas in the world.
question everything
(47,532 posts)Defending Hitler as "representing" the workers.
What will be next? Justifying the Nuremberg Laws because, of course, the Jews were the enemy of the working class?
I only don't know much about the opposition in Venezuela. I do know - yes, from the MSM, the "enemy of the people" - that the people there are suffering and that here, people who are not cold, not starving, have the luxury of expressing their opinion on their keyboards, do not want to help them.
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)Just re-read my post, and it is not there. btw - the name of a political party doesn't mean diddly. Hitler was voted in largely by the middle class - not by the 'workers'.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)What's left of the Miami Herald (the paper has been gutted) is now HQed in Doral...home to a large number of Venezuelan exiles. I sense a bit of pandering to the locals in their treatment of Maduro/Venezuela etc.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)The Herald was also quite vocal about the previous governments in Venezuela, both AD and COPEI.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Maduro needs to go, one way or another...
floppyboo
(2,461 posts)Is the average American citizen threatened here? 'Humanitarian reasons' are hyped and the conditions that are shoddy could be in part - and yes, mistakes have been made with the economy, which FOREVER has been a one crop economy (cocoa bean until 1906??) - be remedied by lifting of sanctions, or at least let them have their gold.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Or do you have a whitewash for that, too?
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)Devalued the Ven Bolivar (lopped off 3 zeros) in 2008 and created the new Strong (Fuerte) (BsF).
Devalued the Ven BsF (lopped off another 5 zeros) in 2018 to create the newest Sovereign (Soberano) (BsS)
At the end of last August, the BsS (the newest incarnation) was "worth" 60 to the dollar. TODAY it is worth 2808 BsS to the dollar.
All told, 8 zeros have been discarded from this worthless currency and TODAY, the Bolivar has lost 99.99999989% of its value since Chavez took control of Venezuela with his economic brilliance in Bolivarian Socialism.
I dare say that even Trumps epic ineptitude couldn't pull off that feat of fiscal incompetence.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)
Eugene
(61,945 posts)Source: Washington Post
By Anthony Faiola and Rachelle Krygier February 7 at 7:28 PM
CARACAS, Venezuela — The international effort to rush food and medicine into this collapsing socialist state was rapidly transforming Thursday into a high-stakes standoff between President Nicolás Maduro and the U.S.-backed opposition, essentially holding hostage lifesaving shipments of humanitarian aid at the border.
Maduro has defiantly vowed to block more than $60 million worth of assistance organized by the opposition and provisioned by the United States, Colombia, Canada and other countries. Even as seven truckloads of aid from the United States began arriving at warehouses in the key border crossing of Cucuta, Colombia, Maduro loyalists pledged to use force if necessary to keep it out.
Elliott Abrams, the State Department special envoy to Venezuela, said at a Thursday news conference that, while determined to deliver the aid to the Venezuelan people, the United States and other opposition supporters would not do so by “force.”
“We will be moving aid to the border of Venezuela in the hope that — and there is some aid there now — in the hope that we will be able to get it in,” Abrams said. “I don’t think that we or the Colombians or the Brazilians or anyone else is planning to try to force it in.”
-snip-
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/tensions-escalate-over-delivery-of-humanitarian-aid-to-venezuela/2019/02/07/55b692ac-2ae0-11e9-906e-9d55b6451eb4_story.html
ripcord
(5,536 posts)How far Maduro supporters will go to help prop up a dictator.
GatoGordo
(2,412 posts)What is important is The Revolution. The Revolution is what MUST endure.
ripcord
(5,536 posts)Washington, D.C. – Speaker Nancy Pelosi issued this statement on the situation in Venezuela:
“I support the decision of the National Assembly, Venezuela’s sole remaining democratic institution, to recognize Juan Guaidó, President of the National Assembly, as the Interim President until full, fair and free elections can be held. The United States must respect legitimate democratic processes, and support the right of the people of Venezuela to protest and defend their human rights.
“Nicolas Maduro’s regime of repression and impoverishment for his personal enrichment continues to gravely violate human rights, and must be condemned swiftly by the full international community. His recent decision to block bridges and cut off channels of food and supplies imperils the health and futures of the Venezuelan people, and must be immediately reversed.
“During this perilous time, the United States must support the people of Venezuela.”
Read more: https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/2819-2/