Detained Venezuela activist calls for more protests

[Zorra]

Source: Yahoo

As the size of demonstrations seemed to start to wane, Leopoldo Lopez said in a handwritten letter from detention: "I send my deepest admiration of the Venezuelan people for its peaceful protest on the streets.

Lopez, with the Popular Will movement, has pressed for a strategy dubbed "The Way Out" in which protests would drive Maduro from office.
snip---
The president, with Lopez detained, says he has quashed a would-be coup against a democratically elected government.
snip---
"The protests have ended up dividing the opposition," said political analyst Carlos Romero, in large part due to Lopez's arrest. "The college student-wing of protesters was following his orders but it is not any more" with him detained.

Read more: http://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/22050475/detained-venezuela-activist-calls-for-more-protests/

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Looks like Lopez' dream of a RW coup is not going to happen on this attempt; he almost succeeded in 2002'

Mayor of Chacao during the April 2002 coup d’etat against democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez, Lopez played a key role instigating opposition demonstrators into taking an illegal march route towards the presidential palace, where snipers fired on protesters as part of the opposition’s plan to justify the coup. This violence was later manipulated by private media networks and military officials to launch the short-lived coup against President Chavez.

Celebrating their violent takeover of the Venezuelan presidency, Lopez and others in the Venezuelan opposition went on to sign the “Carmona Decree”, dissolving all of the country’s democratic institutions including its National Assembly, Supreme
Court, Attorney General, and Public Defender.

Fortunately for Venezuelan democracy, mass demonstrations on behalf of President Chavez brought an end to the coup less than 48-hours after it began. According to investigative journalist Eva Golinger, Lopez is one of several Primero Justicia members who “made frequent trips to Washington during the pre-coup period to visit IRI(International Republican Institute) headquarters and meet with officials in the Bush administration”. IRI, with funding from the US State Department, became a principal financier and advisor to Lopez’s party and the coup planners.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/6750

I'd wish you better luck next time, Leo, but I have a huge problem with 1% RWers controlling governments.

[Loudly]

1. Lopez is a one-percenter like Bobby Kennedy was a one-percenter.

As a matter of fact, Lopez holds a Master's in Public Policy from the Kennedy School of Government.

[Zorra]

2. Bobby was a left winger. Leo is a right winger.

Lopez is nothing like Bobby Kennedy.

Nothing.

"The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use — of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public." RFK

[Loudly]

3. I think you are misjudging Lopez. Keep an open mind.

Maduro has blown it, acting like a pompous and/or paranoid jackass. No cred left except with the Chavista brownshirts.

[freshwest]

13. Maduro may be all that you say, but this is pretty damning stuff in the OP:

Celebrating their violent takeover of the Venezuelan presidency, Lopez and others in the Venezuelan opposition went on to sign the “Carmona Decree”, dissolving all of the country’s democratic institutions including its National Assembly, Supreme Court, Attorney General, and Public Defender.

If true, Lopez is a rotten egg.

Accusations made against Maduro include his siphoning off Venezuela's oil wealth for the benefit of another nation, Cuba. The name of the nation he is charged with giving his nation's wealth to is not an issue to me.

It's wrong for any president to sell his people out like Raygun sold us out to the Saudis. And it's damn odd, since RR did it for the oil to enrich the GOP power base, but in this case, Maduro is the one with the oil and will lose power by impoverishing his own country.

Unless, like the GOP in this nation, is impoverishig us to take down our government and sell the USA off to the Koch brothers. They are doing a damn fine job of it and mobilizing people on both side of the aisle to do their work.

[geek tragedy]

4. Lopez and his antics are helping Maduro by providing a scapegoat.

Caracas is on the verge of being harder to fly into than Kabul because VN's government is stealing the airlines ticket money, but these clowns give him a public enemy to focus on.

If these guys really wanted political progress, they'd let Maduronomics occupy the headlines.

[MADem]

5. It's not about the politicians, and VZAnalysis is full of shit.

The students are in the streets, not in classes, and the only thing waning is the Chavistas' enthusiasm for forced attendance at rallies in order to get special rations of food.

This was the month anniversary of Lopez's arrest, that is why he is getting some press attention but the focus has not been on him.

The best and most persuasive leadership has been coming from student leaders; one, in particular, who still lives at home with his mother, is -- if they don't kill him --quite possibly a future president. He's remarkable.

[freshwest]

14. An impressive pic of a peaceful protest. n/t

[MADem]

15. This kid (who lives with his parents) is the future. If they don't kill him first.

[Judi Lynn]

6. "deepest admiration of the Venezuelan people." That's a hot one!

His born-to-wealth parasites who've called all the shots until Hugo Chavez despise the vast majority of Venezuelans, the actual "Venezuelan people."

Racist, classist, nasty, vicious, greedy, hate-filled maggots cannot be considered "the Venezuelan people." They are the disease.

[bitchkitty]

10. Hey, but Loudly says you should give him a chance!

He might be a swell guy, ya know?

[Zorra]

12. So true. It is what it is. nt

[JoeyT]

7. So the first coup failed, the guy gets a pardon

right wingers lose the election, then he tries to stir up a revolution, which is failing, gets arrested again, and is still allowed to communicate with the outside world, and that proves what an iron-fisted dictator Maduro is, because derp.

[fasttense]

8. Exactly Joey

The rich elites in Venezuela throwing a tantrum because they can't get elected. The one-percenters can't get enough people to support them in Venezuela even with US tax money and Koch brother funding them.

[reddread]

9. They have but one hope for success

If all the tireless social justice and toilet paper advocates rise as one from their keyboards
and take flight to VZ, to join the suffering masses in protest.
Maduro would surely capitulate to such persuasive displays of serious solidarity.
Their anger and sympathy for the plight of VZ's poor and downtrodden surely puts wings on their feet even now?
Viva la contrarrevolucion!

[fasttense]

17. Why do the rich elite pretend to give a crap about the poor?

The uber rich say all sorts of nice appeasing things to the suffering poor but when push comes to shove, they make the plight of those without an inheritance absolutely miserable. They block most social programs that would help the poor and demand the poor be the 1st to tighten their belts all the while the rich get fatter. The rich elite talk a good game, but when push comes to shove they make anyone who was silly enough to be born withOUT an Inheritance bow down to their whim of iron.

These are people who have everything. Like Leopoldo Lopez, raised in luxury, educated in the most expensive US universities, pampered all his life, never gone hungry, never had a bill collector harass him, never worried about how he would pay for his rent. But it is NOT enough to make him happy. They have to take away the little bit of help or power the poor and working class manage to get. They have to have to take away from others in order to be satisfied. Their sick greed knows no limits.

[bitchkitty]

11. LOL @ because derp...n/t

[MADem]

16. If we arrested you on charges of arson (because someone who liked you lit a fire) would

you be held incommunicado and not allowed to write a letter or speak to a lawyer for a month?

"Allowed to communicate with the outside world." You actually SAID that!

Yeah, "derp" indeed.

You have no idea what your iron-fisted friend is up to, obviously. Let me help you out--click on the link to see some of the "heridos" from the demonstrations. If this were happening in USA to hundreds of mostly young people as a matter of routine, each and every day, if thousands were held in jail without access to legal assistance, if nearly thirty youth were killed in the streets, the outrage meter would be off the charts. These images are GRAPHIC so do not click if you have a weak stomach and react poorly to pictures of violence and torn and brutalized human flesh:

https://twitter.com/search?q=venezuela%20heridos&src=typd&mode=photos

Nothing to see here...move along?