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Mandorallen turned back toward the insolently sneering baron. 'My Lord,' The great knight said distantly, 'I find thy face apelike and thy form misshapen. Thy beard, moreover, is an offence against decency, resembling more closely the scabrous fur which doth decorate the hinder portion of a mongrel dog than a proper adornment for a human face. Is it possibly that thy mother, seized by some wild lechery, did dally at some time past with a randy goat?' - Mimbrate Knight Protector Mandorallen.
Excerpt from "Seeress of Kell", Book Five of The Malloreon series by David Eddings.
"You need not fear us, unless you are a dark heart, a vile one who preys on the innocent; I promise, you can’t hide forever in the empty darkness, for we will hunt you down like the animals you are, and pull you into the very bowels of hell." Iron - Within Temptation
(CNN) -- Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, accused by the government of conspiracy and murder, turned himself in to national guard troops Tuesday, his political party said.
The government says Lopez is responsible for clashes that have left four people dead.
Lopez denies all the charges, and on Tuesday he addressed a crowd of thousands that he convened for a demonstration before walking up to the troops and surrendering.
He was placed in a military vehicle and driven away.
"I made the decision to present myself before the justice system of my country, a corrupt and manipulated system, because I am not a delinquent, I have not committed any crime, and because I have the obligation to deal with this," Lopez said in an exclusive audio statement sent to CNN's "Amanpour" on Monday.
"To leave the country or to hide would be to plant doubt about what our motivation is, which is to rally millions of Venezuelans in order to effect change -- social change, political change -- in the face of a reality the affects us all," he said.
The opposition protesters have withstood gunfire, tear gas and water cannon.
Yet after a number of deaths in their ranks, protesters in Venezuela continue to take to the streets to demand better security, an end to scarcities and protected freedom of speech.
The government reflects these complaints back on the opposition like a mirror. Shortages? Unrest? Violence? This is the doing of a corrupt opposition working in cahoots with the United States, it says.
Venezuela has withstood plots to destabilize its economy and overthrow the President, the government says.
Student protests against rampant crime and food shortages resulted in violent confrontations that have left three anti-government demonstrators and one government supporter dead.
The government blames Lopez for the violence, and ordered his arrest to face charges including conspiracy and murder.
Lopez went into hiding, but was not silent, calling for Tuesday's protest and announcing he would lead the march.
The tension leading up to the march was not subtle.
The government plainly said that the opposition march lacked a permit and was not authorized.
Supporters of President Nicolas Maduro organized a "concert for peace" at the same site where the opposition march was supposed to start. The pro-government event was granted a permit.
The protesters changed their meeting place but said their march would happen regardless.
A strong police and military presence was noticeable along the route of the march hours before the first steps were taken.
"The peace-loving Venezuelans feel very, very worried by the irrational, fascist-leaning attitude and actions of a sector of the Venezuelan opposition," ruling party lawmaker Julio Rafael Chavez told CNN en Español on Tuesday.
Chavez claimed that the opposition has called for Maduro's assassination, and is being directed in part by the United States.
On Monday, Venezuela gave three U.S. diplomats 48 hours to leave the country, accusing them of conspiring to bring down the government.
The opposition has been defeated over and over again at the polls, and despite this decision by the people, it continues to call for marches and protests, Chavez said.
Bitter protests and counter-protests by supporters and detractors of the government have threatened political stability in Venezuela over the past decade.
Many of Maduro's claims -- of U.S. intervention, of assassination plots -- were also used by the late President Hugo Chavez. Chavez was briefly ousted in a coup in 2002, but otherwise outlasted the protests and won repeated re-election.
The current protests are the biggest that the Maduro government has faced in its 11 months in power.
The latest death came Monday, when a 17-year-old was hit by a truck and killed at a protest in the northeastern city of Carupano, a government official said.
Lopez's party, Popular Will, has accused the government of being responsible for violence during the protests.
On Monday, the party said government troops had violently raided its headquarters, firing tear gas and demanding security cameras. Venezuelan officials could not be immediately reached to respond to that claim.
"The latest actions we've seen from the government indicate that far from fomenting a climate of peace is trying to fortify the climate of confrontation and violence that the world has seen in images," another opposition leader and former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles told CNN en Español.
Calling them ineffective and playing into the government's narrative, Capriles has backed away from calling for massive protests, but said Lopez has his support.
"The protest will continue as long as the government gives no sign of resolving the problems of the Venezuelans," Capriles said.
(CNN) -- A week of demonstrations in Venezuela. Three people shot dead; dozens wounded; dozens more arrested and imprisoned. Pro-regime thugs intimidate protesting high school and college students. The question is being asked: Is Chavismo finally cracking in Venezuela?
Hugo Chavez died of cancer nearly a year ago, and the question hanging over Venezuela is how long his strange regime can live after him.
A country with a population smaller than Canada's has more murders than the United States. Inflation exceeds 56%. Goods from toilet paper to sacramental wine have vanished from shops. A regime that calls itself "socialist" has massively enriched the former president's family and friends. Street lights dim at night because a country with some of the world's largest energy reserves cannot provide enough electricity.
The Chavez regime has held power with four principal tools, all but one of which is gone or going.
The first tool of power was the late president's own mesmerizing personality. Venezuela has a bitter national history, and nobody has ever better voiced the resentments and yearnings of its subordinated classes and castes than Hugo Chavez. In a nation whose elite historically looked European, Chavez's face proclaimed his descent from indigenous people and African slaves. He joked, he raged, he bestowed favors on the barrios and made enemies of the traditional upper classes.
By contrast, the outstanding personal quality of Chavez's chosen successor, Nicolas Maduro, was his cringing deference to the leader who elevated him from a bus driver's seat to the top jobs in government.
The second Chavez tool of power was the shrewd deployment of the nation's oil wealth to buy support from favored constituencies. Support Chavez, and you might get a free house stocked with appliances, a government job or at least a new playground.
Chavez held the price of gasoline to pennies per gallon and offered subsidized rice and beans in government-owned shops. Meanwhile, he withdrew police protection from the wealthier neighborhoods that despised him, deploying criminal violence as a de facto tool of political repression.
Now, however, Venezuela is running out of cash to pay for these support-buying schemes. Industries are shuttering because they cannot obtain foreign currency to buy crucial parts. Interest rates on Venezuelan debt have jumped past 15%. The economy, which managed 1% growth in 2013, is now shrinking as economic activity other than oil and gas production grinds to a stop.
Chavez's third tool of power was control of the media. Independent television stations were eliminated. Newsprint shortages and other pressures were manipulated to force the sale of independent print media to government supporters. But it's difficult to cut populations off from information in the modern age, especially for a ramshackle, technically incompetent regime like Venezuela under Chavismo. Venezuela is not China nor even Putin's Russia. The people who understand how the Internet works overwhelmingly oppose the government.
The fourth and last tool of power was outright repression. Chavez himself always used this tool sparingly. He preferred economic reprisals against his opponents to violence. He drove them into exile rather than send them to camps. He politicized the army and police, but he hesitated to use them, perhaps because he did not in the end fully trust them.
When I visited Venezuela in 2010, everybody was talking about elite Cuban paramilitary police units that Chavez had supposedly borrowed from Fidel Castro. But change is coming to Cuba too, and if the units ever existed, they certainly have not been visible in the past's weeks clashes. Instead, Maduro has relied on local thugs.
Perhaps the Syrian example inspires Maduro to hope that he can hang on if his forces just kill enough people. But Venezuela is located in a very different neighborhood, close not only to the United States but also to democracies in Colombia and Brazil that take a dim view of murderous dictatorship. (Maduro has said that the opposition is mounting a "developing coup" and has issued an arrest warrant on conspiracy and murder charges against an opposition leader; the opposition leader's party blames the government for the violence.)
Chavez had an instinctive awareness that he could go so far but not too far. Whether Chavez's successor shares that awareness of limits, those limits still exist -- and without crossing them, Chavez's regime may have run out of the resources it needs to survive.
As the Castro regime in Cuba has demonstrated, a moribund authoritarian system can take a long time dying. But the Castro brothers were serious about hanging on to power. Chavismo was serious about nothing.
Edit
- I was an idiot and clicked "Quote" instead of "Edit"
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/02/18 19:21:17
2014/02/18 19:21:47
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
CNN, The BBC, USA Today, Washington Post, Reuters, Fox News, New York Times, NBC, they're all there. Thousands of articles.
Moving back to the OP though. My rule of thumb - any government that presides over a toilet paper shortage is a government that the clock is ticking on.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/02/18 20:27:35
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
This was my favorite piece of the Opinion article.
Perhaps the Syrian example inspires Maduro to hope that he can hang on if his forces just kill enough people. But Venezuela is located in a very different neighborhood, close not only to the United States but also to democracies in Colombia and Brazil that take a dim view of murderous dictatorship.
Do the war drums ever stop beating?
Also, I heard all about this on NPR.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/02/18 20:29:00
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2014/02/18 20:33:16
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
CNN, The BBC, USA Today, Washington Post, Reuters, Fox News, New York Times, NBC, they're all there. Thousands of articles.
Moving back to the OP though. My rule of thumb - any government that presides over a toilet paper shortage is a government that the clock is ticking on.
I'm a right winger?
Because... communism sucks. Especially if you can't control your supply of gak tickets. ( <--- that's euphamism for toilet paper )
Gentlemen, we are witnessing the real life experiment of what happens when an entire country runs out of good queso.
No Queso! No Peace!
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
2014/02/18 20:34:44
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
Our record in LA adventures is even worse then the Middle East...
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
So how many times do we humans have to try Communism (or the Chavista brand) before we figure out it doesn't work?
Just to stir the pot even more...
Why hasn't the US seen fit to help these people right here in the Americas, the way we intervened in the Middle East?
I have no idea... do you?
(yes, I'm feeling frisky here... )
What would you have the United States do? Bomb them? Maybe we could send in a fleet of drones? Any action by the United States will simply de-legitimize the opposition and play right into the claims of the Venezuelan government. These people voted for Chavez and Maduro, because they wanted change. The change they got was not to their liking. They are the ones who must rectify it. I pray that no one else is hurt or killed, and that the protestors have their demands at least seriously and transparently addressed.
It's been a shame this last decade to watch Venezuela slide into a strong-man dictatorship (I wouldn't necessarily call it Communism), but part of the reason this happened in the first place was as a reaction to 'Merican meddling in the region. Let this play out - so far the violence seems to be some isolated incidents. If it escalates into some sort of large scale suppression of dissent a la Syria then we should perhaps take a stronger look at an Americas-centric coalition lending a hand.
2014/02/18 21:19:52
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
What would you have the United States do? Bomb them? Maybe we could send in a fleet of drones? Any action by the United States will simply de-legitimize the opposition and play right into the claims of the Venezuelan government. These people voted for Chavez and Maduro, because they wanted change. The change they got was not to their liking. They are the ones who must rectify it. I pray that no one else is hurt or killed, and that the protestors have their demands at least seriously and transparently addressed.
It's been a shame this last decade to watch Venezuela slide into a strong-man dictatorship (I wouldn't necessarily call it Communism), but part of the reason this happened in the first place was as a reaction to 'Merican meddling in the region. Let this play out - so far the violence seems to be some isolated incidents. If it escalates into some sort of large scale suppression of dissent a la Syria then we should perhaps take a stronger look at an Americas-centric coalition lending a hand.
Fair enough...
I'm more attacking this from the angle that... "see, Communism (or any deriviative of such) just doesn't work... not for long at least". Still waiting for Cuba to have their reckoning.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/02/18 21:22:50
Live Ork, Be Ork. or D'Ork!
2014/03/13 21:28:09
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
What the hell is going on in Venezuela?
Venezuelan here. Mind you I was on today’s protest on the anti-government side, this means I’m biased. You may not know, but Venezuela is spiraling into debt. With Chavez death and the rule of President Nicolás Maduro, we had two bid devaluations. The Dollar went from 4,30 Bs (Bolivares "Fuertes") to 11,36 approx. on one year. We can’t find basic food elements like milk, flour, cooking oil, and even toilet paper on our marts and markets, this scarcity is beyond patience. Insecurity is rampant. We are now one of the most violent countries on the world. We had even one of our Miss Venezuela killed, it wasn’t because she was famous, not because she had money, it wasn’t a hitman. She died with same modus operandi every Venezuelan gets killed. The government is secretly working with a lot of "collectives" (mafias, armed groups, violent gangs) as means of intimidation and is turning a blind eye to violence. Here is a video of the police and government enforcers shooting and kicking people: [3]
[4] Here are some videos of these armed collectives shooting protesters: [5]
[6] you can see one protester shot death and the police not doing anything. Police brutality against protesters (not today, not in Caracas but in Mérida)
[7]Armed collectives shooting and robbing. These are the Tupamaros, considered a legal political party:
[8]
[9]You won’t find this on the news except on CNN. Our TV media is buyed by the goverment. It was funny and infuriating watching TV today and finding soup operas an bs shows while everybody was marching and the tension was boiling. -migvello
Live Ork, Be Ork. or D'Ork!
2014/03/13 22:10:45
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
Which is a shame... they should have "plenty" of moolah for the state because of that industry.
It's pretty much their _only_ industry though, and the various iterations of 'nationalisation' doesn't exactly create the most efficient resource management system. Private investment is (or was) severely limited.
Tried to catch up with what's going on on the CBC, some are describing this as a middle/upper class revolution that doesn't have the support of the working class. It's being portrayed as a counter to the Bolivarian Revolution, which is obviously intended to be something of a condemnation. I assume that the bulk of that is government propaganda as it suggests that 'everything is fine if it wasn't for these troublemakers' which is patently ridiculous.
Anyone who says 'mainstream media' seriously can be safely marked down as right wing
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Sgt_Scruffy wrote: What would you have the United States do? Bomb them? Maybe we could send in a fleet of drones? Any action by the United States will simply de-legitimize the opposition and play right into the claims of the Venezuelan government. These people voted for Chavez and Maduro, because they wanted change. The change they got was not to their liking. They are the ones who must rectify it. I pray that no one else is hurt or killed, and that the protestors have their demands at least seriously and transparently addressed.
It's been a shame this last decade to watch Venezuela slide into a strong-man dictatorship (I wouldn't necessarily call it Communism), but part of the reason this happened in the first place was as a reaction to 'Merican meddling in the region. Let this play out - so far the violence seems to be some isolated incidents. If it escalates into some sort of large scale suppression of dissent a la Syria then we should perhaps take a stronger look at an Americas-centric coalition lending a hand.
There's a whole lot the US can do in terms of sanctions and the like that could not just hurt but topple any Venezualan regime. For any Venezualan government to last the oil must flow.
I would think they're reluctant to do this right now as the region as a whole is (quite rightly) wary of US interference... and I'd think a few US oil companies would be hit by those sanctions, so there are political barriers as well.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2014/03/14 03:21:57
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
2014/03/14 03:23:00
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
Huh, that "political compass" thing a few posts up inspired me to take the dang thing. I'm pretty sure my results are as close to "don't give a gak" as it's possible to come with this particular metric (spoilered to not disrupt the thread too much)
Spoiler:
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/03/14 05:54:36
Like watching other people play video games (badly) while blathering about nothing in particular? Check out my Youtube channel: joemamaUSA!
BrianDavion wrote: Between the two of us... I think GW is assuming we the players are not complete idiots.
Rapidly on path to becoming the world's youngest bitter old man.
2014/03/14 12:32:04
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
I... I didnt even notice that guy had a gun the first time...
In Venezuela, even civil war is no excuse for bad dress.
-"Wait a minute.....who is that Frazz is talking to in the gallery? Hmmm something is going on here.....Oh.... it seems there is some dispute over video taping of some sort......Frazz is really upset now..........wait a minute......whats he go there.......is it? Can it be?....Frazz has just unleashed his hidden weiner dog from his mini bag, while quoting shakespeares "Let slip the dogs the war!!" GG
-"Don't mind Frazzled. He's just Dakka's crazy old dude locked in the attic. He's harmless. Mostly."
-TBone the Magnificent 1999-2014, Long Live the King!
2014/03/14 12:39:28
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
I’d be more worried about Saruman’s involvement. Although if the Uruk-hai take to the streets, I’d think we’d finally see more coverage.
She's pretty. I'd like to ask her out for coffee and discuss the merits of Axes over Swords and to find out her opinions on Shields instead of two weapons.
DA:70S+G+M+B++I++Pw40k08+D++A++/fWD-R+T(M)DM+
2014/03/14 14:07:31
Subject: Re:What the heck is going on in Venezuela
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