Topic: A change in Venezuela?

[The Gulleysucker]

They're all long standing members of the  Labour Friends of Venezuela group, though perhaps as the old saying goes, with friends like these, who needs enemies.

Here's his Uncle (Colin, who also signed that)...  It is no longer on the official site but Wayback snapped a copy before it was weeded and I suppose being cynical, then became deniable...

https://web.archive.org/web/20090210183609/http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4181

Meanwhile, here's a bit of a warning from 2011 unheeded and ignored.

[Alan_X]

if you want a good laugh go watch some Richard burgon interviews on YouTube

I just watched one of his interviews with Kirsty Wark 'explaining' Labour's spending plans...

My head hurts...

[Alan_X]

They're all long standing members of the  Labour Friends of Venezuela group, though perhaps as the old saying goes, with friends like these, who needs enemies.

Here's his Uncle (Colin, who also signed that)...  It is no longer on the official site but Wayback snapped a copy before it was weeded and I suppose being cynical, then became deniable...

https://web.archive.org/web/20090210183609/http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/4181

Meanwhile, here's a bit of a warning from 2011 unheeded and ignored.

Chávez 20 - Mi Amigo Hugo

Showing of Oliver Stone film

7pm Wednesday 27th February, Central London

Ken Livingstone, who brought Hugo Chávez to London, will introduce a special showing of ‘Mi Amigo Hugo’ by Oliver Stone and a short film of clips of when Chávez came to London.

Rum cocktail or soft drink included with every ticket!

Hosted by North London VSC as part of the year’s CHAVEZ 20 events looking at the life and legacy of Hugo Chávez who acted as a spark for Latin American liberation and 21st century socialism.

http://www.vicuk.org/index.php/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=300&Itemid=30

I'll probably not bother...

[The Gulleysucker]

It could be interesting, to rock up and ask Livingstone for his opinion of say Israeli involvement in it all. 

But you can see why some on the left have been in thrall to Chavez, he was one of them in so many ways...

At a rally in June 2010, Chavez alleged that “Israel is financing the Venezuelan opposition. There are even groups of Israeli terrorists, of the Mossad, who are after me trying to kill me.” In response, AJC Executive Director David Harris stated that: “These baseless accusations by President Chavez are downright dangerous and are used by him to bolster his own political standing.” In the same speech, Chavez called Israel a "terrorist and murderous state",[31][32][33] and cursed it by saying: "I take this opportunity to condemn again from the bottom of my soul and my guts the State of Israel: Cursed be, State of Israel! Cursed is cursed, terrorists and assassins!".[34]

During a visit by Syrian President Bashar Assad to Venezuela in June 2010, Chavez accused Israel of being "the assassin arm of the United States" and that "one day the genocidal state of Israel will be put into its place."[35] wiki

[classycarra]

Really poor form from labour there. I've just read the position of that MP, and well... not a fucking clue.

I wish we could do more than simply condemn him, and the rest of the leaders cabal, for their disgraceful pro-dictatorship views. They are doing everything in their power to run the image of the UK Labour party as being a party concerned with equality and rationality into the ground. I can assure you that they aren't the majority among voters who voted Labour over here before the party was lost.

It's just since Corbyn became leader that a lot of loud regressive lefties have rejected their shit little tea parties and been allowed back into the party they were once expelled from (in order for the party to be able to gain election and make progress in tackling inequality; as opposed to sinking to their level to waste time teabagging Trotsky and Stalin in a local church hall kitchen)

If you're interested in just how loathsome and complicit a lot of these characters are in propping up the dictatorship, this article is quite comprehensive

https://historyjack.com/2017/07/07/starvation-and-silence-british-left-and-venezuela/

[The Gulleysucker]

https://historyjack.com/2017/07/07/starvation-and-silence-british-left-and-venezuela/

That was a superb read.

Thanks for posting it up.

[Alan_X]

That was a superb read.

Thanks for posting it up.

It is.

[Yorkykopite]

The Labour Party had some wretched defenders - even glorifiers - of Stalin in the 1930s. Several prominent politicians and intellectuals testified to the miracle of the Soviet economy as millions were dying of starvation. The Labour lawyer and MP, Denis Pritt, came back from the Moscow Show Trials in 1937 to pronounce them models of legal justice.  Even in the 1940s, as the Soviets were building their empire in Eastern Europe by force and terror, and Stalin was embarking on his own Jewish pogrom, there were a handful of Labour MPs who kept singing from Stalin's song sheet.

Of course Clement Attlee and the rest flushed these turds out of the Labour Party. It was too embarrassing for a democratic socialist party to have apologists for totalitarianism and anti-semites among its ranks.

Today Denis Pritt is essentially leading the Labour Party. Corbyn hasn't retracted a single one of his eulogies to Chavez and Maduro. He's erased a few embarrassing references to Venezuela from his website, but only for the sake of convenience.

Sorry Venezuela! Corbyn represents a tiny minority of lunatics. He doesn't represent the broad labour movement.   

[Alan_X]

...Sorry Venezuela! Corbyn represents a tiny minority of lunatics. He doesn't represent the broad labour movement.   

Unfortunately he does represent the Labour Party.

[Yorkykopite]

Unfortunately he does represent the Labour Party.

True, though he'll be gone soon. Either that or the Labour Party will be gone.

[BoRed]

I wish we could do more than simply condemn him, and the rest of the leaders cabal, for their disgraceful pro-dictatorship views.

Yeah, before Corbyn, Labour would never have dreamed of supporting the likes of Gaddafi or the Saudi regime.

This is getting ridiculous. There's loads wrong with Corbyn, but let's not pretend everything was perfect before him.

[Lush is the best medicine...]

Chris Williamson is trending on twitter right now

[Robinred]

It is.

Ditto

[classycarra]

Yeah, before Corbyn, Labour would never have dreamed of supporting the likes of Gaddafi or the Saudi regime.

This is getting ridiculous. There's loads wrong with Corbyn, but let's not pretend everything was perfect before him.

If you knew me, you'd know I don't think anything has ever been perfect

I must have missed the time when Blair used his position as an MP to try to add legitimacy to fraudulent elections, in order to prop up a dictator. Would love some examples here.

Thanks for your excellent timing though, in demonstrating several of the psychological theories quoted in that article. Your avatar makes me wonder if there're even more relevant sections in the article later on?

[BoRed]

I must have missed the time when Blair used his position as an MP to try to add legitimacy to fraudulent elections, in order to prop up a dictator. Would love some examples here.

You mean unelected dictators don't count?

[classycarra]

You mean unelected dictators don't count?

I'm about to watch a film, so don't have too much time to engage in your whataboutery. Here's a good section from that article that you might find interesting though:

Jones acknowledges the admiration and support Chávez gave for “autocrats and tyrants such as Gaddafi, Ahmadinejad and Assad” in his October 2012 apologetic, and again in the March 2013 obituary article, “he also supported brutal dictators in Iran, Libya and Syria. It has certainly sullied his reputation.” On both occasions, however, Jones engages in a profoundly dishonest exercise of whataboutery, introducing the irrelevant throw-back invocations of “the West’s own support for dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kazakhstan – whose regime is currently paying Tony Blair $13m a year for PR services.” Because of this, Jones claims of Chávez’s human rights critics, “a giant glasshouse looms behind them”. The irrelevancy of Western involvement in the Middle East, not least the business activities of a former Prime Minister, to the very real and material human rights abuses committed by Chávez and supported by him in other countries is self-evident. Human Rights Watch and other human rights defenders in Venezuela were not synonymous with the personage of Tony Blair; associating criticism of Chavismo with them only repeats the paranoid and repressive narrative of the regime against its victims.

Furthermore, Jones omits a distinction between Chávez’s support for dictator’s and those of the West which should be recognisable at point-blank by himself and other pro-Chávez leftists keenly seeking to emulate the regime “that says no to neoliberalism”. Whichever palpable support has been given by Britain and the US to various regimes, Western democracies have not sought, as a matter of ideology and policy, to emulate the governmental and economic systems of Saudi absolutist monarchies and Central Asian autocrats, transposing their emulation onto their own societies. Just as Jones, Milne, Corbyn and Abbott dreamed of creating a Venezuela in Britain, Chávez sought to remake Venezuela in the image of the despotisms he most admired for their anti-imperialist credentials.

[Yorkykopite]

I'm about to watch a film, so don't have too much time to engage in your whataboutery. Here's a good section from that article that you might find interesting though:

Yes, that nails it. Corbyn was quite clear that he hoped Britain would go down the Chavez road to socialism (at a time when it was plain to most people that Chavez on the fast road to dictatorship). Blair never hoped to institute a Gaddafi type police state in Britain. Indeed, as the article points out, the great international defender of Gaddafi was...Hugo Chavez.

The other point is so obvious that I suspect that BoRed understands it (though whether he agrees with it I don't know). Blair was a 'friend' of Gaddafi in the same way that he was a 'friend' of Gerry Adams and the Provisional IRA. He sought to disarm them, extract their poison (as much as could be done) and to end the wars they were involved in by getting them to admit defeat, revise their aims, and start making compromises. In other words it was diplomacy.

Sadly Corbyn was a friend of Adams and the Provisional IRA in a very different sense. He wanted them to win the war, he encouraged them after they committed atrocities and he resisted any attempt to get them to compromise.

[Lush is the best medicine...]

Don’t forget when McDonnell tried to be leader after Blair he said Britain should try to be more like Venezuela, another quote for the Lib Dem/ Tory posters

[BoRed]

Don’t forget when McDonnell tried to be leader after Blair he said Britain should try to be more like Venezuela, another quote for the Lib Dem/ Tory posters

Thanks for being so honest. Who else do you include in that?

[Lush is the best medicine...]

Thanks for being so honest. Who else do you include in that?

throw the snp as well, greens too, pretty much everyone

[Alan_X]

Thanks for being so honest. Who else do you include in that?

Meow

[BoRed]

throw the snp as well, greens too, pretty much everyone

Is that how you see it? Labour in one corner, Tories, Lib Dems, SNP, the Greens and "everyone" in the other?

[Lush is the best medicine...]

Is that how you see it? Labour in one corner, Tories, Lib Dems, SNP, the Greens and "everyone" in the other?

do you think they’ll avoid such open goals

[Robinred]

Is that how you see it? Labour in one corner, Tories, Lib Dems, SNP, the Greens and "everyone" in the other?

You keep protesting that you’re not a Corbynista.

Yet almost every post of yours is barbed, and hints at a hidden agenda vaguely left wing and certainly anti-Blair.

Instead of constantly replying to questions with more questions, why don’t you do us all a favour and tell us what you trust, value and believe in?

[Lush is the best medicine...]

You keep protesting that you’re not a Corbynista.

Yet almost every post of yours is barbed, and hints at a hidden agenda vaguely left wing and certainly anti-Blair.

Instead of constantly replying to questions with more questions, why don’t you do us all a favour and tell us what you trust, value and believe in?

he’s argued on here for communism to be given another go and it being superior so that’s a start, and  blamed capitalism for hitler so that gives you a hint where he is on the political spectrum

[BoRed]

You keep protesting that you’re not a Corbynista.

Yet almost every post of yours is barbed, and hints at a hidden agenda vaguely left wing and certainly anti-Blair.

Instead of constantly replying to questions with more questions, why don’t you do us all a favour and tell us what you trust, value and believe in?

Vaguely left wing? Must try harder.

I'm not a Corbynista, he's way too centrist for me. But my barbed posts are almost always in reply to other posts with agendas. I'm not anti-Blair, I literally danced in the street when he won in 1997, and was damned pleased when he won the next two elections (even after Iraq), because the alternative was a lot worse. I was devastated when Brown and Miliband lost, and was equally upset when Corbyn lost (though it was less of a surprise). In short, under FPTP, Blair or Corbyn, voting Labour always was and still is the only right thing to do for me. I just don't subscribe to the theory that Blair was the second coming of Jesus, and that Corbyn is the antichrist. Even shorter, my barbed posts are in response to a lack of nuance, balance and objectivity. Or at least what I perceive as such.

When I was younger, I believed in the inherent goodness of mankind. I believed the world would eventually become a better place. Now I believe that most people are c*nts. I also believe that every country gets the government it deserves. I don't trust anyone, and am firmly in the "they're all the same" camp. In 2015, I was in the "they're all the same, including Corbyn" camp, and still am. I still value goodness, but there's precious little going around. I'm an old cynic, trying to get by, trying to ensure that my kids don't suffer too much from the c*nts that are most people. In doing so, I'm the same, a selfish c*nt. I guess you can't take mankind out of a man.

But not to derail the thread, in here I'm trying to square the following:

1. Trump is Putin's puppet.
2. Putin supports Maduro.
3. Trump supports Guaido.

So what's the game being played? Divide and conquer?

[Yorkykopite]

Can we get back to discussing Venezuela please.

[BoRed]

he’s argued on here for communism to be given another go and it being superior so that’s a start, and  blamed capitalism for hitler so that gives you a hint where he is on the political spectrum

Thanks for illustrating my point.

[Lush is the best medicine...]

Can we get back to discussing Venezuela please.

hezbollah have come out and said they’re behind Maduro

[Banquo's Ghost]

But not to derail the thread, in here I'm trying to square the following:

1. Trump is Putin's puppet.
2. Putin supports Maduro.
3. Trump supports Guaido.

So what's the game being played? Divide and conquer?

Putin plays a very long game, and your three point progression is too simplistic by far. One consistent policy is that he likes to be seen as a successor to the Soviet Empire, and that he is a reliable 'opposition' superpower to the United States.

Trump is not Putin's puppet in the sense that he'll do whatever he's told. The Orange One is a loose cannon which is smashing destructively about the ship of state. That's quite enough for Putin's needs (aside from the odd effort to remove sanctions) - he wanted chaos in the US, and he has it, perhaps more than in his wildest dreams. One imagines that if he can get the US to embarrass itself in its Venezuelan policy, that will be quite sufficient for him to show Russia is the dependable ally. There's oil, and faded influence in South America to factor in as well.

If Trump backs off when it all starts to interfere with his golf and his tiny brain hurts from decisions beyond "I like that guy", Russia gets more influence. If Trump decides getting into an ugly war will help re-elect him, a few more crates of Dom Perignon can be ordered to accompany whatever Vlad uses for popcorn these days.

See Syria (hopefully without the horrific bloodshed the Great Game usually entails).

[Robinred]

Thanks for your answer BoRed.

I thought your reply regarding Trump and Putin’s backing of different horses in the Venezuelan leadership was a valid and interesting observation.

I too have no desire to derail the thread, so I’ll close by remarking how flummoxed I remain regarding your political musings and conclusions. Just to conclude with a glaringly obvious point, one recognised by Mandelson, the principal author of the ‘third way’. Without power in FPTP UK politics, you are pissing into the wind.

[Lush is the best medicine...]

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/101420/excl-labour-peer-hits-out-after-inclusion-letter

These idiots who did this want to run the uk ffs, the original had ‘Professor Doreen Massey’ (not baroness) so trying to get themselves out of adding a person who died over two years ago by claiming there’s a ‘paper trail’

Idiots the lot of them

[Yorkykopite]

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/101420/excl-labour-peer-hits-out-after-inclusion-letter

These idiots who did this want to run the uk ffs, the original had ‘Professor Doreen Massey’ (not baroness) so trying to get themselves out of adding a person who died over two years ago by claiming there’s a ‘paper trail’

Idiots the lot of them

Maybe they held a seance and Doreen Massey spoke from beyond the grave? 

[BarryCrocker]

National security adviser John Bolton’s notes read: “5000 troops to Colombia”. Picture: AP Photo/ Evan VucciSource:AP

https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/trump-administration-hit-corrupt-venezuela-oil-firm-with-sanctions/news-story/d9f328772fa7c70c6b5efafdaed8282b

[Lush is the best medicine...]

To be fair that could be to do with the massive influx of refugees, 5k seems a bit small if they plan on invading Venezeula

[BoRed]

I too have no desire to derail the thread, so I’ll close by remarking how flummoxed I remain regarding your political musings and conclusions. Just to conclude with a glaringly obvious point, one recognised by Mandelson, the principal author of the ‘third way’. Without power in FPTP UK politics, you are pissing into the wind.

Power is one thing Corbyn and his gang never had. The thread was derailed as soon as Corbyn was mentioned. Corbyn didn't bring Maduro to power, he can't keep him in power, and, even if he wanted to, he can't remove him from power. Discussing Corbyn (not to mention Livingstone and Williamson) in a Venezuela thread trivialises the suffering of the Venezuelan people. But I guess if cheap points can be scored on the internet, the Venezuelans have served their purpose. Corbyn is a political nobody who, in his 70 odd years on this planet, has never done anything of note, let alone of consequence. Yet look around here, and it seems he's to blame for everything wrong with the world today. The Brexit thread (where he certainly deserves a mention) is more about Corbyn than about the government. Novichok - Corbyn's fault. Syria, Israel, Palestine - all about Corbyn. Even on the Holocaust Memorial thread it took just a few posts until someone brought up the Labour Party. The Tory Party thread had to be locked because everyone kept talking about Corbyn. He even gets regular mentions in the Trump thread. I haven't ventured into the climate change thread in a while, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone was blaming him for that, too.

It's tiring, it's boring, and it ignores the real issues. Ironically, it seems Corbyn's staunchest opponents, much like Corbynistas, are giving him much more credit than he deserves. Meanwhile, most of the world is run by regimes ranging from the far right to outright fascist, so perhaps it's time we stopped, to borrow a phrase, pissing in the wind, and started talking about those truly responsible for the mess we're in. Or, at the very least, about Venezuela.

[Yorkykopite]

Power is one thing Corbyn and his gang never had. The thread was derailed as soon as Corbyn was mentioned. Corbyn didn't bring Maduro to power, he can't keep him in power, and, even if he wanted to, he can't remove him from power. Discussing Corbyn (not to mention Livingstone and Williamson) in a Venezuela thread trivialises the suffering of the Venezuelan people. But I guess if cheap points can be scored on the internet, the Venezuelans have served their purpose. Corbyn is a political nobody who, in his 70 odd years on this planet, has never done anything of note, let alone of consequence. Yet look around here, and it seems he's to blame for everything wrong with the world today. The Brexit thread (where he certainly deserves a mention) is more about Corbyn than about the government. Novichok - Corbyn's fault. Syria, Israel, Palestine - all about Corbyn. Even on the Holocaust Memorial thread it took just a few posts until someone brought up the Labour Party. The Tory Party thread had to be locked because everyone kept talking about Corbyn. He even gets regular mentions in the Trump thread. I haven't ventured into the climate change thread in a while, but it wouldn't surprise me if someone was blaming him for that, too.

It's tiring, it's boring, and it ignores the real issues. Ironically, it seems Corbyn's staunchest opponents, much like Corbynistas, are giving him much more credit than he deserves. Meanwhile, most of the world is run by regimes ranging from the far right to outright fascist, so perhaps it's time we stopped, to borrow a phrase, pissing in the wind, and started talking about those truly responsible for the mess we're in. Or, at the very least, about Venezuela.

This is progress and that's good. We all recognise now that Venezuela is a tyranny and that the regime should go. That's a mighty step from where we were even two years ago when the official Opposition in this country was led by a man who wanted Britain to become like Venezuela. 

[johnybarnes]

How accurate is this analysis?

<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/VMplqEpfGhs&amp;t=" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/VMplqEpfGhs&amp;t=</a>

[Lush is the best medicine...]

It’s Jimmy Dore so utter bollocks it will be as usual from the spitter

[johnybarnes]

It’s Jimmy Dore so utter bollocks it will be as usual from the spitter

Strong analysis