Atrocious Joe posted:

look at this goofball
https://twitter.com/ericfarns/status/1159312579094818816?s=20

Lightning Knight posted:

I don’t have the tweet handy but Ben Norton and Max Blumenthal are (still?) in Venezuela making videos and stuff again.

quote:

https://twitter.com/TitusMichaeleus/status/1160602825682014213

"Clearly all the news reports about how Maduro and the military hosed everything up are false if people are having fun for a moment!"

Frijolero posted:

For the record, I think corruption is good if it's used to advance popular causes and fight poverty, especially if you don't get caught. I called them idiots because they got caught.

536 posted:

Wait, you like Blumenthal?

This guy? Who was holding Maduros sword dong like it was going to bestow him with holy powers? Seems impartial

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

I only trust citizen journalists like fnox. Joanna Hausmann

536 posted:

This is the point! Only the loving dirty rich can afford to eat regularly in VZ. The poor are starving. That is the problem. Holy gently caress.

And the paid shills didn't present it as "this reflects the income inequality in VZ" they say " This shows you the food crisis is fake news". Go back and watch the report.

Condiv posted:

I didn’t realize at first, because m.discordia worded it ultra obtusively so he wouldn’t get in trouble for talking about non-venezuela stuff, but apparently us anti-interventionist leftists have to answer for the USSR famines cause we’re apparently in favor of those?

The Unnamed One posted:

The best thing about it is that Lula’s presidency could be considered a socdem administration at best (more of a neoliberal with progressive tendencies, really), and they couldn’t even have that.

Now we’re covering the world in ash and everyone hates us lol

Salean posted:

what about instead of maduro its umadbro

fnox posted:

also loving lmao at any of you fuckers crying about violence and disappearances and atrocities from a still non existent American invasion yet raving the return of paramilitaries to Colombia. hell yeah those farmers getting limbs torn off from land mines are gonna love it. couldn’t get more hypocritical if you tried. same poo poo you’re accusing me of.

fnox posted:

why didn’t Maduro or Chávez for that matter ever concern themselves with keeping the country’s agricultural output up so that we wouldn’t rely on imports?

quote:

On August 31, I exposed Hausmann’s hypocritical financial past, revealing he accepted speaking fees from repressive governments like Israel and Saudi Arabia, while criticizing banks for doing business with Venezuela’s elected government. I also raised questions about Hausmann’s private consulting firm, questioning why the economist failed to disclose his clients now that he claims to represent Guaidó’s administration at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

I sought comment from Hausmann while writing that article, asking him questions including whether or not it was appropriate for him and Guaidó’s “attorney general,” José Ignacio Hernández, to continue working at Harvard despite their service in Venezuela’s US-recognized government.

“I can’t think of one example of someone who worked an academic job [at Harvard] while serving in government. How do you have time for all of your duties?” I asked the professor.

“I exercise no government functions,” Haussman replied. “I do not run an organization, I am not paid by the Venezuelan government and I do not manage a public budget.”

This answer surprised me. Hausmann’s appointment to serve at the IDB and his role in designing Guaidó’s $160 billion debt restructuring plan surely constitute “government functions,” and in fact, required the ouster of an IDB official who had been appointed by the elected government of President Nicolas Maduro.

“Are you telling me Guaido’s administration does not constitute a legitimate government? I am sure the Venezuelan people will be surprised to hear that,” I said to Hausmann, highlighting his role in Guaidó’s so-called administration.

Realizing his error, Hausmann conceded, “I am an advisor of Juan Guaidó, which I do on a pro bono basis. I have been named governor of the IDB and a member of the restructuring commission. Neither involves any compensation.”

“So you do exercise government function?” I replied in order to confirm Hausmann’s self-contradiction. I noted the fact Alejandro Grisanti, the Guaidó-appointed chair of PdVSA’s board, and Gustavo Tarre, Guaidó’s “ambassador” to the Organization of American States, were required to quit their previous jobs before joining Venezuela’s shadow regime, even if they aren’t getting paid either.

“This isn’t an issue of compensation,” I added, stressing the issue of his dual employment.

It was at this point that Hausmann’s defense devolved from logic, which seemed to be in low supply, to ad-hominem.

“You are not a journalist nor are you interested in the truth,” charged Hausmann. “You are an advocate of a cause and you produce biased and untrue stuff that advances your political agenda.”

“Ok, you are entitled to your opinion,” I responded, inviting Hausmann to correct any of my inaccuracies. “Have I said anything false?”

“I am not required to quit my job, according to Venezuelan law, US law or Harvard norms,” asserted the professor.

“Ok,” I accepted. “But shouldn’t you disclose your private consulting clients if you are a government advisor?”

Rather than answer my question, Hausmann changed the subject: “You tried to disqualify my daughter just because she is my daughter as if she was not an [independent] woman.”

Heartcatch posted:

I can't wait for America to collapse and be balkanized.

A big flaming stink posted:

yellowcar posted:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1171452880055746560

Frijolero posted:

Socialism is when you use a bit of your imperialist blood money to appease your pissy-pants middle class

Kurtofan posted:

poo poo like this is why id rather biden win than warren, shes more dangerous than old broke brain

Goon Danton posted:

Is speaking ill of vilerat still bannable there?

Atrocious Joe posted:

The US did pass sanction on Nicaragua not long after using the protests as justification, included Nicaragua as part of the "Troika of Tyranny," and had funded many of the NGOs that were involved in the protests.

quote:

A detailed study of the death toll that has been recorded in Nicaragua since a violent campaign to remove President Daniel Ortega and his Sandinista government shows that at least as many Sandinista supporters were killed as opposition members. The study, “Monopolizing Death,” demonstrates how partisan local NGOs conflated all deaths that occurred since April, including accidents and the murders of Sandinistas, with killings by government forces. Washington has seized on the bogus death count to drive the case for sanctions and intensify pressure for regime change.

The manipulated death toll was the centerpiece of a July 25 harangue by Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen on the House floor. While drumming up support for a bipartisan resolution condemning Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega for supposedly ordering the massacre of demonstrators, Ros-Lehtinen declared, “Mr. Speaker, four hundred and fifty! That is how many Nicaraguans have been killed by the Ortega regime and its thugs since April of this year.”

The congresswoman’s portrayal of a dictatorial regime gunning down peaceful protesters like helpless quails in a canned hunt was designed to generate pressure for an attack on the Nicaraguan economy in the form of sanctions packages like the Nica Act. Her narrative was reinforced by Vice President Mike Pence, who condemned Nicaragua’s government for “350+ dead at the hands of the regime,” and by Ken Roth, the long-serving executive director of Human Rights Watch, who also suggested that Ortega had personally ordered the killing of “300 demonstrators against his corrupt and repressive rule.”

Doctor Jeep posted:

does human rights watch do any good or is it complete trash

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

no they see color, that's why it's colorist and not racist. because all Venezuelans are the same race of course.

comedyblissoption posted:

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/status/1188119851287678976

quote:

Friedman actually hated Pinochet since he is an authoritarian which is antithesis of liberalism.

quote:

You folks on the left especially will know about Milton a lot of things that ain't so, such as that he advised the Chilean dictatorship of Pinochet. Yes, I realize the Chicago-Boys-with-Milton is the premise of numerous fine articles in the New York Review of Books. But they and you are wrong. Milton didn't do it. He has in fact been notably careful about advising any government, including even the American one...

Chicago had of course a connection to Chile, but Milton was not it: Al Harberger and Larry Sjaastad and Gregg Lewis were; not Milton. I, Deirdre McCloskey, probably taught more future Chilean economists associated with torturing and murdering citizens in soccer stadiums than Milton did, as did many of us, to our regret...(Yet it needs to be realized that the connection was formed originally with a free country, before Pinochet, just as Harvard had a connection with a free government in Venezuela, say, or with Pakistan before the generals, and a little after. And the economic advice that Chicago economists gave to Chile was very, very good: witness Chile now.)

http://www.deirdremccloskey.com/editorials/milton.php

quote:

He turned down two honorary degrees from Chilean universities because they were state universities under Pinochet. He made one six-day trip to Chile in 1975 at the invitation of a private bank. He gave two lectures on the "fragility of freedom". He did have a brief meeting with Pinochet and wrote a letter to Pinochet afterwards urging "shock treatment" of reduced government spending and reduced growth in the money supply in order to cure the rampant inflation then afflicting Chile. His letter contains many detailed suggestions, including a call for "generous severance allowances" for laid off government workers, and a safety net to alleviate hardship and distress among the poor. Friedman has also been criticized for helping to train some economists who served in the Pinochet government, even though teachers cannot control what their students do.

http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2008/10/observations-on-the-milton-friedman-institute-at-the-university-of-chicago-becker.html

They forgot to implement Friedman's recommendations on Pinochet when doing austerity.