When societies collapse
Posted for your comment from BBC because I can barely understand the horror of this sort of thing.
=============
Venezuela’s Supreme Court has been attacked by grenades dropped from a helicopter in what President Nicolás Maduro called a “terrorist attack”.
Footage on social media shows a police helicopter circling over the city before shots and a loud bang are heard.
The police officer said to have piloted the stolen aircraft issued a statement denouncing the “criminal government”. His whereabouts are unknown.
It comes after mass protests against the political and economic crisis.
The Supreme Court is regularly criticised by the Venezuelan opposition for its rulings which bolster Mr Maduro’s hold on power.
The police officer identified himself as Oscar Pérez in video statements posted on the social media platform Instagram.
Appearing in military fatigues and flanked by armed, masked men in uniform, he appealed to Venezuelans to oppose “tyranny”.
Man identifying himself as Oscar Pérez makes statement
It is generally an exercise in futility trying to predict if some new twist in Venezuela’s long-running crisis is a “turning point” for the country.
There have been scores of seemingly decisive moments over the past few months – from the initial decision to strong-arm the national assembly, to the latest death of a teenage protester in Caracas – that quickly faded into the general malaise afflicting the oil-rich nation.
However, the sight of an apparently disaffected member of the security forces dropping grenades on the Supreme Court and allegedly firing on government buildings is extreme, even by Venezuela’s standards.
Whether “Oscar Pérez” is indeed part of a coalition of like-minded “military employees, policemen and civilians” or just a rogue policeman is hard to say.
Certainly President Maduro was quick to dub the incident “a terrorist attack” and used it as a reason to “activate” the armed forces to keep the peace.
Category: Politics
Aahhh Venezuela, the country whose commie-socialist policieswere praised openly by Bernie Sanders just a few years ago and nowadays they can’t even feed their people, let alone keep the store shelves stocked with shit paper. Communism and socialism merely keep everybody equally impoverished and miserable save for an elite few at the top.
It is all our fault, ya know. We caused the Saudi problem, too. Bottomed out the oil market and disrupted the cocaine trade. They don’t need toilet paper now, anyway; there is nothing to eat.
Let’s offer them aid and support to accept a few million slightly used European refugee rejects. I do believe the Germans, Swedes and French would be glad to chip-in. HEY!!! Great idea, make he same offer to the Norks…..
Yes, but the former problem (the food shortage) reduces the severity of the latter. If people don’t eat, they don’t take a crap, and thus won’t need toilet paper. See? Socialism works!
/sarc
It became impossible to keep up with the insanity in Venezuela. North Korea made more sense.
But this? Implosion? Dear God, how long will it be before that fool is dragged into the streets and stomped to death?
Hopefully before I crack a beer tonight.
Two words that should scare the s*** out of everyone, it’s a’coming: socialist revolution.
I’m curious as to how many of the Maduro/Chavez supporters are holding steady to their support. If a group of military people did this, anonymity aside, I see this coming to an ugly end.
Maduro was bad enough, but Chavez is beyond the disaster stage. The bolivar is worthless. Chavez can’t come up with enough cash to buy sufficient grain to provide a basic food: bread.
I’ve been wondering how many Venezuelans are taking their chances in the jungle to escape to one of the border countries, or if they are even able to cross the borders at this point in time.
Bother! I always get Maduro and Chavez mixed up, but they’re just clones of each other, aren’t they? My bad.
Yes, they are. With regards to the bolivar and commodities, remember last year the Venezuelan military allowed limited trade by Bootleggers over the Colombian border. This was after the Venezuelan military pulled back from a position in Columbia and after the purge of Columbians that the administration considered criminals. Dollars to doughnuts that the military, especially the leadership, is surviving off of graft. Considering how much money we’re throwing at Columbia to ‘grow flowers instead of cocaine’, if we really wanted to turn this smoldering into a 5 alarm all we’d have to do it yank the chain.
Instant revolution just add gasoline.
I get a lot of fresh fruits and veggies in the winter that come from Chile as do a lot of good wines. Better that they do this, and Colombia grows flowers, than the alternatives.
Easy, Ex-PH2. Just remember: when talking about Chavez, with appropriate apologies to the late DeForest Kelley: “He’s dead, lass.” (smile)
Another socialist “paradise” going down the shitter, like a MRE turd. I’m guessing that Chavez and Maduro didn’t get things right in making Venezuela a “paradise” for the working people.
That’s exactly correct!
Just ask any American Communist.
These third world shit holes are full of revolutionaries and ” patriots” who want to blame US imperialism in the early 20th century and capitalism for all their woes.
They were corrupt well before the US ever was formed, and continue to be corrupt long after.
Communism and Socialism just give a facade of equality and shared wealth. Government officials and party members are equal to everyone. They are just more equal because they keep their hand in the cookie jar that doesn’t suppose to exist.
I waited for quite some time for the WH to be surrounded by tanks once it was figured out what our last POTUS’s agenda was.
I am actually still amazed that the economy didn’t collapse.
Venezuela hasn’t had much of a society or civilization since they put that fat asshole Hugo in place. That they did showed pretty clearly that they had no sense. This is just the endgame to their stupidity coming full circle.
Yep. They did this to themselves.
They must not be doing it right. All the college professors say it is better than sliced cheese.
Here’s a link to a BBC article about Mr. Perez, with photos of him and the helicopter he was flying.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-40429867
Unless I’m mistaken, there is a real uprising underway. Strange, but I didn’t think it would take this long. I’ll be interested to see what happens next.
If only they’d done socialism correctly it would have worked….that’s the same problem with communism no one seems to be able to do them correctly and starvation and murder ends up being the result.
Why is that I hear leftists use this refrain all the time? If only….the problem is that neither total socialism or total communism can work, the economics of it have never worked. The math fails to support the system.
It’s more than just the math, VOV. It’s a complete lack of understanding human nature.
Yes.
Yeah that whole needs and abilities thing hasn’t worked since at least the first pilgrims hit Massachusetts back in 16 whatever.
If I recall correctly, that ‘needs and abilities’ thing was badly misunderstood by the original Jamestown colonists, which is why it failed in its first year.
” … mass starvation and mass murder ends up being the result.”
There, fixed it for you.
Just ask any moonbat liberal and they’ll tell you, me or anyone else that socialism works and it JUST needs to be given ONE MORE CHANCE despite the fact that it and communism killed over 120 million in the 20th Century.
Venezuela is a beautiful country, with a lot of nice people whom I fondly remember.
As Ex-PH2 has reminded us, Illinois is as well.
But then there are the problems of a nice place being ruled by socialists and/or communists:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-bad-is-the-crisis-in-illinois-it-has-14-6-billion-in-unpaid-bills-1498590946
I don’t believe that a military revolution will happen in Illinois, but it is alarming to note that in Venezuela, the medical community ran out of money, and in Illinois the medical community is running out of money.
Illinois is the Venezuela of the 50 States. Californicate cannot be far behind.
Most of that centers around Chicago and Cook County. The problem is that those who are on Medicaid or have state-paid home nursing services (e.g., disabled and need 24-hour assistance), and can’t afford it, or who need help getting that kind of thing, are going to lose it because of Dan Madigan and the people he has cowed into submission. Some of those services are, quite bluntly, having to close their doors now, and they are NOT unnecessary services at all.
We didn’t have this problem until he started the head-butting with the GOP governor, who has tried, repeatedly, to get a budget passed. I blame it entirely on Madigan and no one else.
It’s not really the same as Venezuela. It’s a conceited, power-greedy asshole who is at fault. The next disaster is the Chicago Public School system: same thing, same disaster, and that is Mayor Rahmbo Emmanuel, who is an incompetent ass personified.
The only difference is that there is enough of a structure to keep the likes of Madigan and Emmanuel in check. If given the opportunity, they and their policies would make Illinois very much another Venezuela.
Agreed, Ex-PH2.
But whether it is Dan Madigan and Rahm Emmanuel, Hugo Chavez and Nicolás Maduro, or the Arnold and Jerry Brown, the case remains that their socialist policies do not work anywhere – even with the checks and balances provided by the structure of these United States.
Whether in Illinois and Chicago/Cook County, Venezuela and Santiago de León de Caracas, or California and Sacramento – the cancer in the small locality impacts the health of the larger entity.
Which is a shame because Illinois, California and Venezuela have some great people and beautiful country.
IF ONLY the State of Illinois could divorce itself from Chicago, Cook County and East St. Louis it would then become a Red State.
I wish more people would read Animal Farm; and actually walk away from it learning the intended lesson….1984 too, for that matter.
For those who are time-challenged, I’ll summarize the lesson of both of Orwell’s novels briefly.
“Communism sounds good – until it’s implemented. Then it devolves into a corrupt dictatorship run to benefit the ruling elite. The dictatorship has no respect for individual liberties and rules with an iron hand. The end result is that the elite live as they please, in luxury, and the masses live in poverty with no individual freedoms.”