Post-Chávez Venezuela

[innonimatu]

Not really Socialist, militants and trade unionists from the Socialist Party and Workers' Party have a curious tendency of getting shot during demonstrations by unknown assailants eventually revealed to be mobsters with dubious links to the government.

Ah! Yes, I had run across some such news. I think I'm getting a better picture of Argentina now. It does look like that momentary revolution back in 2001 ended up being quelled at the cost of providing just a little bread. Meet the new government, almost the as the old one but with a different clothes? Well, remember what you said about importing books - they probably imported and read Lampedusa's great novel...

 

[GoodGame]

Venezuela kind of has an ace in the hole having an oil-exporting economy.

 

[Takhisis]

Ah! Yes, I had run across some such news. I think I'm getting a better picture of Argentina now. It does look like that momentary revolution back in 2001 ended up being quelled at the cost of providing just a little bread. Meet the new government, almost the as the old one but with a different clothes? Well, remember what you said about importing books - they probably imported and read Lampedusa's great novel...

The 'revolution' was staged, not many people believe in it except the die-hard militants. Most of the 'uprisings' were from political clientele. As a big metropolis, Buenos Aires is like Rome in the last two centuries of the Republic, with enough clout you can have your own army of slum-dwellers to stage any number of 'spontaneous' demonstrations. Given that most governors signed a letter to ask the President to step down (incidentally, most of the judges and legislators from the time are still around, including the current President and her clique) at the most convenient time, I wonder how it's never been investigated. Oh, right, it's because they're still in power.

Oh, and the government from 1989 to 1999 was the same figureheads as today but shuffled around. the same party, same everything. The December 1999-Dec 2001 attempt at having anything other than Peronism failed ignominiously.

 

[innonimatu]

That's a rather dismal depiction of the situation. I'd like to believe that there are still people in Argentina acting outside the control of those same old corrupt groups. And with some chance of still making it a different country. But you should know better, being there.
If that dismal situation is indeed all you find, all there is, then my answer to that question of whether you should be packing is yes. Because even if it eventually gets better, it will get worse before.

Still, about Argentina, I'll wait until I see the outcome of the current process of renationalisation of YPF before I make up my mind on what to believe.

 

[Traitorfish]

It seems over-simplistic to reduce the 2001 unrest to a simple matter of clientelism. I mean, rent-a-mobs generally don't steal entire factories, so it would appear that there are least some dimensions that a narrative of corrupt politicians and easily bought-off plebeians doesn't quite encompass.

 

[Takhisis]

Given that some governor's posts have been kept by the ame families since the 19th century, i'd disagree.

 

[Traitorfish]

Nobody ever said that it had to be neat. It is possible to find within a given phenomenon the existence of contrary tendencies- it would be stranger, in fact, if it wasn't riven with such contradictions.

 

[Takhisis]

You haven't ever lived in a third-world country. In effect, large sectors of the population have been reduced to vassalage, with entire towns not even being given their identity papers except emporarily at election time. It's very hard to understand for outsiders. That's why the 'voto cautivo' is always factored in when redicting election results. It means 'the captive vote'.

 

[Bootstoots]

You haven't ever lived in a third-world country. In effect, large sectors of the population have been reduced to vassalage, with entire towns not even being given their identity papers except emporarily at election time. It's very hard to understand for outsiders. That's why the 'voto cautivo' is always factored in when redicting election results. It means 'the captive vote'.

Not even being given their identity papers until election time? How does that happen, exactly, and what are the papers used for? And how much of Argentina's population is dependent on political handouts? I really don't know anything about this.

 

[Traitorfish]

You haven't ever lived in a third-world country. In effect, large sectors of the population have been reduced to vassalage, with entire towns not even being given their identity papers except emporarily at election time. It's very hard to understand for outsiders. That's why the 'voto cautivo' is always factored in when redicting election results. It means 'the captive vote'.

I don't see how that contradicts anything I've said?

 

[Takhisis]

Not even being given their identity papers until election time? How does that happen, exactly, and what are the papers used for? And how much of Argentina's population is dependent on political handouts? I really don't know anything about this.

It's done at gunpoint usually. Without your ID you can't vote, you can't submit most job applications, you might even get detained as a suspect if there's a drug raid and no one can identify you. I know it sounds unbelievable to strangers and I didn't believe it at first. That's why it's always sound advice never to give your ID card or ppassport or whatever to anyone at all, and why many businesses and shops (and even government offices) just make do with a photocopy without asking for the original.

I don't see how that contradicts anything I've said?

I don't see how any of your stuff contradicts anything luiz or I have said?

 

[Traitorfish]

I don't see how any of your stuff contradicts anything luiz or I have said?

You and Luiz have described the 2001 unrest as a matter of political clientism, the demonstrations of plebeian mobs being in essence nothing more that a mercenary mobilisation on behalf of an entrenched political elite against a threat to their station. I suggested that this narrative fails to encompass the full impact of that unrest, taking as a specific example the recuperadas movement, who are in the business of unilaterally taking control of entire buildings and complexes- not the sort of activity which entrenched elites tend to be particularly enthusiastic about. (This is borne out by the fact that in the 1970s the Justicialists themselves went to great lengths to uproot and destroy a similar movement that had emerged under the faltering military regime.) That would seem to constitute a contradiction (however accurate) of the narrative suggested by you and Luiz, while your reply, an observation as to how deeply entrenched the elites are, did not actually address that criticism, but simply reaffirmed an aspect of the original narrative that I hadn't questioned.

 

[innonimatu]

You and Luiz have described the 2001 unrest as a matter of political clientism, the demonstrations of plebeian mobs being in essence nothing more that a mercenary mobilisation on behalf of an entrenched political elite against a threat to their station. I suggested that this narrative fails to encompass the full impact of that unrest, taking as a specific example the recuperadas movement, who are in the business of unilaterally taking control of entire buildings and complexes- not the sort of activity which entrenched elites tend to be particularly enthusiastic about. (This is borne out by the fact that in the 1970s the Justicialists themselves went to great lengths to uproot and destroy a similar movement that had emerged under the faltering military regime.) That would seem to constitute a contradiction (however accurate) of the narrative suggested by you and Luiz, while your reply, an observation as to how deeply entrenched the elites are, did not actually address that criticism, but simply reaffirmed an aspect of the original narrative that I hadn't questioned.

Traitorfish, I just want to say that I admire your patience. I quickly start to lose my temper when I meet with such debating tactics...

 

[Takhisis]

innonimatu, I just want to say that if you consider wat others do as 'tactics' is because you consider the thread a battle and you're only concerned about 'winning' it, which I can assure you luiz and I do not. We may make mistakes, we may get misled or ignore the point, but we do not think in terms of 'winning' and 'losing' the thread.

 

[innonimatu]

innonimatu, I just want to say that if you consider wat others do as 'tactics' is because you consider the thread a battle and you're only concerned about 'winning' it, which I can assure you luiz and I do not. We may make mistakes, we may get misled or ignore the point, but we do not think in terms of 'winning' and 'losing' the thread.

No, this is not my battle, I don't have a horse in this race. These governments are not, strictly speaking, running the policies I'd like seeing applied somewhere. If I sympathize with them it's just because neither are they continuing to run policies that have been tried there in the past and failed. They're doing something different for a change. And being attacked for that without the attacks being backed coherent arguments. Every present problem, many of which were inherited from the previous policies, is blamed on their current policies. No attempt to give credible, substantiated alternatives is made.
That is what pisses me off.

Why do you not address the criticism you received? I mean, I've seen plenty of complaints, but:
1) no mentioning of better alternatives;
2) scant backing for such strong attacks on what the argentinian (and the venezuelan, btw) government is doing.

It's like, I don't know, Iraq of something. There it was "they have wmd!" and because Saddam was a nasty dictator it was just a matter of repeating it often enough and the public would believe. With Venezuela, and Argentina (and Bolivia, and some other countries) it is repeating "they're nuts" over and over again, and because their governments are engaged in applying unconventional policies (unconventional in these times, that is, some have been applied in Europe and the US in the past) the public is expected to believe that.

This is supposed to be about Venezuela, so let's cut the talk about Argentina here. But in the other thread can you tell what would you have a government of Venezuela of your choice do? Not what policies you want to attack, but what policies do you defend for your country, and why? That would be far more constructive and credible than simply attacking everything the current government is doing.

Also, I'd like to know (perhaps in the other thread, also) what any government should have done, in your opinion, back in 2001-2002, when Argentina was collapsing financially. I take it that you or your family had to accept losses in the "corralito", and blame it on the present government, which indeed has not been purged from personalities involved in the previous ones. But that was the inevitable result of many years of mismanagement, corruption, theft of assets, and bad financial and trade policies - by then something like that was impossible to avoid!

Actually, I do kind of have a horse in this race, indirectly: I fully expect several european countries, my own included, to follow on the footsteps of Argentina. So understanding the process through which it collapsed in 2001, and the subsequent recovery, and any possible alternatives, is of great interest to me. Do tell me, us all who read this thread, what alternatives, within the constraints of the situation, you saw.

 

[Oerdin]

Unbelievable as it may be to you, Venezuela is a democratic country with regular elections and the most likely outcome is that its fate us going to be decided that way - democratically.

What a load of tosh. Having rigged elections doesn't make one a democracy and the gerrymandering, voter suppression, and yes out right vote fraud by the Chavez regime all say the country isn't even close to a democracy. It's an autocratic neo-dictatorship which likes to have a veneer of democracy much like Egypt's former regime had or the current Syrian regime has.

FACT: Chavez has destroyed, just out and out destroyed, the economy of that country and Venezuela was once one of the most prosperous countries in South America. It used to be one of the world's largest coffee producers now you're lucky if you can even buy coffee, all the store shelves are empty, most of the businesses shut down, his "redistribution" didn't help anyone other then Chavez's cronies who got their hands on the stuff Chavez stole from rivals and political enemies. You have a country rich in natural resources which used to be a major food exporter but now it can't even feed itself and its economy is in a death spiral. You'd be hard pressed to find a worse governed/managed country in the world short of Zimbabwe.

 

[Oerdin]

For the record private industry loves North Korea, so at least their motives can be different.

Nope, even Chinese firms are now refusing to do business in North Korea's supposed free economic zones after Chinese companies spent big money moderning ancient coal mines the Japanese built in North Korea in the 1920's and 1930's the North Koreans simply renationalized them. That pissed off even the Chinese so the only companies willing to take advantage of North Korea's offer of dirt cheap labor are labor intensive but capital unintensive industries (such as sewing clothing) which don't have to worry if the North Koreans try to steal everything. You lose a 500 chinese sewing machines costing $40 each you're not out much but if you lose $2 billion invested in a large mine then you're out a lot. No one is making those big investments in North Korea because foreign private industry definitely does not love or trust the government of NK.

 

[Traitorfish]

FACT: Chavez has destroyed, just out and out destroyed, the economy of that country[...]

Is that how it works? You can throw out highly contentious and entirely unsourced claims, and as long as you start the sentence with "FACT:", you're safe as houses?

Interesting.

 

[Oerdin]

If you don't know about the mass shortages of everything due to Chavez's price controls (almost always set below the cost of production so companies either go bankrupt or simply shut down operations) or the fact that foreign investment has dried up to nothing or that inflation is rampant then you don't know anything about Venezuela. Yes, those all are simply facts.

You might as well demand a cite when someone says the sky is blue because we're talking this level of common knowledge.

 

[Traitorfish]

Yeah, but FACT: the rivers in Venezuela are made of milk and honey, three course dinners grow on trees, and all the dogs poop gold. So what do you say to that, huh, smart guy?