The 'humanitarian crisis' in Venezuela... or not

Rob Roy

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
hotrodharley said:
"The annual Freedom in the World report, which ranks nations according to civil liberties and political rights, has been released. The work of nonpartisan organisation Freedom House, it judges countries according to a range of criteria. Each is then assigned a total score and placed in one of three pots: "Free", "Partly free" and "Not free". "

For those overly concerned about humanitarian crises . . . .. It's not a hard read and the names all recognizable. Venezuela is not on the short list.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/the-worlds-most-authoritarian-destinations/
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By definition no subjects of a nation state (country) are "free". Some have more privileges than others and often this is confused with actual freedom and liberty etc.

The United States imprisons and keeps tabs on it's subjects via probation / parole more than any other countries, so the criteria used in any
"freedom index" should be scrutinized rather than blindly accepted, in my opinion.
 
Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
Rob Roy said:
By definition no subjects of a nation state (country) are "free". Some have more privileges than others and often this is confused with actual freedom and liberty etc.

The United States imprisons and keeps tabs on it's subjects via probation / parole more than any other countries, so the criteria used in any
"freedom index" should be scrutinized rather than blindly accepted, in my opinion.
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https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2018

these seem like pretty decent people with good criteria to me....
 
hotrodharley

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
if you click on the map, it's rated 3, Not Free...they rated the 20 worst..just because you aren't one of the top 20 shitty places to live, doesn't mean you aren't a shitty place to live....
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My point was if the country is so absorbed with human rights there are far more worthy targets than Venezuela.
 
Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
hotrodharley said:
My point was if the country is so absorbed with human rights there are far more worthy targets than Venezuela.
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that's true, but Venezuela is close, and vocal...i'm not sure that we're "focusing" on them, or if they're yelling so loudly that everyone is focusing on them at the moment
 
TacoMac

TacoMac

Well-Known Member
hotrodharley said:
Definitely hard to tell how dedicated we are to raping Venezuela. But the oil reserves there assure that the noise and trouble will only increase. Maduro or no Maduro.
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You keep reading way, way, way, way more into that than there is.

We've always bought some oil from Venezuela, but they've never been top of our list. Part of the reason for that is the poor management of it. Our top sources for imports are:

  1. Canada
  2. Saudi Arabia
  3. Mexico
Venezuela usually floats around 4th to 6th place on the list, so they're not that important to us at all as far as oil goes. We have a great many options to that end.

They are however very important when it comes to regional stability. The last thing on earth we need is another Fidel Castro to stir up a bunch of shit and destabilize the entire region. Right now, that's pretty much exactly what we have.
 
hotrodharley

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
TacoMac said:
You keep reading way, way, way, way more into that than there is.

We've always bought some oil from Venezuela, but they've never been top of our list. Part of the reason for that is the poor management of it. Our top sources for imports are:

  1. Canada
  2. Saudi Arabia
  3. Mexico
Venezuela usually floats around 4th to 6th place on the list, so they're not that important to us at all as far as oil goes. We have a great many options to that end.

They are however very important when it comes to regional stability. The last thing on earth we need is another Fidel Castro to stir up a bunch of shit and destabilize the entire region. Right now, that's pretty much exactly what we have.
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Odd that we are not concerned about Cubans in country elsewhere in Central and South America.
 
hotrodharley

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
TacoMac said:
You keep reading way, way, way, way more into that than there is.

We've always bought some oil from Venezuela, but they've never been top of our list. Part of the reason for that is the poor management of it. Our top sources for imports are:

  1. Canada
  2. Saudi Arabia
  3. Mexico
Venezuela usually floats around 4th to 6th place on the list, so they're not that important to us at all as far as oil goes. We have a great many options to that end.

They are however very important when it comes to regional stability. The last thing on earth we need is another Fidel Castro to stir up a bunch of shit and destabilize the entire region. Right now, that's pretty much exactly what we have.
Click to expand...
I don't believe I'm putting too much emphasis on the oil.

https://www.nationofchange.org/2019/01/31/a-war-for-oil-bolton-pushes-privatization-of-venezuelas-oil-as-us-ratchets-up-pressure-on-maduro/

I believe you underestimate greed and overestimate concern over the internal politics of Venezuela.
 
hotrodharley

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
Rob Roy

Rob Roy

Well-Known Member
UncleBuck said:
You would have said the exact same thing if it was NAMBLA
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I think this is the part where I ask you if you would be okay with a sex worker using their own discretion regarding who they will or will not service or if you'd force them to serve everybody equally?

Then you go and cry and tell your mother "Rob Roy won again, it's not fair" .
 
hotrodharley

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
Someone point me to the post where anyone on RIU advocated for allowing anyone to be forced to do something against their will? Other than the bullshit "Taxation is theft".

Did this start with the charges against "Hand Job Bob"?
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
hotrodharley said:
My point was if the country is so absorbed with human rights there are far more worthy targets than Venezuela.
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Yes. Such as Saudi Arabia. It's clear the US doesn't concern itself much with humanitarian disasters or human rights when there is a buck to be made.

3 million refugees and a hungry population of Venezuelans pose a threat to the region, not the US. I don't think the concern is misplaced. OTOH, the direct threat isn't to the US, so we play games for profit when other people deal with the consequences.
 
hotrodharley

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
Oil. It's on the death watch list. Not this year or even decade but it's on the downslope.

The push to decrease hydrocarbons, the moves away from plastics as our oceans and its critters become filled with it. The move to wind, solar and even wave power generation.

But the move towards electric vehicles totally put petroleum industries on notice. They know it too. Trump pushing for rollbacks on mileage requirements and trying to totally ignore CARB standards are 2 clear examples.

17% of petroleum is used to make plastics. Hemp can outdo and outperform it and it's another reason oil companies want to drill, drill, drill and pipeline it as fast as possible.
 
Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
TacoMac said:
You keep reading way, way, way, way more into that than there is.

We've always bought some oil from Venezuela, but they've never been top of our list. Part of the reason for that is the poor management of it. Our top sources for imports are:

  1. Canada
  2. Saudi Arabia
  3. Mexico
Venezuela usually floats around 4th to 6th place on the list, so they're not that important to us at all as far as oil goes. We have a great many options to that end.

They are however very important when it comes to regional stability. The last thing on earth we need is another Fidel Castro to stir up a bunch of shit and destabilize the entire region. Right now, that's pretty much exactly what we have.
Click to expand...
that's been my take on it all along, if we are conducting any "operations", they aren't against Venezuela, they're against Maduro, who is courting people we definitely don't want hanging around in our backyard...not saying that justifies anything we've done, but if you're going to damn us, damn us for the things we deserve it for...
 
TacoMac

TacoMac

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
that's been my take on it all along, if we are conducting any "operations", they aren't against Venezuela, they're against Maduro, who is courting people we definitely don't want hanging around in our backyard...not saying that justifies anything we've done, but if you're going to damn us, damn us for the things we deserve it for...
Click to expand...
Exactly.
 
Fogdog

Fogdog

Well-Known Member
Roger A. Shrubber said:
that's been my take on it all along, if we are conducting any "operations", they aren't against Venezuela, they're against Maduro, who is courting people we definitely don't want hanging around in our backyard...not saying that justifies anything we've done, but if you're going to damn us, damn us for the things we deserve it for...
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Maduro could concede control of his country's oil to US businesses and still remain a corrupt tyrant. The US government would give him their full support. The US's problem with Venezuela is that their government controls its resources, not Exxon.
 
hotrodharley

hotrodharley

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
Maduro could concede control of his country's oil to US businesses and still remain a corrupt tyrant. The US government would give him their full support. The US's problem with Venezuela is that their government controls its resources, not Exxon.
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It really is that simple too. If they had no oil at all nobody would give 2 hoots or a holler about the place.
 
Roger A. Shrubber

Roger A. Shrubber

Well-Known Member
Fogdog said:
Maduro could concede control of his country's oil to US businesses and still remain a corrupt tyrant. The US government would give him their full support. The US's problem with Venezuela is that their government controls its resources, not Exxon.
Click to expand...
partially, i think the larger part of the U.S.'s problem at the moment is that Maduro is trying to cut deals with China and Russia, which would give them yet another place to launch their own operation from, to build their own clandestine bases in, to hack more effectively from, to compensate for those NATO bases being moved with.
 
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