Military Coup underway in Venezuela

a reply to: Flanker86

You are wrong, the Russians did not force Maduro to stay... They advised him to stay...

As for your claim about a "little remainder crowd..." It is people like you who ignore the fact that MILLIONS of Venezuelans have been protesting since Chavez took power, and now even many Chavistas have changed sides and have also been protesting... But of course, you rather believe the state owned Telesur which is a mouthpiece for the dictatorship of Maduro and Chavez before him...

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
BTW, perhaps it would help you if you put your thinking cap for a moment. If the dictatorship of Maduro had the loyalty of all their fit for duty armed forces, which are supposedly 128,000, then why in the world do they need 20,000 Cuban forces?... If the majority of the regular people were okay withe what is happening in Venezuela, why do they need to arm 400,000 Chavistas who are civilians?...

Did I say Maduro has the loyalty of all their armed forces?

To tell you the truth I don't know anymore what you are saying, you keep contradicting yourself.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
wow... Do i really need to remind you of what you yourself wrote?

Here it is.

As you can see I didn't wrote that, that was your interpretation of what I really wrote.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
To tell you the truth I don't know anymore what you are saying, you keep contradicting yourself.

You don't know or you don't want to admit I didn't say it?

You should stop thinking your imagination is the reality.

originally posted by: ArMaP
You don't know or you don't want to admit I didn't say it?

You should stop thinking your imagination is the reality.

Read my response before... it isn't my imagination that is making you write what you write...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

No, but it's your imagination that makes you think I mean what you wanted me to say instead of what I really wrote.

originally posted by: OccamsRazor04
a reply to: CriticalStinker

Yes, THEY should revolt. If the military kills civilians I can see the US ending the pro Maduro faction, then leave and give the country to Venezuelans, let them decide.

They have been killing civilians in the thousands each year.

In 2007 alone 5,535 protesters were murdered "for resisting authority," which means that's the official figure of protesters murdered by the socialist dictatorship in 2017.

...
This statistic shows the number of homicides in Venezuela in 2017, by categorization given. In 2017, a total of 26,616 homicides were registered by the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, including 5,535 cases whose victims were categorized as being killed for resisting authority.
...

www.statista.com...

Like I also wrote earlier, that is not even counting the murder by the hands of loyal Chavistas who have been armed and have been caught murdering unarmed protesters since Chavez took control of Venezuela, and Maduro is following suit.

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
To tell you the truth I don't know anymore what you are saying, you keep contradicting yourself.

You don't know or you don't want to admit I didn't say it?

You should stop thinking your imagination is the reality.

Like I wrote... You seem to be contradicting yourself... You went as far as implying that the U.S. having one of their fleet pointing their weapons at your parliament in 1974 when there was a leftwing uprise in Portugal, and your father being in prison for one day and being treated well, was somehow similar to what has been happening in Venezuela... Otherwise, why post about that in this thread?...

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

It was not to imply any thing, they were related to specific posts.

originally posted by: ArMaP
a reply to: ElectricUniverse

No, but it's your imagination that makes you think I mean what you wanted me to say instead of what I really wrote.

So first you want to claim i am making things up, and next you want to claim that you talking about something which really has nothing in common to what is happening in Venezuela has some kind of point to present in this thread? Who is using their imagination now to change reality?

a reply to: ElectricUniverse

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Could you rephrase your post?

a reply to: ArMaP

It is not what I think, it's what you have written that makes it confusing for me to see your point. You keep contradicting yourself, and that is not in my mind. When I mentioned the 25,000 Cuban military, and the 400,000 civilian Chavistas armed by Maduro you mentioned "you are not considering the size of Maduro's military."

When I wrote the argument that Maduro probably has disarmed many of his own soldiers because he doesn't know who to trust anymore, since his people including former Chavistas and many military officers have changed sides, you went ahead to claiming these are "uneducated guesses, " when i am basing my guesses on how the Cuban regime acted. Since Cuban communists have been involved since the start in the formation of socialist Venezuela as a dictatorship, it is only logical that Chavez/Maduro have been using the same tactics because those Cuban communists were teaching them how to implement socialism in Venezuela.

Yes, I see that my last argument doesn't make much sense, and in part it is because you keep contradicting yourself. In the one hand you argued that "you are not considering the size of Venezuela's military" when i mentioned that the Cubans and Chavistas are armed, which would imply you think the whole Venezuelan army must be armed to be able to fight off the Cubans and armed Chavistas.

Actually here is what you wrote.

originally posted by: ArMaP
Guess, yes, educated, I doubt it, as your answer appears to ignore the size of the Venezuelan military.

But you have been arguing that these are only guesses, and you seem to think you know the situation in Venezuela. Venezuela has a population of 32,706,881, but Maduro armed only 400,000 Chavistas. The people that are still behind Maduro are not a large majority, but are in fact a minority which it's the reason why Maduro needed the 25,000 armed Cubans and the 400,000 loyal Chavistas, because he doesn't trust most of his military anymore.

But then again, you keep claiming "it's all in my head" meanwhile you make up statements such as this.

originally posted by: ArMaP

I agree the Venezuelan people should decide what they want, but other countries should never intervene. Also, the problem with "ending the Maduro faction" is that that faction represents a large part of the population, large enough to make it very hard to just "end it", as that will create a bigger division among the population.

What they need is someone that truly wants the best for the country, someone that will make a real plan of how to get things working again, someone ready to appear, sort things out and get out of the political scene if he/she sees it as the best thing to do. They do not need more divisions, they need unity, they need someone that shows them that they all can have a better life if they stop pulling each one for his side.

Maduro's faction does not represent a large part of the population anymore, in fact it is the contrary. The large part of Venezuelans are against Maduro and socialism.

So you make up claims implying you know the situation in Venezuela by making a claim that is wrong, then you write that you don't know the situation in Venezuela but at the same time you go and claim my statements are simply "uneducated guesses?..." Which is it? Either your statement is true, in your mind, or you don't know what you are talking about while at the same time you claim my statements are "uneducated guesses," which again would imply "you know better about the situation in Venezuela."

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
It is not what I think, it's what you have written that makes it confusing for me to see your point.

I suppose that's true and my biggest problem, most of the time I have difficulty explaining what I'm thinking, even in Portuguese, writing it in English is even more difficult.

You keep contradicting yourself, and that is not in my mind. When I mentioned the 25,000 Cuban military, and the 400,000 civilian Chavistas armed by Maduro you mentioned "you are not considering the size of Maduro's military."

When I wrote that I was thinking from the opposite point of view, from Maduro's side, as I think the difference in numbers is not enough for them to feel safe.

When I wrote the argument that Maduro probably has disarmed many of his own soldiers because he doesn't know who to trust anymore, since his people including former Chavistas and many military officers have changed sides, you went ahead to claiming these are "uneducated guesses, " when i am basing my guesses on how the Cuban regime acted. Since Cuban communists have been involved since the start in the formation of socialist Venezuela as a dictatorship, it is only logical that Chavez/Maduro have been using the same tactics because those Cuban communists were teaching them how to implement socialism in Venezuela.

What made me think of an "uneducated guess" was the fact that I didn't know your background (that's why I asked latter on) and your use of the word "probably", as it made me think you weren't sure yourself but were basing the rest of your position on that supposition as if it was a fact. I probably misunderstood you.

But you have been arguing that these are only guesses, and you seem to think you know the situation in Venezuela.

That's where your interpretation of my posts is wrong, I don't think I know the real situation in Venezuela, I only post my opinions, some based on what I do know (the ones that are directly related to myself) some based on what I watch, ear and read (all the rest).
I used to add "I think" on all my posts, but some years ago some people told me that was annoying and obvious and that I should stop using it, so I did. I suppose I have to use it more.

But then again, you keep claiming "it's all in my head" meanwhile you make up statements such as this.

The "all in your head" statement is about your interpretation of what I write. Yes, I probably should I worded my posts better, but it's a fact that what we get from the other side of a conversation is our interpretation, that could be wrong or right, but we can never be sure about it until we ask.

Maduro's faction does not represent a large part of the population anymore, in fact it is the contrary. The large part of Venezuelans are against Maduro and socialism.

My uneducated guess about Maduro's support is based on what I have seen in Portugal during the dictatorship, what I see on the news about the situation in Venezuela and the lack of comments about the political situation in Venezuela from the Venezuelans the live near me. Also, when I said "a large part" that doesn't mean the majority, what I meant is that I think it's large enough to make the situation unstable and the result of an uprising uncertain. Or may it's not the problem of Maduro's side having enough supporters but the lack of will to act from the opposite side, with most people just ignoring the opposition and thinking that it will not make any difference. The fact is that, as I don't see a strong reaction from the opposite side (not from the political opposition but from the people that are supposed to support them), that makes me think that neither side has enough popular support to make a change, so things keep on going as they were.

So you make up claims implying you know the situation in Venezuela by making a claim that is wrong, then you write that you don't know the situation in Venezuela but at the same time you go and claim my statements are simply "uneducated guesses?..." Which is it? Either your statement is true, in your mind, or you don't know what you are talking about while at the same time you claim my statements are "uneducated guesses," which again would imply "you know better about the situation in Venezuela."

As I said before, I never claimed to know the situation, that was your interpretation of what I wrote, so there's no contradiction when I say I don't know the situation in Venezuela. Again, in my "uneducated guess" comment I wasn't implying any thing (as I said before, if I want to say something I say it, I do not usually "imply" things in my posts, and when I do I do it in an obvious way) and I called it an "uneducated guess" because, to me, for it to be an educated guess it should be based on facts you know are true, and my interpretation of what you wrote didn't give me that idea.

I hope that helps to clear things.

a reply to: ArMaP

Misunderstandings can occur. I know that I make a lot of mistakes and will continue to make them for the rest of my life. My understanding about what has been going on in Venezuela comes from living through what they are going through. I have started several threads since Chavez came to power and throughout the years posted evidence to the fact that "socialism of the 21st century" is a dictatorship. I also attended school with Venezuelan engineers and have asked them about the situation there. Personally I have also known people from Venezuela who had to leave their businesses, small businesses, because they received death threats by the Chavistas and government of Chavez/Maduro as they sought to control all businesses. Chavez/Maduro used to have more people who were loyal, but many of them have realized the mistake they made in allowing socialism to take control of Venezuela. Or at least "socialism of the 21st century." If Guaido is really a socialist and is chosen by Venezuelans they would only be getting out of the boiling cauldron to fall into the fire, so to speak.

BTW, about the Portuguese dictatorship, although I know it is being labeled as "right-wing" in fact they were against the original belief of "liberalism, before it was bastardized into what it has become today. The Portuguese dictatorship "Estado Novo" was also supposedly a corporatist system that was anti-colonial.

...
Opposed to communism, socialism, anarchism, fascism, liberalism and anti-colonialism,[a] the regime was corporatist, conservative, and nationalist in nature, defending Portugal's traditional Catholicism.
...

Link

Just because other socialists ousted the old government doesn't make the "Estado Novo" a right-wing dictatorship. Look at Venezuela, Guaido is supposed to be a socialist as well. Socialists and communists tend to fight amongts themselves when they don't have "capitalism" to fight against.

Corporatism itself is not a right-wing system, since it seeks to have all power and control making a large government. If corporatism was right-wing, then why is it that papers written by United Nations members call for a socialist global government with a "corporatist governance model"?

Corporatism is similar to socialism and communism, in which the state owns and controls all means of production, in corporatism the state works together with corporations, and only a few people have control over all.

originally posted by: ElectricUniverse
Chavez/Maduro used to have more people who were loyal, but many of them have realized the mistake they made in allowing socialism to take control of Venezuela.

I'm sure that's what happened, but my impression of the situation in Venezuela has been, for several years, that there isn't a clear winning side, people are too divided between Chavistas, anti-Chavists and those that don't care, and while a situation like that can result in a relative stability in a democracy, through elections, under a dictatorship the situation is harder to change, the difference in power/numbers between the sides has to be bigger for the opposition to win over the status quo, so the opposition needs to have a bigger support from the people than it appears to have now.

One idea I always got from the images I see on TV from the opposition demonstrations and other popular events is that the people supporting the opposition appear to belong to a slightly upper class when compared with the common people, and if that's the case then it explains the apparent lack of support from the common people and why some do not see that a change in government will turn into a change for the life of the common people.

Obviously, I may be wrong.

BTW, about the Portuguese dictatorship, although I know it is being labeled as "right-wing" in fact they were against the original belief of "liberalism, before it was bastardized into what it has become today. The Portuguese dictatorship "Estado Novo" was also supposedly a corporatist system that was anti-colonial.

The Portuguese Estado Novo was a peculiar regime, as it had characteristics of several different ideologies, a consequence of having been created by just one person, Salazar, based on his own ideas. It was a corporatist system but it was not anti-colonial, colonialism was an important part of the system, that's why the text you quoted says that it was opposed to anti-colonialism.

There's no discussion between Guido and Russia or China ... Russia and China as well explained deals with sovereign state forces. Guido and his EU backers have no chances of taking power in Venezuela