Venezuela Tries Protesters in Military Court ‘Like We Are in a War’ | Hacker News Reader

Venezuela Tries Protesters in Military Court ‘Like We Are in a War’

nytimes.com

43 pointsazuajef25 comments

"There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people." -- Commander Adama

Once the US has its own Reichstag fire I'm sure we'll promptly follow suit.

Godwined in the first comment!

Do you have any analysis or insight to add?

EDIT:

For example, you could argue that this doesn't really matter any more, as Maduro already has de-facto control of the supreme court. Probably a reason this is frowned upon in other societies is that there is a independent judiciary, and military courts ultimately report to the President in the chain of command.

But NAZIHITLERNAZIWHARRGARBL.

We can only hope.

It wasn't a good thing.

It depends; perhaps it will push people to realise that the current system of affairs is broken, and then to push people to a revolution.

The trouble with revolutions is you just end up with a new set of leaders.

And dead people, and destroyed cities.

And purges, and violent warlords siezing power, and military coups.

And refugees, and food shortages, and torture chambers, and sabotage.

And unprecedented political polarization, and oh maybe disappearances and murders that look like suicides...

As much as I would like to achieve Socialism via democratic reform within the system, various figures (Emma Goldman, Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, even Engels himself) have noted that working within the existing system ("bourgeois democracy") would not be sufficient to bring about lasting change, as the system itself is built to serve the interests of capital.

I am wholly against the things you mentioned, of course, which is why it has been the task of current revolutionaries to plan and organise effectively to minimise these things.

> working within the existing system ("bourgeois democracy") would not be sufficient to bring about lasting change, as the system itself is built to serve the interests of capital.

I think the problem is more that when you do vote in socialism as in Venezuela the system sucks. Then it either gets voted out again or you get a violent dictatorship.

Venezuela is not a Socialist country, and I do not support dictatorships. In line with Marx and Engels, I support the gradual transference of power away from the state (which must be at once transformed into the complete and democratic control of the whole working class upon seizure) and into the hands of the people, as such the state "withers away".

Where has that not fallen into dictatorship? It's a nice idea, the problem is human nature gets in the way.

They just never really read the Scottsman-scrolls right and how could they thus do a true implementation of the Scottsmann ideology!

There is a very simple test of whether a society is a Socialist one; namely, a society is Socialist if its predominant mode of production is the Socialist one. The Socialist mode of production is distinguished from all others by the following:

* Communal (worker) ownership of the means of production (land and machinery used to make goods for society)

* Government composed entirely of the workers, making decisions in the interest of the workers

* Goods are produced to be used rather than exchanged on a market

* Wage labour is not dominant in the economy

* The functions of private property have been abolished and thus there is no more private property.

Venezuela fails all of these criteria. It's not "no true Scotsman", it's the truth.

Someone called Angus, who calls himself a Scotsman, but who doesn't have Scottish citizenship, nationality, lineage nor has he ever lived in Scotland is not a Scotsman.

Who created your rules of socialism?

As far as Venezuela is concerned, the current government do see themselves as socialist (the Bolivarian revolution).

¡El unico camino para salvar el mundo es el socialismo | The only way to save the world is socialism! — Hugo Chavez

A few links:

https://venezuelanalysis.com/ http://www.correodelorinoco.gob.ve/

>Who created your rules of socialism?

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

>As far as Venezuela is concerned, the current government do see themselves as socialist (the Bolivarian revolution).

As I said, just because his name is Angus and he calls himself a Scotsman, it does not make him so. The DPRK calls itself democratic, too. Are we to hold it as the exemplar democracy, and claim that democracy is such a failure?

Do you think that the USSR where a communist country?

No, I do not. It helps to remember that "Communist country" is an oxymoron; a Communist society is a stateless one.

In this stateless society, who decides how the group gets what it needs, for instance food, clothing etc? And how do the group knows what is best for each member of that group?

Tail-call elimination - aka moderating compilers.

Usually the answer would be? The rules. Who applies the rules? The machine. Who made the machine? The party. Who rules the party? Most ruthless psycho-dick ever. Thus its profen that communism, basically is one big cooperation ruling the earth, and shall forth be called googlnism.

I really hate such discussions, they are so pointless, because they look at the state they want society to be in and just erect a cathedral.

While we should look at all the various failing members of society, catograph what is human, and from that we might be able to build a hut that is able to stand a thousand years.

Relevant Terry Pratchett quote regarding revolutions:

> People on the side of The People always ended up disappointed, in any case. They found that The People tended not to be grateful or appreciative or forward-thinking or obedient. The People tended to be small-minded and conservative and not very clever and were even distrustful of cleverness.

> And so the children of the revolution were faced with the age-old problem: it wasn't that you had the wrong kind of government, which was obvious, but that you had the wrong kind of people.

-- Night Watch

I love this book. Its so- human, so deeply human. Everything falls apart, and Pratchett could have been cynical, and mocked the whole endeavor of regime change - turning Ankh Morpork into a blood bath- instead, he put grandmothers on the barricades (mind where you put the good furniture!) and the whole civil war afair ended in a happy little turmoil with free steaks and not free pasty (i m obviously ruining myself here). Always think of that book smelling Syringa

I always read that book when i despair about the species, or im hyped by something and want to get down to earth.

I'm quite impressed how the US division of powers has held up against the present president so far. It kind of shows how valuable checks and balances can be. It's also been entertaining to watch. I'm looking forward to the next episode after the will the president be able to stop the investigation by firing the FBI head cliffhanger.

I just wish this show was more realistic. Everyone knows you can't just fire the head of the FBI for investigating you. It would be way too obvious.

National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, Pub.L. 112–81. This NDAA contains several controversial sections (see article), the chief being §§ 1021-1022, which affirm provisions authorizing the indefinite military detention of civilians, including U.S. citizens, without habeas corpus or due process, contained in the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Pub.L. 107–40.[6] http://www.salon.com/2012/12/19/ndaas_indefinite_detention_w...

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