Venezuela’s descent into dictatorship shows democracy can be lost
latimes.com
latimes.com
The 2009 coup of the elected Honduran government, by military officers trained in the US and financed by the US, followed by the murder of many candidates trying to run in the subsequent election, didn't elicit hand-wringing by the US administration. The flow of money and weapons to the Honduran military continued. Murder and political repression in Honduras skyrocketed. All you really heard in the US news was complaints about how Hondurans and Honduran children were now crossing the US borders.
It doesn't even rise to the level of farce that the Tribune/Tronc corporation's expression of America's military ambitions in its Monroe Doctrine backyard has some lofty motives or whatever nonsense they're putting out.
How, exactly, does a comment posted in the comments section means that Venezuela isn't being forced into a dictatorship?
Also, we know that democracy can be lost. There have been instances of rather lawful transitions, there are examples of even malicious foreign manipulation.
In any event, people have been telling the pro socialists (the Berkeley socialists who wanted to believe, some of whom still likely do) since Chavez took over that it was no longer a democracy --and many leftists were okay, even applauded the Anti-Americanism. Well, there is your bed.
When Chris Anderson (on the left of center) came out with "Capitolio" the left wanted his head for denouncing their pet socialist government and exposing the corruption, violence, and massive incompetence.
Elections were never fair under Chavez. He seized control of the Supreme Court and undercut the ability of journalists, human rights defenders, and other Venezuelans to exercise fundamental rights.
What the hell does this mean in the first place? Elections could only be either fair or not fair, you either can win in a honest competition or you can't since the regime can apply some measures to restrict such possibility. This sounds just ridiculous.
Here's a rough measure. If a system almost always gives the same election results as a fair election then the system is relatively fair, compared to a system which often gives different election results than what a fair system would give.
For example, if someone votes twice (eg, owns property in New York and Florida, registers to vote in both states, etc.) then that's an unfair election.
However, very few people, perhaps a handful each presidential election, do that. This is a relatively fair system because it's extremely unlikely that these fraudulent votes will change the results.
By comparison, some states had a literacy test for voting which was deliberately confusing, and where the (white) registrar was the ultimate judge of who passed. By design, a lot of black people failed. See http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_right... for an example test from Louisiana.
By comparison, this was a relatively unfair system.
Chavez and his cronies made their own bed, and now the whole country has to sleep in it.
heres an example of some of the US's 'assistance' to voices that they want heard. http://www.twn.my/title2/resurgence/2010/240-241/media2.htm
I'm definitely not pro-socialist or anti-capitalist, those are just overused labels which only further muddy any discourse on the issue's which matter. Given the US's history in South and Latin America though (and to be honest, world-wide), I definitely don't see them as some beacon of freedom and democracy.
sidenote, same shit happened in Brazil, Rousseff was democratically elected, media (which is owned by a small oligarchy in Brazil) fanned the flames to get her impeached, the replacement? An equally corrupt, more Washington leaning politician (we don't see the media jumping up and down as much for this one though). Dilma was looking to strengthen BRICS and that obviously couldn't go on.
(all politicians in Brazil are corrupt, thats the only reason you become a politician in brazil, no matter what side of the political spectrum you are on)
[1]: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/730909086775152641
Are you talking about the same Dilma Rousseff who has been continuously cooking Brazil's books to try to hide away a chronic economic crisis?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_pedaling
Are you talking about the same Dilma Rousseff who tried to nominate her fellow Worker's Party colleague Lula da Silva into her cabinet just to grant him immunity from being prosecuted for corruption?
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-rousseff-idUSKCN0WI...
I'm sure she was only hoisted by Brazil's own elected representatives because of bad publicity. I mean, it's not that she did anything wrong or anything.
geezerjay you don't have to link me articles about her being corrupt, I'm a Brasilian national so I'm well informed of the situation.
It seems to me that you're conflating the natural consequences of the problems these politicians create to themselves with an assumption that it would be convenient for third-party to get rid of them.
Regarding Dilma and Lula, they are very corrupt individuals who rose through the ranks of a very corrupt political party, and the judicial branch happened to catch them. Consequently, their political power and ability to avoid being held accountable for their crimes reached its limit. Just because Lula was sentenced to 10 years in prison it doesn't mean that the US is responsible for him taking bribes.
tag line: The US has a long and bloody history of meddling in Latin America's affairs
date: Tuesday 25 July 2017 16:00 BST
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cia-venezue...
I'm sorry but I don't believe that for a minute.
Obviously the international community has to be active here, but I don't think it's clever to do the usual let-CIA-help-the-opposition (which in part is why we are here in the first place). This should be international aid for democratic reform.
Romania should stop treating minorities badly or the EU should withold funds, as a concrete example.
There are similar examples for Poland with respect to media and division of power (also tenets of liberal democracy).
I don't know exactly what concrete actions could be taken with Venezuela.
I think all this stuff encroaches too much on the sovereignty of a peoples / country, which some people in this ever more globalised world don't see as a bad thing for some reason.
I mean as one example we can take western countries that give aid to African countries - is it right or wrong to condition the aid on ending persecution of homosexuals? Perhaps not a good example...
That's not to delegitimize your position which is that it does not reflect your vision of what a democracy should look like.
They're undermining both free media and the justice system. How would you call that?
Germany kerbs free speech in many ways vis a vis the US, but we don't call them undemocratic --they followed protocol and it's their version --not a version I'd prefer, but still not undemocratic.
The problem with Polands move is that the legislative tries to control the judiciary, a thing that goes against the very definition of a free democracy.
Similar in Turkey. The AKP controls not only the legislative without any real opposition, they also inoficially control the judiciary and the executive. Since all critical journalists get put in prison, the Press is also opressed.
Once these changes are in place, and the division of power and free press is gone - the goal is open to move much faster. That's why it's so alarming in Poland/Turkey even though Venezuela is much worse already. Liberal democracy is brittle, and it can still be saved in Poland/Turkey. In Venezuela it has to be built.
My guess is that many here say "democratic" and mean "a system that will guarantee one respect as per John Rawls' veil of ignorance [0]". A parliamentary democracy with clear separation between legislative, executive and judiciary seems to be the lease bad solution humanity has been able to come up with for now.
Venezuela, Turkey and Poland are just recent highlights of how vulnerable parliamentary democracy is...
Most liberal democracies have freedom of speech even though they have laws against libel/slander/hate speech and so on.
Next you go on to say that countries without freedom of speech are autocracies in disguise - implying Germany is an autocracy... not sure what to make of that. Are you implying that e.g either you live in a democracy and you can hate-speak, or you don't live in a democracy?
From the last paragraph I get the feeling you live in re US and take great pride in it being a true democracy because of its lack of hate speech laws (libel/slander laws exist). I wouldn't worry so much about politicians being able to limit hate speech in a place where elected officials draw the election district lines, effectively choosing their voters, where entire groups of citizens (such as prison inmates) can't vote at all, and where the executive branch of government doesn't have popular support even on Election Day.
I'm no fan of hate speech laws myself, but I consider it quite useless to define democracy as not being able to coexist with them.
That limits free speech. It's not hateful but it's political.
That fact aside, it's certainly problematic to have laws against insulting a foreign leader (Erdogan in this case). It must be noted of course that this particular type of insult (e.g calling someone a child molester) is probably enough for accusations of libel/slander in other countries as well, whether or not they have that odd "foreign leader" paragraph Germany has.
I think adults should be able to say/hear what they want.
It's the beginnings of Gleichschaltung.
Almost all dictators hold elections. If an elected official cracks down on dissent and imprisons his or her rivals, the government is no longer democratic, even if it's done with the people's consent.
True democracies require free and fair elections, protection of human rights, respect for pluralism, and equal treatment of all citizens under the law.
These are the values shared by the 70+ democratic governments that govern nearly half of the world's population.
this is among the top examples of the populism: https://youtu.be/ZNN3FduaHQk?t=109
In essence people only like a kind of a democracy when it goes their way. In the US people complained the Hillary won the pop vote despite everyone knowing that only electoral college votes count (not popular/populism vote).
And people want the representative result when it is in their favor (most republicans today).
This might be a case of you guessing what a word means or projecting meaning to it.
Populisim is form of political rhetoric, demagogy that creates division between "common man" and the "elites". Common people are "pure and innocent" and the "elites" are evil. Populism is very anti-intellectual in its nature. Populist believes in the wisdom, or virtues of the common people. The message in populism is that things are very simple and gut level reactions are right. Populist rhetoric turns democracy into mob rule.
The main difference between populism and democracy is difference between before and after.
Working democracy is not just voting to express opinion or will. It requires institutions that make democratic decision making processes possible. Democratic decisions are result of many conflicting views going trough this process.
Populists try to undercut all these processes and institutions. they claim that there is already existing united and just "will of the people" they (the populists) already know. Democracy is just way to get it done. This is why populists try to 'streamline' democratic prosesses so that they can push their agenda.
The definition of democracy varies, but if we use the regular definition of "liberal democracy" (a.k.a. western democracy) which is what we are used to define democracy as in the west, then it requires not only free and fair elections but also separation or power, and an informed public with free press.
Going from a liberal democracy into something else is unfortunately quite easy.
Step one is usually to suppress the free press, step 2 is attacking the judiciary and changing the constitution e.g. to control courts, give more power to the executive.
Populism is usually just a vehicle for this slow coup.
One might of course argue that "western democracy" isn't superior to other forms of democracy (or non-democracy) but that's a separate discussion. Both Poland and Turkey had liberal/western democracy to some extent, and are losing it to something else.
If those 5 are all pro govt (either by choice or persuation) then it's even worse.
But press would be considered free if anyone could start a 6th outlet without being pressured to stop - and the cost of starting one is not relevant for that really.
It's good sometimes to remember not to take democracy for granted.
Where "dictator" originally comes from - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator
Finally LA Times got the news...
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."
by: Mayer Amschel Rothschild
http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Mayer.Amschel.Roths...