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Comment by Rover222 | Hacker News Reader

This comment is so out of touch with the reality of Venezuelans. They are crying tears of joy. This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.

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They are crying tears of joy.

That pretty much sums it up. I think Zack covered it well too. [1] I do not understand what benefit there was to a dictator remaining in place and why so many on HN support him. Over a third of Venezuelans fled that country and lost everything to escape tyranny.

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_x9aWccFCE [video][52m][language]

Exactly. As if leaving Maduro in power is somehow better for Venezuelans than an external intervention. Things could not be worse than they have been.

>Things could not be worse than they have been.

Things can always get worse.

The GP didn't say changing Maduro to other president is bad, but that "periods of violent transition" can have dire consequences for the regular people. And US seems to be in it for the money, not to liberate the downtrodden.

I wish them peace and prosperity, though.

I wish them peace and prosperity as well. Everyone does. It’s been 25 years of hell and it was just going to continue as such.

They can and often become worse. Look at Saddam Hussein and his family. They were monsters, but the reason they engaged in torture and fearmongering was to keep the other monsters in place.

Collapsed states are the worst, these becomes breeding grounds for organizations like IS.

Most places often hold as failed states and by our standards, they look terrible. Law enforcement doesn't work, so gangs become enforcers. Money doesn't really work either. But it still beats total anarchy and especially anarchy of a region with a lot of natural resources. A few hundred billion dollars of oil may not be much to a country, but it's a hell lot to terrorist organizations who are waiting to come in once the US pulls out.

> why so many on HN support him

Because "anything orange man does is bad, no matter what."

Seriously. People cannot think beyond their stupid party lines at all.

Venezuelan here. It’s not that simple: Maduro was an _absolutely_ horrible dictator and yes many Venezuelans (myself included, and likely many of the 8+ million that left) are overjoyed with him being ousted, we haven’t seen any change in over two decades. And yet, it is transparently clear that the Trump admin is here not to save Venezuela, or Venezuelans… it’s here to line its pockets and that of its shareholders.

There was a very evident omission during Trump’s press conference: Any mention of Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, the duly elected president-elect of Venezuela (who won with a super majority last July - backed by Maria Corina Machado). Instead, Trump bad mouthed Maria Corina saying that “she does not have the support or respect of the country to run it”. They ousted Maduro, but they kept his VP (Delcy Rodriguez - which along other things is in charge of running the torture centers for political prisoners) as “she will do anything we ask her”. Trump doesn’t care about democracy or regime change - these things take time and are a long, thorny road (this wouldn’t be the US’ first rodeo). Instead they’ve chosen to keep the regime obedient with the threat of force, and instead just come in and extract as many riches as humanly possible…

Dark times ahead for Venezuela and the Venezuelan people

At least there is hope of… something changing for the better though? With Maduro out.

What we’ve been living through in the last 28 years is Chavismo and yet Chavez is not around. When Chavez died in 2013 we celebrated that he was gone, and what we got after was much, _much_ worse. Now Maduro is gone, and we can celebrate it too. That said, Trump has signaled that he’s not interested in removing Chavismo: he’s keeping Delcy, Diosdado, et al, as they continue to be the brokers of power as long as he gets access to oil. This is just Chavismo aligned to American interests. Time will tell whether this is better or worse.

PS: As an aside, since I was a child growing up in 90’s Venezuela, the overall political mentality of people was that things were so bad that they couldn’t get any worse - and yet they continued to worsen. A lesson that I’ve learned is that in politics things need to be intentionally built - there is no “rock bottom”, the fact that things have been horrible doesn’t mean that they can’t get even worse. Thus my hesitation with what’s going on. There are no guarantees that this isn’t going to be a deal with the devil that leaves us in an even worse state…

Thanks for the reply. I hope the Trump admin does what’s right and puts the people of Venezuela in a position to choose their own leadership. Maybe the remaining Chavismos will be removed from power before too long.

And that’s where my hopes vanish. A dictator-wannabe that has a track record of not respecting the peaceful transition of power in _his own_ country and has run his entire campaign on hatred for immigrants and more recently Venezuelans in particular, is going to, all of a sudden, grow a conscience and do what’s right for the Venezuelan people? Let’s call it what it is: this is about oil. I don’t have to say it, because he already did in front of the cameras. He doesn’t care what happens to Venezuela or Venezuelans.

> That said, Trump has signaled that he’s not interested in removing Chavismo

I think you're jumping to conclusions. What Trump has said is that he wants the demands of the US satisfied. One of those is ultimately elections in Venezuela. You're mistaking taking a case-by-case approach for "non-interest".

Funny how no one listens to real Venezuelans speaking. As a chinese I understand you fully. Everyone hates dictators, but sometimes the alternative isn’t just necessarily better as people might hope. Transition is gonna be long and painful.

Many of the replies to my comment ascribe support for Maduro where there is none. However, I’m still sorry for what we have done. I don’t think there was a single motivation behind it aside from acquiring Venezuelan oil and gold reserves through thinly veiled piracy. Anyone who says we did it to topple a dictator is a rube or myrmidon. Too many unpredictable outcomes have been birthed from government foolishness like this in the past for me to believe it will end any differently.

All the best to you and your family and friends. For what it’s worth (not much I’m sure) many of us didn’t vote for this and are aghast.

> All the best to you and your family and friends. For what it’s worth (not much I’m sure) many of us didn’t vote for this and are aghast.

This white knighting is getting rather tiresome. Why does the _why_ of why it happened matter besides virtue signalling? What matters is the end effect of the action. And the end effect here is better for EVERYONE (or at the worst neutral) involved other than Maduro and his cronies.

To boil down my take down to virtue signaling is a reductio ad absurdum. You desperately need more education on US history in Latin America.

people naturally want to sound smart, sound empathetic without thinking

Incorrect, actually! I’d encourage you to learn about the history of empire and violent conquest. What you learn may surprise you!

> > This is a society that knows what it wants, knows how to function as a democracy, but has not been able to for decades.

Really? The Venezuelan community online (eg. /r/Vzla and /r/Venezuela) communicate using memes and rather unintelligent discourse.

It's not enough to want democracy, democracy and stability happens when there is an engagement in collective thinking , whereas disorder and chaos happens when people don't want to work and don't think things through

> The social media posts of on a web forum represent the ideological position of an entire nation.

I believe it’s naive to assign Reddit and social media “discourse” any importance. Anything else is an exercise is confirming your already held bias.

Why does the post on a website by some people (who says they are even Venezuelan?) allow you to make the claim a nation “ doesn’t think thing through”?

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