
Venezuela’s Supreme Court Consolidates President Nicolás Maduro’s Power - protomyth
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/world/americas/venezuela-nicolas-maduro.html
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andrenth
With the Supreme Court in the pocket of the dictatorship, there's very little
hope for Venezuela.

The totalitarian ascent to power was applauded by the armchair revolutionaries
of the left wing intelligentsia in South America and elsewhere.

There is a time when you have to stop being naive and believing this is "good
intentions gone bad". What's happening in Venezuela and almost happened in
Argentina and Brazil is exactly what the totalitarians want: to seize power
and sustain the political elite.

All, of course, in the name of the masses.

~~~
marcoperaza
> _The totalitarian ascent to power was applauded by the armchair
> revolutionaries of the left wing intelligentsia in South America and
> elsewhere._

Don't forget former US President Jimmy Carter, who rubber stamped Chavez's
rigged[1] elections and even wrote an obituary gushing with praise and
admiration for the evil tyrant.

[1] There's better ways to rig an election than stuffing ballot boxes. That's
so primitive and risky. The modern way to rig an election is to control the
media, force or entice them to say nothing but positive things about you,
while burying your opponents with false or misleading claims.

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jimmywanger
The problem here is that the opposition is still trying to go through the
proper channels specified by the constitution.

They don't realize that the incumbent party already controls all the rules and
the processes. It's like when Lucy holds the football for Charlie Brown. The
opposition still doesn't realize that when the time comes, Maduro and his
cronies will simply yank the ball away again.

There is very little chance for a constitutional, non-violent change in power.

~~~
scorpioxy
I agree. I have family still living there so watching out for when it is going
to start. When people start dying because of lack of food and medication, I
can't imagine a transition happening without spilled blood.

Also, the army and supreme court are still supporting him so what "democratic"
means can you really resort to?

~~~
burfog
Would you happen to know if the tribes in southern Venezuela are pretty much
unaffected? Some of them seem to be living as people have been living for
thousands of years, rather disconnected from the modern world.

~~~
jimmywanger
I've read this book : [https://www.amazon.com/Noble-Savages-Dangerous-
Yanomamo-Anth...](https://www.amazon.com/Noble-Savages-Dangerous-Yanomamo-
Anthropologists-ebook/dp/B006VJN2FE/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-
text&ie=UTF8&qid=1477016082&sr=1-4&keywords=Yanomamo)

It seems as though even those tribes have been prizing western technology,
like fishhooks, shotguns, and machetes. Those are valuable trade goods.

Maybe they've sort of forgotten in the past few generations how to get by
without those tools? Living in a jungle is hard as hell, and a machete and a
shotgun sure do make a big difference.

