
Venezuela’s descent into dictatorship shows democracy can be lost - JumpCrisscross
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/topoftheticket/la-na-tt-venezuela-democracy-20170801-story.html#nws=mcnewsletter
======
balance_factor
When the military threw out the elected Chavez in 2002 and replaced him with
the head of the business federation, who promptly dissolved the parliament,
the New York Times applauded.

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.

~~~
tigershark
How is it relevant to this article? Here they are correctly pointing out that
a dictator _de facto_ is seizing even more power sending his country to a
total economic disaster. There has been no coup d'état, just a rapid descent
into dictatorship starting from Chavez and continuing with Maduro. Exactly in
the same way it happened in Italy with Mussolini and in Germany with Hitler.
Your comment seems completely out of place pointing out other completely
unrelated political situations minimising the actions of a dictator that is
killing hundred of people just because it doesn't fit your own political
narrative.

~~~
ushegemony
bravo, less than an hour to invoke Godwins law.

~~~
tigershark
We are discussing about dictatorships, it seems a quite fitting argument
honestly.

------
mc32
I'm sorry LA Times, but is this a joke? I mean, have we not ever heard of
coups d'Etats?

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.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
[citation needed]

------
edmundo
> “Under Chavez, elections were still relatively fair. ”

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.

~~~
ernst_klim
>relatively fair.

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.

~~~
eesmith
It means there's a level of fraud in most elections, but these lie on a
continuum.

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...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/06/28/voting_rights_and_the_supreme_court_the_impossible_literacy_test_louisiana.html)
for an example test from Louisiana.

By comparison, this was a relatively unfair system.

~~~
tnzn
Your definition of a fair election is pretty flowed as far as I understand
it... You define a fair election as an election which gives the same results
as... a fair election ?

~~~
eesmith
No, I define a relatively fair election as one which often gives the same
results as a fair election.

------
ushegemony
Not like the US has played any part in this whatsoever, nothing to do with
Venezuela being an oil rich nation and not bowing to the US cronies. What
next? News about the US sponsoring the 'Free Venezuelan Army', the moderate
rebels?

~~~
bpodgursky
Go away. The US has been aggressively non-interventionist in Venezuela through
this entire crisis -- no wide sanctions or anything.

Chavez and his cronies made their own bed, and now the whole country has to
sleep in it.

~~~
ushegemony
You must have never heard of a thing called an 'NGO' or the 'CIA'. Even when,
on the surface (i.e: what CNN says), the US is not pursuing it's interests
globally, you can be pretty sure that it has its finger in the pie somewhere.

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](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](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/730909086775152641)

~~~
geezerjay
> Rousseff was democratically elected, media (which is owned by a small
> oligarchy in Brazil) fanned the flames to get her impeached, the
> replacement?

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](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...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-rousseff-
idUSKCN0WI1T0)

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.

~~~
tnzn
Did you even read his fucking comment or do you just cherry pick phrases and
build a strawman from that ?

------
ZenoArrow
Could say the same thing about many countries, e.g. Turkey's descent into
dictatorship shows democracy can be lost.

~~~
gambiting
Poland is quickly eroding its democracy as well, it's terrifying.

~~~
mc32
How? If anything it looks like it's becoming populist which is the opposite of
not democracy.

That's not to delegitimize your position which is that it does not reflect
your vision of what a democracy should look like.

~~~
alkonaut
> what a democracy should look like.

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.

~~~
tnzn
Is press really free when 90% of it is held by 5 billionaires ? (France)I'm
not arguing against the bulk of the argument but really calling a profit-
driven press "free" is a bit of a stretch imo (though there's a difference to
be made between, say, French press and press against dictatorship, I'll admit,
but this doesn't change my point)

~~~
alkonaut
Press freedom doesn't really account for diversity, it's unfortunate but
that's it.

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.

------
nippples
We've already lost quite a large number of democracies all over the world to
all sort of oppressive dictatorships and teocracies. Where's the surprise?

It's good sometimes to remember not to take democracy for granted.

------
trhway
couple thousand years ago Roman Republic got de-facto replaced by dictatorship
(Caesar) and soon after - Empire (Augustus).

Where "dictator" originally comes from -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator)

Finally LA Times got the news...

------
basicplus2
So you think you live in a democracy?

"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...](http://quotes.liberty-
tree.ca/quote_blog/Mayer.Amschel.Rothschild.Quote.8BED)

