Topic: Real Time Socialist Train Wreck (again) Happening Now in Venezuela - page 17. (Read 42657 times)

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Moreover, it is the very poor and those of darker skin tone who have benefited most from the improvements since the election of Hugo Chavez, and it is they - by the way, the vast majority of the Venezuelan population -- who support Chavez and his successor the most. Of course, the U.S. government and its compliant media openly side with the white, wealthy elite - such as Kenyon and Harvard trained right wing leader Leopoldo Lopez -- against Venezuela's poor in their current cheer leading for the opposition. Again, the NPR story is notable in this regard.

Without irony, the media fulminates about Venezuela's alleged lack of democracy (again, ignoring Colombia's death squad violence against its own population) to justify its open support of Venezuela's elite opposition. However, as Chilean writer Pedro Santander recently put it so well:


Regarding the supposed "democratic deficit of the Venezuelan regime", the facts speak for themselves. Since 1998 there have been four national plebiscites, four presidential elections, and eleven parliamentary, regional, and municipal elections. Venezuela is the Latin American country with the highest number of elections and it also has an automatic electoral system (much more modern than Chile's one), described by Jimmy Carter, who has observed 92 elections in all continents, as "the best system in the world".



http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-kovalik/in-defense-of-venezuela_b_4824494.html
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Hmm I knew sending black tanks on light skinned people, or a silver bullet through the cranium of a (white looking) top model was a coded message... Thank you hufPo

https://twitter.com/YeiRondon/status/436550256348901376/photo/1

While protests sweep the streets of Venezuela, the nation's government is quietly tightening its grip on the Internet.

Last week, the government blocked its citizens from uploading and viewing pictures on Twitter. Now officials are warning that social networks are being used by "cybercriminals" to spread misinformation and support what they call a "coup."

Citizens of the Western state of Tachira reported on Thursday that the Internet was down statewide, and other activists warned that the government is slowing down connections at night, when police forces attack protesters.

Renesys, an Internet monitoring and research firm, couldn't officially confirm the outage. But Doug Madory, one of the firm's researchers, told Mashable it had seen drops in bandwidth and increases in latency that might be caused by throttling, although he couldn't be certain of the cause.

All these disruptions seem to be part of a plan to keep the population in the dark about the protests. "There is no independent media, so the national TV doesn't show that there are demonstrations around the country," Marianne Diaz Hernandez, a Venezuelan activists who founded AccesoLibre, an Internet freedom advocacy group, told Mashable.

"There's part of the country that doesn't have any idea what's going on, and another that goes online and looks for information on social networks."

The government has the legal power to block websites it deems as a threat to national security, or sites that show independent or opposing views, according to a report by the watchdog group Freedom House. This censorship powers have been seldom used, but the government seems more willing to censor websites around big political events such as the April 2013 elections, held after the death of former president Hugo Chavez.

Venezuelan government agencies didn't respond to Mashable's requests for comment.

Diaz Hernandez is collecting reports of blocked websites through Herdict, a crowd-sourcing tool that allows users to flag websites that they cannot access. Diaz Hernandez warned that the results are not comprehensive yet, but several Venezuelan Internet users reported the blocking of Twitter, Facebook and the news site La Patilla. A graphic of the partial results of her survey can be seen here.

The government's censorship power is helped by the near-monopoly of CANTV, the state-owned Internet provider, which controls more than half broadband connections in Venezuela, according to Freedom House. By controlling the main Internet provider, the government can simply order CANTV to shut down all Internet service — as it did for 30 minutes during the April 2013 elections — or strategically block certain websites.

"The government doesn't necessarily have a kill switch," Andres Azpurua, the director of Venezuela Inteligente, a
freedom of information organization that promotes transparency, told Mashable. "But it doesn't need it."

Activists like Diaz Hernandez and Azpurua are trying to fight back, promoting the use of Virtual Private Networks (VPN) or Tor to circumvent censorship. Commercial VPN companies such as TunnelBear and Hotspot Shield have contributed by offering their software free of charge to Venezuelans.

Thanks to two laws that regulated online media, passed in 2010, the government can also request independent ISPs to block certain websites and impose high fines if they refuse.

Until recently, blocking wasn't the preferred weapon in the government's online arsenal. President Nicolas Maduro said last year that "if lies come through Twitter, we are going to strike back through Twitter."

That led to a group of paid government online commentators who spread official propaganda, harass critics on Twitter, and attempt to steer the online conversation. The government called this campaign the "Communication Guerrilla," when it launched in 2010.

Several officials have recently warned of opposition "disinformation" being spread on Twitter. Delcy Rodriguez, the country's Communications and Information Minister, tweeted that social networks are used by "violent coup leaders" to "create anguish within the population in a large scale psychological operation."

The director of CONATEL, Venezuela's National Telecommunications Commission, echoed Rodriguez in a tweet, writing: "Social networks are being invaded by cybercriminals who hijack accounts and manipulate information."

Those are the tactics activists and international experts attribute to the Maduro regime.

"Manipulation of online content by the ruling party and its supporters has compromised the atmosphere of free online debate," wrote Freedom House. "Such careful management of content has included steering conversations along pro-government lines, hacking, discrediting opposition voices via Twitter impersonations, and encouraging self-censorship."

A group of pro-government hackers, called N33, has hijacked a number of journalists' Twitter accounts. Much like the Syrian Electronic Army, N33 is said to be government-sponsored, but the hackers have denied being paid by the regime.

http://mashable.com/2014/02/20/venezuela-social-media/

It will be up to the people reading this thread to make up their own mind indeed.

Just to keep things balanced here, a few links :-

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id--ZFtjR5c

  http://drdawgsblawg.ca/2014/02/constructing-venezuela-protests-a-photo-gallery.shtml

   http://rt.com/news/golinger-documents-venezuela-destabilization-299/

  I don't know if anyone will take the above on board - after all, there's none so blind as those that don't want to see  

Opposition supporter Genesis Carmona is evacuated on a motorcycle after being shot in the head during a protest against Nicolas Maduro's government in Valencia, some 100 miles (160 km) from Caracas, February 18, 2014.(Reuters / Mauricio Centeno-Notitarde )


A popular beauty queen became the fifth of six Venezuelans to die in the country’s ongoing unrest after she was shot in the head during a demonstration for imprisoned opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez.

The rallies claimed the lives of three people who were shot in Caracas, and another person who was run over by a car in the coastal town of Carupano. Genesis Carmona, a 22-year-old college student and model, succumbed on Wednesday to injuries sustained the day prior. A former beauty queen who was named Miss Tourism Carabobo 2013, Carmona was shot during a pro-Lopez demonstration in the central city of Valencia.

“How long are we going to live like this? How long do we have to tolerate pressure, with them killing us?” said one of Carmona’s relatives who wished to remain anonymous. “She only needed one more semester to graduate.”

Carmona’s Twitter feed shows that she often retweeted messages by influential members of the opposition and pointed her followers to a link that would help them get online in the event that the government cut internet access.

“Stay with the one who tells the best stories. One day they will be yours,” read one message she posted.

President Maduro, who was elected less than one year ago in what opponents said was a tainted election, acknowledged Carmona’s death on Wednesday, saying he regretted that “this young lady with the world at her feet was a victim of violence.”

http://rt.com/news/venezuela-beauty-queen-opposition-leader-820/

I did not believe you were evil. I was just kidding. Millions of years of Evolution (if you believe the theory) made you love women. Your weakness could be if you lied to them to get them into your bed. Not the same thing as "loving women too much". But that's beyond our little thread.

My favorite Classic British Engineering creations: SSL mixing consoles , PMC and B&W studio monitors... :-)

Yes - agreed. Hope springs eternal.


I'm not evil Wilikon. Flawed ? Yes, definitely - historically women have been my weakness - but are they really a weakness at all, or a biological imperative (thats my excuse anyway) ? I don't know. I also have a penchant for classic British engineering - the like of which are long past. And kebabs. And gadgets.

But you have my word that I will never defend the actions of the NSA  

[You do realise that the NSA have got Maduro's every movement tracked don't you ?  Just waiting for him to visit a dogging website - and then it will be all over the pages of the Politics and Society section of Bitcointalk/the New York Post/the Sun etc etc.]

You know what is cool? We are both on bitcointalk. So it means you may not be that evil (as long as you do not defend the NSA for all of its goodness). But obviously everything points to me being waaay less evil than you...

I am not blind to the abuse and History of the USA. Far from it. Go through my other thread posts. You may be get a vibe from them. The thing is it is more about human behavior as this is History repeating.

I do not understand the concept of locking a thread I created. we have water, food, a computer device, access to the internet and a roof. We are rich.

Hey - I might not agree with you Wilikon - but I'll give you this, at least you have the good grace to have an open thread (i.e..not self moderated) whereby debate is possible. I've also noticed that, in your favour, you are able to ignore opinions that are expressed that maybe diametrically opposed to your own and which must wind you up (at least a little) - I'm not being facetious here neither.

   That being said you surely can't be completely blind to the US's tactics  re. uncooperative overseas adversaries who are in possession of assets the US requires  - can you ??

   I dunno mate - maybe this might be a start for you.

Hey whatever!
Thank you for playing. Let's count the number of dead in Caracas in a few weeks. You camp, the Manure-O camp and "my" camp, with the dude with flowers in his hand. I bet you will win and kill as many people your camp can thanks you its belief in socialism through guns. You seem to enjoy that Venezuelan soap opera with real people and real bullets in the streets.

Come back anytime.

Well said.

Capitalism is natural.

 

Its what we were put on this earth to rise above - it represents the pre-history of mankind - its one step above Neanderthal FFS  


edit: its actually on a par with Neanderthal - don't be fooled by the trappings - they would have arose anyway 

Ahh the US-backed faux revolution in Venezuela, yanks tried to do the same with Chavez but failed miserably.

Leopoldo Lopez - your boy in Caracas hey Wilikon ?  

You really need that oil don't you buddy ? 

How long are you going to use BitcoinTalk as the forum for your US imperialist propoganda ?

I thought BTC was supposed to be about liberation and self determination - worry about whats happening on your own soil and leave Venezuela/Cuba/Nigeria/Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan/China/Russia/Zimbabwe/Nigeria/Iran/North Korea etc etc etc etc  alone.

Please.

[oh - and try to go cold turkey on the black gold hey ?]

Venezuelan opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez has been arrested by the Venezuelan National Guard.

Supporters flooded into the street in front of the van to stop his arrest.

For their part, the Maduro government has said that things in the streets of Venezuela this afternoon are calm and orderly.

http://weaselzippers.us/174711-opposition-leader-in-venezuela-arrested-hundreds-of-thousands-come-into-streets-to-stop-it/#more-174711

they will just have another revolution , followed by "la revolution" and who hasn't starved by death will be able to take part in "final revolution".
stability and normality have no place in South America.

http://youtu.be/EFS6cP9auDc

To know what is wrong over there, check out the word I used on the thread's title just before "Train Wreck"...

If Venezuela remains poor despite the huge petroleum deposits.. then something is wrong there.