156 Comments

OK that settles it—no more political posts. It is impossible to know what is real and what is not without reporters on the ground. I actually know an outstanding reporter who is in Venezuela. But I am leaning toward no more politics.

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There is activity there. I know more about the activity after reading your post. Therefore, the post is worthwhile. Thank you for showing us without telling us how to think or feel about it.

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Please do not cancel political posts. We NEED to stay informed, no matter how super hard it is to discern the authentic truth in the age of AI and the massive double whammy of censorship and propaganda. A mishmash mess of disinformation and misinformation is one of their key strategies to get us to all throw our hands up in the air, give up, and drop out of the political sphere. When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

I support you hanging in there, Celia. We can't be bullied by people if/when we get the story wrong. Keep the search for truth alive!

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I imagine that here in the not-so-distant future.

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Considering I thought the next shoe-in no matter the actual voting was going to be Gavin Newsom or Gretchin Whitmer...🤔 But count your blessings.. 8 years now up here in Woke Canuckistan of Dear Leader Justin Castreau – seems there's no getting rid of the little creep...🙄

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there is no 'here' anymore-

only the 'everywhere' and 'nowhere' at once,

which, I think, equates to some sort of cancellation/negation...

(but then again, the imagined moment you speak of will be the one in which it becomes 'real' for the 'localized consciousness' and the corresponding frailty of the group body)

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Life is frail. Drugs make it impossible to focus on what is real so you get a script.

It is spiritual and death is not the end, so I prefer to believe Jesus as He is the only one who they hate and want to destroy our spiritual connection to.

Mind boggling.... guard your heart and don't be deceived...

2 Thessalonians 2:11-12

11 Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, 12 in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Proverbs 4:23-27

23 Keep your heart with all vigilance,

for from it flow the springs of life.

24 Put away from you crooked speech,

and put devious talk far from you.

25 Let your eyes look directly forward,

and your gaze be straight before you.

26 Ponder[a] the path of your feet;

then all your ways will be sure.

27 Do not swerve to the right or to the left;

turn your foot away from evil.

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Let's talk about metaphysics then. The other day passed away the Catholic intellectual Wolfgang Smith, who tried very hard to disprove Descartes.

(Descartes is fascinating: the guy has been dead for almost 400 years, and he still gets haters all the time, who condemn him for being so wrong on everything, except on Cartesian geometry, which is used by everyone and without which there would be no calculus or electricity or indoor plumbing)

Fun fact: Smith first went down the Hindu spirituality path, and then he was depressed, and then he found love and married, and his wife converted him to Catholicism, and then he was as happy as a scientist can be.

Anyway, Smith argues, contrary to basically everyone, that objects do have colors as a property. The modern opinion is that color is always a trick of the light, and that physical objects have no color, and that metaphysics sucks and is just clever language manipulation. Smith said to his fellow scientists "hell no! colors are real, bitches!"

He argues for vertical causation to explain evolution. Against Darwin and all the rest, Smith sees a directedness in life and in everything: A purpose. There is no such thing as "purposelessness" in biology.

I think he was a bit shy of arguing against atoms and subatomic particles. It's funny for me how very slowly physicists abandon physicalism and atomism, and without realizing it they are finding back the way they abandoned when they rejected the teachings of Ernest Mach, in favor of the new quantum theories.

Here is a documentary film from 2020: https://odysee.com/@basedandkekpilled:f/theendofquantumrealityhd:a

(Warning, the documentary is a little bit boring and quirky; probably not a docu for rigid people who already know everything and are never wrong)

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Who the hell are you?

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🙁 No more. Not one bit? Occasionally?

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my helper here is from Ven. His family is here in EC, he has told me whats happening with many that still live there. Its not good. Im not sure which of your posts seems to be in authentic, but people are sick and tired...an

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When the people have had enough suffering & misery at the hands of tyrannical dictators…and they are willing to die for freedom

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Chavez and Maduro were preceded by US-backed Tyrannical Dictators - the CIA-backed "opposition" want to return to those good ol' days.

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Let's see if I understand this: the Venezuelans who live in abject poverty and have no civil rights have to choose between Scylla and Charybdis (Communism and Neocons) and, of course, the US leftists who talk out both sides of their mouths (as always) recommend people to just accept the evil communist dictatorship that has destroyed a nation that should be rich.

I think you would have worn a red coat in 1776 if you had been alive then.

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Are you out of your f-ing mind?!?!?

Who told you Venezuelans lacked Civil Rights? Conspirators working with a hostile foreign power to overthrow their Government?

The Opposition in Venezuela are Free to organize and demonstrate and protest - in ways that Americans are frequently denied.

If you cared about "abject poverty" - then you would be demanding that your Government stop trying to overthrow theirs - and leave them alone. Are you aware that the NATO Empire's Bank of England stole billions in Venezuelan Gold? How about the US and Canadian Governments forcing the sale of CITGO gas stations?

You're the fucking Tory - mate. You're with the Red Coats.

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I see you love to change topics. That's bad manners in debate.

I'm Spanish and I follow the political tradition of my country, which is anarchism and isolationism. Leave other countries the fuck alone! That's the only moral foreign policy!

However, I wish the political class of my country was more in tune with our sacred traditions to not meddle in stupid foreign wars.

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So you're a Spanish Fascist, then?

Where did I change subjects? You made a baseless and asinine assertion about Civil Rights in Venezuela - I answered with SPECIFICS.

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I'm a proud Spanish anarchist who hates all socialists anywhere in the world. You stand half a step of becoming a Fascist, but I live seven trillion lightyears apart from being a murderous Fascist.

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Guaido-Trump for president of a free Venezuela!! (Standing ovations mandatory)

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If you're not looking at America's role, you're not looking.

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Look, I am always in favor of the downtrodden. I don't care who is the bastard who supports the recalcitrant dictator of any given country. People have an absolute natural right to be free and destroy tyrants.

I'm not going to pick sides in favor of the evil Maduro regime just because the US Empire is so bloody murderous and dastardly.

Communism is always the wrong answer to any question.

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I side with the people's decision and it looks like it was Maduro. If people in opposition kill themselves in support of a CIA coup, I don't really know what to say.

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The left never disappoints!

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lol I think you actually hit the nail on the head. It’s the same decision we have here. They set us up with the Hitler/neocon so we embrace the imperialistic left. It’s by design. Two choices that lead to the left- the real center is painted as maga fascist red. The U.S. will never let Venezuela out of its hands.

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The US plutocrats obviously hate freedom, in Venezuela, in the US or anywhere else in the world. They suck so bad at life that they look like those pathetic commie intellectuals from the 1960s. Now, how is it possible that a man is superwealthy and still hates everyone and everything, as any random marxist poor-as-a-rat narcissist liar would do? I don't understand plutocrats. They all should go back to Russia.

Here's a nice song from Venezuela: youtube.com/watch?v=OiIC7jjEpAI

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A segment and full Wiki link on Maria Corina Machado, the real Venezuelan player driving the opposition (for 20 years):

1) "Machado was born in Caracas, Venezuela, on 7 October 1967.[11] The oldest of four sisters, she is the daughter of Henrique Machado Zuloaga, a prominent steel businessman and Corina Parisca, a psychologist.[12][2][13] Her ancestors included Eduardo Blanco, the author of the 1881 classic Venezuela Heroica and a relative who was killed in an uprising against Venezuelan dictator Juan Vicente Gómez.[13]

Machado has a degree in industrial engineering from Andrés Bello Catholic University and a master's degree in finance from Instituto de Estudios Superiores de Administración (IESA, business school) in Caracas. She was also part of Yale University's World Fellows Program in 2009.[14][15][16]

In 1992, as a mother of three, Machado started Fundación Atenea (Atenea Foundation), a foundation using private donations to care for orphaned and delinquent Caracas street children; she also served as chair of the Opportunitas Foundation.[15][16] After working in the auto industry in Valencia she moved in 1993 to Caracas.[2] Because of her role in Súmate, Machado left the foundation so that it would not be politicized."[15]

What a true, salt of the earth representative of the Venezuelan "people."

2) Full Wikipedia link (where she acknowledges Chavez's popularity and commends positive things he's done, and where article acknowledges her receiving support from the CIA, I mean National Endowment for Democracy -- 18 years ago):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar%C3%ADa_Corina_Machado

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bingo

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👍 Substack won't let me upvote on comments for some reason. I was a sub. ✌️

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LOL...yes, let's die for the CIA candidate. Good God, people.

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Oh I see. When a nation is unwillingly to fall in line, you seize its financial assets, covertly sabotage its infrastructure and stage an economic siege. Then when the poisoning begins to take effect, you stage a textbook Maidan coupe, install a puppet regime and claim to be liberators. Got it.

Perhaps the title of this article may have misled you. This should not be about “left,” “right,” “socialism,” “communism” or “democracy. How a nation rules itself is not the issue… that’s only an enticement to entrap the public into choosing sides as if it were a fucking soccer match. The issue here is proactive Interference with a nation’s sovereignty – the first commandment of Globalism.

Think about why in less than six months Globalists shot Slovakia’s PM Robert Fico, tried to kill Donald Trump and attempted coups in La Paz and Tbilisi. Now this. Then use your pattern recognition to draw the right conclusion. Prego.

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Got it damn right Bro !!!

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Imagine believing what the State department has to say about Venezuela

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Right. I worry about that. I've heard such mixed messages about those two leaders.

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Only one is CIA.

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Celia... This is rightwinger "Color Revolution" BULLSHIT. Venezuelan election systems are some of the best in the world. This is another example of how they overthrew Evo Morales - again, with TOTAL BULLSHIT as the source.

The nearest competitor to President Maduro, got 44% - an aging crony of Venezuela's CIA Regime Change specialist, Machado.

People are unhappy because the US Government crashed their economy in 2012 - and it's just now recovering.

Antony Blinken and the CIA/State Department gang are the very LAST people we should be listening to, about democracy in Venezuela. How many Coup attempts have we tried there? Maria Corrina Machado signed-off on the FAILED COUP under Chavez.

There is 0 communism in Venezuela. Only Sovereignty and Anti-Imperialism.

https://activemeasures.substack.com/p/leaked-venezuelan-opposition-leader

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I thought that also. If Blinken is for it????? We know they want chaos everywhere.

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💯. This is the same program against the Bolvarian Revolution - begun under Bill Clinton, and kicked into high gear under the Cheney/W. Regime's Roger Noriega. Elliot Abrams was transferred from the Bolton/Trump State Department - directly into Joe Biden's.

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Anya Parampil wrote a book on Venezuela- her twitter is worth scrolling through. This one w/Elliot Abrams is from 2019

https://x.com/anyaparampil/status/1112407756143767553

Elliott Abrams gloats over US ability to prevent Caracas from selling its oil & gold, says goal of sanctions is to "deny the regime money" & laughs while describing his gangsterlike threats against creditors: "we have a wide, broad" sanctions net so "be careful not to get caught"

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💯 and G-d bless you.

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No matter who is President, seems like these neocons are always running the show.

More on Elliot Abrams:

https://x.com/Mark_Tollevsen/status/1818098900261314798

21 years ago Bush was planning a “Road Map” for Palestinian Statehood

When Neo-Con Elliott Abrams of the National Security Council got wind of it,

He SECRETLY FLEW to Rome and TOLD ARIEL SHARON to SCUTTLE THE PLAN

“It is the very nature of being Jewish… to stand apart from the nation in which they live”

Abrams, Elliott, Faith or Fear: How Jews Can Survive in a Christian America, Simon & Schuster, 1997, p181; cited by Guyenot, Laurent, From Yahweh to Zion, 2018, p366.

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While this (all of a sudden good CIA) "popular uprising" is occurring, what's happening around Lebanon this week? Anything after that shocking, coincidental rocket strike in the Golan Heights?

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'Pro-Rape Riots' in Israel Interfere With War Plans Against Lebanon, Force IDF to Pull Troops From Gaza

https://www.informationliberation.com/?id=64571

Israelis rioted outside the Sde Teiman military base in southern Israel and then stormed the building to protest the detention of nine reservists suspected of "serious sexual abuse" against a Palestinian detainee.

A New York Times investigation in June reported that dozens of Palestinians died in the camp and many described being stripped naked, tortured, sodomized with a metal pole or cattle prod and forced to wear a diaper.

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Not sure about Lebanon, but there's a lot going on in Israel after military police arrested some Israeli prison officials after accusations of 9 men gang raping a Palestinian man, who was sent to the hospital b/c of so much internal damage. An Israeli said the rumor is that they stuck a cell phone in his rectum. Apparently, Israeli's believe they have a right to rape the goyim, so Israelis were protesting/rioting about the arrests.

https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1818159418254430325

Only in the Middle East's "only democracy" can a debate take place over whether it is legitimate to "insert a stick in a person's rectum"

(they have been doing this for years- I saw videos of women talking about what happened to them back in the 60s, raped with sticks)

This guy (Israeli?) has been reporting on all of this:

https://x.com/ireallyhateyou/status/1817904053462196523

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Venezuela should be free of both Russia and US interventions.

If Venezuela was not a communist dictatorship the people there would be rich and they would have civil rights and they would not have to put up with the never-ending abuse of the Nomenklatura, and all that super corny marxist nonsense everywhere all the time.

Leave the people alone already.

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Nobody could be as stupid as this, unintentionally.

There is NO Russian intervention - just Russian Statecraft and Diplomacy.

Venezuela has been socialist in theory - since the CIA-cronies preceding Chavez were in power. "Socialist" like California or DC.

When Chavez took power - he used State Resources to IMPROVE peoples lives - rather than (US) corporate bottom lines. He wiped out Slums in Caracas - and replaced them with community housing - run by the communities involved. He taught illiterate Venezuelans to read. He built a strong food program for those who needed it, called CLAP. It worked well enough that the US had to illegally arrest Alex Saab who was on a Diplomatic Mission, over it.

Prior to 2012 - under scary "communism" Venezuela had a growing GDP. The US Destroyed their economy - intentionally. Wake up.

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If the evil regime of Chávez had been a tad less communistic than California or DC, the people of Venezuela would live much better today.

By the way, I don't defend the also evil and corrupt Social-Democratic regime before Chávez. That was also terrible.

You see, human beings need freedom and a good order to live good and happy lives. Socialism, in all its variants and perversions, is the bane of human happiness. Only evil or confused individuals defend socialistic governments.

¡Viva la libertad carajo!

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Thanks for showing that you have absolutely 0 idea of what you're writing about.

Chavez was wildly popular - but hardly "Communist". Do you understand what "Corporate Socialism" really is? That's what Venezuela had prior to Chavez - who was a "School of the Americas" Graduate.

Under the tyranny that the US supported there, he organized a Coup-attempt. It failed. He served his time in jail - came out and handily won the Presidency, and never looked back. The US gave him CIA cancer, thinking that Maduro would be easy to topple. But Chavismo is still majority popular - after more than a decade of US economic warfare.

Go back and enjoy some more of your Franco-ist propaganda.

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Dude, come on!

Chávez was a huge communist. And I guess that's the real reason you lie about that fact.

Like I said before, you should be a gentleman and not change topics. You really suck at debate, man.

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Dude "come on" - Chavez was as huge a "Communist" as Mossadeh and Arbenz. Hence he was in the crosshairs of the CIA. He Nationalized resources - for EVERYONE to benefit from them. That's either "Nationalist" or "pro-human socialist".

The ONLY PEOPLE who mistakenly called him a 'communist' - are the oligarchical and RACIST class who'd ruled without challenge, prior to his electoral assent to power.

You're clearly an ideologically-driven propaganda machine.

It's you who sucks at debate.

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Venezuela is the original source of the software used on Dominion voting machines. Love your gaslighting. It's classic Stalinism.

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That's some prime right-winger bullshit. Any citations or sources to PROVE that the US/Empire's Dominion Voting Systems (just one brand, along with Diebold, Sequoia and ES&S) are running software originating in Venezuela?

Electronic Voting is something that really got started under the Cheney/W. Regime's HAVA

" 'Helping' America Vote Act". It uses Fractional Vote counting Software here in America, something that the Trump faithful didn't care much about, when (leftists, like) Sanders and Tim Canova were getting f-ed in several back to back elections. https://blackboxvoting.org/proof-of-fraud/

The Voting Systems in Venezuela were praised by the Jimmy Carter Center in 2012 - for their security and auditablility. If they don't work - then perhaps the Elections that "the Opposition" was said to have won - were false as well... Imagine what that would have meant for "President Juan Guaido" - now living in Miami.

In case you'd care to learn anything - https://youtu.be/EA8JQ4IMNFg - here's my colleague Pasta, an unbiased elections expert - unlike Thor Halvorssen, who's a member of the CIA-back Oligarchy displaced by the rise of Chavismo.

This is a familiar refrain - the US magnifies and overstates the chances of their racially-European Oligarchic "Opposition", of winning majority support... Then when they lose on Election Day - they clamour and yell about the election being stolen... Whether they even participate, or not. (In 2018-9 they Boycotted the elections, as they had 0 chance of winning).

How is telling you the truth about Venezuela - a story that I've been covering for decades now, as a journalist - Stalinism? Have I seized the means of production, or sentenced anyone to death or a Gulag?

https://youtu.be/nOVH_6SmuGs

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If Anthony Blinken is "concerned," my instinct is to assume the opposite. "Worst" election fraud in history? How about Florida in 2000, etc.? Plus, Venezuela reputedly has one of the best voting systems in the world.

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ROFLMAO. Gaslighting much?

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Seems the CIA is busy in Venezuela; when are they not?

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👏

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I lived in Venezuela for 2 years and was there when Chavez was elected - my wife is Venezuelan, my kids are half Venezuelan and half Irish. There is something different being created now - the only way to topple a dictator is by force and anyone who thinks for one minute that voting them out somehow works lives in cloud-cuckoo land. When folk have nothing to lose they can do big things. God speed.

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It's a coup financed by the Banksters that already own Amerika.

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This is what happens when a populace cannot trust their elections or their government. We know that in Brazil, Balsonaro was far more popular than Lula, but the CIA ran that fraudulent election and installed the communist puppet Lula, and then used the judicial system to stifle Balsonaro and any dissent.

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The Venezuelan election system is possibly the best in the world as opposed to the one in the USA being one of the worst. If the mainstream are supporting the cia backed opposition then we should instinctively know that we should be questioning this narrative and not blindly supporting it!

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Maduro isn't a dictator - the people of Venezuela are sick of the sanctions. This is terrible

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Sure Ann, please enlighten with your first hand experience as an average Venezuelan. The “elite” in any country absolutely love sactions. It provides a bogeyman to blame while impoverishing the middle and working class - thereby weakening them. When they sense the people have had enough they rachet up the jackboots to keep them in line - and it mostly works, until it doesn’t (Romania).

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go join the nazis

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Why is he not a dictator?

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Iran: 'Successful' election in Venezuela indicates democratic process ‘institutionalized’

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman has congratulated Venezuela on the “successful” holding of the presidential election that saw President Nicolas Maduro re-elected, amid “unjust” sanctions imposed on the Latin American country.

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I repeat my question: why is Maduro not a dictator?

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you fuicking cia piece of shit - how can I define a negative ??? fuck off and move there and protest with the rest of the orange revolution there. Free housing a dictator - I'm ignoring the rest of your snide POS comments Even your fake name is AGENT - yer a fucking agent and go to hell with Net and burn there

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I knew who you were from the first line you wrote.

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Is this portentous of November here in the US?

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That was my first thought. A trial run for what they want in the US.

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The U.S. has had interests in Venezuela for a long time. The opposition candidate is CIA. This has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with a sovereign nation not wanting to bend the knee to America and Big Oil.

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All I can say is the Democrats better think twice about stealing the election again in 2024.

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A key journalist to follow about Venezuela is Anya Parampil of The Gray Zone (and wife of Max Blumenthal). Anya was very involved with the Venezuelan embassy takeover in DC several years ago. From that experience, she wrote Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of Empire, published May 2024.

Here's Max interviewing Anya yesterday (7/28/24)

Venezuela decides: Anya Parampil on pivotal election

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz4E6KmBrUc

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Will we see that the police forces suddenly not as robust and enthusiastic to fight for the regime if they really believe it was all rigged. This will be a big indicator of things that will unfold everywhere.

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