i am baffled by the faith most people here have about electronic elections.
this being hacker news and all there is too many people claiming "democratically elected"
Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
51–60 of 67 posts
Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maduro was Chavez's chosen successor. Elections in Venezuela aren't "democratic" by any normal definition of the term: the government controls all media outlets and suppresses campaign ads from opposition parties, nationalizes huge chunks of the economy and turns employees working in those areas into public sector employees who are required to vote for the incumbent, further buys hundreds of thousands of votes with g…
>the government controls all media outlets and suppresses campaign ads from opposition parties, nationalizes huge chunks of the economy and turns employees working in those areas into public sector employees who are required to vote for the incumbent, further buys hundreds of thousands of votes with giveaways Citation needed. These are the same criticisms that Romney had about Obama, and for the majority of Chavez's…
https://en.rsf.org/venezuela.html
http://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-press/2013/venezu...
Suggesting some sort of similarity between press freedom in the US and Venezuela seems pretty absurd.
Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maduro was Chavez's chosen successor. Elections in Venezuela aren't "democratic" by any normal definition of the term: the government controls all media outlets and suppresses campaign ads from opposition parties, nationalizes huge chunks of the economy and turns employees working in those areas into public sector employees who are required to vote for the incumbent, further buys hundreds of thousands of votes with g…
>the government controls all media outlets and suppresses campaign ads from opposition parties, nationalizes huge chunks of the economy and turns employees working in those areas into public sector employees who are required to vote for the incumbent, further buys hundreds of thousands of votes with giveaways Citation needed. These are the same criticisms that Romney had about Obama, and for the majority of Chavez's…
This comment is embarrassing. Venezuela nationalized the country's largest television station. The media wasn't fervently pro-Chavez; it was pro-Chavez by government mandate.
Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
#54Interestingly my girlfriend has been using What's App to communicate with her family in Venezuela cheaply throughout the last week since they've been unable to get any news. It's really sad to see the government act this way and hopefully the realize that they're causing a lot of unrest in their citizens. It's always inspiring to see citizens standing up to the government in all these other countries. you see some pr…
When you're under full assault from the US intelligence agencies, sometimes you overreact.
I doubt the US is involved. What would be the point? It's been obvious for years eventually the government would run out of other peoples' money and fail to deliver basic services. Once you start in with price controls the end is near.
Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
#55Interestingly my girlfriend has been using What's App to communicate with her family in Venezuela cheaply throughout the last week since they've been unable to get any news. It's really sad to see the government act this way and hopefully the realize that they're causing a lot of unrest in their citizens. It's always inspiring to see citizens standing up to the government in all these other countries. you see some pr…
When you're under full assault from the US intelligence agencies, sometimes you overreact.
Invoke the boogie-man of "US spies" and open fire on your own people. FTFY.
Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
>the government controls all media outlets and suppresses campaign ads from opposition parties, nationalizes huge chunks of the economy and turns employees working in those areas into public sector employees who are required to vote for the incumbent, further buys hundreds of thousands of votes with giveaways Citation needed. These are the same criticisms that Romney had about Obama, and for the majority of Chavez's…
This comment is embarrassing. Venezuela nationalized the country's largest television station. The media wasn't fervently pro-Chavez; it was pro-Chavez by government mandate .
Really? Which television station was that?
Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am being ironic. He was lionised in the left-wing press in the UK when he died, and was a friend of our ex-London Mayor Ken Livingstone. In reality, he is no better than Castro.
You can also toss in Michael Moore and Hollywood: http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/afp/130308/hollywood... "Sean Penn sat grim-faced at Hugo Chavez's funeral Friday -- one of a clutch of Hollywood stars who lionized the late Venezuelan leader, in defiance of America's fierce antipathy to his regime. Following a long tradition of Hollywood liberals, Penn was joined by Oliver Stone, Danny Glover and documentary…
This is the Sean Penn that tied his then wife (Madonna) to a chair and beat her. What a prince.
Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
#58But Venezuela is a democracy and Hugo Chavez was a democrat and man of peace!
You forgot the sarcasm tag.
Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Brazil is a bet
You dream. There are elections this year and current president Dilma is a strong favorite. The protests in Brazil are fizzling. The poor never took part on them and the middle class left them because radicals (black-blocs) turned it too violent.
Protests on that scale only happen when the economy goes downhill like it did in Venezuela, because the igniter of those kind of protests is, usually, the middle class.
Last year's protests didn't escalated into impeachment because despite blatant corruption and bad government spending, the current government represents the left and that means any movement against it doesn't have the support from the intellectual elite or the media. In fact, the protests started largely as a left movement, asking for more government (lower/free bus fares means more taxation elsewhere), and gathered more support after the clashes with the military police (which is still seen as a product of the authoritarian conservative right of the 60's).
Unless the economy in Brazil tanks and the insatisfaction increases massively, protests against the government will be limited to anarcho-extremists. Until then this incompetent bolivarian left will keep brainwashing the population, invoking the shadow of the authoritarian right to stay in power.
Re: Venezuela's Internet Crackdown Escalates into Regional Blackout
#60Syria, Sudan, google bus stop, Ukraine, Venezuela, ... who's next?
Don't forget Thailand.
What we are seeing in all those countries is representation crisis.