The US has reimposed economic sanctions against a Venezuelan state-owned mining company and says it could go on to reimpose further sanctions on the country’s oil and gas sector after Venezuela’s Supreme Court barred main opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado from running for president last week.
The US Treasury on Monday revoked General License 43, which had authorized dealings with mining conglomerate CVG-Minerven. The Treasury said US companies have until February 13 to wind down transactions that were previously authorized by that license.
While US economic sanctions against the mining company are unlikely to cause significant damage to the Venezuelan economy, the US State Department has crucially signaled it intends to renew oil and gas sanctions from April 18, if there’s no progress between Venezuela’s authoritarian president Nicolas Maduro and the opposition “particularly on allowing all presidential candidates to compete in this year’s elections,” it said in a statement.
Barring people from running because you dislike their platform is as fascist as it gets.
Kinda weird since the US bars anyone from running under many different reasons from age to location of birth. Hell, in some states you can’t run for office if you have a felony or are atheist. In Florida if you don’t like someone running against you there just needs to be some bullshit charges and a paid off judge to gets some felony charges. Then in Arizona they are trying to remove the way the state delegates electorates based on popular vote so that the votes don’t matter.
People can be barred from running under many legal reasons in mostly every government. Baring people from running if they are advocating for things that are believed to be bad for the nation is at least well intentioned. What intention does baring someone from running for president simply because they were born somewhere else?
All of this ignoring how the US general elections are decided by two parties and the primaries they run where you can be snubbed for your platform. “Ah well it’s not the government doing it, it’s just the parties that control the government that are doing it”
Look at that deafening silence. You know you’re speaking truth to power when people are upset at you but don’t try to contest what you’re saying.
First of all, all censorship and undemocratic laws are justified by “protecting the people” from dangerous ideas, case and point, the Kids Online Safety Act, the problem being, who defines what is bad or good? and the fact of the matter is that people on power will always conveniently decide that the opposition is “dangerous” and “extremist”.
Secondly, the US system, as broken as it is today, actually started in a time where there were no political parties and as such, it was a popularity contest between whoever wanted to run, and still is to a point, had the system not had been enveloped by them.
Finally, the point of the location of birth is that most people tend to be faithful to their nation, especially the one they were born (of course it is not linear, but it is a reasonable rule)
What definition of fascism is it that prevents fascists from running for president?
Should Trump be barred from running?
Yes, because he violated his oath of office
And that includes upholding the constitution. Not helping poor people kind of violates that in spirit right?
Many believe that your so called help for the poor makes things worse for the poor in the long run. You don’t have to agree with their position, but you need to accept that they are reasonable people looking at facts and coming up with a different interpretation.
That’s supposed to be a reasonable argument worth entertaining? By that logic, trump violated the Constitution to protect! Do we have to accept that as a reasonable position too, even if we don’t agree?
I have no idea what you mean by this, sorry
Ok. So here’s the situation then. In the US, a person that shouldn’t be eligible for candidacy is not only running, but leading the Republican primary. In Venezuela, a person that would similarly harm their country is banned from running.
She is barred from office because the Venezuelan supreme court is the legal arm of Nicolas Maduro’s Regime. On the other side IQ45 attempted a coup and that makes him ineligible to hold office.
Fix your own stupid supreme courts first before meddling in Latin America.
We can’t fix for what we can’t vote in either country. Neither Venezuela or the US of A has a method, limits or guardrails to what these people could do. Also, not a fan of this concept where if the US fix the Supreme Court can meddle anywhere in the world, that view is colonialist AF.
Now they’re going to make Venezuela people poorer for not fixing problems we can’t even fix in our damn country? It seems hypocritical. Hell, people should sanction us for allowing a fascist insirrectiomist run for President against the law ofnour Constitution. That’s way worse for the world.
I’m not saying I support Moduro, only that I think this is a decision that will protect the most vulnerable people from aggressive and brutal privatization. There are some pretty good parties in the opposition, but Come Venezuela should not be allowed. It would be disastrous for an already struggling country.
You sound exactly like a Trump supporter talking about “the establishment”
Well not only does he have shitty policies, he did also attempt a coup. Which is why he should be barred from running.
Stop attempting the false equivalence, it’s not working.
Her party tried to rob a military arsenal, she was charged with a conspiracy and corruption, and so she can’t run. It went through their courts. It all seems legal, considering people in the US can’t run for similar reasons. It might be corrupt, idk, but the US doesn’t have a leg to stand on with corrupt courts. Why sanction other countries, which always affects the regular citizens, for this stuff we can’t even figure out ourselves?
Yes, because he’s a traitor, fraud, and criminal. Your question is not quite the gotcha you think it is.
It wasn’t intended as a gotcha. I wanted a baseline to know whether the conversation was worth continuing.
You literally just proved it is exactly the gotcha you think it is lol
Yes, because he has been impeached and indicted multiple times for charges related to violations of the oath of office of the presidency.
What are Machado’s crimes that she should be barred?
From what I can tell, conspiracy (against the government), inciting violent protests, and corruption. It’s weird they don’t say it in the article. But she says the protests were supposed to be peaceful and some of the conspiracy evidence was faked, which it might be, idk, I wasn’t in the court room.
But considering the US is still doing shit like this, I could see why they have to be paranoid.
I don’t think a democratic process should be limited to only banning people that broke the law. Someone that intentionally wants to harm people through excessive austerity like Machado and Milei shouldn’t be able to run.
Remember, Hitler was elected. If a democratic process can’t stop a person like that from running, then the democratic process is failed.
This all sounds nice until you realize that a system like this would be easily abused. “I’m sorry, but the one candidate that actually stands a chance against me is banned because the courts full of judges I appointed has determined that their policies are harmful.”
Who gets to be the arbiter of what policies are acceptable and what are not? Let the voters decide for themselves.
The system can be made robust though. Implementation is also important, and I’m just one person so I’m not going create that framework for an Internet discussion. The question that the framework should rely on power: is the candidate advocating for a distribution of power, or a centralization of power? Privatization seeks to centralize power, for example.
State capitalism also centralizes power. It’s just centralized with the government instead of a monied class. I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem if there is a robust electoral system and a low level of corruption but I feel based upon everything I’ve read about Venezuela that they’re lacking in both.
The conversation drifted to theory rather than current conditions, so I chose to go in the direction of my idealized version of what this framework would look like. You’re right, as an ML nation there is still a centralization of power in Venezuela. I don’t have the answers for Venezuela, only the people of Venezuela do. However, I think the court made the right decision on behalf of the people, even if I disagree with the undemocratic nature of their courts.
Okay, so you don’t believe in democracy.
I can make reductionist arguments too:
Okay, so you believe it was a good thing that Hitler was elected.