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[Sheb]

PTW Reelya defends wannabe dictators.

Has this bit about the Supreme Court taking legislative powers from the opposition-controlled National Assembly be discussed yet?

[Reelya]

Just saying those articles have glaring factual errors that kind of torpedo the main point they're making. The Feds in Venezuela don't actually control the state police, so any arrests at that level have nothing to do with Maduro. Now, if they said the National Guard was going around arresting tons of people then you could start to make a case. But no articles are saying that. Local councilmen who get in trouble don't have any more to do with Maduro than they do with Trump. Especially when most of the listed arrests are actually in opposition stronghold states.

And like I said, mentioning the electricity shortages without acknowledging the massive drought that caused water shortages in the hydro plants ... that's just straight up lying to your face. And of course the drought plus massive drop in the international oil price are in fact huge factors in any food shortage / economic downturn Venezuela is facing. A whole article about the shortages which doesn't mention any of those factors is just not good journalism.

And the problem is that almost all articles on Venezuela have a ton of similar glaring factual errors. If they're lying about a bunch of other details that I can check quite easily (for example that article about brownies where the text itself contradicted the headline), then which parts am I meant to trust? Sure I'm skeptical of Maduro, but the people writing those articles are about as friendly with the truth as Donald Trump is.

And Maduro is facing a new election next year anyway. So much for being a dictator.

[Sheb]

Eh, I'm just kidding you. It's fresh to have a different viewpoint, even if I often find that you stretch your argument beyond credibility (like when we were discussing Mugabe).

As for elections... You know that even Kim-Jong-Un faces them, right? Elections in itself don't mean jack shit. I'm surprised you have nothing to say about the grab of legislative power from the Assembly.

Also you haven't shown proof that the guy was arrested by local police. At least one of the arrested was picked up at a police checkpoitn which are largely manned by the National Guard. It seems the order for the arrest also came directly from that Task Force led by the VP, even if it was carried out by local police.

[Reelya]

I'm reading around about the arrest of Gilber Caro, the guy they ordered picked up. The charges are actually that he's linked with Colombian paramiltary organizations, and was actually planning to assassinate a number of oppositon leaders:

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/12881

During his official address, El Assami presented images of the materials Venezuelan authorities say they confiscated from Caro’s vehicle including explosives (C-4), an automatic rifle with a scratched Venezuelan National Armed Forces (FANB) serial number, 20 cartridges as well as documents with maps outlining plans, routes and a hit-list full of opposition leaders’ names.

El Assami emphasized that the list would have been used with the objective of blaming the Bolivarian government for assassinations of opposition political leaders.

So either that guy's some pretty bad news or this is in fact a really elaborate conspiracy, in which they've constructed an elaborate double-bluff false flag operation: arresting someone then fabricating a mountain of documentary evidence that they were in fact going to carry out their own false flag operation against their own people, in order to take you down. They're saying what alerted them was that he made a number of clandestine trips across the Colombian border, which were detected.

"This character has a criminal record that shows two convictions, one of them 15 years for drug trafficking… [today] we verify his connection to plans to cause violence in the country,” El Assami asserted, highlighting that Caro “will be punished to the full extent of the law.”

http://af.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idAFKBN14W03A

The vice president said Caro was carrying a gun, bullets and explosives, adding that the opposition politician had a previous criminal record, including charges of murder and drug trafficking.

Also, the false flag operation against Gilber Caro involves time travel to implicate him in crimes in the past, for which he's already been convicted. It really adds another layer to the false flag operation to arrest this one guy ... I mean really, I can comprehend how Gilber Caro's false-flag plot could have worked: assassinate some opposition leaders, blame Maduro, trigger a coup. It's a known type of plot.

The alternative is that Maduro's people actually conducted their own false-flag operation where they fabricated the existence of the above false-flag operation, implicated Gilber Caro, fabricated the right documents, then completely fabricated some details about his previous convictions.

I mean which left-winger government creates a false-flag operation in which they implicate a right-winger as planning to assassinate other right-wingers in their own false-flag operation, in order to implicate the left-wingers for a right-winger takeover? It's not something you would do, because surely there are less convoluted ways to get what you want than making up such a complicated story with multiple points of failure.

[Sheb]

What false-flag? Like, arrest someone then pretend you found stuff in his trunk?

[Frumple]

Man, all I know is now I want to see a scenario where a power that be taps the same guy for repeated false flag operations against themself, changing faces every time. The biography of the agent that killed themself fifty times, a story of the death and replacement of several dozen political figures of different names and faces but astoundingly similar proportions and mannerisms. Just imagine the support staff and spin doctors involved in that. It'd be a hell of a job to have.

[Reelya]

What false-flag? Like, arrest someone then pretend you found stuff in his trunk?

Well what they found on him was a plan to assassinate other opposition leaders and then to pin in on the government. Which would have been a classic false-flag operation. And if the government is faking this, then that would be their own outer-layer of false flag operation (pretending there are threats to the opposition that don't exist). So they're running some sort of high stakes double-bluff false flag operation.

But the problem here is that no government would set something like this up. Every government ever has always faked that themselves are the target. If they'd said he was going to assassinate a government minister or law enforcenment officers that would make more sense as a cover story to pick the guy up. It would have been a lot more straightforward.

The evidence they say they found includes far too much documentary evidence, hitlists, routes, plans etc. I don't believe they have the skills to forge those documents, and saying documents exist guarantees people such as the media are going to want to know whats in them, so any flaws in your forgeries are going to come out. The Venezuelans just aren't that "James Bond level" to come up with a pretend scenario of this complexity and forge the documents they say they have.

The amount of effort and risk to entirely forge a set of documents for an opposition-run false-flag operation against themselves doesn't warrant the value they've gained from picking up one minor party politician, who doesn't even have a wikipedia page.

[Antioch]

I see surprisingly little mention of the fact that what the Venezuelan Supreme Court did is nothing else than a coup.

[Sergarr]

I see surprisingly little mention of the fact that what the Venezuelan Supreme Court did is nothing else than a coup.

Seemingly, the fact that it was done by socialists makes it okay in the eyes of some people. They're the good guys, after all, fighting bravely against the world-wide capitalist conspiracy to keep us all in poverty while enriching themselves, what's a little coup or two? Greater Good is worth such sacrifices!

[Helgoland]

I think it's mostly the fact that this is Reelya vs The Rest - and since Reels doesn't talk about it, there's hardly any way to get a discussion going. Five posts in a row saying 'I too think this is a bad thing' is not really an interesting read.

[TempAcc]

The Organisation of American States, Venezuela's own top prosecutor, the US (through Mark Toner), and pretty much everyone that doesn't completely and utterly fully buy into Maduro's insane and now (even more) openly dictatorial regime has already condemned the whole thing as a coup. There are protests going on in venezuela right now.

In short, everyone, including venezuelans consider it a massive fucking coup and are tired of living under such conditions. You have to go into Alex Jones tier conspiracy theory territory to even consider Maduro anything but a dictator atm.

[Reelya]

I'm not backing up Maduro, but my point was that there are basically no objective sources whatsoever on this topic.

When every article can be shown to have factual errors or glaring omission of important details relevant to understanding the story, those whole publications need to be taken with a grain of salt.

More details about what the crisis actually involves:

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13013

Four politicians elected in 2015 were banned from office due to being involved in bribery/vote buying scandals. The supreme court had ruled that they could not be sworn in because investigations were ongoing.

One of the four bribery suspects was from Maduro's party. He stood down. The other three were from the opposition parties. Those guys did not stand down, but were sworn in despite being banned from office by the courts pending investigations. Note: even without those three guys the opposition would still have a majority, they've snubbed the SC's decision in a attempt to play politics / brinksmanship.

The supreme court declared the assembly as in contempt of court 6 month ago pending removal of the three criminal suspects. 6 months later the three people had still not been removed from office, and the supreme court acted, citing a specific clause in the constitution.

Appealing to article 336.7 of the Constitution, which allows the TSJ to take “corrective measures” in the case of an “unconstitutional parliamentary default”, the Supreme Court decision also indicated that it would assume the legislature’s constitutional responsibilities until the three offending legislators are removed.

Basically, the assembly has deliberate maintaining this crisis in order to destabilize things and challenge the SC's authority. If they just removed those three legislators who are accused of vote tampering they'd still have a majority and the SC's decision would be annulled. When you have an "out" clause that automatically ends the crisis without actually losing power, the ball is in fact in your court. And it's not a trick the SC could pull off a second time. Those three assemblymen could in fact resign, ending the crisis, and the opposition would still have a majority in the assembly, especially since new elections for those seats would almost certainly elect new opposition candidates.

Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz expressed opposition to the court’s ruling, arguing it violated the constitution.

https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13014

Venezuela’s Supreme Court has violated the country’s constitution, Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz warned Friday. In a surprise announcement, Ortega said she had identified “several violations of the constitutional order” in the Supreme Court’s (TSJ) controversial decision to assume temporary legislative power.

Maduro's own Attorney General is in fact publicly stating that the Supreme Courts ruling is illegal. If this was a planned power grab then it's a very weird one where Maduro didn't in fact stock the relevant ministries with people who are part of the plan.

This sounds much more like the Supreme Court itself was at risk of losing influence because of having it's rulings ignored, so it's pulled rank to try and get the Assembly to comply with it's ruling on those three criminal suspect / legislators. And this has in fact divided opinion within Maduro's government.

~~~

I was looking up more articles about Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz, found out some other things they don't tell you. For example 41 people involved in the riots in 2014 were in prison as of 2015. But 14 of those were actually law enforcement officers. When 1/3rd of the people jailed for being involved in violent protests were actually police officers charged with excessive use of force, then that doesn't actually sound like an out of control dictatorship locking people up for protesting. What sort of dictatorship locks up 1 police officer per 2 protestors?

http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-politica/150211/attorney-general-41-people-still-detained-for-protests-in-2014

[Antioch]

You can wrap a turd in gold, but it will still be a turd.

It is a coup that destroys any resemblance of democracy left in the country. It is the final point of no return. It is the destruction of the separation of power.

[Reelya]

To be honest I doubt that, I think the thing will be resolved in a loss of influence for the Supreme Court.

http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFKBN1721OY
Here's the Reuters article:

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday he would resolve within hours controversy over the judiciary's annulment of congress which has sparked opposition protests and condemnation from around the world.

"I hope to have very good news this evening and clear up the controversy generated," Maduro said in a speech, calling a meeting of the state security council to discuss the attorney general's criticism of the Supreme Court's decision.

The court's ruling that it was assuming the functions of the opposition-led National Assembly was lambasted as a "coup" by critics who viewed it as a lurch into dictatorship by the Socialist Party that has ruled for the last 18 years.

Seeking to project himself as above a fray between independent powers and possibly presaging a U-turn by the Supreme Court, Maduro said he had known nothing in advance of its ruling but would immediately address the matter.

He claims to have known nothing of the ruling beforehand. But I think that's plausible because of what he did after the ruling: nothing. If he was planning this he would have had a bunch of presidential decrees or some such ready to go, or declared a state of emergency. But the administration basically took no actions at all in the aftermath of this ruling.

The state security council mentioned is an ad hoc process in which the various branches of government appoint delegates to a special meeting, in order to mediate in case of a constitutional crisis.

Here are a couple of other sources:
http://www.panamatoday.com/international/maduro-calls-security-council-resolve-institutional-conflict-venezuela-3999
https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/13017

"I Activated Article 323 in the Constitution  so that tonight the differences that may exist between the Public Ministry and the Supreme Court of Justice are resolved," said the Venezuelan president.

Maduro called the permanent council of the nation after the Chief Prosecutor of Venezuela, Luisa Ortega Diaz, showed "concern" about the rupture of the constitutional order in the country.

So basically, his move has been to pass the issue on to other people. Also from available information this looks more like the Supreme Court itself trying to assert it's authority in the face of being made irrelevant due to the assembly ignoring it's rulings.

[Reelya]

This article is probably the best overview of the whole thing available:

https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/13018

The main point was that there's no win situation in this for Maduro, at all. Never was. Rather than shoring up Maduro's power the SC's move eroded it right from the start. Maduro hasn't capitalized on it, in fact the whole debacle has cost him political capital. The article points out that Assembly benefits from their being no solution to the stand off. It's the government who want to resolve this, the opposition benefit from the thing exploding. Which is why they constantly flaunted the Supreme Court rulings over the last year, they were trying to provoke something like this.

http://www.squamishchief.com/venezuela-s-top-prosecutor-rebukes-supreme-court-power-grab-1.13578846

He said that in an effort to calm the political impasse he had called an emergency meeting Friday night of the National Security Council, which includes the president of the National Assembly and Venezuela's chief prosecutor.

"Like all controversy this should be resolved with dialogue," Maduro said.

The National Security Council meeting began hours later, but with at least one key detractor absent. National Assembly president Julio Borges said he would not attend

So you also have the National Assembly being the only people refusing to actually sit down and discuss things. Basically they're the only people benefiting from this situation.

http://www.france24.com/en/20170401-venezuela-maduro-supreme-court-reconsider-strip-congress-powers

And now you have Maduro telling the Supreme Court to reverse it's decision.

President Nicolas Maduro urged Venezuela's Supreme Court early Saturday to review a decision stripping congress of its last powers, a ruling that set off a storm of criticism from the opposition and foreign governments.

The big lie is that there was some sort of "grand plan" here. There clearly was not.