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[smjjames]

The search for that sub is still ongoing: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42064144 , two false alarms so far, no word on what the sattelite signals were from and the banging noises sounded more like marine life than morse code or something.

[Sheb]

Okay, the 'killing young people' thing is more like Mao. But apart from that - yeah, it all sounds like early Soviet Union stuff.

You gotta remember: The terrifying, qualitatively different thing about the Nazis is not the scale of the killing. It is that they killed not for material reasons, but for abstract ones - selecting for qualities that neither their victims nor society as a whole was necessarily aware of, and that were intrinsic to their victims, i.e. could not be changed at all. They slaughtered people for reasons that were essentially aesthetic, not political.

That and also the sheer scale of what they had planned which goes even beyond what they did. It's impossible to read about the Hunger Plan and not have a shiver go down your spine. I mean, we're not arguing that Colombia wasn't a brutal, mass-murderous regime or anything. Just that Hitler went even beyond that.

[smjjames]

Not good news for the sub, apparently hours after the sub went missing, the US detected a hydro-acoustic anomaly in the area, an explosion, which they relayed to the Argentinians. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42100620

Nothing known about the cause, could have been a missile exploding (Kursk for example), or could have been something exploding on impact with the seabed, or possibly from reaching crush depth.

[smjjames]

Maduro has gone full <pick your favorite dictator>, he banned the three major opposition parties from participating in next years elections after they boycotted the mayoral elections that happened this weekend.

Basically, he's like "if you're not gonna play the game, I'm gonna take the ball home with me, plus the whole playing field."

[Reelya]

Well, to be fair those parties have more or less decided to renounce electoral politics and repeatedly call for armed overthrow of the elected government as the best means of taking power. I'm not sure that any government would take too kindly to that sort of thing. If they're not even running but want to remove the guy from power, then they would be tacitly calling for armed overthrow even if they didn't publicly call for that, which they have actually done continuously.

There are right-wing gangs connected to those parties who go around lynching leftists:
http://www.coha.org/right-wing-terrorism-in-venezuela/

I mean, if there were Neo-Nazi gangs going around burning Democrats to death in America, and the government said the party they represent were legitimate political parties who's rights had to be respected, how would you actually feel about that?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/02/venezuela-judge-nelson-moncada-murder-political-motivation

^ here is one incident from earlier this year where a judge was going home, and got murdered at an opposition street barricade. It's the typical type of "protest" death that is counted in the total Maduro is held accountable for. Except because he was a public figure, it became newsworthy. Basically the opposition randomly murder people then they highlight the "death toll" as Maduro's fault. The security forces have basically been operating in a purely defensive mode throughout all of this. They've shown much more restraint than most countries would.

Can you imagine if a judge in America was murdered at an Antifa roadblock? How do you think the American police would react? Would it just be water-hoses and tear gas? Most of the deaths in the protests were random murders by the right-wing designed to try and provoke a deadly reaction from the state forces. A reaction which was not really forthcoming the way it would be anywhere else. I mean, these guys aren't like Occupy Wall Street. OWS didn't just randomly kill anyone in a business suit, which is how the protestors in Venezuela act.

Man, a political slap on the wrist from the government after these party's supporters went around murdering people at random, and those parties refused to condemn the violence, only to escalate things now, is much less than most countries would have done.

[smjjames]

It did read like "If you don't want to participate, then fine, you're off the ballot for the presidency".

Venezuela is a real mess, and thats probably an understatement. :/

[Teneb]

Venezuela has expelled both the brazillian ambassador and the canadian... chief of affairs? from the country.

I am not as well informed on the canadian side of things so I won't go into detail towards it, but officially the reason for expelling the brazilian diplomat is because of last year's coup. Which, of course, bring up the question of why do it now, over a year later. The real reason seems to be that the brazilian government has accused Maduro of harassing the venezuelan opposition.

Regardless of the validity of that accusation, it does seems a bit too much like a tantrum to me.

[smjjames]

The article says that Venezuela is accusing Canada of 'interfering in internal affairs', which could mean whatever they want it to mean really. Though the sanctions Canada imposed certainly had something to do with it.

[scriver]

Should we blame the government?
Or blame society?
Or should we blame the images on TV?

No, blame Canada, blame Canada
With all their beady little eyes
And flappin' heads so full of lies

Blame Canada, blame Canada
We need to form a full assault
It's Canada's fault

Blame Cana da, blame Canada
It seems that everything's gone wrong
Since Canada came along

Blame Canada, blame Canada
There not even a real country anyway

[smjjames]

Hm, Russia might be (or trying to) messing with Mexico's upcoming Presidential election.

It's just a warning from HR McMaster nearly a month ago and nothing solid yet (nothing public that I know of anyway). I could see Russia doing it just to make that leftist candidate become President just to sow division with the US, but any sort of reward coming from that depends on them not finding out Russia did it.

Also, if they're willing to mess with the Mexican Presidential election right now, then they are DEFINETLY willing to do it to the US midterms. We're gonna have to make sure that Russia didn't try any shit in November, or during the primaries.

[ChairmanPoo]

Article sounds a bit bullshitty TBH. Russian meddling is becoming the new buzzword... which was probably the intention all along. Now western politicians throw at each other accusations of being Russian stooges, and thus undermine confidence in the democratic process.

He also referenced the Catalan independence referendum last year as an another case of Russian meddling.

Noone outside the Popular Party in Spain has actually defended the factuality of this.

[smjjames]

Huh, hadn't noticed that comment. If Russia did try, they evidently failed there and the new vote in December because the performance there in December was no better than the previous parliament makeup.

Whether they actually had any impact in the other elections in Europe seems dubious as far as I know.

It'd be even harder for Russia to try to meddle with elections during midterms because things are so decentralized. But still, I'd like to make sure that they don't because the Russian government needs a metaphorical punch to the face for it.

[smjjames]

Lol, if that Andres Obrador candidate in Mexico becomes President, US-Mexico relations are gonna get both spicy and salty. Maybe not salty, but it definetly looks like he is perfectly willing to play Trump at his own game.

[martinuzz]

He wants to build a border wall and make the US pay for it?

[smjjames]

\/O\/

More like Trump's same rhetoric of 'we will make other countries respect us again and put them in their place!', except applied to Trump and respecting Trump at the same time. Basically playing Trump at his own game while at the same time, not playing Trump at his own game.

Or TL;DR: "We're going to teach Trump to respect us, BUT, we will respect him first."