#venezuelanalysis

[txttletale]

ayo could u rec some podcasts

sure

trashfuture is a political comedy podcast that riffs on the news and so on. really good source for a brutally critical view on tech and finance and also spectacularly funny. several catchphrases from this show are lodged in my head forever.

homestuck made this world is a masterful work of media analysis and contextualization that's well worth listening to even if you've never planned to read homestuck just for sharp analysis and great Bits. two media academics, one of whom has already read homestuck, read it critically and discuss the historical context of the fandom and internet culture at large while it was ongoing.

game studies study buddies is a little more academically inclined than most things on this list. the same guys as HSMTW talk in detail about academic game studies books. it's really accessible considering the subject matter, though--the hosts are really insightful and have some really fun discussions.

blowback is a podcast that talks about, in quite a lot of well-sourced detail, US military and intelligence interventions. they've covered iraq, cuba, and the korean war. it's well produced and will make you Fucking Furious

the venezuelanalysis podcast is a fantastic resource to hear opinions on venezuela by venezuelans who aren't right-wing diaspora. not perfect by any means but an incredible counterpoint to the USian media narratives the airwaves are saturated with.

the shrieking shack is funny. that's the main reason i recommend it, it's extremely fucking funny. two ex-harry potter fans go back and critically reread the books and point out all the insanely horrible bullshit in them that they missed as kids. they're now doing twilight.

eidolon playtest is the best actual play i've ever listened to and it's not even close. it documents the playtesting campaigns for eidolon: become your best self, a system designed to emulate the soul-battles of persona and jojo's, with two intertwined campaigns (POP and ROCK) and just it has some of the absolute best improv, most well-drawn characters, and healthiest table culture i've ever heard on an actual play. one of the player characters is a funny talking fox and another is the self-proclaimed pinball prince of las vegas. if you like actual plays at all listen to eidolon playtest.

#ask

[zvaigzdelasas]

The Venezuelan government held a closing campaign rally ahead of a non-binding referendum that will measure popular support for a longstanding territorial claim over the Essequibo Strip. “This Sunday, with our votes, we will defend the Guayana Esequiba,” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro told crowds in Caracas, using Venezuela’s name for the disputed territory. “I call on everyone to take part in this popular initiative.” On December 3, around 20 million Venezuelan voters are eligible to participate in a five-question referendum centered on the controversial border between Venezuela and neighboring Guyana. The questions will weigh whether citizens reject an 1899 arbitration ruling that Venezuela deems illegitimate, support a 1966 agreement as the only binding instrument to solve the dispute, dismiss the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over the matter and oppose Guyana’s resource exploration in the Essequibo Strip’s territorial waters. A final question asks voters if they support creating a new state, called Guayana Esequiba, in the disputed strip, granting Venezuelan citizenship to its inhabitants and implementing social programs for the local population.[...]

“This referendum is the moment for national unity,” the Venezuelan leader stated in his address. “We cannot run from the responsibility of recovering the lands bequeathed to us by our independence heroes.”

Friday’s rally came hours after an ICJ ruling to address a motion filed by Guyana requesting that the court introduce provisional measures against the December 3 referendum. In particular, Georgetown wanted the judges to ensure that the first, third and fifth questions be removed from the ballot. It also demanded that there be no future referenda questioning the 1899 arbitration decision. In its response, the ICJ made no reference to the consultative referendum. However, the Hague-based tribunal stated that Venezuela should “refrain from taking any action” that would modify the present circumstances whereby the Essequibo Strip is under Guyanese administration. The ICJ further asserted that the validity of the 1899 arbitration ruling, where no Venezuelan negotiators were present, is to be weighed by the court in the coming months. In 2018, Guyana introduced a motion requesting that the ICJ uphold the validity of the 1899 border. Venezuela protested that it did not recognize the court’s jurisdiction to settle the territorial controversy, but the judges dismissed the arguments. Guyanese President Irfaan Ali welcomed the Friday ruling in a statement. “As the court has made clear, Venezuela is prohibited from annexing or trespassing upon Guyanese territory or taking any other actions […] that would alter the status quo in which Guyana administers and controls the Esequibo region,” it read. Georgetown has taken particular issue with the final question of the referendum which proposes the creation of a new Venezuelan state in the disputed area, claiming that it shows pretenses to “annex” the Essequibo region. However, the wording of the question goes on to affirm that the creation of this state would be “in accordance with international law.” The 160,000 square kilometer, sparsely-populated and resource-rich territory has been administered by the United Kingdom and later the independent Cooperative Republic of Guyana since the 1899 judgment. Venezuela never recognized the arbitration results and the border controversy has flared up recurrently, most recently since 2015 following the discovery of massive offshore oil deposits. For its part, Venezuelan officials hailed the fact that the ICJ effectively rejected Guyana’s request to interfere with Sunday’s referendum. In a statement, the government said it “took note” of the court’s decision and that international law would preclude any interference with Venezuela’s political system. Caracas went on to reaffirm its conviction that the 1966 Geneva Agreement, which saw Venezuela, the United Kingdom and soon-to-be-independent British Guiana commit to finding an amicable and satisfactory solution to the border issue, remains the only binding instrument to solve the dispute. Venezuelan authorities have spared no effort to boost participation in Sunday’s vote. This week, civil registry Saime organized special, fast-tracked procedures for citizens to obtain or renew ID cards so as to be able to participate in the referendum. [...] The consultative referendum has led to a war of words between Caracas and Georgetown as well as rampant speculation about its implications. Venezuelan Socialist Party (PSUV) Vice President Diosdado Cabello took aim at a “campaign that says this referendum is a prelude to war.” “Does anyone believe we are going to declare war against anyone?” he asked during his weekly TV broadcast. [...] The Maduro government has likewise warned against US meddling and raised warnings of a possible increased presence of the US Southern Command in the region. The Biden administration has backed Guyana on the dispute and pledged support, with a Department of Defense delegation visiting Georgetown last week to “strengthen a military partnership.”

2 Dec 23

[sataniccapitalist]

[der-saisonkoch]

Erst anlocken mit einem Scheinpräsidenten - dann misshandeln

Erst anlocken mit einem Scheinpräsidenten – dann misshandeln

Venezuelanalysis. Venezolanische Migranten in Unordnung, nachdem Biden Ausweisungen nach Titel 42 erweitert hat Verteidiger der Rechte von Migranten fordern seit langem, dass das Weiße Haus die Verwendung von Titel 42 beendet, der Migranten effektiv das gesetzliche Recht auf Asyl in den USA verweigert. Davon dürfen sogar die Ukrainischen Migranten in der EU träumen. Offensichtlich müssen die…

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[useless-venezuelafacts]

PSA

venezuelanalysis is NOT a reputable source on the crisis in Venezuela. It is communist propaganda. Your opinion has 0 merit if all your sources are from venezuelanalysis.

#venezuela #venezuelanalysis #communism #anti communism

[determinate-negation]

Hey, do you know more about what's happening in Venezuela? And why? Or maybe, do you have some reliable sources where I can read about it? You don't need to answer me or anything, it's just seems, like, you know more about it than I do

whats happening is that the us is trying to intervene in venezuela and install a u.s. friendly government that will be more sympathetic to u.s. imperialism and foreign investment, especially because venezuela has oil reserves that the u.s. wants. the united states has been putting sanctions on venezuela for the past few years that have been exacerbating the economic crisis there, and other european countries have been cutting venezuela off as well. the “interim president” guaido, who is backed by the u.s., declared himself president and hasnt been voted in and the trump administration and many other government officials like marco rubio have explicitly said they want to overthrow/kill maduro and invade venezuela. this has little to do with actual poverty and crisis in venezuela and everything to do with u.s. imperial interests. the “humanitarian aid” the u.s. is providing has been heavily criticized and many actual humanitarian aid groups are refusing to be associated with it because of that

venezuelanalysis, telesur english, democracy now and grayzone project have decent reporting on venezuela, including this poll from grayzone project showing that 86% of venezuelans oppose us military intervention and 81% oppose the sanctions the us is putting on venezuela

id recommend looking through the basic facts thing on venezuela analysis and checking out this video that covers a lot of whats happening right now

this is a decent article about the opposition, led by guaido, and its political affiliations 

also i think the situation in venezuela is best understood in the context of a long history of u.s. imperialism and imperial intervention in latin america. if you have time id recommend reading against empire by michael parenti and the cias greatest hits by mark zepezauer and this tangentially related medium article about the history of us intervention in central america. the united states has a habit of intervening in latin americas business whenever something happens that threatens their ability to make profit, they dont care about protecting democracy in venezuela and they never have. regardless of the amounts of corruption or poverty in venezuela, u.s. intervention has always resulted in something much worse than the problem they were trying to “fix”. hiding behind rhetoric about “protecting democracy” and “providing aid” is how the u.s. has always justified regime change, u.s. supported dictatorships and genocide. if youd like to get involved in organizing against u.s. intervention nowaronvenezuela.org is doing a lot right now 

#Anonymous

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

The protest was called by the newly formed Unitary Platform in Defense of Working Class Rights, spearheaded by the Communist-led National Working Class Struggle Front (FNLCT).

Dozens of militants from the Venezuelan Communist Party (PCV), Homeland For All (PPT), Lucha de Clases, as well as members of the FLNCT-affiliated trade unions, were present in the demonstration staged in front of the Attorney General’s Office in Caracas.

Pedro Eusse, member of the Venezuelan Communist Party Central Committee and FNLCT coordinator general, spoke to Venezuelanalysis about the need to find a “revolutionary exit” from the crisis. “Amidst this crisis we are seeing policies that preserve the benefits and profits of capital over workers’ rights,” the communist leader explained. The rally was held at the Attorney General’s office, Eusse explained, to draw attention to violations of labor rights as well as the criminalization of working class struggles.

He added that the goal is to create a space of debate and “collective construction of policies,” as well as critical evaluation of the government’s performance, so as to combat what he termed a state of “defenselessness” that workers, campesinos and pensioners find themselves in.

#trade unions

[shituationist]

Venezuelanalysis was apparently knocked offline by DDoS attacks. I was wondering what had happened to it.

[izatrini]

Either Washington or Venezuela, Savage Capitalism or Socialism: A Conversation with Luis Britto Garcia

In this exclusive interview with Venezuelanalysis, an acclaimed writer and committed Bolivarian talks about the short and long term defense of Venezuela’s sovereignty. By Cira Pascual Marquina February 05, 2019 – Venezuelanalysis.com Luis Britto Garcia is perhaps Venezuela’s most highly regarded public intellectual. A firm supporter of the Bolivarian Process, he has written numerous plays, […] http://dlvr.it/QyGnsk

[antoine-roquentin]

North Americans depending solely on English-language sources for unbiased political information from Latin America have few options. They include TeleSUR’s English-language reports on the entire region and news from Venezuela provided by Venezuelanalysis.com. The government of the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, vilified by the United States, provided the impetus for TeleSUR.

On August 9 the account of Venezuelanalysis with Facebook inexplicably disappeared. The Facebook account of TeleSUR English did likewise on August 13 – and also briefly in January, 2018. Both accounts were restored within two days.

The message is clear, however, that the flow of essential information from Latin America via Facebook is precarious.  Why that might be is now evident.

Generally there is limited access to reliable news for that quarter. One commentator on the August 4 violent coup against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, for example, cites frequent media reference to a coup that is “apparent” or “alleged.” The mainstream media, he notes, is predicting that Maduro’s government will use the coup as a pretext for repression.

According to Venezuelanalysis.com, Facebook moved against the platform because it published “important pieces which challenge the corporate mainstream media narrative on Venezuela.” Its coverage of “the growing international campaign to End US and Canadian Sanctions against Venezuela” also played a role.

Basically, however, any Facebook role in suppressing information has more to do with the company’s profitability than with ideology. To explain: Facebook has recently come under pressure in Washington for misusing private information and for failing to reveal private information presumed to be harmful to US interests. Its troubles worsened after it became known that the British firm Cambridge Analytica provided the presidential campaign of Donald Trump with private data obtained through Facebook.

Consequently, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to testify April 10 on these matters before the Senate commerce and judiciary committees. He confessed that, “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry … [W]e didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy.”

A draft white paper surfacing in July from the office of influential Republican Senator Mark Warner seemed to be aimed at Facebook. Describing “Proposals for Regulation of Social Media,” it calls for identifying “inauthentic accounts” and their origins, for deterring “foreign manipulation,” and for establishing legal liability for “failure to take down deep fake … accounts.”

One presumes therefore that Facebook is embarked upon a damage-control mission. At a press briefing July 31, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg promised transparency. She reported that “32 pages and accounts from Facebook and Instagram” had been removed because they “involve and coordinate inauthentic behavior.” But how is Facebook qualified and equipped to make decisions on troublesome behavior that is political?

Needing help in that regard, Facebook decided to“outsource many of the most sensitive political decisions.” At hand was the Washington-based Atlantic Council, a think tank set up in 1961 ostensibly to promote U.S.-European cooperation.

According to Reuters, the Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab uses “its own software and other tools [and] sorts through social media postings for patterns.” The Atlantic Council relies on this facility to be able to extend advice of a political nature to Facebook. Likely as not, the Atlantic Council was involved in Facebook’s temporary removal of the accounts of TeleSUR English and Venezuelanalysis.com.

In any event, the process was greased with money.   A recent Facebook donation to the Atlantic Council’s “Lab” was big enough, reports Reuters, “to vault the company to the top of the Atlantic Council’s donor list, alongside the British government.”

According to one critic, Facebook is counting on ties with the Atlantic Council to solve its problems in dealing with disinformation. As “a leading geopolitical strategy think-tank seen as a de facto PR agency for the U.S. government and NATO military alliance,” the Council would theoretically be able to protect Facebook. Council leaders range from “retired military officers, former policymakers, [to] top figures from the U.S. National Security State and Western business elites.”

[stuartbramhall]

Biden Faces Backlash for Venezuela Talks as Caracas Demands Recognition

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Félix Plasencia participates in the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey. (@plasenciafelixr / Twitter) By José Luis Granados Ceja – Venezuelanalysis – March 14, 2022 Aletho News The Biden administration faced strong bipartisan criticism over recent direct talks with the Venezuelan government. News outlets reported that in light of criticism from hardline sympathizers of…

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[zvaigzdelasas]

The blockade by the US against Venezuela, much like in Cuba, has created fuel shortages, shortages in proper medical supplies as well as food, and a loss of income and revenue for the economy, as the US attempts to penalize Venezuela for the nationalization of its resources. According to statistics from 2019-2020, the blockade has resulted in more than 100,000 deaths, 2,500,000 food insecure people, 31.4% of the population undernourished and 22% of children stunted by the age of five. Meanwhile, the Venezuelan opposition, and not the democratically-elected Venezuelan government, has gained access to USD 347 million in assets that were frozen by the US as a result of sanctions. However, the USD 3 billion agreed on between the government and opposition still remains unavailable for use by the Maduro administration. The money “should be drawn from Venezuelan assets seized by Washington and allies to invest in urgent social needs,” writes Andreína Chávez Alava in Venezuelanalysis. The US withholding those funds contributes to “blocking Venezuelans to see improvements in their living conditions in the near future.”

11 May 23

[donewithcapitalistfrayers]

[phamios]

Dịch COVID-19: Phát hiện phân tử có thể ức chế virus SARS-CoV-2

Dịch COVID-19: Phát hiện phân tử có thể ức chế virus SARS-CoV-2

Tổng thống Venezuela Maduro thông báo, các nhà khoa học Venezuela đã phát hiện một phân tử mang tên DR-10 có khả năng tiêu diệt virus SARS-CoV-2 gây COVID-19. Các nhà khoa học của Venezuela trong phòng nghiên cứu. (Nguồn: venezuelanalysis) Theo phóng viên TTXVN tại Nam Mỹ,Tổng thống Venezuela Nicolas Maduro mới đây thông báo, Viện Nghiên cứu Khoa học Venezuela (IVIC) đã phát hiện một phân tử…

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#virus

[anarchist-art]

Stories Of Resistance From El Maizal Commune

Above Photo: The anniversary event of the El Maizal Commune initiated with an act symbolizing the networks built between communards. (Venezuelanalysis) A flagship commune in Venezuela responds to the US blockade by diversifying its production. El Maizal Commune lies in...

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from 🏴 Anarchist Federation https://ift.tt/3CuNEXZ

#anarchism #anarchist #revolution #anarchy #socialism #anarchocommunist #anarchocommunism #anti capit

[96thdayofrage]

In the wake of the dramatic storming of the Capitol last week, a host of big media companies, including Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, Twitch, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok, have all taken measures against Donald Trump. Making the most headlines, however, was the decision of the president’s favorite medium, Twitter (1/8/21), to permanently suspend him “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

It’s difficult to argue that Trump did not repeatedly violate Twitter‘s rules against “threaten[ing] violence” and “glorification of violence,” justifying his ban. But we urgently need to rethink the power of these social media behemoths, because there are plenty of other examples where their enforcement of their rules has been arbitrary and non-transparent.

Whether one saw the assault on the halls of Congress as a coup attempt (e.g., Atlantic, 1/6/21; Buzzfeed News, 1/6/21; Guardian, 1/6/21), a “riot” (MSNBC, 1/10/21; Wall Street Journal, 1/12/21) or “protests” (Fox News, 1/7/21, 1/8/21), there is no doubt that Trump did incite the crowd to invade the seat of government. Instructing his followers to “fight like hell” to stop a “stolen election,” he insisted: “You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

The media reaction to the social media ban was varied. Writing in tech publication ZDNet (1/7/21), Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols supported the decision. “The right to free speech doesn’t give you the right to right to shout fraud in a fractured country,” he said. “Twitter should have suspended Trump’s account years ago,” wrote Sarah Manavis in the New Statesman (1/7/21):

For years the president has been allowed to tweet anything he wants, with deadly consequences…. The case for kicking one of its highest-profile users off the platform is self-evident.

Meanwhile, Chris Stevenson in the London Independent (1/11/21) argued that privately owned websites have every right to remove their services from users.

Jessica J. González, co-CEO of the media advocacy group Free Press (1/9/21) and co-founder of the anti-hate speech Change the Terms coalition, hailed the ban as a victory for media activism:

Twitter’s decision to permanently suspend Donald Trump is a victory for racial-justice advocates who have long condemned his continued abuse of the platform.

From the launch of his presidential campaign when he defamed Mexicans as rapists, criminals and drug dealers, to the desperate last gasps of his presidency as he has egged on white supremacists to commit violence and insurrection, Trump had used his Twitter account to incite violence, lie about the election outcome, encourage racists and spread conspiracy theories. He did not deserve a platform on Twitter, or on any other social or traditional media.

Others were not so heartened by the news. Writing in Politico (1/10/21), European Union official Thierry Breton worried:

The fact that a CEO can pull the plug on POTUS’s loudspeaker without any checks and balances is perplexing. It is not only confirmation of the power of these platforms, but it also displays deep weaknesses in the way our society is organized in the digital space.

National leaders like German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador also characterized the move as a blow against free speech. New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (1/11/21) was in the middle, stating that tech giants were right to ban Trump, but worried about the “scary power” they were amassing.

Perhaps the most histrionic reaction came from Donald Trump Jr., who tweeted (1/9/21):

The world is laughing at America & Mao, Lenin, & Stalin are smiling. Big tech is able to censor the President? Free speech is dead & controlled by leftist overlords.

In reality, of course, actual, self-described leftist and Communist figures are routinely purged from the site. Twitter shut down virtually the entire Cuban state media apparatus in 2019, removed tens of thousands of accounts it claims were linked to the Chinese Communist Party, and has suspended Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s account multiple times without explanation. These moves failed to elicit handwringing condemnations and essays on the nature of free speech, however.

With the power that he wields as president, Trump is undoubtedly the most belligerent user in Twitter history, using the platform to threaten genocide against Iran and threaten North Korea with “total destruction” (presumably nuclear in nature). So blatant were his violations of the site’s anti-violence rules that it had to craft new “public-interest exemptions” to justify not kicking him off. Although they couched their decisions in the language of free speech, the president’s wild proclamations were always a huge money spinner; Twitter lost $3.4 billion in market value overnight after announcing the ban last week.

While Trump’s actions clearly breached the company’s terms of service by not only calling for but producing violence, the affair brings up bigger questions about private ownership of public forums and the massive power social media giants like Facebook and Twitter hold over the public sphere. Sixty-eight percent of American adults use Facebook and 25% use Twitter. Both platforms are huge gateways and distributors of news around the world. Facebook is by a long way the most widely used news source in the United States, and both platforms have user bases far larger than the collective circulation of all daily US newspapers. They also give ordinary people the opportunity to share information and build communities, making them immensely important parts of the modern public square.

A free press is the cornerstone of any open, democratic society. But like it or not, in just a few short years, massive online companies have far surpassed the reach of legacy media outlets, with news generally being broken on Twitter before anywhere else. Companies like Google and Facebook have become monopolies by design, squeezing out or buying up the competition. There are no practical alternatives of any size to these behemoths, raising questions of whether they should be in private ownership at all, given their importance to the public discourse.

Western governments already exercise considerable control over the content of social media, but for their own interests, not ours. In 2018, Facebook announced it would be working closely with the Atlantic Council to help it curate its news feeds and stamp out false information (FAIR.org, 5/21/18). The Atlantic Council is a NATO cutout organization funded by the State Department and allied foreign governments. Its board of directors includes high-ranking Bush-era officials like Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell, US military generals and no fewer than eight former CIA chiefs. When organizations such as these influence the most influential means of global communication, that is coming close to state censorship on a worldwide scale.

Meanwhile, in 2019, a senior Twitter executive was unmasked as an officer in the British Army’s psychological operations and online warfare division. Corporate media reacted with a collective yawn, the news covered by only one US outlet of any note (Newsweek, 10/1/19; see FAIR.org, 10/24/19)—a response that raises many troubling questions about the relationship between deep state and fourth estate. The journalist who covered the story resigned a few weeks later, citing stifling top-down censorship.

Perhaps this helps explain why the online media giants’ primary targets of censorship have always been the domestic left and foreign enemies of Washington. Facebook has shut down pages belonging to a myriad of anti-establishment groups, such as Occupy London and the anti-fascist No Unite the Right, while suspending those of alternative media like TeleSUR English and Venezuelanalysis.

Last year it also announced that, since President Trump had designated the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization, all posts presenting recently slain General Qassem Soleimani in a positive light would be immediately deleted across its platforms (Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.). “We operate under US sanctions laws, including those related to the US government’s designation of the IRGC and its leadership,” a company spokesperson said. Taking into account that Soleimani had a more than 80% domestic approval rating, this meant that one pronouncement from Trump effectively barred Iranians from sharing their overwhelmingly popular opinion online with each other.

Facebook has also deliberately changed its algorithm in an attempt to throttle traffic to left-wing news sites. Last year, the Wall Street Journal (10/16/20) reported that Mark Zuckerberg personally approved changes that would hit “left-leaning” political news sites harder than previously planned. Meanwhile, conservative and far-right commentators dominate the site, despite their constant and well-documented violations of the terms of service.

Twitter has also purged hundreds of thousands of Russian, Chinese, Turkish and Venezuelan accounts, while constantly suspending antiwar voices and publications. Like with Facebook, left-wing independent news site Venezuelanalysis is a favorite target.

Private companies probably should not be hosting the largest online forums. However, if they do, there need to be transparent and enforced rules in place to deal with grave breaches of conduct. In this sense, it was a prudent decision from social media companies to suspend or ban the president, who has flagrantly disregarded those rules for years.

However, Silicon Valley corporations are far from neutral moral arbiters, and have a history of abusing their power. In 2018, it took barely 24 hours for big tech companies to shift their ire from conservative conspiracy theorist Alex Jones to the left (FAIR.org, 8/22/18), deleting and suspending accounts with little rhyme or reason. Don’t expect this to be the last highly controversial censorship decision they make.