Comment by mbix77
3 days ago
There is not an extreme amount of crime and violence. Years ago yes. But now it's a lot better. Source: living here.
3 days ago
There is not an extreme amount of crime and violence. Years ago yes. But now it's a lot better. Source: living here.
Best of luck to you and yours in the coming days, here's to hoping that it all lands on its feet.
> Best of luck to you and yours in the coming days, here's to hoping that it all lands on its feet.
Imagine some other country kidnaps your country's President and he sends this message to you
I am not directing him specifically. I should have written "someone's" instead of "yours."
But the main point remains the same. This is an act of terror every sane human should condemn
The parent comment is probably not written by the POTUS.
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What’s the general mood in your social circles? Are people mad at America or happy to be free of Maduro?
Personally, I think most Americans don't give Venezuela much thought.
I think Trump is hoping to get a short popularity boost the way George Bush did with the capture of Manuel Noriega, but people cared more about who controlled the Panama Canal in the 1990s than they care about who controls Venezuela today. And I don't know anybody who expects this to impact drugs coming from Venezuela or Latin America in general.
Sorry we (the U.S.) are like this. Many of us have been furious for decades but don't know what to do.
But, we also still enjoy all of the benefits of being like this. Cheap oil(that impacts you even if you don't drive), globally very high income, resources of all varieties from all over the world, relative security etc. All these things don't happen to use because we're a nation of swell people. They happen because we do awful things to people around the world in a variety of ways in order to maintain our way of life.
The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
Another comment was discussing how shocked they were with how brazen a move this was for oil, and that in the past the government wouldn't have been so honest. As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
>The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
The truth is Americans mostly don't like this, but have little means to do much due to the political structure of how our government works. Our legislature is silently approving and it is clearly costing the seats, even thought it is still 10 months before the next cycle of elections for those seats. But that's 10 months away, and while tensions were strong for months this happened in a single day. It's so much easier to tear down than to build up.
And the truth is that most of us aren't going to try and perform a violent upheaval against a trillion dollar military complex. We lack the skills, resources, and even geography for that. I can't even afford a plane ride to DC at the moment.
I'm not a particular fan of the "you critique society yet you participate in it" argument. This assumes a lot of agency in the individual that doesn't exist without collective bargaining.
>As though the issue were being honest with what we are doing.
Every country has inconvenient truths it tries to hide. It being brazen about the evils it commits is the truly surprising part. The whole point of propaganda is convincing your people that they are the good guys, and there was none of that pomp here.
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Excellent comment that really gets to the crux of the matter. Countries like China and India see themselves as civilizational, America sees itself as a perfect marketplace - it exists to feed its customers's wants and whims as efficiently as possible. I don't necessarily mean this in a demeaning way, it is what it is. In some sense, America is a state-level example of hedonic adaptation with its positives being improvements in quality of life and development of new tech, negatives being a bully in world politics, endless wars and bloodshed.
In general, hedonic adaption ends either with internal retrospection (shifting from pleasure to purpose) or an external disruption. In America's case, the former is extremely unlikely IMHO - the American people will not put their money where their mouth is because they enjoy the wealth generated this way. It will be upto external disruptors to check on Uncle Sam's endless thirst.
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> The truth is Americans do want this
I'm not so sure. Sure, they want the benefits that are provided. However, if being aware of what the costs are to get those benefits apriori, I'm not sure Americans would think the exchange worthwhile.
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> globally very high income
As someone from central Europe: lol
There is a tiny portion that makes the GDP look nice, but as someone who knows average Americans outside of tech, it's an absolute joke. Especially when you look at necessities you basically cannot get around (medical costs, taxes, etc.).
Sure if you are on HN chances are you might not notice, but I know people that effectively live in somewhat close to slavery because they need to work every working hour simply to live and has been caught in a nice web where they don't even have time to reconsider life. Something the employer clearly set up that way, including things like being the landlord.
That's why there can be an elite and a "middle class" that lives off these people.
The homeless problem not just in SF but all the way to the midwest is ridiculous and how these homeless people are dealt with - basically like a pest is outrageous.
People here get severely upset about how bad people have it here, when they do have it much nicer. Meanwhile people in the US seem to largely turn a blind eye.
All that while taking the hit of refugees that have (largely) been caused by US politics.
I am sorry, but things don't work despite meddling with any country that has natural resources.
And I mean that as it is. I know it's not easy to come out of it. But the thing is starting a war every now and then doesn't seem to help a lot of fixing actual problems. Despite all the benefits it clearly has for the US.
"in the past the government wouldn't have been so honest"
I'm 37, so I was young at the time of Afghanistan/Iraq, about 14. I recall thinking the adults who said it was "for the oil" were dangerously naive: neither had significant oil resources that would alter supply dramatically, gas prices weren't high, the administration had 0 to say on that front, and it wasn't even close to a focus once fighting settled.
This leaves me curious about conclusions drawn from that.
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> They happen because we do awful things to people around the world in a variety of ways in order to maintain our way of life.
And having been lucky in the last century+ that none of your neighbors did anything wild. Not having to fight an actual war in your own country helps a lot in getting ahead.
And no, pearl harbor doesn't count, as bad as that was it's nothing compared to the destruction of 2 world wars that set Europe back a century
If we’re still chasing cheap oil we’re going to get crushed by China. Both from an economic and national security perspective, ignoring renewable energy to pursue burning more fossil fuels is the height of ignorance. Not only are we destroying the planet for future generations, burning oil is already more expensive than wind and solar + batteries.
Which is what I've come to realize: at least for the US, national prosperity comes at the expense of foreigners' misery [0]. I wonder if this holds for other countries, too? I wonder if --- for example --- former European colonist state's citizens stare at themselves in the mirror and question who built their large buildings; what the provenance of the gold decorations on their buildings? Would they be so well off?
Having moved to Europe from Mexico, I sometimes get asked if Spain is regarded as "having brought civilization" to Mexico; the first time I heard the question, it took me a while to collect my jaw from the floor: I could not believe someone was that accidentally uninformed... seems like it had been a deliberate choice to not teach about the race systems that their ancestors had imposed (i.e. inventors of apartheid, in a way), the raping, the slavery, nor systematic complicity of the church, as well [1]:
> In 1512, the Laws of Burgos forced the conquistadores to respect the rights and freedom of Indigenous peoples. This was followed formally by the papal bull, Sublimus Dei of 1537 which declared Native Americans were no longer to be considered “dumb brutes created for our service” but were “truly men” capable of thinking, acting, and deciding their own destiny, control their own properties, and enjoy liberty. It proceeded to formally prohibit the enslavement of Indigenous peoples. Unfortunately, one year later, this was nullified (Pope Paul III, 1537).
And that's not even covering the destruction of written history and books [2].
So, I think you may be right... this entire world may be filled with selfish monsters that do not want to know --- really know --- how much they are benefiting from other people's suffering.
[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a9xlQrcbx0
[1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/social-sciences/spanish...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_de_Landa#Suppression_of_...
> Cheap oil
Well allowing Iran unlimited access to global markets would certainly help that.
Same for Venesuela, lifting sanctions and making it easier for them to develop their infrastructure would have lowered the global price of oil.
Governments in both countries are more than happy to sell more oil if anyone allowed them to.
It's not like US politically controlling a large oil producing country makes oil cheaper for Americans. They still have to buy it at the same price as everyone else.
Profits of American oil companies is quite a different matter, though.
Only because no one is presenting both options to the public as a choice - cheap gas but you'll screw up dozens of countries and create insecurity for your kids. They would be less likely to want that if they understood the tradeoff. Let's be clear, this choice was made by rich people who'll make a lot more money from it, and they won't be the ones bearing the costs. So this isn't on Americans' greed, just their ignorance.
It’s because we have a sense of fatalism about our political class’ ability to address any long-term negative consequences: climate change, and a ballooning debt that a future administration will use as an excuse to shred whatever is left of Social Security and America’s safety net. Don’t confuse that with acceptance.
The US is a shit country. I've been traveling around the world for months now and there's no benefit to living in the US. Cheap gas but no health care, no public transit, no trains, no affordable housing, shitty class relations? American exceptionalism is deluded. The imperialism isn't benefiting the American people quit fooling yourself.
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How do we even know they're being honest? They've been lying about everything for so long, and now we're just suddenly gonna believe they're being honest only when it pertains to Venezuela? Why?
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> The truth is Americans do want this, they just don't like that they want this.
For myself, I could not disagree more. I don't want this. And if you know of a lever I can pull to make it stop, I'm all ears - as long as it's not voting, calling my reps, or holding a sign. I've been doing those things for over 25 years and they haven't done squat.
I appreciate the honesty myself... While I'd like to see the actually elected officials in Venezuela put in charge, I understand the govt will largely be working through the seated govt and other channels in order to encourage the desired changes.
I don't think Oil is the sole reason for this, I think that the influences of Iran, China, Russia and Cuba in Venezuela as well as the drug trafficking coming through them is the larger issue... getting back the Oil trade in the end is just icing on the proverbial cake. I also think it could be better for the people of Venezuela in the long run vs the authoritarian and communist influences they've had over the past half century.
Trump is funny, dishonest as hell when it comes to his ego, but more honest than any other politician I've ever even heard of at the same time.
As someone originally from a country that would have benefitted from a similar intervention, I wish the U.S. were more like this.
That’s assuming Venezuela does not turn into a civil war, or the American-installed dictator will not be as bad as Maduro.
Not respecting international law?
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Getting rid if dictators is good, actually.
Yes - is there a bit more going on?
Or, is reducing it to “dictator bad; gone good” unobvious, and something that slipped by everyone?
To wit: we’re in a thread for the top comment for a 3844 comment post, and that comment is noting that when there’s a power vacuum, things usually* get worse for the citizenry.
* nigh universally
If you look at what happened to EU or north Africa after death of Kaddafi or Hussain:
No, it was a terrible outcome. US stold gold and oil while the rest of the world had to cope with the aftermath.
US and Izrael are notoriously breaking international laws, both countries are ruled by criminals.
If it had been about taking out dictators, they were kind of spoiled for choice in that regard. They could have picked an easier one, or at least one which made strategic sense in some way.
https://chatgpt.com/share/695a2613-97e8-800e-b2e4-28fc7707f2...
Is it getting rid of it or changing for another one?
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