2rafa
24d ago
I don’t think this alone will do it but the only way to topple the bolivarian regime is to deject and destroy the morale of the millions of indigenous peasants who prevented previous coup attempts and who form the loyal core of Maduro’s support. With the military co-opted fully after 25 years of socialism, the right lack the manpower to mount an effective revolutionary attempt; those with money have fled and the remaining and even former middle classes have the most to lose from another failed attempt to topple him. The US will never invade Venezuela, it’s hardly Granada and would likely hit the casualty level (~2000 US troops) where public sentiment can quickly turn, but if it can humiliate the military, and humiliate the regime, it probably makes the end marginally more likely.
2rafa
24d ago
The US has broad dominion over Latin America and Central America in particular (and Venezuela after the totality of its decay is now a standard Central American country, geography aside). I don’t think this is anything new, nobody in the rest of the world even cares much. There are probably some cringe X edits set to synthwave music that a previous admin wouldn’t have (re)tweeted, but I don’t consider that a change of policy.
2rafa
24d ago
Either:
- The police are able to dispense low level summary justice, as they were for hundreds of years. They can smash up stores of counterfeit products, they can beat the shit out of petty criminals, they can punish groups of disaffected or antisocial youths at risk of turning to more serious crime, they can clear up homeless encampments and disperse loiterers, and they can adjudicate local neighborhood disputes based on their obvious local knowledge of who the party most likely to have the litigious or ridiculous grievance is.
or
- The public will eventually start taking the law into their own hands, with endless he said she said disputes, instances of clearly immoral but legal killing, and ultimately this a peculiar but hardly previously unheard of form of anarchy.
Personally, I would prefer (1), but the neutered police forces of the modern west, constantly monitored, unable to dispense even basic local low-level enforcement (which for reasons of criminal high time preference and the time the evidence gathering, prosecution and court process usually takes can never be replaced by another aspect of the justice system), also known as “police brutality”, are for now incapable of it.
There is violence in prisons, but almost none of it is at the hands of the guards.
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