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[Oni Jazar]

Take a look at Venezuela. When Hannah Dreier arrived in Venezuela as an AP reporter, there was an obesity epidemic. Venezuela used to be a highly prosperous nation with educated & prosperous people. Today people fight for scraps in the trash. Life is constant blackouts, lack of water, no food/medicine, useless currency and worse.

Fascinating read / listen. Very scary how people become accustomed to poor standards and normalize horrible government.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...-die-venezuela-implosion-hannah-dreier-215467

Some quotes:

Glasser: But you were living in an apartment building in what was a middle-class neighborhood of Caracas?

Dreier: Yes. I was living in the most protected place I could find. I mean, I chose where I lived because I thought it was going to be really safe and comfortable and great. And it was for a year. And then, in 2015, I started coming home and there would be no electricity. That’s when the water cuts started. And the water never came back, until the day I left I had three hours of water a day. And all of my mornings started with checking to see if there was water, and then kind of cursing under my breath when there was none.

The same thing happened when the secret police grabbed me one day. I was in detention for a few hours and they made all these threats—like, they said they were going to slit my throat; they said they were going to keep me for weeks and weeks; they said I had to stay there until I married one of them—and when I got out, I told my friends, and they thought it was super funny. So, I also started joking about it, and we got drinks, and it was just like another thing that happened.

Dreier:
One thing that people would sometimes say to me about Cuba is that they are at least, they have kind of a functioning authoritarian government. That, yes, people don’t get to vote on their president, but there’s no crime.

Glasser: So, this is more like anarchy. Is it just that the police state is not effective at being a police state?

Dreier: Right. One thing that people will say a lot in Venezuela is that they want mano dura, they want somebody to come—

Glasser: A strong hand.

People keep saying things to me, like, “Oh, it’s the beginning of the end in Venezuela,” or, “Wow, we’re going to see a change in Venezuela soon.” People seem to think that it can’t go on like this because it’s just so awful it can’t possibly go on. And my experience down there has, if it’s taught me one thing, it’s taught me things can always get worse, and worse, and worse, and there’s no rule that says that a miserable situation has to end, just because it’s too miserable.

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

Really interesting to see how fast it went downhill. This is the reason I don't like to the government to have my information.

Really sucks for Venezuelans. Hope to visit some day when all is settled.

 

[liquidtmd]

(the secret police) they said I had to stay there until I married one of them—and when I got out, I told my friends, and they thought it was super funny. So, I also started joking about it, and we got drinks, and it was just like another thing that happened.

What the actual fuck

 

[Slayven]

I remember for a time there was a hardcore Chavez group here on Gaf

 

[Stone Ocean]

And yet there's people around here that are delusionally believing Venezuela is doing ok

Fucking disgusting

 

[enanogrande]

What the actual fuck

Biggest problem we have is that, in a broad sense, Venezuelans are just very apt to accept the status quo and get on with their lives.

 

[Tiops]

I'll try to not get banned in this thread by telling people to fuck off for defending Maduro lol.

But please, if you're going to defend it in some way, just be mindful of the GAF users that tell their horrible stories here and how hurtful it may be to see their life struggles be treated as "western media conspiracy" or something like that.

Anyway, yes, it's pretty sad, and Maduro's regime must end. The replacement may not be the best, but things can't continue the way they are.

 

[Calabi]

Biggest problem we have is that, in a broad sense, Venezuelans are just very apt to accept the status quo and get on with their lives.

That's the same of all people not just Venezuelans.

 

[Empty Space]

I remember for a time there was a hardcore Chavez group here on Gaf

A couple of them still pop up time to time in the lower post count Venezuela threads. They love talking about both sides and Western propaganda.

 

[Even]

Unfortunately we have people here in Brazil anxious to follow the same way with Maduro's dear friend, Lula.

 

[And_Gignac]

Venezuela was never prosperous. It had an elite of white rich people and millions in poverty.

It kind of became more equal and prosperous for a couple of years under Chávez, though.

 

[AALLx]

The Philippines is about to follow suit if nothing changes.

 

[GregLombardi]

Still no post comparing current trends in the United States to this? GAF you disappoint me.

There are absolutely parallels. Not economically (yet), but otherwise. Normalization of things that should not be viewed as normal, etc.

Venezuela is going to continue to be a story of horrors, however.

 

[clemenx]

Venezuela was never prosperous. It had an elite of white rich people and millions in poverty.

It kind of became more equal and prosperous for a couple of years under Chávez, though.

It never became more prosperous.

Now we have the elite rich corrupt politicians and eveyrone else in extreme poverty. Fun!.

As always, the middle class gets fucked the most. People that were already poor may be a bit happy with misery subsidies and the rich either left the fuck out or got richer by getting into all the corruption.

 

[Oni Jazar]

Still no post comparing current trends in the United States to this? GAF you disappoint me.

There are absolutely parallels. Not economically (yet), but otherwise. Normalization of things that should not be viewed as normal, etc.

Venezuela is going to continue to be a story of horrors, however.

Yeah I didn't want to say it outright but It's definitely a caution against the fallacy of of "this can never happen to us." Inept government can cause horrible deterioration of civilization that starts in subtle ways. Of course all the comments in the article say this would happen if Bernie took office. lol

 

[Elfotografoalocado]

To call Venezuela before Chávez a functioning, prosperous democracy with civil rights is betraying the truth.
Americans would perceive that since they would avoid contact with the poor, but the reality was darker.

 

[Ethical Hedonism]

To call Venezuela before Chávez a functioning, prosperous democracy with civil rights is betraying the truth.
Americans would perceive that since they would avoid contact with the poor, but the reality was darker.

I hear this all the time from uni friends and I believe it since it was the default condition of the majority of Latin American countries until these last couple decades, but how is the situation now better and/or how is it possible to get better in the near future?

 

[Steiner84]

also take a look a turkey.
they even voted against democracy.

 

[Linkark07]

Anyway, yes, it's pretty sad, and Maduro's regime must end. The replacement may not be the best, but things can't continue the way they are.

By now I believe Maduro won. Protests have ended, and just like the article said, the opposition is too tired and have realized all they did, all the people that died, all the people that got hurt, it was all for nothing.

Only way to have the military turn against Maduro is if the US puts sanctions to oil so the Government would default, but we know the US won't do that. And let's not forget that will also affect the population too.

 

[entremet]

I remember for a time there was a hardcore Chavez group here on Gaf

Empty vessel. Though he was off base here, I do miss his posts.

 

[Chmpocalypse]

Still no post comparing current trends in the United States to this? GAF you disappoint me.

There are absolutely parallels. Not economically (yet), but otherwise. Normalization of things that should not be viewed as normal, etc.

Venezuela is going to continue to be a story of horrors, however.

I actually thought this was about the United States before I opened the thread. Personally, I feel like I'm watching the US decline in stature and influence in real time... and I'm not so sure that's a bad thing.

But I'd be lying if I said I wasn't looking to leave.

 

[ibyea]

Venezuela used to be a highly prosperous nation with educated & prosperous people.

As someone who has lived in Venezuela, and opposes Chavismo, I am telling you, not true in its entirety. Let's put it this way, the mountains of Caracas are pasted with barrios, which is like a collection of random assortments of poorly build brick houses with aluminum roof at the sides of steep slopes. There is a huge amount of poverty in Venezuela, and Chavez temporarily relieved some of it, and that is why he got so many votes from the poor population.

 

[tearsintherain]

Still no post comparing current trends in the United States to this? GAF you disappoint me.

There are absolutely parallels. Not economically (yet), but otherwise. Normalization of things that should not be viewed as normal, etc.

Venezuela is going to continue to be a story of horrors, however.

You can find parallels everywhere to Venezuela, doesn't mean other countries are going to degenerate into the same mess.

The issue becomes when you give the government too much power. It becomes far too easy for the government to simply decide it is always right and anyone who opposes it is wrong. That dynamic isn't really happening in the USA, with the country split always 45-45 one way or the other and a swing 5% vote constantly shifting every few years. I'd say soon after 9/11 the country was closest to shifting to overwhelming central authority, especially with stuff like the Patriot act.

I mean Trump can't even get really simple things done like overturning Obamacare, building a border wall, or halting all Muslim visitors / immigration into the country. Every time he has tried to go around "the law" he has gotten pushed back and acquiesced. To be fair the same thing happened to Obama for pretty much everything he wanted to do too, like basic gun control legislation or infrastructure reform. Even with the republicans controlling ALL branches of federal government, most of the state bicameral legislations, and governorships they really don't accomplish a whole lot other than saying no to everything and fucking around trying to stack the voting deck in their favor for future elections.

The reality is the US is very decentralized with each state having its own police and laws, the US military being extremely removed from day to day US going ons (they are foreign focused), and the federal government having very limited powers outside of commerce and prosecution. The country pretty much runs on its own by bureaucrats and the President's powers are far more symbolic. In an emergency, sure, he can wield vast powers and he can fuck around with the vast entities that serve millions (mostly the poor) but he can't radically change how most people live, work, eat, and socialize. That is extremely different in centralized authoritarian countries like Russia or China or dictatorships like Venezuela, where the group in charge can propagate vast changes very rapidly.

 

[Maebe]

And Maduro, in Caracas, is also making hay with these sanctions and spending lots of time talking about them, and saying that they prove that the U.S. is a bully and that the U.S. is trying to ruin the Venezuelan economy—so, kind of a gift.

Trumps biggest success is making dictator's jobs a lot easier

 

[clemenx]

As someone who has lived in Venezuela, and opposes Chavismo, I am telling you, not true in its entirety. Let's put it this way, the mountains of Caracas are pasted with barrios, which is like a collection of random assortments of poorly build brick houses with aluminum roof at the sides of steep slopes. There is a huge amount of poverty in Venezuela, and Chavez temporarily relieved some of it, and that is why he got so many votes from the poor population.

Chavez didn't relieve anything. Giving away appliances and things like that isn't really reducing poverty.

Trumps biggest success is making dictator's jobs a lot easier

Pretty much everyone here supports the economic sanctions.

That Maduro discourse may work for an international audience though, but it is a pretty dumb point.

 

[ibyea]

Chavez didn't relieve anything. Giving away appliances and things like that isn't really reducing poverty.

He did more than that, a lot of them being projects related to the barrios, funded by cash from oil. There is a reason people kept returning to vote for his party. You can't just ignore that just because you don't like the PSUV, I certainly don't. The reason it went wrong is a combination of turning Venezuela to rely on imports, reliance on oil, and price controls.

 

[Baron Doggystyle von Woof]

Chavez didn't relieve anything. Giving away appliances and things like that isn't really reducing poverty.



Pretty much everyone here supports the economic sanctions.

That Maduro discourse may work for an international audience though, but it is a pretty dumb point.

But according to Wikipedia it did:

 

[Linkark07]

Chavez didn't relieve anything. Giving away appliances and things like that isn't really reducing poverty.

It gives the illusion though, and many people are happy with that.

But yes, that isn't the real solution to fix the problem.

 

[kirblar]

He did more than that, a lot of them being projects related to the barrios, funded by cash from oil. There is a reason people kept returning to vote for his party. You can't just ignore that just because you don't like the PSUV, I certainly don't.

By taking that cash from the oil companies, he destroyed their ability to function and blew up his nations economy in the process! Venezuela was heavily dependent on their state run oil company, and robbing it's coffers for short term welfare payouts blew up in their faces.

You don't get credit for trying to help when you pick a method that destroys the lives of everyone living there!

 

[MCN]

Isn't there a Gaffer who lives in Venezuela and is trying to get a visa to emigrate to Canada?

 

[The Albatross]

I remember for a time there was a hardcore Chavez group here on Gaf

Not just on Gaf. Mainstream American left was widely pro-Chavez. Heck, Massachusetts Rep Joe Kennedy (RFK's son, JFK's nephew), after leaving office in 1999 when Chavez won the presidency, joined Citizens Energy in conglomeration with the Chavez government, to accept "free" oil from Venezuela in exchange for airing Bolivarian/Chavez propaganda on American TV. Seriously this shit was all over Massachusetts television stations from 2005-2009, showing poor Americans unable to afford heat, and then Joe Kennedy in Venezuela "with our friends from Venezuela" providing free oil heat.

Because Chavez was the biggest opponent to Pres. Bush in the Western Hemisphere (insofar as Castro was mostly irrelevant after the fall of the USSR), so many on the Academic left had a love affair with Venezeula's Bolivarian socialist revolution, while cautionary voices for the last 15 years have been saying "this is going to fall apart when the price of oil falls," and low and behold, it certainly did.

As someone who has lived in Venezuela, and opposes Chavismo, I am telling you, not true in its entirety. Let's put it this way, the mountains of Caracas are pasted with barrios, which is like a collection of random assortments of poorly build brick houses with aluminum roof at the sides of steep slopes. There is a huge amount of poverty in Venezuela, and Chavez temporarily relieved some of it, and that is why he got so many votes from the poor population.

It's because Venezuela was a petro-economy with state-owned oil, and the incredible wealth the country had from 1999 - 2009 was all squandered on Chavez' corruption.

Chavez and Putin rode their authoritarian dictatorships on the same wave of the oil price boom, being elected when oil bottomed out, and then because both Venezeula and Russia are petroeconomies, they transitioned to authoritarian dictatorship during the oil price bubble. It fell apart for both of them in 2009. Chavez, of course, died, and Putin was able to hold power by invading European democracies, launching wars in Russia, and murdering/jailing/exiling political dissidents.

But according to Wikipedia it did:

...

Petro economies. How do they work?

Price of Oil, ~1978 - Present (~2016)

Map this chart on top of your chart. Note that as oil price drops in a petroeconomy poverty rises; as oil rises, poverty drops. Also, extend your chart past 2013 and you're going to see an alarming spike in Venezuelan extreme poverty, higher than the depths of the cheap gas of the 1990s, because not only is gas cheap so there's no social services, but the authoritarian corruption of the Chavez regime and state ownership of the energy sector squandered/lost/stole the historic profits from 2000 - 2007. If not run by a criminal, Venezuela could have kept stable growth for generations on those 8 years of oil profit alone, while they diversified their economy. Had they followed Russia's blueprint, the country would have been in much better shape today, yet somehow Chavez was more of a crook than Putin.

 

[ebullientprism]

Its not natural disasters or war but stuff like this that actually terrifies me.

Dreier: Right. One thing that people will say a lot in Venezuela is that they want mano dura, they want somebody to come—

Glasser: A strong hand.

Dreier: —and crack down, and, yes, have a strong hand with both the criminals and with the corrupt officials.

Because we do this (as a society) so regularly its genuinely infuriating. We put these awful, horrible people in power happily with the idea of a "strong man taking charge" to make things better. And we excuse the terrible things they do in the name of that idea.

And people continue to support them even as their world is collapsing around them because collectively we are dumb as fuck and easily manipulated.

This is scary because it is so easy for me to see this happening to my country. Or any country.

Your perfect little existence (that you dont even realize is so privileged) can come crashing down in a matter of a few months.

 

[kess]

A good economy under the rise of an aspiring dictatorship is the most insidious combination, especially when there are nationalistic and religious factors at play.

Trump is cut from the same cloth of corruption, seeing as he has exempted Citgo from sanctions imposed on the Venezuelan economy.

 

[ibyea]

By taking that cash from the oil companies, he destroyed their ability to function and blew up his nations economy in the process! Venezuela was heavily dependent on their state run oil company, and robbing it's coffers for short term welfare payouts blew up in their faces.

You don't get credit for trying to help when you pick a method that destroys the lives of everyone living there!

Look up at my follow up edit. I am well aware of that.

It's because Venezuela was a petro-economy with state-owned oil, and the incredible wealth the country had from 1999 - 2009 was all squandered on Chavez' corruption.

I am afraid all of that was unnecessary because I was well aware of that. Look up my previous reply.

In essence, the point of my first post was to point out that Chavez's programs did provide temporary benefits and that is why the poor voted for him, which I did mention were temporary btw. Then someone came in and replied saying it didn't count. Which it did even if temporary. I mean, you can't just discount their view points, even if it is wrong. If you were in their position, yeah, the benefits would feel real, and they were real for that short, fleeting moment.

 

[Ogodei]

To call Venezuela before Chávez a functioning, prosperous democracy with civil rights is betraying the truth.
Americans would perceive that since they would avoid contact with the poor, but the reality was darker.

Right. Chavez and Maduro have been awful, but there's a reason their ideology caught on.

Radical Socialism has rarely or never been good for countries when it arrives, but America likes to project this conceit about countries that turned Communist that "everything was fine until the Commies showed up," which is really not the case (outside of parts of Eastern Europe where Communism was imposed by an occupying force).

I remember once finding an old history book about Sun Yat Sen in the library, and the back cover summary was an extreme hagiography (saying something like "he founded the *real* Republic of China), and it's the same thing. There's an ignorance of what the Guomindong is or was while the horrors of Maoism were transmitted more or less accurately.

 

[Slayven]

Empty vessel. Though he was off base here, I do miss his posts.

Don't forget Fortified Concept

 

[Frozenprince]

Don't forget Fortified Concept

Boney was a big Chavismo IIRC

 

[Valhelm]

I remember for a time there was a hardcore Chavez group here on Gaf

He did a fuckton to help develop the country and reduce poverty. Problem is that he was also corrupt, needlessly authoritarian, and wasn't able to wean the economy off its dependency on oil exports.

Maduro has proven himself to be worse than Chavez in every regard, and his inability to diversify the economy meant that when oil prices fell last year, they fell hard. Venezuelan social democracy came down with it. And his excessive violence against protesters has made even many Venezuelans who support his policies to demand he step down.

 

[Mael]

We even have a takeover of the Left in France by a people wanting to follow Venezuela's lead.

 

[jfkgoblue]

Socialism simply does not work long term, no matter how many excuses people come up with about why the latest socialist country collapsed.

 

[Lunar15]

Had they avoided corruption and diversified their economy, this might have been preventable. But the authoritarian regime rode the oil wave and crashed along with those prices.

 

[kirblar]

He did a fuckton to help develop the country and reduce poverty. Problem is that he was also corrupt, needlessly authoritarian, and wasn't able to wean the economy off its dependency on oil exports.

Maduro has proven himself to be worse than Chavez in every regard, and his inability to diversify the economy meant that when oil prices fell last year, they fell hard. Venezuelan social democracy came down with it. And his excessive violence against protesters has made even many Venezuelans who support his policies to demand he step down.

No, he didn't.

If your economy is dependent on a singular resource managed by a state-owned monopoly, destroying the infrastructure of that monopoly in order to pay for short term welfare payments is not a positive.

He did not develop the country and reduce poverty - he destroyed his country's economic infrastructure and gave people what amounts to a stimulus check before crashing the economy and sending millions more people into poverty!

 

[And_Gignac]

By taking that cash from the oil companies, he destroyed their ability to function and blew up his nations economy in the process! Venezuela was heavily dependent on their state run oil company, and robbing it's coffers for short term welfare payouts blew up in their faces.

You don't get credit for trying to help when you pick a method that destroys the lives of everyone living there!

The fact remains that extreme poverty was almost halved during his tenure. Maduro fucked it up, but during Chavez people actually SUFFERING during decades of literal hunger got to finally understand what it feels like not having to worry about what to eat today. Yes, he didnt diversify the economy and he was a nasty authoritarian like most politicians with a military background. But those two situations also happen a lot in full capitalistic, neoliberal, <3 free trade societies.

I mean, your arguments sound extremely close to what a republican light would argue regarding the "welfare state" of the United States or against reparations.. Maybe you should wonder why.

 

[kirblar]

The fact remains that extreme poverty was almost halved during his tenure. Maduro fucked it up, but during Chavez people actually SUFFERING during decades of literal hunger got to finally understand what it feels like not having to worry about what to eat today. Yes, he didnt diversify the economy and he was authoritarian like every person with a military background. But those two situations happen a lot two in full capitalistic, neoliberal, <3 free trade societies.

I mean, your arguments sound extremely close to what a republican light would argue regarding the "welfare state" of the United States or against reparations.. Maybe you should wonder why.

It doesn't matter if it was halved during his tenure if it immediately exploded just a few years later as a direct result of the decisions he made and threw even more people into poverty! Now nearly everyone is suffering as a result of the short-sighted choices he made!

This should not be hard to understand! You do not get credit for "helping poverty" if the very policies you use to address it in the short term lead to the entire country being dragged into poverty!

edit: Two points to specifically clarify:

a) This is on Chavez. Maduro made things worse, but Chavez diverting funds from the oil company was a bad policy. The point of a state-owned monopoly is to use the profits and cost savings to benefit the population, not to starve the business of funds it needs to cover its operating costs in a way that leads to a meltdown down the line
b) Arguments that understand the basics of how economics work are not "republican lite"!

 

[Royal_Phalanx]

Aren't the opposition mostly a coalition of centre-left social democrats? Also, Latin America has always had shitty corrupt governments for some reason. South America would be one of the best places to live in the world if it wasn't for the shitty governments and resulting massive poverty. Wonder why Britain is the only European country to have had colonies where some of them became prosperous, functioning countries. Canada, etc.

 

[The Albatross]

The fact remains that extreme poverty was almost halved during his tenure. Maduro fucked it up, but during Chavez people actually SUFFERING during decades of literal hunger got to finally understand what it feels like not having to worry about what to eat today. Yes, he didnt diversify the economy and he was a nasty authoritarian like most politicians with a military background.

No, no, no, no.

Extreme "poverty halved" because of this:

(Price of oil, barrel)

It's a petroeconomy. The drop in poverty followed the explosion in global oil prices from 2000-2008, and then when oil prices collapsed, civil society collapsed, and extreme poverty is either worse or back to pre-oil boom rates. Maduro didn't change anything from Chavez, the only major difference was the oil bubble burst. What is unique to Venezuela is that this didn't happen in any other petroeconomies that diversified during the oil boom and invested historic state profits. Chavez embezzled money and used oil profit to increase his political cache, virtually all of the state profit from the 2000-2007 oil boom is gone, which is not the case in Russia (another former democracy that is now an authoritarian dictatorship), the UAE, Saudi Arabia, or Kuwait. While the drop in the global oil price has hurt those countries, it has not been devastating like it has been for Venezuela. Putin, in contrast, was smart to invest in infrastructure during the boom, and then simply transitioned to war when the price of oil dropped.

But those two situations also happen a lot in full capitalistic, neoliberal, <3 free trade societies.

I don't think you can name any other "full capitalistic neoliberal <3 free trade societies" that this has happened to. Even in non-capitalistic authoritarian petroeconomies like Russia or Saudi Arabia, the global collapse of oil prices as slowed their economies, but civil society has not collapsed like in Venezuela. The economic and social collapse in Venezuela is rivaled only by that of Zimbabwe in the mid-2000s. As of 2016, Venezuela has the worlds highest "misery index," of 573.4. The next highest is Argentina at 83.8, most other countries are in the low teens. So, no, you cannot find any "full capitalistic neoliberal <3 free trade societies" that this has happened to.

I mean, your arguments sound extremely close to what a republican light would argue regarding the "welfare state" of the United States or against reparations.. Maybe you should wonder why.

This is ridiculous and you sound like an idiot. This has nothing to do with ... reparations... or "Republicans and the welfare state", you're looking to escape woefully ignorant statements. Your argument is a literal parrot of arguments that morons made from 2000 - 2008 during Venezuela's economic growth, which economists warned would halt when the global price of oil dropped. Which it did. As of 2017, 82% of the country is in poverty, and country has the world's worst inflation (400%+, spiking higher), unemployment rate is reaching perhaps higher than 30%, and the country is in its worst economic crisis in its history. THis isn't "bad decisions by Maduro," this is Chavez' government, he just died before it came to fruition.

Thankfully most people today can look at what's happened in the last 6 years in Venezeula and say, "Y'know, we were wrong. Chavez was an authoritarian thug, the country is worse off under his economic policies, and economists were right, gains made under Chavez from 1999-2008 were because of the price of oil."

But according to Wikipedia it did:

It's so interesting that this graph ends once oil fell below $60/barrel, and Venezuela's poverty rate rocket up to +80%. It's almost as if whoever posted that on Wikipedia has ... an ax to grind.

 

[kmfdmpig]

I remember for a time there was a hardcore Chavez group here on Gaf

Yup. There is still a Duterte defense force, but you don't really see the pro Chavez clowns around anymore.

 

[Ixion090]

Every time I see a thread in NeoGAF talking about the rough situation in my country, I get a little sad. It just gets so little attention, I wish that more people would actually care and have a little sympathy for Venezuela. The little discussion there is about it in here, it usually never goes beyond page 1. And now I'm sad again.

 

[pa22word]

Every time I see a thread in NeoGAF talking about the rough situation in my country, I get a little sad. It just gets so little attention, I wish that more people would actually care and have a little sympathy for Venezuela. The little discussion there is about it in here, it usually never goes beyond page 1. And now I'm sad again.

It's just gotten to the point there's little more anyone can do about it. No one in south America wants the US to come in with a heavy hand, and the surrounding countries while paying lip service to the situation aren't going to do anything about it because they're both saddled with their own issues and/or don't want to rock the boat too much because they're afraid (and rightfully so because there's no way the regime falls without bloodshed at this point) of dealing with a refugee crises on their doorstep that they can't afford.

There's nothing to be done at this point but sit around and hope for the best.

 

[z1ggy]

I'm from Argentina and i see a lot of venezuelans here now. In my work there's 3 working. It's good for us, they are amazing!

Sadly, Venezuela is going to hell from a lot of years. If you can, leave that country.

Son bienvenidos en Argentina!