this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 29 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Rich people love dictators, as long as it's their chosen dictator.

I once worked with a guy from a wealthy family who had to escape Venezuela after Maduro took power. His family hated him, of course, because they'd become rich under the old system, but now they were in America, and he had to work a real job. He flat out told me that he felt like the best governmental system is when 5% of the population is wealthy, and 95% is dirt poor. Of course, he'd been one of the 5%.

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 16 points 4 days ago (2 children)

had to escape Venezuela after Maduro took power

they'd become rich under the old system

.... They didn't flee from Chavez? What's the timeline here?

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[–] narwhal@mander.xyz 31 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

"Dictatorship vs Democracy" is the new "Savage vs Civilized". Words thrown around without explanation to signal friend and foe in the current ideological framework used to justify imperial conquest.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Biden literally framed it as “democracy vs autocracy.” As if the US has ever been anything close to a democracy.

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[–] transending_the_binary@piefed.blahaj.zone 53 points 5 days ago (39 children)

He is an authoritarien and the country went to shit.

Venezuela is not a nice place to live in.

Maduro is a corrupt dictator, trump aswell and the current opposition to maduro most likely will just be an authoritarian and fascist pupped goverment that will act in the USAs interest. So yeah multible things can be true at once, just because a nation is opposed to the american empire does not mean that it is automaticallly good.

Its quite sad to see that some terminally online leftist just automaticly replace siding with the imperialist systems that there born into( USA, EU Australia etc.) And just replace that with other imperial powers like russia and china.

Like why?? How about not bootlicking authoritarians?

[–] ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 43 points 5 days ago (10 children)

Tell us what a non-authoritarian leader of Venezuela would look like to you and how they would resist the constant pressure and hostile actions of the US government, because it seems to me that leftist leaders are always denounced as authoritarian by North American and European based NGOs and governments.

The only way to avoid being labelled as authoritarian is to be friendly to the imperial core countries, i.e. being capitalist.

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 36 points 5 days ago (29 children)

👆If you don’t suppress the inevitable imperial-supported bourgeois counterinsurgencies, your socialist project will go the way of Allende’s Chile.

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[–] Cowbee@lemmy.ml 26 points 5 days ago (51 children)

Under Maduro, Venezuelan communes and participatory democracy is flourishing. In addition, massive social programs have been implemented, focusing on housing, food security, and poverty eradication. I'm not sure on what basis you distrust him so much, Venezuela is building socialism under Maduro from the bottom-up, and Maduro is doing his part from the top.

Venezuela is a developing country, that is developing despite the US Empire's best efforts. It is regularly improving, which is why the working classes support Maduro.

Russia isn't imperialist, it has no colonies nor neocolonies, and a tiny amount of global financial capital. China isn't imperialist either, it's a socialist country wituout any financial domination of the state or economy. There's no mechanisms pushing for imperialism within China, and this manifests in regular south-south trade leading to development of global south countries when trading with China, unlike the unequal exchange of trade with the west where the west charges monopoly prices for tech and places compradors in power to prevent industrial development.

Multiple things are true, correct. This isn't the grand own you think it is, though. You're passively parroting imperialist narratives.

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Venezuelan communes and participatory democracy is flourishing. In addition, massive social programs have been implemented, focusing on housing, food security, and poverty eradication

I think this really needs to be stressed. Venezuela is a country building Socialism. Maduro and the PSUV is in power because of a genuinely incredible mass movement of communes, neighborhood committees, and other organs of grassroots democracy. This is qualitatively different from say, any of the Gulf oil monarchies

I highly recommend the books Building The Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela, and Commune or Nothing: Venezuela's Communal Movement and Its Socialist Project, for a look at these aspects of Venezuelan politics, because it's often papered over in discussions about the country.

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[–] ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 61 points 5 days ago (2 children)

It's the same as the Cubans who fled to the US because of how evil Castro was. I wonder how many of them were wealthy class enemies of the Cuban revolution who stood to lose their wealth under Castro's government.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 35 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Conservatives do love self-owning with the anti-Castro rhetoric

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[–] ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net 28 points 5 days ago

The Communists took away all my family's hard-earned slaves

[–] davel@lemmy.ml 25 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (6 children)

Well that was a lot of credulous Lemmy users. I should spend less time debunking imperial talking points and more time selling these people bridges. I’m leaving money on the table.

Some of them even fired up their dusty old alt accounts to vote multiple times.

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