I never tweet in English, so please RT if you think your followers will find this interesting:
You may think you have no space to care about another international crisis, but the events triggered by the election today in Venezuela will define both the price you pay for gas and the number of shelters for immigrants your city needs for the next few years.
Hugo Chรกvez was elected in 1998 for a five-year term with no reelection. His presidency should have peacefully ended in 2003. But he changed the constitution, took control of every aspect of civil and military life in the nation, and created a socialist revolution that has outlived him to this day. That can soon change, thanks to a woman whose decades-long struggle for freedom has inspired a nation when everything seemed lost.
Last October, Maria Corina Machado won the opposition primaries with an overwhelming ninety-three percent of the vote, yet the regime blocked her candidacy. She attempted to register a university professor as a substitute candidate, but the regime banned her too. Finally, a low-profile former diplomat, Edmundo Gonzalez, registered without much notice and became the candidate Machado urged Venezuelans to support. What happened next could not have been predicted by anyone.
Maria Corina Machado comes from a traditional, upper-class family. The revolution consistently underestimated her because she was โtoo white and too richโ to win the majority's support. And they were right until last year. She was never popular among the masses. Sheโs also the first openly right-wing politician in the last six decades (somewhere between Nikki Haley and Hilary Clinton). It took Venezuelans living through more than a quarter of a century under socialism to realize that the solution is not more socialism but more freedom.
Venezuelans no longer care if she comes from a rich family or how white she is; she talks about free enterprise. She talks about the individual, the dignity of starting your own business, and keeping the government away from your ability to live your life. She talks about reuniting families in a nation torn apart by mass migration, where grandparents die alone because their children decided to walk thousands of miles and cross jungles to reach societies where they can thrive.
For the past eight months, Machado's message of hope has moved Venezuelans to tears, inspiring them to rally despite government repression. Her allies have been arrested, hotels and businesses supporting her have been shut down, yet public support continues to swell. And itโs all been a crescendo until today when the notoriously corrupt electoral system will be challenged by the most popular leader the country has seen since Hugo Chรกvez. Even the most pessimistic polls predict a seventy percent victory for Maria Corina, leading to three potential outcomes:
The pessimistic outcome is that Maduro declares he won, millions protest in the streets, but the army kills as many as needed until the protests subside. In this scenario, it is estimated that another four million Venezuelans will flee the nation in the next year or two, furthering the refugee crisis that has affected every single country in the Americas, including the United States.
In the optimistic scenario, Machado's victory is so overwhelming that Maduro is forced to concede. That doesnโt mean democracy will be immediately restored. The regime still controls every facet of power and will demand guarantees for Maduro and his allies, many of whom are wanted by the DEA. A peaceful transfer of power without assurances of immunity seems unlikely.
Then, there is what I see as the most realistic outcome. That is, Maduro declares that he won, but the millions who protest in the streets are not intimidated by the armed forces. The very slogan of Maria Corina Machado is โhasta el final,โ which means โuntil the end.โ This means sheโs not naive. She knows the regime is corrupt and capable of anything to stay in power, but unlike the opposition leaders that came before her, she will stay the course until the end. That very notion has made her popular. Our best past leaders have escaped into exile, and our worst have been paid to appease the masses. Neither of those options seems to be a possibility for Maria Corina. She has promised freedom to the nation, and everyone will follow her until the end, no matter what it takes, as long as she continues. This scenario can lead to weeks or months of unrest and a devastating bloodbath, hopefully followed by a path to democracy and freedom.
In a recent press conference, Maria Corina was asked about the possibility of a civil war. She said, โYou need enemies for a war, and there are no enemies here; our nation is united.โ Sheโs not wrong. For the most part, Venezuelans want change. The socialist experiment has failed, and the attempt to rebrand it as a tropical version of Russian state-controlled capitalism has left nobody happy. The minimum wage remains at three dollars a month. Thatโs not a typo: three "3" dollars a month, plus some government aid designed to make you depend on it. Eight out of every ten Venezuelans live in poverty, and this is in a nation with more natural resources per capita than pretty much any other place on Earth.
But the question is the military. Will they be willing to murder their way out of the unrest that is potentially coming, or will they allow for a transition? We shall see. The main allies of Maduro, Russia and Iran, are stretched too thin in their wars against Ukraine and Israel to pay attention. Even his regional allies, Brazilโs Lula and Colombiaโs Petro, have distanced themselves from him and called for a peaceful transition.
Unfortunately, the United States is too distracted by its own banana republic-style election cycle. Nobody is paying attention to Venezuela, which has the largest oil reserves in the world and has produced the worst refugee crisis in the Western Hemisphere. Inflation and immigration are currently the most prominent issues in US politics, and developments in Venezuela over the next few days will significantly impact both. Ignoring this situation could have serious consequences.
#VenezuelaLibre
#28Jul
There are 3 kinds of people marching for intifada today:
1. Proud antisemites.
2. People who are against antisemitism, but want to throw half the world's Jews into the sea.
3. People who are too stupid to know what any of this means.
Watch: Maryam Mohammad-Farhat was the most popular female Hamas politician in Gaza after she sent her 3 sons to be suicide bombers and kill Jews. In this video she admits that she is the one who encouraged her children to kill Jews and die. When the reporter asked her why she wanted her children to die while killing Jews, she explained that it is part of Jihad and Islam. At the end of the interview she sent a message to all Jews in Israel, urging them to hand over all of Israel's lands to the Palestinians and flee before they will be blown up into pieces by Palestinian suicide bombers.
This video proves that Hamas is the obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Hamas terrorists do not want a two-state solution and they are even ready to sacrifice their own children for the sake of Jihad against Jews.
Link to the video: https://t.co/Kzw48rzSGf
@thedebralea Having been the butt of quite a few jokes of the sort you describe, Iโve taken comfort in the saying that โG-d only sends you tests commensurate with the limits of your ability to handle them.โ
Iโve always wished that He didnโt have such a high opinion of me.