The Venezuelan government is is preventing any real news coverage of the riots taking place there, so a good friend of mine from Caracas sent his friends a facebook message with video clips trying to get coverage. It looks like it is getting pretty serious there. Their government has been corrupt for years, and it has been slowly getting more and more dangerous. Here is what his message said:


I kindly ask you to watch this video and share it with your network of friends, family and acquaintances. My country, Venezuela, is currently facing what's probably the worst time in its political, social and economic modern History. Insecurity, Hyperinflation, Economic downfall, extreme shortage of essential goods (food and medicine among the most crucial ones) corruption and a complete lack of competence in the governmental institutions has caused an uprising of the university students against the government. The government has deployed the GNB (Venezuelan Army) to confront the rallies and intimidate people by opening fire against innocent civilians for rightfully activating their right to protest (protected by our constitution). To the date, the number of deaths is unknown and the number of injured protesters significantly grows every day.

The reason for this post is that almost immediately after the uprising started, the government blocked most of the local News Media, which has resulted in a complete blackout to the rest of the world. Even in Venezuela, TV stations are showing cooking shows while students are killed in the streets (students as young as 17 years old and not older than you and me). The world needs to know what the current situation is so Human Rights institutions can act. Social Networks are the only means that Venezuelans have today to make world know. Social Networks have proven to be powerful tools in this situations, and at this time, I beg you to use them not only for leisure.

If you are reading this, chances are I met you because I had to leave my country due to its political and economical situation (whether it was on 2003 or in 2012), we Venezuelans have been experiencing this for 15 years now (most of my life) and I do not know how long can we resist it anymore. Civilians have rightfully and peacefully taken the streets out of wrath and frustration and are met with bloodshed and violence by the "Venezuelans" that we pay to protect us.

Please take a minute of your time to share this video.

Raw Footage (Discretion is advised):

Momento en que secuestran a estudiante 05:41 pm - Maracay - YouTube




For more info look-up #SOSVenezuela

 

Toilet paper shortages etc.

Leftist government FTL.

I suspect media editors and writers are so leftist they are a bit loathe to report that people hate their leftist governments, that we get little coverage of this. I mean, why doesn't Commie News Network cover this? It's not like they don't check out Facebook...

 

they fed up about their government because its leftist, or because they don't give them enough free stuff?

 

Now they have shut off internet.http://motherboard.vice.com/read/not...f-the-internet

 

must have let the FCC into their stations...

 

At least fed up of the effects such as toilet paper shortages.
They may be so stupid that the problem is the "wrong policies" and the corruption, and that a less inept socialist gov't would solve all their problems.

 

If the people there are dumb enough to take videos in portrait instead of landscape, I can see how someone forgot to order toilet paper.

 

LOL - This!

 

here's what we should do:

Bomb and invade the country and establish overnight democracy; asking an unstable country to do in a very short time which took us centuries to do.

Get pissed when they vote someone into power we dont like.

Have the CIA overthrow the government and install a "democractically elected" puppet.

Get really confused when years later when the people dont forget we killed their families, gave them a shitty gov't that doesn't work because their leader is a puppet that works for the US, start another revolution, and destory any hope of real democracy/peace ever taking hold.

Oh yeah and take their oil reserves.

 

Oil? Bomb the **** out of them.

But seriously, I knew a successful business owner from there and it was made apparent to me that there were government officials at many levels that required "gifts" so that his business could be successful.

 

The differences between the average corrupt 3rd World country and the USA:

- In the 3rd World the corruption doesn't stay at the top. It reaches all the way down to the bureaucrat paper-pusher in city hall that needs a "tip" so that your application for a business license will take 3 months instead of 3 years.

- In the USA, the rules (regulations) that favor the well-connected corporations are codified in the law, disguised as being good for you and me. In the 3rd World the not-well-connected just never make it in business from the start.

- If you get stopped by a traffic cop in the 3rd World you pay off the cop. In the USA you basically pay off the cop, the courts, the county, and your insurance company.

- In the 3rd World the people know their gov't is corrupt and don't trust it.

- In the 3rd World the people know the mass media is paid off by the politicians.

 

 

I like the color choices in that graph. Nowhere is green; every country is at least a little suspicious.

 

LOL - Yes, and it helps people like me who are red-green colorblind and can't distinguish the difference between extremely good or extremely bad in a Red-Yellow-Green graph.

 

My brother has the same condition, I once sent him a birthday card that I colored the background with a green colored pencil and wrote happy birthday on top of it with a red pencil.

 

there's no green on the chart--it goes from yellow to red.

 

Far too many charts such as this go from green (exceptionally good) to red (exceptionally bad) with a band of yellow (exceptionally average) in the middle. In such charts, it is difficult for me to distinguish the good areas from the bad areas, though I can distinguish the average areas from the extremes.

The Red-to-Yellow instead of Red-to-Green color combination in this chart Now: if you would have said, "there is no red on this chart, the chart goes from green to yellow", I would have asked someone else in my office to look at the chart and confirm that it is indeed a green-to-yellow chart, but i'm not horribly colorblind, so I'm pretty sure that isn't the case.

 

In Mexico people are taking up arms and taking control of their own towns and cities. Not getting a lot of main stream news coverage there either.