August 4, 2024 • 56 mins
We are examining the canary in the coal mine! We look at the correlations and parallels between the collapse of Venezuela starting in 1992 to current year America. Court packing, gun laws, starvation and inflation all leading to a waking communist authoritarian nightmare! Jon also talks about prepping and the importance of having a plan.
Featured Sources:
Venezuela Timeline, 1992–2024https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/12/13/venezuela-chavez-allies-pack-supreme-court
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-opposition-leader-sentenced-8-years-prison-lawyer-2022-08-04/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/how-venezuela-went-from-the-richest-economy-in-south-america-to-the-brink-of-financial-ruin-a7740616.html
Visit Website: www.abracast.com
The Red Vault / Subscribestar: www.subscribestar.com/abracast
The voice of The Abracast – Hila Assor https://hilaassor.com/
Theme Song “Red Horse Rising” by X-Proph3t: http://www.reverbnation.com/xproph3t
Written / Produced / researched / Performed – Jon Towers
Featured Sources:
Venezuela Timeline, 1992–2024https://www.hrw.org/news/2004/12/13/venezuela-chavez-allies-pack-supreme-court
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-opposition-leader-sentenced-8-years-prison-lawyer-2022-08-04/
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/how-venezuela-went-from-the-richest-economy-in-south-america-to-the-brink-of-financial-ruin-a7740616.html
Visit Website: www.abracast.com
The Red Vault / Subscribestar: www.subscribestar.com/abracast
The voice of The Abracast – Hila Assor https://hilaassor.com/
Theme Song “Red Horse Rising” by X-Proph3t: http://www.reverbnation.com/xproph3t
Written / Produced / researched / Performed – Jon Towers
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
In the dark shadows, in the white cold. Fearlessly, we
search for knowledge new and old. We drink the strong
spirits and read the ancient tongs. The order of the Abercast.
We are the brave and the bold, the Abercast a
(00:36):
coult history, conspiracy and violence.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hey, I gotta some pushback regarding my remarks on the
Olympics opening ceremony from the last show and how I
should have been more open minded about the Dionysus stuff
in the Last Supper, and I again refuse to go
much deeper on this topic because it's pretty low hanging fruit,
(01:42):
you know, in this space that we're all, you know, occupying,
you know, and you know there's plenty of podcasts and
shows out there that are still talking about. My point
is one, drag queens are gross, Okay. I don't care
how they're scene or whatever was staged. What the what
(02:04):
the heck were they even doing at the Olympics.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Why is it that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Every little corner of our lives in the West now
have to make room for these weird dudes dressed like chicks.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Two Dionysus is cool.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I actually have this amazing antique bronze Dionysus altar figure
that was gifted to me by some friends. Anyways, it
doesn't look anything like that blue freak with his ball
bag hanging out all over the place. Okay, three, go
back and listen to the last Exitus episode we did
(02:41):
Rise of the Golden Calf. I think where we link
the Golden Calf to weird sex stuff, child sacrifice, and now,
you know, you tell me what the fucking Golden Calf
was doing on stage at the Olympic ceremony. You know,
in my opinion, the case is closed and I'm not
entertaining anymore chatter about it.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I will clap back.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Hey, I'm Josh Howards, and this is the Evercast. We
have a long night ahead of us, my friends, and
I do have my vessel of the art with my
weapon of mass distraction mixed up in it right here.
If you humor me for a moment, I'm gonna get
this party started. So things are moving very fast, and
(03:35):
the lines are criss crossing, and they're running together so
fast I feel.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Like I can't keep up. This is a little streak.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
This is a third episode in three weeks, so I
feel like I'm on track and I'm rededicating myself to
the podcast, and I'm gonna try to walk us through
all these tough times that are ahead, and failing that,
the least I can do is continue to track document
and talk about the implosion of the Western civilization that
(04:05):
we've been we I mean, we've been talking about this
since like the beginning of COVID. That's when I lost
when they were like, yeah, we're America is just gonna
lock down, okay, And I'm in my basement and I'm
looking at all my guns and I'm like, yeah, right,
We're just gonna lock down. Bro, that's gonna work out.
And then like a year into this, I was like, well,
maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I don't really understand Americans because
(04:27):
this shit is crazy. So that's when I lost faith.
I lost faith everybody. I lost fucking faith. So we've
been talking a lot about that, even those episodes. It
was like, when we started talking about this, I think
we started by examining Western philosophy, and then we start
(04:49):
talking about Yuri Besmanov and the decline of Western civilia
so forth, so on and whatever. So here's where we
find ourselves. Here is where we find ourselves literally, so
you know the tagline of the show has always been
(05:12):
cult history conspiracy. So this episode is it's not really
history because it's more like current events. But I want
to learn. I want to shine a light on something
that's going on. It's been going on, you know, I
don't know for a generation, I guess, and you know
(05:33):
it's been going on for a generation.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
But we can see, we can now see.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Some correlations between what's going on here versus what's going
on there. And of course I'm talking about Venezuela, so
you're like, what the fuck are you talking about Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
For so, in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Venezuela became the third richest country in the hemispe their hemisphere.
In nineteen ninety seven, there's a this is a sounds
like a random factoid, the Venezuela became the second largest
purchaser of Ford F one fifties. So here, so that's
(06:18):
like the top, that's like you know when you're on
a roller coaster, and it's like that last is nineteen
ninety seven, Venezuela became the second largest purchaser of Ford
F one fifties. And then the car goes the little
railroad car, the roller coaster car. You know tips and
(06:39):
now here's the here's the business end of the roller coaster.
In two thousand and one, Venezuela voted for social socialist president.
For his platform was quote income inequality. Two thousand and four,
(07:00):
private healthcare is completely socialized. And this is something we
talked briefly about last episode. I believe they packed the
Supreme Court.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
They packed it, and.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
We're gonna talk about that right now. HRW dot Org. Venezuela,
Chavez allies packed Supreme Court. So for context, at the
tail end of World War two, FDR actually tried to
(07:36):
pack the Supreme Court. That was the last time this
has been accomplished. And I theorized that Biden going into
like this lame duck part of his presidency because he
stepped down from trying to get reelected, is now going
to be free to kind of fuck everything up. He's
gonna be able to do like all the shit that
(07:56):
you know, they really really want to do, they want
to try to do it, and this is one of
those things that they were talking about before he stepped down.
And now I think it's just gonna be you know, attempted.
I think it's gonna be uh, They're gonna try to
do this. They are gonna try to do it. A
lot of legal people say, well, it's a doa like
(08:19):
the way the legislatures composed right now, Like it's too even,
like it's never gonna go forward. But I don't know.
Let's just examine the possibilities. The Venezuela. The Venezuelan Congress
(08:42):
dealt a severe blow to the judicial independence by packing
the country supreme Court with twelve new justices, Human Rights
Watch said today. A majority of the ruling coalition dominated
by President Hugo Chavez is his party named the justices
late yesterday, filling seats created by a law passed in
(09:05):
May that expanded the court's size by more than half.
Five years ago, President Chavez supporters helped to enshrine the
principle of judicial independence in a democratic constitution. Constitution, said
Jose Miguel Vivanco, America's director at the Human Rights Watch. Now,
(09:28):
by packing the country's highest court, they are betraying that
principle and degrading Venezuelan democracy. But we want to save democracy. No, no,
we want to destroy democracy. No, But we want to
save democracy. The law passed it May expanded the court
(09:53):
from twenty to thirty two members. In addition to the
justices named to the twelve new seats, five justice this
as were named to phil vacancies that had opened in
recent months, and more than thirty two were named as
reserved justices for the Court members and allies of President
Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement MOVEMENTO the Republica or the MVR
(10:18):
form a majority in Congress. In nineteen ninety two, a
Constituent Assembly con vote by President Chavez drafted the Constitution
that guarantees the independence of the judicial branch and the
autonomy of the Supreme Court. The Constitution specifically seaks to
guarantee the independence of the Supreme Court justices by establishing
(10:40):
an impeachment process, according to which justices may only be
removed for serious offenses by two thirds majority vote in Congress.
So what they're talking about here and now is term limits.
And Acasio Courtes was on the floor of the Senate
(11:03):
or the Congress, and she said, we need to begin
impeachment processes on two of the Supreme Court justices just
because they are ruling the way that they don't like.
If you ask Barack Obama about this, you know, back
in two thousand and eight or whatever else. He would say,
you know, elections have consequences, and then there was a
(11:24):
pregnant pause, and in that pregnant pause you can almost
hear him say, bitches. So these are the consequences of elections.
And you can't just throw fuckers out because you don't
like the way they're ruling. Well, I mean, I guess
you could try. I guess they're gonna try, you know.
(11:50):
In May, President Chavs signed a court packing law that
allows his government coalition in the legislature to obtain an
overwhelming majority of seats in the country's highest court. The
seventeen new justices and thirty two reserves were selected yesterday
by a simple majority vote of the governing coalition, which
(12:11):
did not reveal the names of the nominees of the
opposition members of Congress until the time until the time
of the vote, you know, and you could talk about
like why why, you know, besides them ruling on shit
that they that you know, the way the wrong way,
the quote wrong way unquote, you know, you're also going
(12:32):
to see the argument being made, you know, or the
tactic being used. You know, if someone other than Kamala
Harris or whoever their nominee is gonna wind up being.
I'm not really convinced it's gonna be Kamala Harris. But
if that whoever they choose, if that person loses, it's
(12:54):
going to court.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
That's what they're That's what they're all signaling with all
this Supreme Court talk. So we can pack it now
so when it goes to court, it's packed full of
our dudes.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Or dude, that's.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Political takeover the Supreme The political takeover of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
That's exactly what it is. Will compound the damage.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
The way that it works now is the President appoints
or nominates, you know, for approval the Supreme Court justices,
and so they match the like the Democrat the they
match the demographics or the you know, the winners and
(13:40):
losers of the court. The problem is is with Democrats.
With the Democrats, they always stay in for too long.
You'll see this over and over and over again, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg. You know, it's just I'm not a I'm
not a Supreme Court watcher, So i don't know how
much more time I'm going to spend on this. Oh
(14:02):
it's almost over, so I'll spend the rest of the
political takeover of the Supreme Court will compound the damage
already done to the judicial independence by policies pursued by
the Court itself. The Supreme Court, which is which has
administrative control over the judiciary, has failed to provide security
of tenure to eighty percent of the country's judges. In March,
(14:24):
the court summarily fired three judges after they had decided
politically controversial cases.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Java.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It's like it's like the playbook. It's someone's read this article.
Java's supporters have justified the court packing effort largely as
a response to pro opposition rulings in a deeply divided court,
such as a highly questionable decision that absolved military officers
who participated in the two thousand and two coup. President
(14:57):
Chavez and his supporters should be taking steps to strengthen
the judiciary, but Funco said, instead, they are rigging the
system to favor their own interests. So what's next here?
In two thousand and seven, uh Venezuela says all higher
education becomes quote free unquote, you know, kind of like
(15:25):
somebody ignoring the Supreme Court and you know, forgiving a
bunch of college loans, not my college loans. I'm probably
I'm on probably more watch lists, more fucking like.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
What I like.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
They're never gonna pay my They're never gonna bribe me
by paying off my college loans. Two thousand and nine,
socialist banned private ownership of guns except government sanctioned militias.
(16:08):
They call them the collectivos, So they're like communists, you know.
Twenty twelve, Oh, this is this is one of my
favorite Bernie Sanders moments. Bernie Sanders praises the Venezuelan quote
American dream unquote as political situation in Venezuela deteriorates and
(16:32):
editorial endorsed by presidential hopeful at the time, Senator Bernie Sanders,
Independent Vermont that praised the socialist country as a place
where the American dream is more apt to be realized
unquote in twenty eleven. These days, the American dream is
more apt to be realized in South America, in such
(16:55):
places as Ecuador and Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are
actually more equal today than they are in the land
of Horatio Alger Who's the Banana Republic now.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
The Peace States.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
I don't know if you asked Dershowitz we have more
and more bananas on the Banana Republic scale every day.
Twenty fourteen opposition leaders are imprisoned. This is another thing
that Venezuela beat us to. But we are try and bro,
(17:33):
aren't we trying to lock up political opponents?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Shamefully so.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Shit Venezuelan opposition leader sentenced eight years in prison. Lawyer
by Vivian Segera. This is August fourth, twenty two from
more readers, and we'll get into this article here after
these messages.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
I'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
And welcome back to the Abercast. I'm your host, John Towers,
and this is you know, we can't always be about
wizards and blow jobs everybody, It just can't. Sometimes we've
got to talk about the hard topics. Here we go, Caracas,
August fourth. Former Venice S. Whalen, opposition lawmaker One Requiescence
(19:05):
was sentenced to eight years in prison for alleged involvement
in a twenty eighteen explosion of two drones at an
event attended by President Nicholas Maduro. His lawyer said on
Thursday on one of seventeen people received sentences over the incidents,
family and opposition leader Juan Guadado consider him a political
(19:31):
prisoner and have denied involvement.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
In the case.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
REQUISNDS was detained for about two years between twenty eighteen
and twenty twenty, cases, which stem from explosions that rocked
a military event where Maduro was giving a speech. Maduro
has said Requiescends was named by people arrested in the case. Well,
I mean, I guess, I don't know being held in
(19:58):
the Venezuelan torchard dungeon. Who knows what you're gonna say, government,
And the only reason I say Venezuelan torture dungeon is
because wherever socialism is, you will find torture dungeons, period, period.
The government says the incident was a failed assassination attempt
planned by Columbia, the United States, and the Venezuelan opposition,
(20:22):
involving drones carrying explosives. Colombia, the United States, and the
opposition have denied any involvement in this and other plots
alleged by the Venezuelan government. Leaving the hearing and the
judgment of je Requisends, who was sentenced eight years for
the crime of conspiracy, his lawyer said Joel Garcia tweeted
(20:44):
on Thursday morning, without giving further details. Seventeen people were
convicted on Thursday morning, Attorney General Trek Sob said in
a statement on state television without naming them. Twelve of
the seventeen people were sentenced to thirty years for crime
such as murder and treason. Sob said five of the
accused were sentenced to terms of twenty four, twenty and sixteen,
(21:08):
eight and five years, respectively, for terrorism and conspiracy. Opposition
late leader Guerardo condemned the sentencing for requisnds on Twitter
the dictatorship kidnapped him and kept him deprived of his
liberty and his persecution mechanism against a whole society. The
(21:31):
family of National Guard General Hector Hernandez da Costa, who
was arrested in twenty eighteen, said he was sentenced to
sixteen years in the same case. He is innocent, the
family added, so there we go with that. Oh here
it is sorry. So you know, if we talk about
(21:56):
this store, this series of stories, here, this idea, the
uh and if we want to think about it practically,
like what you know, these if if these things are
coming our way, if they haven't already been here. You know,
what can we do to prepare? Well, we can't educate
(22:17):
our people. It's it's clear that the education system has failed.
And I just look around YouTube and it's quite clear.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
So the.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
You know, Jefferson said that in order to keep a democracy,
you have to have an ethical and informed population.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
So we have neither.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
We don't have an ethical population generally speaking in my opinion,
and we don't have an informed, uh population. Then our
news for the most part is lies, like they're not
even trying to lie anymore. Like Democrats come out and
they say, hey, Kamala Harris is gonna be your uh,
your nominee even though no one nominated her. She didn't
(23:05):
get she may have got like one delegate the last
time that she ran for president, Like no one elected her,
no one nominated her, but they're like, hey, let's go,
She's gonna be our dude. And like the second that
had here's the wild coordination. Right the second that happened,
news stories and stuff just started getting deleted offline like no, no, no, oh,
(23:26):
no fact check negative, Kamala Harris was not the borders
are Meanwhile, flash backwards to Axios in twenty twenty and
they're like Kamala Harris is gonna be the best border
zar in the world. So it's like we can't fix that.
Like that's done and over and over with, Like we're doomed.
(23:48):
We're fucking doomed. But the things that we can kind
of prepare for, right and this is the stuff that
I've been talking about, you know for a while. Now,
you know it's time to be the first sergeant of
your house. You know, get the beans, get the bullets,
and get the band aids and fucking get ready to go.
And the reason I'm kind of talking, I'm doing my
(24:10):
little prepper message right here is because in twenty sixteen,
Venezuela had a food in healthcare shortages that became widespread.
And yeah, Independent dot co dot uk, so the Sky
(24:32):
News and UK News usually tells a straighter story. Then
you get here, So Venezuela crisis. Zoo animals stolen and
eaten amid food shortages. Scores of animals also died from
starvation at a zoo in June. This is Gabriel Samuels, Thursday,
(24:53):
seventeen August twenty seventeen. So imagine becoming so fucking hungry
you're raiding your zoo to fucking eat animals. That's the
gist of that. That's what this whole article is about.
But well, you know, for those of you who crave nuance,
we'll get into it a little bit. Zoo animals in
(25:13):
Venezuela are being stolen and eaten as the country sinks
further into food food storage shortage crisis.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Local police have said.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
The Zuela Metropolitan Zoological Park in the city of marik
Caabbio reported that more than ten species of animals had
gone missing from the facility in recent weeks. Officers said
that they presume the buffalos the tapiers. I believe tapiers
is like a pig, like a special kind of pay.
(25:48):
I think colored pecieries small pig like animals. Okay, well
maybe those things are pig like animals had been stolen
for food. Leonard Noonez, the head of the zoo, said
(26:11):
that he believed the animals had been stolen by drug
dealers who later sold them on the black market. They
take everything here, he told local reporters. The end of July,
it was reported that up to fifty animals had starved
to death at the zoo in Caracas this year. Because
they had not eaten four weeks. Staff reportedly fed mangoes
(26:31):
and pumpkins to the lions and the tigers and the
zoo to make up for reduced meat rations. The elephants
were fed with tropical fruit rather than the usual diet
of hay. Meanwhile, their usual diet of hay. They couldn't
afford hey to feed the fucking elephants. It's got to
be a lot of hay, That's all I'm saying. Meanwhile,
(26:52):
Venezuelans are believed to be regularly skipping meals, waiting in
lines at supermarkets for hours as food stocks continue to dwindle.
And June, more than four hundred people were arrested after
looters and rioters ran through scores of shops and markets
in the capital city stealing food. Three and four Venezuelan
(27:14):
citizens reports suffering involuntary weight loss due to the shortages,
and have lost an average of nineteen pounds according to
a recent report. President Maduro, who took over from Hugo
Chavez after his death in twenty thirteen, has blamed the
country's woes on an economic war waged by local opposition
(27:35):
leaders and of course, the USA. Many of the Venezuelans
have resorted to traveling over the border with Colombia to
buy basic supplies. So I want to just talk here
a little bit about food storage, and don't I don't
have a sponsor, I don't have a link as far
(27:56):
as food storage is concerned, emergency food storage, you know,
I you know.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I'm not. This is not a commercial.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
What I'm saying is when you look at this story,
this history, what's going down.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
You know, in Venezuela over the less.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You know, since the nineteen ninety seven's, and imagine being
that situation. Imagine your family's in that situation, and you're
supposed to be looking after your family, and your family's
in a situation where there's all these food shortages.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
And you're stuck.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
You're stuck looting and rioting and stealing fucking pigs from
a zoo to fucking feed your family. So what I
propose is, I propose, if you guys haven't done this already,
you should think about, you know, getting some emergency food storage.
So I, you know, without getting too far into all
(28:59):
my ship that I have going on, you know, I
have a multi layered emergency food program. You know, I
have commercially bought emergency food. I have a box of mrs.
I have packs of like lifeboat food.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I have more Ramen noodles and you could shake a
stick at They were given to me by a friend
of mine and she was like, oh, you're prepping here,
take all this fucking Ramen noodles. But uh, you know,
the food, the emergency food buckets that everyone that they have,
like the commercial ones are pretty expensive. They're way outside
(29:40):
my price point for the speed in which I wanted
to accumulate these things.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Right, So.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I did a little bit of research about long term
food storage, uh, you know, and I just start building
my own buckets. I started building my own food storage buckets.
I built four of them at a time. Scroll them away.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
They're there. They will last for.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
At least twenty five years, you know. And I don't
want to turn this whole episode into like long term
food storage porn.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I don't know. Maybe I could.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Publish my packing list on the website or something like
get the idea of what is in the bucket.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
If you guys are interested in that, just hit shoot me,
hit me up annoyingly. So my website has a chat
feature on it, so you can just reach out to
me there it's very bizarre, or shoot me an email,
whatever you guys want. And if you're interested in the
packing list or some reference material or information on these
(30:51):
food buckets that I'm making, I mean they're pretty sweet.
Like I got like boxes of like old style military
can openers, so like that, and a chem light taped
in each one, an inventory packing list what you could
do with all of the ingredients that are in the bucket,
because that's the main difference, right, It's not like vacuum packed, sealed,
(31:11):
dehydrated food that all you have to do is add
water and cook it.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
It's not like that.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
It's you know, two pounds of rice and beans and whatever,
so you have a little bit of agility what you
could do with them. There's enough stuff to make like
a little loaf of bread in each bucket. Each bucket
generally should last two people a week. And it's not
I mean, you're not gonna get It's not like living
(31:40):
high on the hog. It's like what the basics, like,
you have something, you got something. So anyhow, if you're
interested in the in more information about you know, these
kind of homemade ghetto wise long term food storage buckets.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Hit me up and I'll make them available.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
If there's enough put, if there's enough request, I'll I'll
do whatever. Anyhow, let's get back to Venezuela. How Venezuela
went from the richest economy in South America to the
brink of financial ruin? And this again is the independent
(32:18):
soaring crime, hyperinflation, foods soaring crime, check hyperinflation, check food
storage check shortage God Freudian fuck, food shortages check. Established
democracies are not supposed to implode like this. How did
post Chavez Venezuela go from the richest economy in South
(32:41):
America to the brink of social and financial room? Max
Fisher and Amanda Taub, twenty one May twenty seventeen. Look,
Hugo Chaves is fat. They're always like that. I'll let
them eat cake. That's kind of situation. Venezuela, by the numbers,
(33:02):
resembles a country hit by civil war. Its economy, once
Latin America's richest is estimated to have shrunk by ten
percent last year.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Ten percent shrinkage in a year. We're gonna see that,
we are going to go through this.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
They just keep printing this money, and that's what's happening
worse even than serious GDP shrank by nineteen percent. South America.
South America. The South America country is the world's worst
inflation at more than seven hundred percent. Is what happens
when you give everyone free higher education, nearly double that
(33:47):
of the second Sorry about that, we're second ranked South Sudian,
rendering its currency almost worthless. In a country with the
world's largest proven oil reserves, food has grown so scarce
that three four citizens report involuntary weight loss, averaging nineteen
pounds a year.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
We already know this.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
City streets are marked by black markets and violence. The
last reported murder rate in twenty fourteen was equivalent to
the civilian casualty rate in two thousand and four. Iraq
It's democracy, long a point of pride, became the oldest
(34:28):
to collapse into authoritariat authoritarianism since.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Power grabs, most recent to replace the constitution have led
to protests and crackdowns that have killed dozens just this month.
Established democracies are not supposed to implode like this. Stephen Levinsky,
a Harvard University political scientists, says Venezuela is one of
only four or five. Ever, among those, none was as
(34:58):
wealthy or fell so far. In most cases, says the
regime quits before it gets this bad. Venezuelan crisis came
through a series of steps whose progression is clear in retrospect,
and some of which initially proved popular. The two party
establishment is ready to break a democracy founding in nineteen
(35:22):
fifty eight, the country's three leading parties later narrowed to
agreed to share power amongst themselves in oil revenue among
their constituents. They're pack meant to preserve democracy came to
dominate it. Party elites packed candidates. Or sorry, party elites
(35:43):
picked candidates. While we're seeing that, I actually have a
whole episode coming up on the American coup that's happened,
we've actually experienced. Well now we're in the middle of
our second one and interested in that. But both have
to do with this sentence. Party elites picked candidates and
blocked outsiders, making political politics less responsive. The agreement to
(36:08):
share wealth fostered corruption. Economic shocks in the nineteen eighties
led many Venezuelans to conclude the system was rigged against them.
In nineteen ninety two, leftist military officers, led by Lieutenant
Colonel Hugo Chavez, attempted a coup. They failed and were
in prison. Their anti establishment message resonated, catapulting Chavez to stardom.
(36:36):
The government in instituted a series of reforms that were
intended to save the two party system, but that may
have doomed it. A loosening of the election laws allowed
outside parties to break in the president Free Free Chavez,
hoping to demonstrate tolerance, but the economy worsened in Javes
(36:57):
run for president in nineteen ninety eight, and is populous
message of returning to power to the people won him victory. Populism.
Hold on, before we get to this next part. I
gotta just do this.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I'm sorry. I apologize.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
See in the last couple episodes on my rant against
these incessant.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Fucking commercial brains. I hate him. It gives me time
to do this. I don't just mean food.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
I mean you should have like a like a military
style like storage crate full of kitchen stuff and bathroom
stuff and water, another one with water purification stuff, and
another one with rawm and noodles. Apparently, you should have
a pioneer box in your basement and in your shed
filled with chainsaws and circular saws and uh all shovels,
(38:40):
pride bars. You know you should be thinking about all
this stuff. You know now, I'm afraid, dear listeners, that
if you don't, you know, you're you or your family
might be the ones rioting and looting and fucking stealing
pigs from a zoo and all that is not it's
(39:01):
not necessary with just a little bit of foresight. And
you know here that like prepping and stuff is getting mainstream.
And I hope that's true. I hope I am preaching
to the choir. I hope I am preaching to the choir.
Al right, back to this Populism's unwinnable war with the state.
(39:21):
Despite Chavez's victories, the two parties still dominated government institutions,
which he saw as antagonists or even potential threats. He
passed a new constitution and purged government jobs. Some moves
were broadly popular, like judicial reforms and reduced corruption. Others,
(39:43):
like abolishing the legislature's upper house, seemed to have a
broader aim. He was reducing potential checks on his authority,
he says John Carry, a Dartmouth College political scientist, beneath
the revolutionary language was pretty savvy institutionally engineering. Distrust of
(40:07):
institutions often led populists who see themselves as the people's
true champion the consolidated power, but institutions some sometimes resist,
leading tit for tat conflicts that could weaken both sides.
Even before the economic crisis, you have two things that
(40:27):
political scientists all agree are the least sustainable basis for power,
personalism and petroleum, Levitsky says, referring to the style of
government that consolidates power under one single leader. When members
of the business and political establishment obtained to a series
(40:51):
of executive decrees in twenty two thousand and one, Chavez
declared them enemies of the people's a revolution. Because populism
describes a word divided between the righteous people and the
corrupt elite, each round of confrontation, by drawing hard lines
between legitimate and illegitimate points of view, can polarize society.
(41:15):
Supporters and opponents of a leader like Chavez come to
see each other as locked in high state struggle, justifying
extreme action. That sounds familiar, that's ringing a bell. I
can't quite plant. Who escalates conflict beyond ideology. In two
(41:37):
thousand and two, amit an economic downturn. Outrage against Chavez's
policies swelled into protests that threatened to overwhelm the presidential palace.
When he ordered the military to restore order, it instead
arrested him and installed an interim leader. Chavez's foreign policy shifts,
(42:00):
aligning with Cuba and arming Colombian insurgents had angered some
military leaders. His war on the elites turned out to
carry risks. The coup leaders overstep, dissolving the constitution and
the legislature, sparking counter protests that quickly returned to Chavez
to power, but his message of a revolutionary struggle against
(42:24):
internal enemies no longer felt like a metaphor for reducing poverty.
Carrie calls it a hugely polarizing moment that allowed Chavez
to portray the opposition as trying to sell Venezuelan interests.
Out NA supporters now saw politics as a zero sum
battle for survival. Independent institutions came to be seen as
(42:47):
sources of intolerable danger. The licenses of critical media outlets
were suspended when labor unions protested, They were weakened by
blacklists or replaced outright. When the courts challenged Chavez, he
gutted them, suspending unfriendly judges, packing the Supreme Court with loyalists,
(43:12):
and the result was an intense polarization between two segments
of society who now saw each other as existential threats,
destroying any possibility of compromise.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
So when you see like well known.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Figures or I don't know whatever talking about like, you know,
totally egged on by like the Civil War movie that
just came out and all this stuff, and they're like,
you know, America can never be can never get to this,
And I'm here to tell you, you know, I think
that you're wrong.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
I think that you're wrong.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
When I saw that they attempted to assassinate Trump, I
yelled up to my wife, I'm like, they just tried
to fucking kill Trump, and she ran down the stairs
and we got the sort of news that it was
just a graze, and you know, he stood up and
did his fight fight fight bit, which was all fucking
(44:07):
a no, phenomenal, amazing political theater. In the face of
almost getting your fucking head blown off, I cannot believe
that fucking guy did that. Anyhow, The first thing that
I said to her after like kind of sunk in.
I was like, if they would have killed him, we
would be living in a different world. America current year
(44:31):
would be radically different pre Trump assassination, post Trump assassination.
I don't I can't even wrap my head around what
it would look like, but I know it would be
a seismic shift, probably something that we've never seen in
the world, in the fucking probably in the world. I'm
(44:54):
not even talking local news, bitch like turn off NBC.
I'm talking about the fucking world. That's what I'm talking about.
Two point five guns in this country for every person.
(45:19):
Think about that. Oh my god, I've been yapping too much.
I'm so far behind. Shortly after the coup, Chavez faced
another battle that would prove just as faithful. Workers want
on strike in the state run oil firm Petroleo City
(45:39):
of Venezuela, which he had long denounced first association with
business elites in the United States. The strike threatened to
destroy the economy and Chavez's presidency, but it also presented
an opportunity to stave off another uprising. After the strike collapse,
(46:00):
he fired eighteen thousand PDVSA workers, many of them skilled
technicians and managers and replaced them with some one hundred
thousand supporters. Much of the firms operating budget was diverted
into programs for Chavez's political base, payoffs for government cronies,
and subsidies to keep his promises of affordable food. In
(46:27):
twenty eleven, five hundred million dollars from PDVSA pension fund
found its way into a pyramid scheme run by government
linked finance seers, none of whom faced prosecution. After running
on smashing the corrupt elite, Chavez had merely established his
own an oil company, PDVSA was ruined. Production dropped despite
(46:52):
a global boom in oil prices, the injury rate measuring
in lost man hours more than triple than twenty twelve.
A refinery explos loaded and killing at least forty and
causing one point seven billion in damage, suggesting that even
maintenance budgets had been siphoned off, its cash reserves depleted,
(47:14):
and development projects stalled. PDVSA and by extension, the Venezuelan economy,
was left without a cushion when oil prices dropped in
twenty fourteen, Chavez set up Venezuela not just for an
economic collapse, but also a political crisis. If his supporters
(47:36):
relied on oil fueled patronage, what would happen when that
money ran out? In twenty twenty two. Two thousand and
two coup taught Chavez that in the twenty the two
thousand and two taught Chavez that an alliance of convenience
with unarmed groups such as the collectivos would help him
(47:58):
control the streets where protests has protesters had almost brought
him down. The collectivos, with funneled money and arms from
the state, became political enforcers. Protesters learned to fear these men,
who arrived on Chinese made motorcycles to disperse them, often lethally.
(48:20):
They collectivos grew in power, challenging the police for control.
In two thousand and five, they expelled the police from
a region of Caracas, the capital, that had tens of
thousands of residents. Though the government never officially approved such violence,
it publicly praised collectivos, granting them tacit impunity. Many exploited
(48:44):
this freedom to participate in organized crime. Alejandro Velasco, a
New York University professor who studied the Collectivos, said that
a group were later joined by criminal opportunists who learned
that aiding a little ideology to their operations could win
them impunity. Criminal and lawlessness flourished, spiked, spiking murder rates.
(49:08):
President Nicholas Maduro, who took power then Chavez died in
twenty thirteen, inherited an economy that was in shambles and attenue,
with support among elites and the public. In desperation, he
parceled out patronage the military, with which he had less
sway than his predecessors, got control of the lucrative drug
(49:31):
and food trades, as well as gold mining. Unable to
pay for subsidies in welfare programs, Maduro printed more money.
Sound familiar. You know we're sending like eight eighty million
fucking dollars the Taliban every week.
Speaker 3 (49:49):
Can you fucking believe?
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Unable to I'm gonna restart, I'm sorry. Unable to pay
for subsidy, he's in welfare programs. Maduro printed more money.
When this drove up inflation, making basic goods unaffordable, he
instituted price controls and fixed the currency exchange rate. So
this is funny because in my own little world right now,
(50:18):
I'm seeing this, not the inflation Jesus, of course I'm
seeing that. But right now, because because I live in
Pittsburgh or Pennsylvania, I get campaign commercials constantly blasting into
(50:41):
my face. And one of them is his Democrat named
Bob Casey, who's a big Biden guy.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
He voted with.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Biden ninety nine percent of the time or something like that.
And right now, his campaign commercials, his campaign ads, are
him going, you know, I'm gonna go after the cereal
companies because they're making cereals smaller. I'm putting them in
smaller boxes. I'm really gonna go after these companies that
(51:13):
are charging you more money because they can't afford gasoline.
This made when's the last time you filled up your
taking gas?
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Bob Casey? Like, fuck? What are you? Fuck? Are you
even talking about?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
I'm going after big food because they're charging you more
money because they can't afford anything. Oh my god, I
mean I'm not even halfway done with this.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Damn it.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
This made many imports prohibitively expensive. Business shut down, Maduro
printed more and more money, and inflation grew and grew again.
Food became scarce, unrest deepened, and Maduro's survival grew more
contingent on handouts he could not afford. The cycle destroyed
Venezuela's economy. It also worsened street violence, with government stores, empty,
(52:19):
black markets, mushroom collectivos less reliant on government support, took
command of the informal economy in some areas, and they
drew more violent and harder to rein it in. Maduro
tried to restore order in twenty fifteen, deploy this is
a great way to destroy. He deployed heavily armed police
(52:41):
and military units, but the operation became blood baths. Velasco
says many officers turned criminally to turn to criminality themselves.
Political the political system, after years of erosion, had become
a hybrid of democratic and authoritarian and features huh hu,
(53:05):
a highly unstable mix, and internal rules can shift day
to day. Rival power centers compete fiercely for control. Such
systems have proved far likelier to experience to experience a
coup or a collapse. Maduro has struggled as leaders of
the hybrid systems, often due to his control without Chavez.
(53:30):
Without Chavez's personal connections or deep pockets, he had little
leverage with the authoritarian element dominated by political and military elites.
Because he is deeply unpopular, his hold over the democratic
institutions may be even weaker. And this is this paragraph
right there leads right into current events. It leads right
(53:52):
into what's going on in Venezuela today. Sal After opposition
groups one control of the legislature in twenty fifteen, tensions
between those two systems exploded into outright conflict. The Supreme Court,
stacked with loyalists, briefly sought to dissolve the legislature's power.
(54:14):
This month, Maduro said he might seek a new constitution. Huh,
you know that. We hear that all the time. You know,
our constitution is a dead docum. It's it's a living document.
Venezuela's paradox, Leviski says, is that the government is too
authoritarian to coexist with democratic institutions, but too weak to
(54:40):
abolish them without risking collapse.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Is applicable today to the US as well. Protesters have
spilled into the streets but appear deadlocked with security forces
and collectivos. Francisco Toro of Venezuelan political scientists says it
is un clear whose side the military would take if
called to intervene with neither side able to exert control,
(55:08):
little in the way of an economy or public order
to take over, and a political system seemingly unable to
break or bend to Venezuela has brought itself from wealth
and democracy to the brink of collapse. And I'm John
Towers and this has been the Abercast. Think about some
(55:29):
long term food storage guys, get do the be the
first sergeant for your house. Buy some bullets and buy
some beans, and buy some bandages.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Are you interested in the conspiracy and violators?
Speaker 4 (56:03):
Learn more at aprocast dot com and visit the storefront
for tarot.
Speaker 3 (56:08):
Cards, merch and books.
Speaker 4 (56:14):
Support the show get access to the show archive at
subscribe star dot com. Thank you for listening to this episode.
Send an email or visit us on social media to
(56:36):
let us know what you think about this topic, and
please remember to leave a five star rate and review.
In the dark shadows, in the white cold. Fearlessly, we
search for knowledge new and old. We drink the strong
spirits and read the ancient tongs. The order of the Abercast.
We are the brave and the bold, the Abercast a
(00:36):
coult history, conspiracy and violence.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Hey, I gotta some pushback regarding my remarks on the
Olympics opening ceremony from the last show and how I
should have been more open minded about the Dionysus stuff
in the Last Supper, and I again refuse to go
much deeper on this topic because it's pretty low hanging fruit,
(01:42):
you know, in this space that we're all, you know, occupying,
you know, and you know there's plenty of podcasts and
shows out there that are still talking about. My point
is one, drag queens are gross, Okay. I don't care
how they're scene or whatever was staged. What the what
(02:04):
the heck were they even doing at the Olympics.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
Why is it that.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Every little corner of our lives in the West now
have to make room for these weird dudes dressed like chicks.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Two Dionysus is cool.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I actually have this amazing antique bronze Dionysus altar figure
that was gifted to me by some friends. Anyways, it
doesn't look anything like that blue freak with his ball
bag hanging out all over the place. Okay, three, go
back and listen to the last Exitus episode we did
(02:41):
Rise of the Golden Calf. I think where we link
the Golden Calf to weird sex stuff, child sacrifice, and now,
you know, you tell me what the fucking Golden Calf
was doing on stage at the Olympic ceremony. You know,
in my opinion, the case is closed and I'm not
entertaining anymore chatter about it.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I will clap back.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
Hey, I'm Josh Howards, and this is the Evercast. We
have a long night ahead of us, my friends, and
I do have my vessel of the art with my
weapon of mass distraction mixed up in it right here.
If you humor me for a moment, I'm gonna get
this party started. So things are moving very fast, and
(03:35):
the lines are criss crossing, and they're running together so
fast I feel.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Like I can't keep up. This is a little streak.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
This is a third episode in three weeks, so I
feel like I'm on track and I'm rededicating myself to
the podcast, and I'm gonna try to walk us through
all these tough times that are ahead, and failing that,
the least I can do is continue to track document
and talk about the implosion of the Western civilization that
(04:05):
we've been we I mean, we've been talking about this
since like the beginning of COVID. That's when I lost
when they were like, yeah, we're America is just gonna
lock down, okay, And I'm in my basement and I'm
looking at all my guns and I'm like, yeah, right,
We're just gonna lock down. Bro, that's gonna work out.
And then like a year into this, I was like, well,
maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I don't really understand Americans because
(04:27):
this shit is crazy. So that's when I lost faith.
I lost faith everybody. I lost fucking faith. So we've
been talking a lot about that, even those episodes. It
was like, when we started talking about this, I think
we started by examining Western philosophy, and then we start
(04:49):
talking about Yuri Besmanov and the decline of Western civilia
so forth, so on and whatever. So here's where we
find ourselves. Here is where we find ourselves literally, so
you know the tagline of the show has always been
(05:12):
cult history conspiracy. So this episode is it's not really
history because it's more like current events. But I want
to learn. I want to shine a light on something
that's going on. It's been going on, you know, I
don't know for a generation, I guess, and you know
(05:33):
it's been going on for a generation.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
But we can see, we can now see.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Some correlations between what's going on here versus what's going
on there. And of course I'm talking about Venezuela, so
you're like, what the fuck are you talking about Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
For so, in nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Venezuela became the third richest country in the hemispe their hemisphere.
In nineteen ninety seven, there's a this is a sounds
like a random factoid, the Venezuela became the second largest
purchaser of Ford F one fifties. So here, so that's
(06:18):
like the top, that's like you know when you're on
a roller coaster, and it's like that last is nineteen
ninety seven, Venezuela became the second largest purchaser of Ford
F one fifties. And then the car goes the little
railroad car, the roller coaster car. You know tips and
(06:39):
now here's the here's the business end of the roller coaster.
In two thousand and one, Venezuela voted for social socialist president.
For his platform was quote income inequality. Two thousand and four,
(07:00):
private healthcare is completely socialized. And this is something we
talked briefly about last episode. I believe they packed the
Supreme Court.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
They packed it, and.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
We're gonna talk about that right now. HRW dot Org. Venezuela,
Chavez allies packed Supreme Court. So for context, at the
tail end of World War two, FDR actually tried to
(07:36):
pack the Supreme Court. That was the last time this
has been accomplished. And I theorized that Biden going into
like this lame duck part of his presidency because he
stepped down from trying to get reelected, is now going
to be free to kind of fuck everything up. He's
gonna be able to do like all the shit that
(07:56):
you know, they really really want to do, they want
to try to do it, and this is one of
those things that they were talking about before he stepped down.
And now I think it's just gonna be you know, attempted.
I think it's gonna be uh, They're gonna try to
do this. They are gonna try to do it. A
lot of legal people say, well, it's a doa like
(08:19):
the way the legislatures composed right now, Like it's too even,
like it's never gonna go forward. But I don't know.
Let's just examine the possibilities. The Venezuela. The Venezuelan Congress
(08:42):
dealt a severe blow to the judicial independence by packing
the country supreme Court with twelve new justices, Human Rights
Watch said today. A majority of the ruling coalition dominated
by President Hugo Chavez is his party named the justices
late yesterday, filling seats created by a law passed in
(09:05):
May that expanded the court's size by more than half.
Five years ago, President Chavez supporters helped to enshrine the
principle of judicial independence in a democratic constitution. Constitution, said
Jose Miguel Vivanco, America's director at the Human Rights Watch. Now,
(09:28):
by packing the country's highest court, they are betraying that
principle and degrading Venezuelan democracy. But we want to save democracy. No, no,
we want to destroy democracy. No, But we want to
save democracy. The law passed it May expanded the court
(09:53):
from twenty to thirty two members. In addition to the
justices named to the twelve new seats, five justice this
as were named to phil vacancies that had opened in
recent months, and more than thirty two were named as
reserved justices for the Court members and allies of President
Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement MOVEMENTO the Republica or the MVR
(10:18):
form a majority in Congress. In nineteen ninety two, a
Constituent Assembly con vote by President Chavez drafted the Constitution
that guarantees the independence of the judicial branch and the
autonomy of the Supreme Court. The Constitution specifically seaks to
guarantee the independence of the Supreme Court justices by establishing
(10:40):
an impeachment process, according to which justices may only be
removed for serious offenses by two thirds majority vote in Congress.
So what they're talking about here and now is term limits.
And Acasio Courtes was on the floor of the Senate
(11:03):
or the Congress, and she said, we need to begin
impeachment processes on two of the Supreme Court justices just
because they are ruling the way that they don't like.
If you ask Barack Obama about this, you know, back
in two thousand and eight or whatever else. He would say,
you know, elections have consequences, and then there was a
(11:24):
pregnant pause, and in that pregnant pause you can almost
hear him say, bitches. So these are the consequences of elections.
And you can't just throw fuckers out because you don't
like the way they're ruling. Well, I mean, I guess
you could try. I guess they're gonna try, you know.
(11:50):
In May, President Chavs signed a court packing law that
allows his government coalition in the legislature to obtain an
overwhelming majority of seats in the country's highest court. The
seventeen new justices and thirty two reserves were selected yesterday
by a simple majority vote of the governing coalition, which
(12:11):
did not reveal the names of the nominees of the
opposition members of Congress until the time until the time
of the vote, you know, and you could talk about
like why why, you know, besides them ruling on shit
that they that you know, the way the wrong way,
the quote wrong way unquote, you know, you're also going
(12:32):
to see the argument being made, you know, or the
tactic being used. You know, if someone other than Kamala
Harris or whoever their nominee is gonna wind up being.
I'm not really convinced it's gonna be Kamala Harris. But
if that whoever they choose, if that person loses, it's
(12:54):
going to court.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
That's what they're That's what they're all signaling with all
this Supreme Court talk. So we can pack it now
so when it goes to court, it's packed full of
our dudes.
Speaker 3 (13:06):
Or dude, that's.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Political takeover the Supreme The political takeover of the Supreme Court.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
That's exactly what it is. Will compound the damage.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
The way that it works now is the President appoints
or nominates, you know, for approval the Supreme Court justices,
and so they match the like the Democrat the they
match the demographics or the you know, the winners and
(13:40):
losers of the court. The problem is is with Democrats.
With the Democrats, they always stay in for too long.
You'll see this over and over and over again, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg. You know, it's just I'm not a I'm
not a Supreme Court watcher, So i don't know how
much more time I'm going to spend on this. Oh
(14:02):
it's almost over, so I'll spend the rest of the
political takeover of the Supreme Court will compound the damage
already done to the judicial independence by policies pursued by
the Court itself. The Supreme Court, which is which has
administrative control over the judiciary, has failed to provide security
of tenure to eighty percent of the country's judges. In March,
(14:24):
the court summarily fired three judges after they had decided
politically controversial cases.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Java.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
It's like it's like the playbook. It's someone's read this article.
Java's supporters have justified the court packing effort largely as
a response to pro opposition rulings in a deeply divided court,
such as a highly questionable decision that absolved military officers
who participated in the two thousand and two coup. President
(14:57):
Chavez and his supporters should be taking steps to strengthen
the judiciary, but Funco said, instead, they are rigging the
system to favor their own interests. So what's next here?
In two thousand and seven, uh Venezuela says all higher
education becomes quote free unquote, you know, kind of like
(15:25):
somebody ignoring the Supreme Court and you know, forgiving a
bunch of college loans, not my college loans. I'm probably
I'm on probably more watch lists, more fucking like.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
What I like.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
They're never gonna pay my They're never gonna bribe me
by paying off my college loans. Two thousand and nine,
socialist banned private ownership of guns except government sanctioned militias.
(16:08):
They call them the collectivos, So they're like communists, you know.
Twenty twelve, Oh, this is this is one of my
favorite Bernie Sanders moments. Bernie Sanders praises the Venezuelan quote
American dream unquote as political situation in Venezuela deteriorates and
(16:32):
editorial endorsed by presidential hopeful at the time, Senator Bernie Sanders,
Independent Vermont that praised the socialist country as a place
where the American dream is more apt to be realized
unquote in twenty eleven. These days, the American dream is
more apt to be realized in South America, in such
(16:55):
places as Ecuador and Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are
actually more equal today than they are in the land
of Horatio Alger Who's the Banana Republic now.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
The Peace States.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
I don't know if you asked Dershowitz we have more
and more bananas on the Banana Republic scale every day.
Twenty fourteen opposition leaders are imprisoned. This is another thing
that Venezuela beat us to. But we are try and bro,
(17:33):
aren't we trying to lock up political opponents?
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Shamefully so.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Shit Venezuelan opposition leader sentenced eight years in prison. Lawyer
by Vivian Segera. This is August fourth, twenty two from
more readers, and we'll get into this article here after
these messages.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
I'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
And welcome back to the Abercast. I'm your host, John Towers,
and this is you know, we can't always be about
wizards and blow jobs everybody, It just can't. Sometimes we've
got to talk about the hard topics. Here we go, Caracas,
August fourth. Former Venice S. Whalen, opposition lawmaker One Requiescence
(19:05):
was sentenced to eight years in prison for alleged involvement
in a twenty eighteen explosion of two drones at an
event attended by President Nicholas Maduro. His lawyer said on
Thursday on one of seventeen people received sentences over the incidents,
family and opposition leader Juan Guadado consider him a political
(19:31):
prisoner and have denied involvement.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
In the case.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
REQUISNDS was detained for about two years between twenty eighteen
and twenty twenty, cases, which stem from explosions that rocked
a military event where Maduro was giving a speech. Maduro
has said Requiescends was named by people arrested in the case. Well,
I mean, I guess, I don't know being held in
(19:58):
the Venezuelan torchard dungeon. Who knows what you're gonna say, government,
And the only reason I say Venezuelan torture dungeon is
because wherever socialism is, you will find torture dungeons, period, period.
The government says the incident was a failed assassination attempt
planned by Columbia, the United States, and the Venezuelan opposition,
(20:22):
involving drones carrying explosives. Colombia, the United States, and the
opposition have denied any involvement in this and other plots
alleged by the Venezuelan government. Leaving the hearing and the
judgment of je Requisends, who was sentenced eight years for
the crime of conspiracy, his lawyer said Joel Garcia tweeted
(20:44):
on Thursday morning, without giving further details. Seventeen people were
convicted on Thursday morning, Attorney General Trek Sob said in
a statement on state television without naming them. Twelve of
the seventeen people were sentenced to thirty years for crime
such as murder and treason. Sob said five of the
accused were sentenced to terms of twenty four, twenty and sixteen,
(21:08):
eight and five years, respectively, for terrorism and conspiracy. Opposition
late leader Guerardo condemned the sentencing for requisnds on Twitter
the dictatorship kidnapped him and kept him deprived of his
liberty and his persecution mechanism against a whole society. The
(21:31):
family of National Guard General Hector Hernandez da Costa, who
was arrested in twenty eighteen, said he was sentenced to
sixteen years in the same case. He is innocent, the
family added, so there we go with that. Oh here
it is sorry. So you know, if we talk about
(21:56):
this store, this series of stories, here, this idea, the
uh and if we want to think about it practically,
like what you know, these if if these things are
coming our way, if they haven't already been here. You know,
what can we do to prepare? Well, we can't educate
(22:17):
our people. It's it's clear that the education system has failed.
And I just look around YouTube and it's quite clear.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
So the.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
You know, Jefferson said that in order to keep a democracy,
you have to have an ethical and informed population.
Speaker 3 (22:40):
So we have neither.
Speaker 2 (22:41):
We don't have an ethical population generally speaking in my opinion,
and we don't have an informed, uh population. Then our
news for the most part is lies, like they're not
even trying to lie anymore. Like Democrats come out and
they say, hey, Kamala Harris is gonna be your uh,
your nominee even though no one nominated her. She didn't
(23:05):
get she may have got like one delegate the last
time that she ran for president, Like no one elected her,
no one nominated her, but they're like, hey, let's go,
She's gonna be our dude. And like the second that
had here's the wild coordination. Right the second that happened,
news stories and stuff just started getting deleted offline like no, no, no, oh,
(23:26):
no fact check negative, Kamala Harris was not the borders
are Meanwhile, flash backwards to Axios in twenty twenty and
they're like Kamala Harris is gonna be the best border
zar in the world. So it's like we can't fix that.
Like that's done and over and over with, Like we're doomed.
(23:48):
We're fucking doomed. But the things that we can kind
of prepare for, right and this is the stuff that
I've been talking about, you know for a while. Now,
you know it's time to be the first sergeant of
your house. You know, get the beans, get the bullets,
and get the band aids and fucking get ready to go.
And the reason I'm kind of talking, I'm doing my
(24:10):
little prepper message right here is because in twenty sixteen,
Venezuela had a food in healthcare shortages that became widespread.
And yeah, Independent dot co dot uk, so the Sky
(24:32):
News and UK News usually tells a straighter story. Then
you get here, So Venezuela crisis. Zoo animals stolen and
eaten amid food shortages. Scores of animals also died from
starvation at a zoo in June. This is Gabriel Samuels, Thursday,
(24:53):
seventeen August twenty seventeen. So imagine becoming so fucking hungry
you're raiding your zoo to fucking eat animals. That's the
gist of that. That's what this whole article is about.
But well, you know, for those of you who crave nuance,
we'll get into it a little bit. Zoo animals in
(25:13):
Venezuela are being stolen and eaten as the country sinks
further into food food storage shortage crisis.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Local police have said.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
The Zuela Metropolitan Zoological Park in the city of marik
Caabbio reported that more than ten species of animals had
gone missing from the facility in recent weeks. Officers said
that they presume the buffalos the tapiers. I believe tapiers
is like a pig, like a special kind of pay.
(25:48):
I think colored pecieries small pig like animals. Okay, well
maybe those things are pig like animals had been stolen
for food. Leonard Noonez, the head of the zoo, said
(26:11):
that he believed the animals had been stolen by drug
dealers who later sold them on the black market. They
take everything here, he told local reporters. The end of July,
it was reported that up to fifty animals had starved
to death at the zoo in Caracas this year. Because
they had not eaten four weeks. Staff reportedly fed mangoes
(26:31):
and pumpkins to the lions and the tigers and the
zoo to make up for reduced meat rations. The elephants
were fed with tropical fruit rather than the usual diet
of hay. Meanwhile, their usual diet of hay. They couldn't
afford hey to feed the fucking elephants. It's got to
be a lot of hay, That's all I'm saying. Meanwhile,
(26:52):
Venezuelans are believed to be regularly skipping meals, waiting in
lines at supermarkets for hours as food stocks continue to dwindle.
And June, more than four hundred people were arrested after
looters and rioters ran through scores of shops and markets
in the capital city stealing food. Three and four Venezuelan
(27:14):
citizens reports suffering involuntary weight loss due to the shortages,
and have lost an average of nineteen pounds according to
a recent report. President Maduro, who took over from Hugo
Chavez after his death in twenty thirteen, has blamed the
country's woes on an economic war waged by local opposition
(27:35):
leaders and of course, the USA. Many of the Venezuelans
have resorted to traveling over the border with Colombia to
buy basic supplies. So I want to just talk here
a little bit about food storage, and don't I don't
have a sponsor, I don't have a link as far
(27:56):
as food storage is concerned, emergency food storage, you know,
I you know.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
I'm not. This is not a commercial.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
What I'm saying is when you look at this story,
this history, what's going down.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
You know, in Venezuela over the less.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
You know, since the nineteen ninety seven's, and imagine being
that situation. Imagine your family's in that situation, and you're
supposed to be looking after your family, and your family's
in a situation where there's all these food shortages.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
And you're stuck.
Speaker 2 (28:37):
You're stuck looting and rioting and stealing fucking pigs from
a zoo to fucking feed your family. So what I
propose is, I propose, if you guys haven't done this already,
you should think about, you know, getting some emergency food storage.
So I, you know, without getting too far into all
(28:59):
my ship that I have going on, you know, I
have a multi layered emergency food program. You know, I
have commercially bought emergency food. I have a box of mrs.
I have packs of like lifeboat food.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
I have more Ramen noodles and you could shake a
stick at They were given to me by a friend
of mine and she was like, oh, you're prepping here,
take all this fucking Ramen noodles. But uh, you know,
the food, the emergency food buckets that everyone that they have,
like the commercial ones are pretty expensive. They're way outside
(29:40):
my price point for the speed in which I wanted
to accumulate these things.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
Right, So.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
I did a little bit of research about long term
food storage, uh, you know, and I just start building
my own buckets. I started building my own food storage buckets.
I built four of them at a time. Scroll them away.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
They're there. They will last for.
Speaker 2 (30:02):
At least twenty five years, you know. And I don't
want to turn this whole episode into like long term
food storage porn.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
I don't know. Maybe I could.
Speaker 2 (30:20):
Publish my packing list on the website or something like
get the idea of what is in the bucket.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
If you guys are interested in that, just hit shoot me,
hit me up annoyingly. So my website has a chat
feature on it, so you can just reach out to
me there it's very bizarre, or shoot me an email,
whatever you guys want. And if you're interested in the
packing list or some reference material or information on these
(30:51):
food buckets that I'm making, I mean they're pretty sweet.
Like I got like boxes of like old style military
can openers, so like that, and a chem light taped
in each one, an inventory packing list what you could
do with all of the ingredients that are in the bucket,
because that's the main difference, right, It's not like vacuum packed, sealed,
(31:11):
dehydrated food that all you have to do is add
water and cook it.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
It's not like that.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
It's you know, two pounds of rice and beans and whatever,
so you have a little bit of agility what you
could do with them. There's enough stuff to make like
a little loaf of bread in each bucket. Each bucket
generally should last two people a week. And it's not
I mean, you're not gonna get It's not like living
(31:40):
high on the hog. It's like what the basics, like,
you have something, you got something. So anyhow, if you're
interested in the in more information about you know, these
kind of homemade ghetto wise long term food storage buckets.
Speaker 3 (31:54):
Hit me up and I'll make them available.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
If there's enough put, if there's enough request, I'll I'll
do whatever. Anyhow, let's get back to Venezuela. How Venezuela
went from the richest economy in South America to the
brink of financial ruin? And this again is the independent
(32:18):
soaring crime, hyperinflation, foods soaring crime, check hyperinflation, check food
storage check shortage God Freudian fuck, food shortages check. Established
democracies are not supposed to implode like this. How did
post Chavez Venezuela go from the richest economy in South
(32:41):
America to the brink of social and financial room? Max
Fisher and Amanda Taub, twenty one May twenty seventeen. Look,
Hugo Chaves is fat. They're always like that. I'll let
them eat cake. That's kind of situation. Venezuela, by the numbers,
(33:02):
resembles a country hit by civil war. Its economy, once
Latin America's richest is estimated to have shrunk by ten
percent last year.
Speaker 3 (33:12):
Ten percent shrinkage in a year. We're gonna see that,
we are going to go through this.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
They just keep printing this money, and that's what's happening
worse even than serious GDP shrank by nineteen percent. South America.
South America. The South America country is the world's worst
inflation at more than seven hundred percent. Is what happens
when you give everyone free higher education, nearly double that
(33:47):
of the second Sorry about that, we're second ranked South Sudian,
rendering its currency almost worthless. In a country with the
world's largest proven oil reserves, food has grown so scarce
that three four citizens report involuntary weight loss, averaging nineteen
pounds a year.
Speaker 3 (34:04):
We already know this.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
City streets are marked by black markets and violence. The
last reported murder rate in twenty fourteen was equivalent to
the civilian casualty rate in two thousand and four. Iraq
It's democracy, long a point of pride, became the oldest
(34:28):
to collapse into authoritariat authoritarianism since.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
World War Two.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
Power grabs, most recent to replace the constitution have led
to protests and crackdowns that have killed dozens just this month.
Established democracies are not supposed to implode like this. Stephen Levinsky,
a Harvard University political scientists, says Venezuela is one of
only four or five. Ever, among those, none was as
(34:58):
wealthy or fell so far. In most cases, says the
regime quits before it gets this bad. Venezuelan crisis came
through a series of steps whose progression is clear in retrospect,
and some of which initially proved popular. The two party
establishment is ready to break a democracy founding in nineteen
(35:22):
fifty eight, the country's three leading parties later narrowed to
agreed to share power amongst themselves in oil revenue among
their constituents. They're pack meant to preserve democracy came to
dominate it. Party elites packed candidates. Or sorry, party elites
(35:43):
picked candidates. While we're seeing that, I actually have a
whole episode coming up on the American coup that's happened,
we've actually experienced. Well now we're in the middle of
our second one and interested in that. But both have
to do with this sentence. Party elites picked candidates and
blocked outsiders, making political politics less responsive. The agreement to
(36:08):
share wealth fostered corruption. Economic shocks in the nineteen eighties
led many Venezuelans to conclude the system was rigged against them.
In nineteen ninety two, leftist military officers, led by Lieutenant
Colonel Hugo Chavez, attempted a coup. They failed and were
in prison. Their anti establishment message resonated, catapulting Chavez to stardom.
(36:36):
The government in instituted a series of reforms that were
intended to save the two party system, but that may
have doomed it. A loosening of the election laws allowed
outside parties to break in the president Free Free Chavez,
hoping to demonstrate tolerance, but the economy worsened in Javes
(36:57):
run for president in nineteen ninety eight, and is populous
message of returning to power to the people won him victory. Populism.
Hold on, before we get to this next part. I
gotta just do this.
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I'm sorry. I apologize.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
See in the last couple episodes on my rant against
these incessant.
Speaker 3 (37:18):
Fucking commercial brains. I hate him. It gives me time
to do this. I don't just mean food.
Speaker 2 (38:11):
I mean you should have like a like a military
style like storage crate full of kitchen stuff and bathroom
stuff and water, another one with water purification stuff, and
another one with rawm and noodles. Apparently, you should have
a pioneer box in your basement and in your shed
filled with chainsaws and circular saws and uh all shovels,
(38:40):
pride bars. You know you should be thinking about all
this stuff. You know now, I'm afraid, dear listeners, that
if you don't, you know, you're you or your family
might be the ones rioting and looting and fucking stealing
pigs from a zoo and all that is not it's
(39:01):
not necessary with just a little bit of foresight. And
you know here that like prepping and stuff is getting mainstream.
And I hope that's true. I hope I am preaching
to the choir. I hope I am preaching to the choir.
Al right, back to this Populism's unwinnable war with the state.
(39:21):
Despite Chavez's victories, the two parties still dominated government institutions,
which he saw as antagonists or even potential threats. He
passed a new constitution and purged government jobs. Some moves
were broadly popular, like judicial reforms and reduced corruption. Others,
(39:43):
like abolishing the legislature's upper house, seemed to have a
broader aim. He was reducing potential checks on his authority,
he says John Carry, a Dartmouth College political scientist, beneath
the revolutionary language was pretty savvy institutionally engineering. Distrust of
(40:07):
institutions often led populists who see themselves as the people's
true champion the consolidated power, but institutions some sometimes resist,
leading tit for tat conflicts that could weaken both sides.
Even before the economic crisis, you have two things that
(40:27):
political scientists all agree are the least sustainable basis for power,
personalism and petroleum, Levitsky says, referring to the style of
government that consolidates power under one single leader. When members
of the business and political establishment obtained to a series
(40:51):
of executive decrees in twenty two thousand and one, Chavez
declared them enemies of the people's a revolution. Because populism
describes a word divided between the righteous people and the
corrupt elite, each round of confrontation, by drawing hard lines
between legitimate and illegitimate points of view, can polarize society.
(41:15):
Supporters and opponents of a leader like Chavez come to
see each other as locked in high state struggle, justifying
extreme action. That sounds familiar, that's ringing a bell. I
can't quite plant. Who escalates conflict beyond ideology. In two
(41:37):
thousand and two, amit an economic downturn. Outrage against Chavez's
policies swelled into protests that threatened to overwhelm the presidential palace.
When he ordered the military to restore order, it instead
arrested him and installed an interim leader. Chavez's foreign policy shifts,
(42:00):
aligning with Cuba and arming Colombian insurgents had angered some
military leaders. His war on the elites turned out to
carry risks. The coup leaders overstep, dissolving the constitution and
the legislature, sparking counter protests that quickly returned to Chavez
to power, but his message of a revolutionary struggle against
(42:24):
internal enemies no longer felt like a metaphor for reducing poverty.
Carrie calls it a hugely polarizing moment that allowed Chavez
to portray the opposition as trying to sell Venezuelan interests.
Out NA supporters now saw politics as a zero sum
battle for survival. Independent institutions came to be seen as
(42:47):
sources of intolerable danger. The licenses of critical media outlets
were suspended when labor unions protested, They were weakened by
blacklists or replaced outright. When the courts challenged Chavez, he
gutted them, suspending unfriendly judges, packing the Supreme Court with loyalists,
(43:12):
and the result was an intense polarization between two segments
of society who now saw each other as existential threats,
destroying any possibility of compromise.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
So when you see like well known.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Figures or I don't know whatever talking about like, you know,
totally egged on by like the Civil War movie that
just came out and all this stuff, and they're like,
you know, America can never be can never get to this,
And I'm here to tell you, you know, I think
that you're wrong.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
I think that you're wrong.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
When I saw that they attempted to assassinate Trump, I
yelled up to my wife, I'm like, they just tried
to fucking kill Trump, and she ran down the stairs
and we got the sort of news that it was
just a graze, and you know, he stood up and
did his fight fight fight bit, which was all fucking
(44:07):
a no, phenomenal, amazing political theater. In the face of
almost getting your fucking head blown off, I cannot believe
that fucking guy did that. Anyhow, The first thing that
I said to her after like kind of sunk in.
I was like, if they would have killed him, we
would be living in a different world. America current year
(44:31):
would be radically different pre Trump assassination, post Trump assassination.
I don't I can't even wrap my head around what
it would look like, but I know it would be
a seismic shift, probably something that we've never seen in
the world, in the fucking probably in the world. I'm
(44:54):
not even talking local news, bitch like turn off NBC.
I'm talking about the fucking world. That's what I'm talking about.
Two point five guns in this country for every person.
(45:19):
Think about that. Oh my god, I've been yapping too much.
I'm so far behind. Shortly after the coup, Chavez faced
another battle that would prove just as faithful. Workers want
on strike in the state run oil firm Petroleo City
(45:39):
of Venezuela, which he had long denounced first association with
business elites in the United States. The strike threatened to
destroy the economy and Chavez's presidency, but it also presented
an opportunity to stave off another uprising. After the strike collapse,
(46:00):
he fired eighteen thousand PDVSA workers, many of them skilled
technicians and managers and replaced them with some one hundred
thousand supporters. Much of the firms operating budget was diverted
into programs for Chavez's political base, payoffs for government cronies,
and subsidies to keep his promises of affordable food. In
(46:27):
twenty eleven, five hundred million dollars from PDVSA pension fund
found its way into a pyramid scheme run by government
linked finance seers, none of whom faced prosecution. After running
on smashing the corrupt elite, Chavez had merely established his
own an oil company, PDVSA was ruined. Production dropped despite
(46:52):
a global boom in oil prices, the injury rate measuring
in lost man hours more than triple than twenty twelve.
A refinery explos loaded and killing at least forty and
causing one point seven billion in damage, suggesting that even
maintenance budgets had been siphoned off, its cash reserves depleted,
(47:14):
and development projects stalled. PDVSA and by extension, the Venezuelan economy,
was left without a cushion when oil prices dropped in
twenty fourteen, Chavez set up Venezuela not just for an
economic collapse, but also a political crisis. If his supporters
(47:36):
relied on oil fueled patronage, what would happen when that
money ran out? In twenty twenty two. Two thousand and
two coup taught Chavez that in the twenty the two
thousand and two taught Chavez that an alliance of convenience
with unarmed groups such as the collectivos would help him
(47:58):
control the streets where protests has protesters had almost brought
him down. The collectivos, with funneled money and arms from
the state, became political enforcers. Protesters learned to fear these men,
who arrived on Chinese made motorcycles to disperse them, often lethally.
(48:20):
They collectivos grew in power, challenging the police for control.
In two thousand and five, they expelled the police from
a region of Caracas, the capital, that had tens of
thousands of residents. Though the government never officially approved such violence,
it publicly praised collectivos, granting them tacit impunity. Many exploited
(48:44):
this freedom to participate in organized crime. Alejandro Velasco, a
New York University professor who studied the Collectivos, said that
a group were later joined by criminal opportunists who learned
that aiding a little ideology to their operations could win
them impunity. Criminal and lawlessness flourished, spiked, spiking murder rates.
(49:08):
President Nicholas Maduro, who took power then Chavez died in
twenty thirteen, inherited an economy that was in shambles and attenue,
with support among elites and the public. In desperation, he
parceled out patronage the military, with which he had less
sway than his predecessors, got control of the lucrative drug
(49:31):
and food trades, as well as gold mining. Unable to
pay for subsidies in welfare programs, Maduro printed more money.
Sound familiar. You know we're sending like eight eighty million
fucking dollars the Taliban every week.
Speaker 3 (49:49):
Can you fucking believe?
Speaker 2 (49:56):
Unable to I'm gonna restart, I'm sorry. Unable to pay
for subsidy, he's in welfare programs. Maduro printed more money.
When this drove up inflation, making basic goods unaffordable, he
instituted price controls and fixed the currency exchange rate. So
this is funny because in my own little world right now,
(50:18):
I'm seeing this, not the inflation Jesus, of course I'm
seeing that. But right now, because because I live in
Pittsburgh or Pennsylvania, I get campaign commercials constantly blasting into
(50:41):
my face. And one of them is his Democrat named
Bob Casey, who's a big Biden guy.
Speaker 3 (50:46):
He voted with.
Speaker 2 (50:49):
Biden ninety nine percent of the time or something like that.
And right now, his campaign commercials, his campaign ads, are
him going, you know, I'm gonna go after the cereal
companies because they're making cereals smaller. I'm putting them in
smaller boxes. I'm really gonna go after these companies that
(51:13):
are charging you more money because they can't afford gasoline.
This made when's the last time you filled up your
taking gas?
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Bob Casey? Like, fuck? What are you? Fuck? Are you
even talking about?
Speaker 2 (51:31):
I'm going after big food because they're charging you more
money because they can't afford anything. Oh my god, I
mean I'm not even halfway done with this.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Damn it.
Speaker 2 (51:53):
This made many imports prohibitively expensive. Business shut down, Maduro
printed more and more money, and inflation grew and grew again.
Food became scarce, unrest deepened, and Maduro's survival grew more
contingent on handouts he could not afford. The cycle destroyed
Venezuela's economy. It also worsened street violence, with government stores, empty,
(52:19):
black markets, mushroom collectivos less reliant on government support, took
command of the informal economy in some areas, and they
drew more violent and harder to rein it in. Maduro
tried to restore order in twenty fifteen, deploy this is
a great way to destroy. He deployed heavily armed police
(52:41):
and military units, but the operation became blood baths. Velasco
says many officers turned criminally to turn to criminality themselves.
Political the political system, after years of erosion, had become
a hybrid of democratic and authoritarian and features huh hu,
(53:05):
a highly unstable mix, and internal rules can shift day
to day. Rival power centers compete fiercely for control. Such
systems have proved far likelier to experience to experience a
coup or a collapse. Maduro has struggled as leaders of
the hybrid systems, often due to his control without Chavez.
(53:30):
Without Chavez's personal connections or deep pockets, he had little
leverage with the authoritarian element dominated by political and military elites.
Because he is deeply unpopular, his hold over the democratic
institutions may be even weaker. And this is this paragraph
right there leads right into current events. It leads right
(53:52):
into what's going on in Venezuela today. Sal After opposition
groups one control of the legislature in twenty fifteen, tensions
between those two systems exploded into outright conflict. The Supreme Court,
stacked with loyalists, briefly sought to dissolve the legislature's power.
(54:14):
This month, Maduro said he might seek a new constitution. Huh,
you know that. We hear that all the time. You know,
our constitution is a dead docum. It's it's a living document.
Venezuela's paradox, Leviski says, is that the government is too
authoritarian to coexist with democratic institutions, but too weak to
(54:40):
abolish them without risking collapse.
Speaker 3 (54:42):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (54:45):
Is applicable today to the US as well. Protesters have
spilled into the streets but appear deadlocked with security forces
and collectivos. Francisco Toro of Venezuelan political scientists says it
is un clear whose side the military would take if
called to intervene with neither side able to exert control,
(55:08):
little in the way of an economy or public order
to take over, and a political system seemingly unable to
break or bend to Venezuela has brought itself from wealth
and democracy to the brink of collapse. And I'm John
Towers and this has been the Abercast. Think about some
(55:29):
long term food storage guys, get do the be the
first sergeant for your house. Buy some bullets and buy
some beans, and buy some bandages.
Speaker 1 (55:56):
Are you interested in the conspiracy and violators?
Speaker 4 (56:03):
Learn more at aprocast dot com and visit the storefront
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Speaker 3 (56:08):
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Speaker 4 (56:14):
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