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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Venezuela’s Military Attempts to Fight Back

Venezuela’s Military Attempts to Fight Back

by | 125 Comments

This post is in: ,

https://twitter.com/Conflicts/status/894225533373992960

The BBC has the details.

Arrests have been made in Venezuela after soldiers tried to launch an uprising against President Maduro, officials say.

The ruling Socialist Party’s deputy leader, Diosdado Cabello, called it a “terrorist attack” on Twitter.

It happened in Valencia in Carabobo state in the north-west of the country.

A video released on social media showed uniformed men saying they were rising against a “murderous tyranny”. Venezuela has seen months of protests.

“This is not a coup but a military and civil action to re-establish constitutional order,” said the leader, who gave his name as Juan Caguaripano.

Mr Cabello said full control had been restored at the Fuerte Paramacay military barracks.

A commanding chief of the armed forces, Remigio Ceballos, tweeted that seven people had been arrested.

Earlier, gunfire was reported on social media. Others said they heard the sound of loud patriotic singing at the military base.

In his short speech, Caguaripano said that his group – which he called the 41st Brigade – was standing against the “murderous tyranny of President Nicolás Maduro”.

This is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Luisa Ortega, the Chief Prosecutor who broke with Maduro, has now been replaced.

Venezuela’s new constituent assembly has dismissed Chief Prosecutor Luisa Ortega, during its first day of work.

Ms Ortega, a vocal critic of left-wing President Nicolás Maduro, had opposed the assembly’s inauguration on Friday, citing allegations of voting fraud.

Earlier, security forces had surrounded her office in the capital Caracas, preventing her from entering.

Dozens of National Guard officers in riot gear had taken up position around her office. Sharing pictures of the scene, she tweeted: “I denounce this arbitrary act before the national and international community.”

She told reporters that the authorities were trying to hide evidence of corruption and human rights abuses. She added that she would now work to “recover liberty for Venezuela, because we’ve lost it”.

Moreover, Venezuela’s forced isolation is increasing.

South American trade bloc Mercosur suspended Venezuela indefinitely on Saturday, adding more international pressure on President Nicolas Maduro to dismantle a newly created pro-government constituent assembly and restore democracy.

Foreign ministers of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil announced the decision in Sao Paulo, urging Maduro to release prisoners and immediately start a political transition.

“We are saying: Stop with this! Enough with the deaths, enough with the repression. It is not possible to inflict such torture on the people,” Brazilian Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes said after the meeting.

As the suspension was announced, the constituent assembly removed dissident state prosecutor Luisa Ortega from her job. Asked to comment on Ortega’s dismissal, Nunes replied with a Latin proverb: “Whom the gods would destroy they first drive mad.”

The Mercosur suspension will not affect trade and migration policies to avoid worsening the humanitarian crisis, Nunes said. “Venezuelans who want to come to Brazil will be welcome.”

It is unclear at this time how Maduro’s consolidation of power will turn out. Venezuelans have been suffering from crippling shortages resulting from poor government and governance dating back before Chavez’s presidency. Maduro may be able to crack down and hold on, especially if he can keep the military, security/intel services, law enforcement, and the courts on his side. But, as we’ve seen with today’s events, he doesn’t have uniform support in all of those. As is almost always the case things are likely to get worse before they get better and Venezuela is likely to go through a set of iterative attempts to resolve it’s problems. This will be punctuated with successive governments/leaders inability to deliver on their promises, stagnation, backsliding, and then new attempts, often preceded by violence, to move things forward.

If you’re looking for a problem set close to home in the US, Venezuela is it. There will be refugees and they’re going to go somewhere, including, potentially, the US seeking shelter and a better life. There will be an ongoing humanitarian crisis. One good hurricane or other disaster – natural or man made – is going to make everything exponentially worse. Now ask yourself: is the US in 2017 prepared to deal with this type of ongoing crisis so close to home? Especially if/when Maduro goes to the old fall back that any military push back is being organized in Washington, DC.

Reader Interactions

125Comments

  1. 1.

    Karen

    I have been watching what has been going on for some time; the same peoples end up paying the price in the long run, the innocents, the poor, those who will pay with lives for the games that the rich and powerful play.
    This is the real life, on going “Game of Thrones”

  2. 2.

    ? ?? Goku (aka The Hope of the Universe) ? ?

    Now ask yourself: is the US in 2017 prepared to deal with this type of ongoing crisis so close to home? Especially if/when Maduro goes to the old fall back that any military push back is being organized in Washington, DC.

    No I don’t. And TBF, we do have a long history of “regime change” when events don’t go our way in the Western Hemisphere.

    I feel most sorry for ordinary Venezuelans. They’ve suffered for years under incompetent and corrupt leadership. It doesn’t seem fair for people to live their entire lives under such discord.

    I fear that this will be the ultimate fate of the United States. As selfish as this might sound, I hate Trump and the rest of them for trying to ruin my life by causing all of this destabilizing craziness. I’ll never forgive him or the GOP. They both need to be destroyed.

  3. 3.

    NotMax

    Old enough to remember when the nations of south and central America were jocularly referred to as the long-playing countries.

    33-1/3 revolutions per minute.

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Karen: Revolutions are messy. Rarely are they bottom up affairs. Rather they are fights between elites and semi-elites that seek to mobilize those below them to do their dirty work. The people that almost always lose during a revolution are not the people at the top or close to it. Remember that when you see and hear American political figures and pundits calling for various types of revolutions. And why those whose behalf they are claiming to be acting for aren’t always particularly supportive. Or interested.

  6. 6.

    Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA

    …is the US in 2017 prepared to deal with this type of ongoing crisis so close to home?

    No.

    So yeah, if everyone could just hit the pause button on their crises until we get a more functional government in place here at home, that’d be great.

  8. 8.

    droog

    The ruling Socialist Party’s deputy leader, Diosdado Cabello, called it a “terrorist attack”

    “Diosdado Cabello” literally translates as “Godgiven Hair”.

    Whoever named this man is the real terrorist.

  9. 9.

    NotMax

    Note the qualifier (emphasis mine) chosen by Reuters.

    Venezuelan authorities suppressed a small rebellion at a military base near the city of Valencia on Sunday, arresting seven men who they say participated in a “terrorist attack” against the government of unpopular leftist President Nicolas Maduro. Source

    As Adam opined, right on schedule (from the same link):

    Authorities said the men were mercenaries working for a U.S.-backed opposition to bring down nearly two decades of Socialism in oil-rich Venezuela, raising the specter of a further government crackdown on dissent in coming days.

    “These attacks, planned by delirious minds in Miami, only strengthen the morale of our armed forces and the Bolivarian people,” said Socialist Party official Elias Jaua.

  12. 12.

    NotMax

    OT:

    Now that was weird. A few minutes after eight a.m. here in the Aloha State, and just received a phone call with a fundraising recording. In Hebrew.

  14. 14.

    ? Martin

    I notice that we’ve been quick to put on sanctions but didn’t mind creating this situation to further our own national interests. The single biggest problem in Venezuela is that oil is most of their GDP. When oil prices were high, they felt rich and spent as if they were rich. When oil prices plummeted, they descended into a cycle of hyperinflation – which commonly affects any nation who is similarly dependent on a single industry. Saudi Arabia is currently burning through cash to avoid the same fate, as are a number of oil-dependent nations.

    This is largely a consequence of the US fracking boom, which lowered the price of extraction of hard to reach reserves expanding both the actively tapped global reserves as well as the potential global reserves. Expanding supply for commodity goods has the perfectly predictable result of lowering prices. in a relatively inelastic market like energy, those prices can drop a LOT. This of course is good for the US. US companies benefit, gas prices fall, the US can export rather than import. But the consequence of this could be seen a mile away, and it doesn’t appear Congress did much of anything to help mitigate some of these outcomes. Of course they’ll yell and scream about the collapse of democratic institutions, and bemoan the state of Venezuelan workers, but a few changes at home could have helped blunt that outcome, not the least of which was to temper the rate of fracking expansion both around environmental concerns but also to keep from shocking the market quite so badly. We wanted a shock in oil prices. We wanted those gulf states to lose some of their income because that’s where a fair bit of extremist funding was coming from. We wanted Iran back in the marketplace to put economic pressure on Saudi Arabia and their neighbors. And we wanted the domestic economic boost. None of these are bad things, but we should also have seen the consequence this would have on less rich countries elsewhere and done more to help ease them into this. Granted, Chavez wasn’t one to listen, but I can’t imagine revolution was our desired outcome. Revolution won’t stop their economic freefall – it only makes it worse, and that only pressures the country to adopt a less democratic (which is slower moving) stance than a less authoritarian one.

  16. 16.

    MattF

    From what I’ve read, the likely next step is civil war. US journalists will look for a ‘side’ of the prospective conflict that’s familiar and fits the good-guys vs. bad-guys narrative– but there may not actually be such a one. The Chavezistas are authoritarians, but that doesn’t mean that their opponents are democrats. So, beware.

  17. 17.

    Karen

    @Adam L Silverman: I know that, Adam, I have been reading and studying history for years. My Dad had me read about Cuba and the revolution there since I was just barely to point where could hold a political discussion. We talked about it as it happened, we also talked about who would really pay the price.
    In any revolution it is those whose lives are lived on edge of survival the pay the price; every time some suggests that a revolution is what is needed in US I want to shake them and tell them read about the poor people in Cuba, read about any well documented revolution. Nearly, every revolution I have studied those who come to power after the government has been overthrown end up being much worse; if there have been exceptions I don’t remember them.
    The biggest difference between the revolutions that took place before is that now the land can be totally destroyed so that it can’t even produce weeds much less food.

  20. 20.

    Chris

    @MattF:

    The American opinionmakers will rally to the anti-Chavista side and tell us they’re restoring democracy and prosperity regardless of what they do. Count on it.

  21. 21.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    My Hebrew is much rustier than the Titanic, plus didn’t listen long enough for much detail before hanging up. It’s the 8 a.m. interruption I rail against more than whatever the pitch was.

    BTW, if you didn’t see it, thought you might get a passing grin out of this from the other day.

  23. 23.

    Karen

    @? Martin: Sanctions always bother me, since those who pay the real price are those who can least afford it; then there is the nasty habit humans have of doing the opposite of what they are pushed to do. So you aren’t going to supply such and such; the rich and powerful will find away around that and continue as they please while the poor will be left with even less.

  24. 24.

    smintheus

    An older relative just married a much younger Venezuelan woman whom he barely knows. It seems like she might be looking for an avenue of escape. But then I heard from this relative that she won’t be able to move to the US for at least another year, for reasons he hasn’t specified.

  25. 25.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Colonels’ Coups don’t ever turn out good for anybody. This looks like a bunch of junior officers and youngish NCOs.

  28. 28.

    smintheus

    @MattF:

    US journalists will look for a ‘side’ of the prospective conflict that’s familiar and fits the good-guys vs. bad-guys narrative– but there may not actually be such a one.

    Plus, Howard Cosell is no longer around to provide color commentary.

  29. 29.

    NotMax

    @Iowa Old Lady

    Always experience a several nonosecond pause while the mental Rolodex flips to the correct card when come across the word sanction.

    One of those screwy words in English (another is cleave) which has two meanings, each of which is the opposite of the other.

  30. 30.

    FlipYrWhig

    @germy: That’s why she was paid to attend? To be a free lancing oppositional unofficial diplomat? How TF is that supposed to work? Gah.

  32. 32.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @? Martin:

    Extraction-based economies are extremely brittle when the price drops below a tipping point. The Persian Gulf states at least seem to recognize that some symbols of shared prosperity meet to be spread about so that when prices drop, there is not a sense of excessive suffering. In the plundering oligarchies (no matter whether left or right – Russia, Venezuela, Texas come to mind), sustained low prices make life miserable for the lower classes.

  34. 34.

    NotMax

    @germy

    Rough translation of the Russian response:

    “Thanks for the advice. That and a kopek will get you a streetcar token.”

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    @MattF:

    .From what I’ve read, the likely next step is civil war. US journalists will look for a ‘side’ of the prospective conflict that’s familiar and fits the good-guys vs. bad-guys narrative– but there may not actually be such a one. The Chavezistas are authoritarians, but that doesn’t mean that their opponents are democrats.

    This is true. Chavez probably cared for the people, but his economic policies were often misguided, and imploded when oil prices dropped.

    However, on the opposite side is a small, rigidly blind upper and upper middle class which only cares about its own narrow interests. When you get down to it, there doesn’t appear to be anyone who actually believes in democracy.

    The military may be able to restore order, but the deeper social problems will persist.

  36. 36.

    hellslittlestangel

    Now ask yourself: is the US in 2017 prepared to deal with this type of ongoing crisis so close to home?

    The Orange Better One [to a trusted adviser whoever happens to be nearby]: So we can go in and take their oil, right?

  37. 37.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @MattF:

    There was always a fair record of relative success and some level of overall stability when undertaken at the flag level in Turkey, Southeast Asia and Egypt – places where the military is viewed as less corrupt than civilian leaders.

  38. 38.

    NotMax

    @hellslittlestangel

    Small satisfaction but we can be thankful it didn’t happen in Colombia, else Dolt 45’s beyond Zeus-like wisdom would already have troops massing in New Jersey.

    (Yes, aware it is pronounced differently. Chalk it up as comedic license.)

  39. 39.

    Karen

    @Iowa Old Lady: But the backlash affected adoptions, and in the long run I suspect simply caused the people that were suppose to be sanctioned to put a layer or two in place and continue on.

  41. 41.

    Karen

    @NotMax: It is words like sanction, cleave along with their, there, and they’re that make learning US english so hard for people. When I see people holding up signs about speaking “English” if you live in US am amused at how many of those signs have misspelled words, they expect from others what they can not themselves manage.

  42. 42.

    ? Martin

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: And another aspect of extraction based economies is that there is a virtuous feedback loop among the consumers of those commodities to stop using your good. That is, if you can do the same job with less of the thing you’re selling, everyone benefits except for you. If you can do the job with none of the thing you’re selling, everyone but you benefits even more.

    In short, everyone on earth is trying to eliminate the thing your economy is dependent on, not because they dislike you, but because it makes their lives better. As such, even if your behavior on the world stage is exemplary, they still want to take you down. If your behavior is deplorable, they just want to do it faster. Your best bet isn’t to showcase how awesome your extracted resource is (which is what they ALWAYS do – see West Virginia), your best bet is to figure out how to do without it so you can sell that thing instead (see also West Virginia for how to get it wrong and destroy your own economy.)

  43. 43.

    MattF

    @NotMax: Oddly enough, this weird phenomenon was the theme of last Wednesday’s NYT crossword puzzle. There’s a NYT blog, ‘Wordplay’, that has a daily commentary on the crossword, and the entry for that day is here. I tend to doubt that this is just an ‘English’ thing, but who knows? I guess it’s possibly more likely in English, since English has derived words from an unusually large set of sources, not all of them consistent with each other.

  44. 44.

    NotMax

    @Karen

    ‘Twas ever thus. There’s a news photo* from an anti-school integration march in Hattiesburg, MS back in January 1970 which pictures a number of sign-carrying parents and students. One sign reads: You’r Last Chance To Unite.

    *AP photo, if memory serves

  46. 46.

    Baud

    Somewhat OT, but I just read today that one of the main issues in Norway’s upcoming election is that the lefty challenger is saying that the current righty government is withdrawing too much money from their sovereign wealth fund in response to low oil prices, and he or she wants to raise taxes on the rich instead.

  47. 47.

    Villago Delenda Est

    I should hope that we are seeing, right now, the farthest extent of “military push-back” in the United States: Kelly and McMaster reining in the crazies.

  48. 48.

    CarolDuhart2

    @? Martin: You said it so well. The need is for economic diversification and upgrading of skills. But Socialism hates the lower middle class entrepreneurs that make economic diversity possible because all business is suspect and because businesspeople aren’t all that likely to be rigid believers in ideology.

  50. 50.

    Tokyokie

    @smintheus: The unspecified reason is the I-130 petition that he has to file with the State Department. In the best of times, this process will take several months; with an administration that has committed itself to limiting legal immigration, my guess is that consular resources have been redirected and that the process has been intentionally made more lengthy. And that’s assuming that the new spouse is from a functional civil society, which she isn’t. Many of the documents that are needed to support the I-130 position, such as the criminal background check from Venezuela’s national security agency, are going to be incredibly difficult to obtain in this environment. The I-129F process for a nonimmigrant fiancée has traditionally been less cumbersome, but I’m not sure whether that’s the case any longer, and besides, by marrying her in Venezuela and disclosing that action to State, he’s already foreclosed that option.

  51. 51.

    Stuart Frasier

    @? Martin: Sadly, Cabello’s picture on wikipedia shows that he is balding. Also, it says – Cabello was nicknamed “the octopus” for having “tentacles everywhere”.

  53. 53.

    Karen

    @NotMax: I haven’t heard that phrase in years, then you have to explain to the “youngins” what that even means.

  55. 55.

    Doug R

    Glorious uprising of the patriots or traitorous deep state undercutting elected leaders? I eagerly await Glenn Greenwald’s hot take.

  57. 57.

    NotMax

    @Karen

    Yeah, translation for the ‘young enough to have never licked a stamp’ cohort is often necessary.

    Would that the courtesy extended both ways.

  66. 66.

    Karen

    @NotMax: I had one “young” person tell me that I didn’t know what it was like to rebel; I laughed so hard peed my pants. Some of them appear to believe that the youth of today “invented” some of the sayings on protest signs. I loved the interview with the lady who regretted that she didn’t keep her signs from protests rather than having to make new ones that said the same thing.

  81. 81.

    Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire)

    One good hurricane or other disaster – natural or man made – is going to make everything exponentially worse

    There are a couple of systems in the Atlantic basin as we speak. We will see how they play out.

    I’ll admit I am a bit confused on the goings on in Venezuela- Maduro is clearly not a good guy, but it might very well be that some of his opponents aren’t great, either. I’m on the side of ordinary Venezuelans. They’ve suffers enough.

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    Does anyone else sense the vast difference in coverage of the evil Maduro/Venezuela situation and the well, not-possibly-kosher-but-what’s-a-guy-to-do of similar, if not more extreme actions in Turkey?

    I know, “Consistency is the hobgobblin….”

  87. 87.

    Immanentize

    @Karen: And every version of the now generation’s rebellion seems another step removed from actual personal risk. It’s like the messy part of a revolution will only be fought by volunteer revolutionaries, like our wars.

    One observer of the sixties marveled that what started as the powerful revolutionary call to “turn in, turn on, drop out” was eventually defeated by businesses saying, “Oh yeah? Who needs ya?” which sent many revolutionaries scurrying into graduate MBA programs….

  88. 88.

    Chris

    @Immanentize:

    Actually, what I noticed is how much attention they both got compared with how completely the erosion of democracy in Hungary (and now, I believe Poland) has been ignored.

  90. 90.

    Karen

    @Immanentize: I remember, and when I was still living organic raising own food and small animals someone asked me, “why? it is so much easier to buy all that stuff”

  91. 91.

    Brachiator

    @Adria McDowell (formerly LurkerExtraordinaire): Unfortunately, it’s not easy to identify the “good” ordinary people. From a recent news story…

    . The problems — chronic shortages, pervasive crime, a crumbling economy — should give Venezuelans plenty to commiserate over. You’d think they’d band together in the national interest and sort these issues out. But distrust and even spite for Chavismo on the one hand, and the fear of a return to the rule of economic elites on the other, have made it hard for Venezuelans to come together in their shared discontent.

    “The class difference is obvious,” George Ciccariello-Maher, a political scientist at Drexel University and the author of We Created Chávez: A People’s History of the Venezuelan Revolution, told VICE News. “Yet the concerns raised by opposition protesters are concerns that many Chavistas share. They’ll sympathize with those stated concerns, but they won’t sympathize with #LaSalida.”

    Large numbers of Venezuelans may be more or less critical of president Nicolas Maduro’s government but remain committed to the social vision of his predecessor. They’re more than a bit skeptical of the opposition and its leaders, many of whom supported a brief 2002 coup against Chávez.

    Critics of Maduro’s government quickly realized that if the protests remained confined to the wealthiest neighborhoods — as they largely have — they would only go that far.

    “Middle class protests in middle class areas on middle class themes by middle class people are not a challenge to the Chavista power system,” wrote opposition blogger Francisco Toro. “The only thing that actually threatens the governing clique’s control of the state and its rents, is dissent in its natural base of support.”

    The opposition’s defeated candidate for president, Henrique Capriles, remarked that the protests would fail if they don’t manage to attract “the humble people, the people of the barrios.”

    Ciccariello-Maher said that the opposition “was very proud that they had a demonstration in a poor neighborhood, but really they were just close to one, and it was still a pretty privileged area.” The Chavistas have a strong base, he added, especially among the poor.

    “They’re afraid to lose their benefits, but they’re affected too,” Itanare said of that group. “More Chavistas are moving to the opposition, because you can’t just live on promises. But the opposition needs a more popular leader, someone the Chavistas can identify with.”

    To a certain extent, the protests have attracted Venezuelans from different backgrounds. But the country is nevertheless divided largely along class and geographical lines..

    Have trouble with the standard link format using my dumb smartphone.

    news.vice.com/article/venezuela-s-tug-of-war-class-divide

  92. 92.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Karen:

    Some of them appear to believe that the youth of today “invented” some of the sayings on protest signs.

    Yep.

    @Immanentize:

    And every version of the now generation’s rebellion seems another step removed from actual personal risk. It’s like the messy part of a revolution will only be fought by volunteer revolutionaries, like our wars.

    It’s all cosplay with my generation. The most committed actual lefty I know is trying to make a big push to unionize techies, and all the armchair revolutionaries are mad that he’s ignoring the elephant in the room, which can only be addressed by sitting on your ass and bitching about capitalism over the Internet.

  93. 93.

    NotMax

    @Chris

    EU threatens to kick Poland out after the country demanded Germany pay it huge reparations for WWII amid escalating row
    [snip]
    The EU has condemned Kaczynski’s party for attempting to reform country’s media and judiciary in ways that many consider undemocratic Source

    (caveat: Daily Mail link)

  95. 95.

    sdhays

    Especially if/when Maduro goes to the old fall back that any military push back is being organized in Washington, DC.

    At least this time there will be a strong argument that there can be no “organization” coming out of Washington, DC.

  97. 97.

    Immanentize

    @Chris:
    Poland! Don’t forget Poland!
    Hungary, I agree with you — I think it happened before the EU really saw what that type of threat looked like. But Poland is getting a LOT of attention from the EU which is even threatening expulsion (or sanctions). It’s kinda funny because Poland is so much more West dependent than Hungary, which could easily move back toward Russia. But Poland wants to piss off the EU because, sovereignty!

  98. 98.

    Immanentize

    @Karen: People say that to me all the time about my garden — Don’t you end up spending more for that lettuce you grow than just buying it at the store?

  102. 102.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Immanentize:

    Hungary, which could easily move back toward Russia.

    Slovakia, Romania, and Ukraine (among others) would lose their collective shit if that happened.

  103. 103.

    Immanentize

    @Major Major Major Major: If I date my revolution, it is not really the 60’s but more the punk rejection revolution of the late seventies/earliest eighties that was instantly co-opted by fashion. And of course the war on drugs and the AIDS plague. I guess I am a ‘tween.’

    Woody Allen once quipped that the age of “modern man” stretched from when Nietzsche declared “God is Dead” to when the Beatles released “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.” I always put the end of the revolutionary moment of the 1950’s-60’s with 10 Years After’s song, “I’d Love to Change the World” in 1971.

  105. 105.

    Immanentize

    @Omnes Omnibus: Not Slovakia. The split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia was primarily over whether to modernize political society or maintain the Soviet power structures. That and the fact that Vaclav Havel didn’t want Czechoslovakia to be one of the biggest weapons manufacturers on the planet, but all that industry was in Slovakia (the home of the AK-47 export) and it was just about its only industry. The Soviet power structures and the guns won in Slovakia (Grandfather born near the line between the two — between Brno and Bratislava….)

  108. 108.

    germy

    Sexual intercourse began
    In nineteen sixty-three
    (which was rather late for me) –
    Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban
    And the Beatles’ first LP.

    Up to then there’d only been
    A sort of bargaining,
    A wrangle for the ring,
    A shame that started at sixteen
    And spread to everything.

    Then all at once the quarrel sank:
    Everyone felt the same,
    And every life became
    A brilliant breaking of the bank,
    A quite unlosable game.

    So life was never better than
    In nineteen sixty-three
    (Though just too late for me) –
    Between the end of the “Chatterley” ban
    And the Beatles’ first LP.

    Philip Larkin

  109. 109.

    NotMax

    @germy

    When one of my grandmothers decided she was sufficiently comfortable reading English, the first book she chose was Lady Chatterley’s Lover.

    True story.

  111. 111.

    Karen

    @Immanentize: At this point am renting a place, so hocked my wedding rings for pots and soil, “wasted” money on seeds, I have enough to grow tomatoes, snow peas and summer squash. I also have an indoor grow light so do spinach and greens for winter; I had herbs but noticed that with dolt45 in office the pollution from mill increased and lost all put basil and rosemary. I will do without tomatoes rather than buy from store or even road side stand, I want organic! Ex got house and my gardens.

  114. 114.

    Immanentize

    @Karen: That is miserable! So sorry. If you are near Boston I will share my very large tomato bounty (peppers and herbs too) with you….

  119. 119.

    smintheus

    @Tokyokie: Thanks for the explanation. I surmised it might be something along these lines. The relative in question happens to be a huge Trump supporter, so the chickens have roosted.

  120. 120.

    Karen

    @kd bart: The Vietnam war was near the end of protests, the civil rights movement was full of death and violence, the farm workers movement hit where it hurt. I think when Kent State happened people began to see that it was no longer person on person violence but the bringing in of armed military against unarmed protestors. Something that union people had experienced at the beginning; but for many the ending of the war was enough.
    I know that a number of people were vocal about needing to change the system from the inside, but in some cases the student “leaders” were supported by parents and given choices of go back to school and keep receiving money or protest and get cut off.
    It is hard to say what should have been done, I know that my grandfather said the biggest problem was that it didn’t touch enough people’s lives and the 70’s and 80’s were good times for many people.
    The SDS? I don’t think they represented enough people to really make a big difference.

  121. 121.

    Karen

    @Immanentize: Thanks for the offer, I am up in Maine. From Wisconsin to Maine; at least the weather is about what I left. While I miss my gardens I am thankful to be away from abuse; I used to try to explain what ex was like, now all I have to say is “think trump.”

  123. 123.

    Chris

    @Brachiator:

    This sounds a lot like Iran-2009. One of the Green Movement’s biggest problems was that it was so much an urban middle class movement, which meant nothing to rural and/or working class Iranians. Notably, the reformists were associated with economic liberalization, which means as little to Iran’s working class as it does to anyone else’s.

  124. 124.

    Brachiator

    @Chris:

    ..This sounds a lot like Iran-2009. One of the Green Movement’s biggest problems was that it was so much an urban middle class movement, which meant nothing to rural and/or working class Iranians.

    This doesn’t quite describe Venezuela. Often, trying to define some group as working class is meaningless. Also, there are social class dynamics based on colorism and “Spanish” v “Indian” distinctions.

  125. 125.

    dc

    So this blog is supporting a coup d’état? To hell with what at least half of the country wants, we want a coup because that will bring peace and order to Venezuela? The “opposition” (and I put it in quotes because they are not uniform at all) has millions of supporters, but so does the Maduro government and also many who while critical of Maduro do not trust at all the other side. Maybe promoting negotiation as former Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is doing would be the best route instead of hoping for enough military members to organize a coup, something that would bring millions into the streets in opposition to it and would require either back peddling or massive blood shed to go forward. Venezuela is in a critical situation, but neither a coup nor blind support of the Maduro government will resolve the crisis.

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