AI6YR BenWell, that's ONE way to cause a massive increase in gasoline prices. Because "affordability" is very important to voters.
BBC: Fire at UAE port after drone attack as Trump says military targets on Iran oil island 'obliterated'
Janice in GA@ai6yr Dammit, I already lived through gas rationing and long lines at the pumps in the 70s! I shouldn't have to do this again!!!
DianeElectric cars available in the USA are already vastly superior to the ones in the 1980s. And China is currently producing even better vehicles
Taran Rampersad@alienghic @Archergal @ai6yr in #trinidadandtobago people are driving loads of #byd vehicles.
#China is definitely going to win the #iranwar.
Without a shot fired.
Γιανίρης@iriyan @knowprose @Archergal @ai6yr
Yeah decarbonization isn't happening nearly fast enough
largely because there's a bunch of countries who's state budgets are significantly funded by fossil fuel sales, so they keep blocking binding treaties.
As a result, China which doesn't have a lot of oil, just really polluting coal, has had the most motivation to develop renewables to cut their dependence on untrustworthy partners like Russia and the middle east.
@iriyan @knowprose @Archergal @ai6yr
There is an alternate unpleasant decarbonization plan where so much keeps getting destroyed by war and weather disasters that it becomes impossible to continue to maintain fossil fuel infrastructure.
@ai6yr @alienghic @iriyan @Archergal yup. The fossil fuel economy supported by both parties.
3 would be harder to lobby.
@knowprose @ai6yr @iriyan @Archergal
Exactly who "we" is in this situation is quite debatable.
This plot is what fraction of a countries population would be willing to contribute 1% of their income to stopping global warming.
The resistant groups look to be the USA, Canada, Russia, UK, Japan, Egypt, Kazakstan, and Pakistan.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-024-01925-3/figures/1
@alienghic @ai6yr @iriyan @Archergal the 'do as we say, not as we do' group.
That's pretty much the theme. Mia Motley, PM of Barbados, points that out a lot.
Islands see it much more differently. 🙃
Subservient obedient pups who betray their people don't deserve to have their name repeated. She was nobody and will continue to be nobody.
Cuba is an island, big enough not to have to depend on US or Venezuela for survival. They've had 70 years to figure it out, it is insulting to say they are in distress because Russian of Venezuelan oil is not coming.
Venezuela is beyond any excuse ..
You can't use the word socialism and have some form of claim that capitalist markets will recognize a right to participate in them. It is hypocritical, despite of whether we like to support and be on their side.
We can all do better than that.
@iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal you think Mia Motley is a subservient pup?
On that we disagree. She's one of the few vocal critics who has stood at the UN and made the same damned points you are making here.
So... I'd reassess your assessment. 🤣
My mistake, I was thinking of Trinidad/Tobago being the local extension of the 4th Reich ... and there seem to be more SW of Venezuela ... butt kissers of the the Fuhrer
Apologies for Mia, she seems to be having a spine unlike some others.
@iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal well, Trinidad and Tobago, definitely. I presently live there. Here. Whatever. They're definitely orange cheerleaders.
In fact, them winning the election last year has some locals... suspicious of external support.
Cambridge Analytica involved all the major player in both countries. Wink wink.
Barbados is quite different. Mia Motley is a rare bird. Worth paying attention to.
Probably the only voice of the Caribbean I recommend. 🙃
@knowprose @iriyan @ai6yr @Archergal
I wonder if a pan carribean civil society group could provide better & more trustworthy social networking and collaboration tools than trusting the USA
What if #Venezuela hadn't kept oil as a national treasure but as a regional, S.American collective commodity for all S.America to defend and use. Maybe then it wouldn't have been as easy to be taken, and they knew there was plenty for all.
What did Mexico ever gain from passing out all Gulf oil to US oil companies? Better catering at state receptions?
DanieruOtakuBoy@iriyan @alienghic @knowprose @ai6yr @Archergal
That would not have been possible; Venezuela's gross domestic product or source of income has always been primarily oil. And during the last 27 years with multiple oil corruption scandals and expropriations, More than a regional treasure, it would have been an even worse plot of manipulation and corruption.
@danieruotakuboy @iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal venezuela, like all countries in the region, has internal issues.
Again, like all countries in the region.
There are deep divisions on incentives, etc.
And Venezuela did share to an extent, despite that. Ask Cuba.
Imperfect situation. The real world.
(Well said Danieru)
@knowprose @iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal
No, not all oil-producing countries that have been the richest countries in the world have become the poorest in their region.
And not all countries have a diaspora of 28% of their total population.
@danieruotakuboy @iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal agreed.
That largely happened because of sanctions from the US when Chavez nationalized *further*. That's a brief simplification of the causality, but true.
I road a boat from Trinidad in my teens and saw Venezuela in the 1980s. Beautiful country. They have blueberries from the mountains! Their produce is wonderful.
Things have changed significantly.
@knowprose @iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal Uh... Nope. The US sanctions began in 2015, after Maduro's first year as president.
The degradation of the Venezuelan economy were something that was beginning to occur in the 1990s, and it worsened in the 2000s with the first monetary reconversion in our history.
The economic crisis of the 1990s was what motivated Chávez to attempt two coups in 1992, killing more than 300 Venezuelans (more than Americans on January 3 of this year).
@danieruotakuboy @iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal umm.
Nope.
You skipped a lot in the years in between.
There are sanctions and then there are the shadows. The TRIPS agreements, etc.
As I said, I was brief.
I know the history. I saw it happen.
@knowprose @iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal Oh right, I forgot about the arms sanctions, corruption at PDVSA and other schemes of embezzlement of public funds during the Chávez government.
I mean, I imagine the Guarenas-Guatire Metro is finished by now; a billion dollars was allocated for it in 2008. Have you used it yet? Just curious.
@danieruotakuboy @iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal you're rather combative and presumptive, so... what Iknow, I know.
I'll leave this conversation.
By all means, have the last word. 🙃
@knowprose @iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal
What did you expect? You were arguing about contemporary Venezuelan history with a Venezuelan.
You can't expect to know more than I do about my own country.
@danieruotakuboy @iriyan @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal very true.
So fix it.
Whose oil was it before Chavez, was it justifiably passed to US/EU/UK companies to exploit? Did housing and nutrition, living, working conditions change because of Chavez reforms? What would Bolivar say?
Tell us Venezuelan, so we know!
@iriyan @knowprose @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal The life of Venezuelans did not improve after the expropriation of companies in the country. The distribution of Venezuelan oil in became unstable, depending even more on imports of oil due to a lack of production.
There was a huge waste of public funds on social missions, or on construction that were never completed, Several examples include the Guarenas-Guatire Metro, the national railway system, and the Great Housing Mission Venezuela.
So there wasn't waste of public funds and resources before, the colonial corporations were there to the benefit of the majority of Venezuelans, but the waste begun after they got kicked out and nothing really changed.
That is not what even the wealthy Venezuelans say happened for the bottom 2/3 of the population, just that they were burdened and prevented to carry on "development".
I hope your bosses at the state dept. provide you with adequate protection if you are inside #Venezuela, some of your countrymates may find offense with what you are claiming.
@iriyan @knowprose @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal
More than that, you could have taken me to the El Helicoide torture center on charges of "treason, terrorism, and incitement to hatred." Like my grandmother, who was charged with 30 for saying she was tired of living with the situation in the country.
@iriyan @knowprose @alienghic @ai6yr @Archergal
In response to the question about "evil capitalist corporations," there is a great example: Agroisleña (expropriated and renamed by Chávez as Agropatria) before, when it was a private company, it granted many benefits and products to the farmers with whom it had allied itself to further boost the production. After Chávez's expropriation, the main facility is in ruins, and farmers were left without the resources to increase their harvests.