Just in terms of eyes on the ground, an awful lot of Venezuelans took to the streets of NYC in support of this—in the freezing cold, mostly in the working-class outer boroughs. Most of them seemed like newer immigrants, so not like old guard Mexicans or whatever. (The irony being that Trump's immigration policy would just as soon deport every single one! I do have to laugh a little.) To be fair, the antiwar demonstration in Times Square looked mostly like a trickle of old white people and students. Life is funny that way.zorg wrote: Tue Jan 06, 2026 8:02 amOh, but this is very typical. The Miami Cubans hate the commies, the old guard Mexican-American's resent the illegals. This was the entire reason it is so convenient that a Trump endorsed Venezuelan opposition leader won a Nobel Peace Prize.losthighway wrote: Mon Jan 05, 2026 9:53 pm I personally know Venezuelans who celebrate his downfall.
This was just a very reductive sidebar from my point, so I can drop it, but yeah, the UK was backing Tito when he served value to them, much like the US backs all sorts of juntas when it is to their benefit, and I would with full confidence say to anyone in former Soviet block states that the victorious European forces had a detrimental effect on their lands after WWII.Lu Zwei wrote:This is a really bad attempt at revisionist history and if you say this with a straight face to anyone over here, people will make fun of you.zorg wrote: Mon Jan 05, 2026 3:46 pm That's before we review the storied history of European imperialism which still defines the world today, including famously the history of Croatia and the British hand in bringing Tito to power.
We do learn our and world history over here really seriously. For grades and shit.
On one hand, what's happening in Venezuela is shocking in its brazen stupidity. On the other, it's not. This is just a return to the same old Monroe Doctrine, filtered thru the Great Game, but updated for the social-media-and-crypto era. (Look at me, world! I'm extracting a president and taking the oil I believe is rightfully mine b/c I'm in the same general zip code.)
The irony is that the Monroe Doctrine was largely abandoned under Bush I in favor of focusing on the Middle East. And, one could argue, what's happening in Venezuela isn't so different than Russia using its military to artificially prop up Assad in Syria for all those years. It's way more shameless, but just as cynical. Possibly even less
brutal for the local population, depending on how or even if Venezuela responds.
Again, this is what superpowers have done forever. I don't condone it in the least, but it's not particularly unique to America, as Russia's actions in Central Asia and Eastern Europe plus China's (slightly more suave) actions in Southeast Asia have attested over the decades. The US just tends to blunder stuff a little more loudly and has been a relatively crappy chessmaster since Vietnam.