Moving on…in our post-Venezuela world

Well, as the dust continues to settle over in Venezuela, one question that’s being raised is what’s the fate of democracy over there? We’d been assured by all and sundry observers – even from Lula in Brazil and Petro in Columbia – that all hadn’t been kosher with the last elections! Mad Maduro never did show the equivalent of his voting machines’ SOPs to prove he’d won the elections, as his hand-picked Elections Commission had announced!!
On the other hand, the Opposition headed by Maria Machado’s stand-in, Edmundo Gonzalez – after she’d been arbitrarily disqualified from running – showed THEIR copies of their SOPs to prove they’d won handily!! So it wasn’t surprising that after Mad Maduro was spirited away to NY, folks expected Machado woulda been sworn in as president! Or at least new elections would be held to decide democratically who’d be running the country. That’s the democratic way, innit??
But it’s clear that the Trump Administration decided it was best there be just the extraction of Mad Maduro and no full REGIME CHANGE – since this might set off a fire keg!! After all, while democracy is all well and good, if it would lead to a civil war, then maybe there needs to be a more stable transition. And so it was that Mad Maduro’s deputy, Delcy Rodriguez – a true-blue hardline Chavista from a revolutionary family whose brother heads the National Assembly – was sworn in as President after she promised she’d work along with the Yanks!!
So the question gotta to be asked – what happens to the Opposition and, more specifically, Machado, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to keep democracy alive in Venezuela? Well, after some crossed wires where President Trump said she didn’t have the support in the country, they’re gonna be meeting in Washington soon. Your Eyewitness is confident that she’s not gonna be thrown under the bus, but that the larger picture for a stable Venezuela will be explained to her and a path to democratic elections will be outlined. A clear signal was sent by Delcy when she released several opposition members from confinement since the last elections.
Another sign was President Trump saying that he looks forward to meeting Machado after she announced she’d like to give her Nobel Peace Prize to him!! Trump, who’d said that since he stopped eight wars, he should’ve been given the prize, responded that it would be a “great honour” to receive her Nobel Peace Prize. He added, “When you put out eight wars, in theory you should get one for each war.”
For us Guyanese Machado’s a better bet since – unlike Delcy – she supports the ICJ process on the border controversy!!

…from incitement
In this fast-changing world many assumptions on human action are being challenged!! There’s a school of thought that evil is something lurking outside of us – always ready to pounce on folks and make them do bad things. “The Devil made me do it” summarises that perspective. Well, your Eyewitness doesn’t know about that. After meditating on the Germans gassing of Jewish German citizens, the philosopher Hannah Arendt concluded that it’s very ordinary folks who can be moved to do the most gruesome acts to their “fellow” man. She spoke about the “banality” of evil.
But folks just don’t start hacking away at each other just like that. History’s shown that there’s always some demagogue or other who preys on the fears of people and turns them against others in their society by blaming them for all that’s holding them back. Right now, we have a demagogue preaching that just as the US ousted Mad Maduro over in Venezuela, they did the same to the sanctimonious gangster Granger!!
Bun him!!

…with extradition
Sanction Man and his Daddy’s extradition hearings will spill over into February in the Magistrate Court – even as they appeal the High Court’s decision that our extradition treaty with the US is valid!!
Just delaying the inevitable!!