What's Going on in Venezuela in a Nutshell (Graphic)

[Turborama]

2,246,627 views at the time of posting...

How a first-time film-maker alerted the world to Venezuela's student protests

Andreina Nash, a 21-year-old student, has brought the plight of student protesters in Venezuela to global attention – with a short film she made in a day

The title is unpromising. That won't catch on, you think. But the short film What's Going On in Venezuela in a Nutshell, posted to YouTube last Friday, has had more than 1.3m views – and brought the plight of student protesters in Venezuela to international notice.

The film was conceived and made by 21-year-old Andreina Nash, who was born in Valencia, Venezuela, but moved to Florida at the age of nine when her father got a job there. The six-minute sequence of stills and video of the protests is narrated in her voice – young, clear and American, but with the Spanish pronunciation of "Venezuela". In the background, the soundtrack from Gladiator rises to a climax. "Sorry. I have broken so many rules," she says. (She does not have permission to use the music.) "I just wanted to get something that was a good fit."

There were three confirmed deaths of students in last week's protests, all gunshot-related. The film shows one protester being hit over the back with a gun by an armed policeman, and then kicked in the head. At one point, Nash's voiceover stops while the footage rolls – oblique-angled street scenes, patches of sunlight cutting across shadowy long-range views of tiny demonstrators pouring down a road, while a whip cracks relentlessly, the sound of rapid gunfire. Nash took the images from the Venezuela Lucha Instagram page, which has been documenting the violence. It is an impressive piece of film-making. How did she learn to do that?

More: http://www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2014/feb/17/short-film-venezuela-student-protests-youtube

[rdharma]

1. Second verse.... same as the first.

When the RW CIA supported coup failed in 2002, they regrouped to try it again.

This is exactly the same propaganda the RW globalists (who control the US) used when Chavez didn't tow their line back then.

[ellennelle]

2. my suspicions too

but where do you get the real story on this?

i've been surprised amy goodman hasn't covered it more thoroughly.

[OutNow]

3. This is a right-wing anti chavismo pov

While President Maduro has made some mistakes, some tactical, some strategic, he heads the legitimate elected government and the current right wing riots are trying to bring him down via a coup or other illegal actions.

I found this article in Counterpunch helped to explain the current crisis in Venezuela.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/02/18/whats-really-happening-in-venezuela/

[imthevicar]

4. Propaganda

[Turborama]

6. "Incubator babies" is DU's Godwin's law.

I knew it would be used as an argumentum ad absurdum eventually, just not this soon.

[Theyletmeeatcake2]

5. Illegitimate government???? I suppose winning elections isn't enough!!!

Goebbels would be proud!!!!!!

[Turborama]

7. Talking of Godwin...

[Theyletmeeatcake2]

9. But is it relevant ? That's the question you should ask yourself....

If not please explain and share yoor wisdom...

[Turborama]

10. No.

[Theyletmeeatcake2]

12. ?

[Turborama]

8. Venezuela's poor join protests as turmoil grips Chávez's revolution

Virginia López in Caracas and Jonathan Watts
The Guardian, Thursday 20 February 2014 19.42 GMT

The poor neighbourhood of Petare in western Caracas is not an obvious hotbed of anti-government sentiment. In the past, its residents have been among the major beneficiaries of Venezuela's public health and education campaigns, and an economic policy that resulted in one of the sharpest falls in inequality in the world.

But as demonstrations sweep several major cities, even the people of Petare have taken to the streets to protest again surging inflation, alarming murder rates and shortages of essential commodities.

Jorge Farias, a self-employed motorcycle taxi driver, once voted for the late president Hugo Chávez, but this week he joined opposition rallies.

"This country can't stay like this for much longer. If it's not lack of food, it is the fear of being killed when you step out of your house to go to work", he said. "I would like to wake up without this fear," he added. "I have never seen this country in this state of total collapse. We are going from bad to worse, and we are losing faith".

"Ya esta bueno ya", is phrase which Venezuelans are hearing with increasing frequency. Roughly translated as "Enough already", the slogan captures a wide-spread sense of discontent and growing uncertainty over the country's future.

Full article: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/venezuelas-poor-protests-chavez-revolution

[LongTomH]

11. AlterNet has a posting on the opposition leader -- not a favorable one

Meet Venezuela's Opposition Leader: Front Man for the Oligarchs Sidelined by Hugo Chavez

It is hard to argue that many of those involved in anti-government protests in Venezuela don’t have legitimate grievances — widespread insecurity and media repression cannot be ignored — or that the government’s charges against opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, including “terrorism,” have been filed with sufficient substantiation.

.............//snip

So far, US and international media has generally portrayed Lopez as an outspoken “maverick,”alluding only in passing to his oligarchic pedigree and hardline right-wing politics. Lopez has been involved in coup attempts that aimed to oust Hugo Chavez since the late president was first elected. Lopez’s leadership of the current round of protests after a hard fought election won by Chavez’s successor, President Nicolas Maduro, appears to be an extension of those efforts.

I wrote about Lopez in my investigation of Thor Halvorssen and his Potemkin Village-like Human Rights Foundation. Halvorssen is a former right-wing campus activist who has leveraged his fortune to establish a political empire advancing a transparently neoconservative agenda behind the patina of human rights.

Among Halvorssen’s main PR megaphones is Buzzfeed, whose correspondent Rosie Gray flew to Oslo in 2013 to write a fawning profile of him and his Oslo Freedom Forum. (Gray has not disclosed whether Halvorssen covered her travel expenses or provided her with resources like food and lodging). Michael Moynihan, another writer who was flown to Oslo to participate in Halvorssen’s confab, published an editorial in the Daily Beast this week praising “the handsome, telegenic, and Harvard-trained Leopoldo Lopez” and slamming President Nicolas Maduro as “Mussolini-on-the-piazza.” The Daily Beast followed up with a translated version of the dramatic and carefully staged speech Lopez delivered before he turned himself in to Venezuelan authorities, which Halvorssen promptly promoted on Twitter.

Lopez has not only been marketed to the world as effectively as any new laundry detergent, he has received funding from the US government-funded National Endowment for Democracy.

[Coyotl]

13. Propaganda piece with lies.

[Turborama]

14. You're going to have to make more effort with your refutation.

Otherwise, it's just guff.