Cuba Says US Behind Prolonged Venezuela Blackout
HAVANA TIMES – The Cuban government on Monday charged that the United States was behind the now five day-long power blackout in Venezuela, accusing Washington of “sabotage” and a “terrorist act,” reported dpa news.
Cuba “strongly condemns sabotage to the supply of electricity in Venezuela, which constitutes a terrorist act aimed at harming the defenceless population of an entire nation,” the government said in a statement.
The massive power blackout last Thursday left almost all of Venezuela without power and there are still blackouts in large areas of the country.
Electricity had been restored to parts of Caracas, but the capital suffered another complete outage on Monday.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro blamed the outage on what he termed cyber attacks by the United States.
But the opposition has cited poor maintenance of facilities as the reason for the power outages.
Thank you for telling the truth about Cuba
Actually, it really is true that the US is behind all of Venezuela’s problems.
Think about it. China was once socialist … under Mao’s rule, it was no threat to the US, despite the anti-Communist hysteria in the US. Then the Party brought back capitalism, and forty years later … it’s pushing the US out of first place.
The US rulers are not stupid. They learned from this. Venezuela has great natural resources, and a talented population. Do you think the US wants a mini-China on its doorstep? Of course not…. so, enter the CIA, which arranged for Chavez and his “21st Century Socialism”. Now Venezuela is prostrate, approaching Cuban levels of poverty. Just what the imperialists want!
…they are fine? They live in a dictatorship. They are far from fine.
Hahaha. Obviously you have drank the koolaid.
It is the standard response of all dictators to blame the opposition and external enemies for all their shortcomings and the pathetic corrupt and incompetent poodle Maduro who is only clinging to power by military force is proof of that. Think about Maduros recent “supposedly factual” statements:
Maduro says “There is no humanitarian crisis in Venezuela” (His people just naturally like to eat out of the garbage it seems)
Maduro says “There is no health crisis in Venezuela” (His people just naturally like to supply their own dressings and drugs and have no problem that the hospitals are without water, power or supplies it seems)
Maduro says “There is no emigration crisis in Venezuela” (3-4 million of his people just want to go on a permanent holiday perhaps)
Maduro says “The People support Me and the Bolivarian reviolution” ( polls show 85-90% of the people want him gone and a growing number want to hang him from a lampost)
Now Maduro says (without any evidence at all) “The opposition in league with the USA sabotaged the power grid” (Local and international experts put the problem down to the lack of investment, maintenance and employment of trained people by the government, in other words incompetence and corruption).
The C.I.A. is behind all of this turmoil in Venezuela!! Get real and think about it for 10 minutes! All that oil, gold, diamonds and many other natural resoures that they want but cannot have!! They have been trying for 20 years to get their puppet dictator into Venezuela! The people won’t have it! Plain and simple!! The natural resourses belong to the people of Venezuela! Yankee go home!! Stay home if you know what is good for you!! Donkeys!!!
The Cuban statement is plain nonsense. The US didn’t cause to blackout, but Maduro’s decision to blame the US for the black reminds of me when Fidel Castro blamed the US for many of Cuba’s economic ills. The Cubans recall how the US attempted to damage electrical lines in Cuba, but it’s possible that the Trump Treasury Department lacks the financial capacity to enforce Cuba-related sanctions.
Olga, respectfully, the argument you make that I cannot evaluate Cuba because I am an American is faulty. Further, you raise arguments that you allege I make regarding my ill feelings for Trump. I never mentioned Trump, notwithstanding the fact he is a horrible president. Olga, when you counter a point, try to address the points and not raise issues that simply were presented. By doing so, you expose your own biased agenda. By the way, you make assumptions about me that are false. I have traveled to Cuba more than 150 times in past and have family that resides in the provinces, living as “normal Cubans” (anticipating your argument, I give no remittances to them), they are teachers, doctors, directors of factories, pizza shop owners, nurses and administrators. They don’t have all western material luxuries, but they are certainly fine. They have their opinions -which they share without fear- and share those opinions. Olga, read the article I posted above, and try to behave accordingly.
I agree with you Dan.
I would look at it the other way around: I fear that some in the US want the same for US citizens. Cuba has had this problem for many years or course. The great irony and the great lie of the Trump administration is that while he rails against tyrants and dictators, he uses the exact same playbook. Look at who he emulates and admires as world leaders. We’ve had questionable presidents in our history, but in modern times, we have never had a wanna-be dictator–until this time.
Bertha it’s so easy for people like you who are living in a democracy in USA or Europe to support horrible dictatorship like Cuba, and Venezuela, just because your hatred to USA and Trump. As Cuban in Exile I’m telling you I wish I can see one day the country I was born free and democracy back with multi political parties, free press, no political prisoners, freedom of speech, DEMOCRACY.
An analysis of history would lead one to suppot the claim. And as long as the American population remains dummied down, those with invidious motives can do as they please. Here is an interesting article that demonstrates the state of the American populous, I’m in fear that some in Cuba want the same for Cubans.
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BY AMY KERR HARDIN | JAN. 5, 2019
Ignorance is not bliss. It’s ignorance — impervious to window dressing, and made all the worse if it’s willfully engaged. Were it truly rapturous, Fox News viewers would exist in a perpetual state of orgasmic euphoria. But alas, they live in a world awash in hate, anger, and fear, leaving their collective amygdalae (the fear center of the brain) swollen to the size of an overripe cantaloupe.
There is a reason why Trump proudly proclaimed, “I love the poorly educated.” It’s why he obsessively watches and promotes Fox News. The exploitive power of mass ignorance is a potent weapon in the hands of an aspiring autocrat. He understands that with just the right concoction of manipulative lies and fear mongering, his confidence game can take in seemingly smart people by toying with their latent prejudices. If you dexterously put the scare in them, then tell them you can protect them, you will own them — and their vote.
Among the myriad insecurities of Trump supporters is a feeling of intellectual inferiority. This president gives them a pass on their insufficiencies by demonstrating, multiple times per day, that it’s OK to publicly revel in their cerebral incapacity, as if it’s some moral asset to be celebrated. Trump champions their mental ineptitude. They look in the mirror and see a little bit of Trump in themselves. As Fran Leibowitz so sardonically put it, “He’s the poor man’s idea of a rich person.”
Offended? Let’s take a dive into the numbers.
Several years ago, Fairleigh Dickinson University found that people who exclusively watched Fox News were less informed than those who consumed no news at all — and it’s worth noting, this survey predates the radical paradigm shift the network took when it went 24/7 pro-Trump. The analysis determined that the most informed were those that listened to NPR and watched Sunday morning political shows.
Another study out of PEW Research discovered certain key characteristics were present among those able to correctly distinguish fact from opinion. The well-informed respondents in their survey shared a keen sense of political awareness, digital acumen, an interest in the news, and a trust in the media. The latter item requires the ability to suss-out reliable sources found in solid journalism. That category does not include a bunch of blonde ladies in short dresses, sporting significant décolletage, crossing and uncrossing their legs while telling their viewers Trump is a magnificent masculine beast of a patriot.
Out of the Annenberg Public Policy Center is even more concerning news: Americans know precious little about their Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Thirty-seven percent of our ranks can’t name a single right protected by the First Amendment. One-quarter of those who walk among us can’t identify all three branches of government, and one in three can’t peg a single one. As if that isn’t bad enough, among the most disturbing findings is that over half of our fellow citizens believe the Constitution does not afford undocumented immigrants any protections. Au contraire; they are entitled to due process and the ability to seek justice in the courts — something the current resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. doesn’t seem to understand or care about. Against the backdrop of the border wall and immigration policy battle, this is deeply disturbing.
Any discussion of America’s civic ignorance wouldn’t be complete without mention of conspiracy theorists. They are found on the left and the right, but overwhelmingly they capture the imagination of larger numbers among conservatives. There’s a new theory everyday, and the old ones never seem to die. It’s safe to bet that every reader knows someone who promotes one or more of these hare-brained notions: the Holocaust never happened, 9/11 was staged by some nefarious group, Sandy Hook families and Parkland survivors are paid actors, the moon-landing was a hoax, Hillary is a child-sex trafficker, and the perennial classic, President Obama is a secret Muslim born in Kenya. Contrails? Don’t get me started. Fashion yourself a nice tinfoil hat for that!
Most recently, a dangerous conspiracy theory has taken hold on the right. They are promoting the idea that the Mueller probe is some “deep state” effort to unseat Trump. Republican lawmakers are riding the wave of this bogus claim for their own craven purposes.
Why are Americans so deficient in their reasoning? Turns out, we are not unique. The root of the problem is not solely due to overactive fear centers in the brain, inherent prejudices, nor our country of origin.
It’s a condition termed the Dunning-Kruger Effect — a common cognitive defect wherein individuals who are intellectually incompetent are unable to recognize that fact. They lack the intelligence to understand what they don’t know. Bluntly put, stupid people are relieved of the burden of knowing they are stupid. Armed with the false knowledge that they have mastered a subject, they are unmotivated to further inform themselves.
This seems so very bleak. But it’s not. We will power through the stupid-storm. Starting with ourselves, let’s make sure we exhibit best practices by exploring more than one source of reliable information before shaping and speaking an opinion on a topic. Encourage family and friends to do the same. If they offer an opinion, ask them to source it, as reputable journalists do everyday.
We won’t be able to improve the cognitive skills of everyone, ’cuz as the saying goes, you can’t fix stupid. Still, it’s worth trying.
Amy Kerr Hardin is a retired banker, a regionally known artist, and a public-policy wonk and political essayist at http://www.democracy-tree.com.
Sure, blame the USA. So easy I’m sure would be some fools in this forum backing this stupid claim.