Bernie won't stop talking crazy

Bernie Sanders had the nerve to repeat an unacceptable opinion.

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Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has doubled down this week on calling the recent ouster of Bolivia’s now-former President Evo Morales a “coup,” but few other U.S. lawmakers or candidates followed suit.

The ongoing debate on whether constitutional order was maintained during and after the transition has echoed a larger divide in global politics. Sanders’s view is shared among the global left, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who granted asylum to Morales upon his exit from Bolivia.

But the Trump administration — and opponents of the Latin American populist left embodied by Morales and López Obrador — saw the end of the Morales government as a boon to democracy in the region.

"I oppose the intervention of Bolivia's security forces in the democratic process and their repression of Indigenous protesters. When the military intervened and asked President Evo Morales to leave, in my view, that’s called a coup," wrote Sanders on Twitter Monday evening.

Yeh, only crazy people on the left believe that when the military orders a president to leave that it's a coup.
And the proof is that no one on the right agrees. Because the truth is a popularity contest.

The distinction is important in the U.S. because a coup would require withdrawal of all assistance to the country.

At the center of the controversy is a damning report from the Organization of American States (OAS) on Bolivia’s October election that precipitated Morales's resignation earlier this month.

Ah, yes. Speaking of that damning report from the OAS, there's one little problem with it.

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What is the difference between an outright lie — stating something as a fact while knowing that it is false — and a deliberate material representation that accomplishes the same end? Here is an example that really pushes the boundary between the two, to the point where the distinction practically vanishes.
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It is difficult, almost impossible, to believe that this OAS mission, or those above them in the OAS Department of Electoral Cooperation and Observation, felt “deep concern and surprise” and yet were too incompetent to even look at this data.

That is why I would say that they lied at least three times: in the first press release, the preliminary report, and the preliminary audit. And that is why I would regard with great skepticism the allegations presented in their preliminary audit, and further publications — unless these can be verified by independent investigators from publicly available data.

How can it be that calling this coup, a coup, is controversial?
To understand that, you must understand 'bots'.
You see, not all bots are Russian.

As news of the right-wing coup reached American shores last week, a curious confluence of social media users — purportedly Bolivian — all wrote message on social media that were suspiciously phrased similarly. The common thread was the phrase “Friends from everywhere, in Bolivia there was no coup.” The intent of the coordinated social media campaign seems to be to build support for the right-wing coup in the Anglophone world. Yet nobody seems to know where these tweets came from, or who started the social media campaign.

Experts speaking to The Verge assured their reporter that it was the work of a bot, since many of the automated tweets were being tweeted to or in response to verified users, to give them maximum visibility. Twitter has removed some of the tweets, but many still remain. According to The Verge, the first message was posted on Facebook; variations have been seen on Reddit and 4Chan, too.

Michael Schmidt, who studies inauthentic activity on social media, who helped The Verge track down the beginning of the movement said many factors suggest it is an automated movement.

“My guess is that they used the polarizing events of the election to cause hysteria by pumping this post via a bot network. That is 100% true. This is a bot network. No doubt,” Schmidt said. “The real question is who is behind it.”

Speculation online ran rampant as to who was behind the messaging. Some tweets had location stamps that indicated Virginia, the home of the CIA, which many users found suspicious.

What?!? The CIA involved in a Bolivian coup and domestic misinformation?
Now that's crazy talk.

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Colombia is seeing its largest protests in years with labor unions, students and indigenous groups leading a nationwide strike aimed at the deeply unpopular President Ivan Duque.

Police in anti-riot gear fired tear gas in at least one part of Bogota, and local TV showed protesters vandalizing bus stations in the capital and also in Cali.

Otherwise, demonstrations were mainly peaceful through Thursday morning. Protesters carried banners saying, “Against Duque’s neo-liberal policies,” “Students are not terrorists,” and “I march for peace.”

Organizers initially called the strike to raise pressure on Duque as his government plans to reform pension and labor laws. But it has morphed into a broad-based rejection of his administration, with groups from air-traffic controllers to yoga teachers pledging to join in.

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The marches, announced weeks ago following proposed austerity measures, come amid a wave of political turmoil across the region: Chile has seen more than a month of anti-government protests, which last week led its political parties to agree to a referendum on replacing the country’s dictatorship-era constitution; Bolivia is still reeling from the military-backed ousting of the president, Evo Morales.

Colombia’s neighbours are also mired in political turbulence: Ecuador’s president, Lenín Moreno, was forced to backtrack on austerity measures by a wave of popular protest, while Venezuela is still mired in economic collapse and political violence.

Duque’s government is clearly nervous. On Monday, his government authorized a number of riot-control measures ahead, allowing local authorities to impose curfews and ban the sale of alcohol. Colombia’s borders will also be closed until Friday morning, it was later announced.

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lotlizard's picture

@gjohnsit  
Now in Colombia as well.

https://tomluongo.me/2019/11/16/populism-isnt-for-sale-anymore/

Because it’s a lot easier to bribe a dozen or so candidates than it is to bribe the hundreds of thousands they could represent. This is the fundamental reason why representative governments don’t work.

It’s why they are just as bad as top-down unelected oligarchies regardless of the type — secular, religious, technocratic, communist, democratic.

It’s reached a boiling point in Iran where protests have broken out again like in 2009, and just like in France, over a hike in fuel prices. Governments can have all the extra territorial ambitions they want but at some point they have to provide the basic services the people expect of them.

Just wait until the cost of living here in the U.S. rises to the point where government handouts here can’t cover the costs of the basics. We haven’t quite reached that point nationally, and we won’t in the next couple of years as capital flees into the U.S. in a massive safe-haven trade, but we will.

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Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

and then suddenly everybody's on his side where all the normal people who believe that Bolivia just found democracy live?

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

lotlizard's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal  
just voted to extend the Enabling Act by three months, so whatcha gonna do?

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/21/fund-n21.html

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edg's picture

@davidgmillsatty

I just spit my coffee all over my screen.

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@edg But Bernie keeps begging me for $2.70. Seems like he needs it more than you so I better save it for a rainy day. He may get after the Israelis some day.

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lotlizard's picture

A year on, the gilets jaunes have lost 24 eyes and five hands — and made a deep mark on French society

Last weekend, at the Paris march marking the one-year anniversary of the gilets jaunes (yellow vests) movement, a protester was blinded in one eye by a tear gas canister, which was thrown directly at him.

The protester, named in the media as “Manu” from Valenciennes in northern France, was chatting with others on Paris’s Place d’Italie when he was hit in the eye, which it was later confirmed he lost. “I am angry, revolted,” his partner, Séverine, told French TV. “I don’t understand how people can lose an eye for protesting peacefully in the hope of a better life.”

 
Twenty.four … eyes … and … five … hands?

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