There are now 31 dead. (France 24 news)
Maduro has called for a new constitution. One that enshrines him in power, no doubt. If you can’t run your country right, it must be the constitution that’s wrong… /sarc; Just give ME more power and everything will be better… (well, for me at least…)
Latest update : 2017-05-02
Venezuela’s beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro on Monday called for a new constitution, to be written by a “people’s” body circumventing the opposition-held Congress.The decree was to “block the fascist coup” threatening the country, he told thousands of supporters in Caracas at a May Day rally.
The new constitution-writing entity would be “a citizen’s constituent body, not from political parties — a people’s constituent body,” he said.
Brazil has called this request for a new constitution a “coup” attempt.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/brazil-calls-venezuelan-presidents-move-coup-203146314.html
BRASILIA (Reuters) – The Brazilian government on Tuesday called the plan for a constituent assembly announced by the president of neighboring Venezuela a “coup” to change the country’s political rules to his liking.
“President Nicholas Maduro’s proposal for a constituent assembly is a coup d’état. It is another break with democracy, violating the country’s constitution,” Brazilian Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes said in a statement posted on Facebook.
Nunes said social organizations controlled by Maduro would elect the constituents and draw up a constitution “as he wants it.”
(Reporting by Anthony Boadle; Editing by Peter Cooney)
Mexico has announced it is worried about the move to force a new constitution.
Mexico has become increasingly outspoken in its criticism of Maduro’s government, which it sees as having undermined democracy in the Americas with a series of measures to weaken opposition leaders.
(Reporting by Veronica Gomez)
There is a call for a giant rally against the government for sometime in the next day or so. (France24 via Roku)
IMHO, it’s End Game Time.
Maduro is isolated from The People inside his country. Outside his country, the neighbors as seeing they must choose between him as a very unpopular and potentially nutty-crazy “friend” and their acceptance by their own people – so moving to distance themselves from him. (See how they distance themselves Kohai?) He is running out of money to keep his police and military in the good life (and they will be having ever harder times at home, with relatives, etc.) The economy will NOT be improving while he is in power, and will continue fast decay as long as there is civil disorder and governmental incompetent over-control of money, investment, and production.
The only real question now, IMHO, is the method of his departure.
1) Quiet Assassination.
2) Military coup.
3) Abdication (who would take him?)
4) Mob Revolt and the Spanish version of “The French Haircut”
5) Steps down and calls for elections.
Anything I missed?
I think #5 highly unlikely. Were it on the cards he would have done it already.
I’m not seeing #3 working just because he’s not that kind of guy (or would have called elections…) and not seeing where anyone would want to take him in. Who has he not pissed off? With Cuba getting cuddly with the USA now, where to Old Deposed Socialist Dictators go to live out their “golden years” now?
I don’t know enough about the Venezuelan Military to know if #2 is likely. Similarly, I’m not sure how “willing” the Venezuelan Citizens are for #4 to happen (though it seems to be building steadily in that direction).
Which leaves us with #1. That depends on the relative skill of his protection forces vs the opposition “agencies”. I have no clue on that, either. Not even sure who those agencies would be. The USA doesn’t give a damn about Venezuela anymore since we have oodles of fracked oil and can tell him to go stuff it. Most of South America seems to be just trying to turn up the stereo so they don’t hear the shouting from next door as he beats his national family. Similarly, I don’t see anyone in Europe or Asia giving a damn about him. At best, OPEC is happy to have the supply off-line, so not going to help things along. That takes out essentially the Muslim World and Africa as ‘players’. Frankly, I find myself hearing echos of “Gone With The Wind” and “Don’t give a damn”… So unless it is someone inside Venezuela, not seeing #1 as happening.
In the end, I’d guess that it is a horse race between #2 Military Coup and #4 The People’s Mob. That will depend on what would “flip” the Military and when, and is that faster than the rate at which the Mob realizes it will take a few dozen more dead, but doing nothing will have thousands dead…
I’d give it a time window measured in days, maybe small weeks and certainly not many months. Then again, I’m surprised it has gone this long…
What with the France vote this weekend, and Venezuela imploding, and the Muslim World having internal fights beyond count; global things are quite a bit unpredictable right now. It will be an interesting Spring. IF Spring ever comes… what with Kansas under feet of new snow…
I don’t know which “Disaster in the making” is most compelling to watch right now.
Musings from the Chiefio 
And that is not even counting that the global economy is very sick. September 2008 sick? Not quite. But very close.
I think I will take a combination of doors #4 and #2.
Protests get out of hand and military sees handwriting on the wall and either accidentally let the mob get into the Presidential quarters or take Maduro into “protective custody” and set up a military Junta to manage the “emergency”.
They have had 3 attempted coups since 1992 so the odds favor that being in play once conditions are right.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/venezuelan-army-vows-loyalty-embattled-president-170417191000907.html
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/04/henrique-capriles-venezuela-banned-public-office-170407230838078.html
Society is hurting, worldwide.
I encourage you and your readers to support tentative plans by investigative reporter, Jon Rappoport, to make a film to show the public that, “Normal is gone. The unique individual, endowed by his Creator with inalienable rights to enjoy life, liberty, pursuit of happiness and self-governance, will now return.”
https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/cartels-of-the-mind-the-free-individual-returns/#comment-223538
This lady came before the current guy, but has just distanced herself from him. Not sure how that fits into the “distancing” thing.
Venezuelan Attorney General Luisa Ortega joined Hugo Chávez’s government as a legal adviser when he won the presidency and redrafted the constitution in 1999 and has since married a ruling party lawmaker.
She may have a plan.
Where are the USA Chávez supporters from a few years ago. Under rocks!
Got popcorn? (Actually this is sad.)
Hungry people will be hard to control.
Ask the French.
As for the spring that isn’t the frost and snow is not limited to Kansas, Canada and the US.
All over Europe late frosts have damaged blosseming fruit trees and vinyards including France, Spain and Italy. Also vegetable production in the by plastic covered fields in Spain has suffered causing temporary shortages in the UK.
At iceagenow they talk about little ice age conditions.
From history, core and tree ring studies we know relative warm periods like the Roman Optimum and the Medieval warmth period were followed by a sudden change in weather conditions and long periods of deminished sun light (volcanic causes) that caused crop losses and famine on a grand scale. In both cases these conditions were complicated by plagua epidemics that wiped out huge percentages of the populations. The Justinian plague (541 AD) and the Bubonic Plague 1346 AD were able to spread so fast because the majority of the population was in a very bad shape due to a lack of nurishment resulting in a low body resistance.
The only effect of the current cold spells will be a small and temporary raise in prices but we should prepare for other conditions that come with large scale crop faillures over multiple gowing seisons.
Horizontal inhouse production of fruits and vegetables, thanks to LED tech and some pioneering, already has proven economical and this new trend is spreading like a wild fire.
The production of staple foods however requires huge arials of land and natural light and remains vulnerable.
People who have some land can easily grow potatoes, fruits and vegetables and become fully independent from the current food production and distribution networks if they are up for the hard work but those who live in the cities won’t be that lucky.
Most countries have no alternative policy in place other than hoarding food and water stocks in case of emergencies for at least 10 days.
This should be increased to a period of at least 4 to 6 months depending on the geographic location and the availability of natural resources.
Here too city dwellers don’t have many choices as most of them lack cellers and storang space to gather a viable stock.
People however live good lives in Siberia and Alaska so I don’t worry too much about this for now.
Maduro is not of the Military. That is the way it will go down. Chavez was. I think they are waiting until the people are overwhelmingly against him, before they move so that their hold on power will seem more legitimate.
It is sad really. But it is Penn’s paradise. And the idiots will not learn. Venezuela has the means to become a great country. But it does take intelligence to understand that the rich are not the enemy. The government is.
It is truly amazing that so many countries with amazing natural wealth (e.g. Iran, Iraq, Venezuela and many more) get ruined by incompetent leadership.
I used to celebrate “Regime Change” in Latin America until I realized that when a leader like Hugo Chavez falls you get someone even worse.
“May there be a lamp post in his future. ”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2017/05/how-high-senor-.html#comments
Now the “tear down the statues phase begins”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-politics-idUSKBN1811X3
Looks like end stage is starting to happen:
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/05/05/valencia-isnt-spared/
https://www.caracaschronicles.com/2017/05/05/villains-against-civilians/
I’d expect to see the rural and small town areas starting to hunker down and take care of their own, while modest to medium cities start turning into lawless zones. The main national forces pulling back to the 2 or 3 biggest cities (and strongly protecting the capital where most of the government money is spent…).
At that point, The People ought to be able to just “wall it off” and declare those areas quarantined… and start rebuilding the rest of the country while they wait for surrender of the deposed. Big issue just being when the local police swap sides. It looks like it is already starting in the non-Capital locations. Next just need some military units to dump their officers and swap sides and it will clearly be “End Game”.
Hi E.M. Here is an interesting article on the subject from Steve Kates at Catallaxy Files. Steve is an American economics professor in Australia and well worth reading on any subject IMHO.
I just noticed that it is Marcus, another acolyte of the great Mr. Kates who wrote the article, acknowledging him. Sorry to mislead you
What surprises me (but not really) is the lack of coverage by the YSM here. It is like Venezuela does not even exist.
@Phil:
Yup. They are now up to something like 40ish dead and riots of increasing size, but nothing on our news. On the Latin news they are showing increasing violence.
They had two very different protest marches. One, mostly women, peaceful basically. Another, looked like lots of young guys. They were “prepared” with wooden shields, and a mix of bike helments, motorcycle helmets, and hard hats, gloves, and more. One group using a very large slingshot to “fire” jars of mixed pee & poo at the police. Called poopootov cocktails…
Basically, 1/2 of the protesters are starting to “gear up”. As soon as any military or police start swapping sides, it’s over.
Phil, does today’s “Pravda”, in the USA, mention Stalin any more? ;)
View of Venezuela from Stratfor.
https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/how-venezuelas-protests-are-different-time-around
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article151329772.html
The Battle for Venezuela, Through a Lens, Helmet and Gas Mask
The Meltdown in Venezuela’s Currency Is Deepening