erebus_rex

> "Chávez created a political regime based on a concentration of power that allowed him to co-opt the Supreme Tribunal and the National Electoral Council. An example of this was the 2004 recall referendum procedure that was manipulated by Chávez to assure his victory."

> "Maduro was elected in 2013, in a contentious election. After that, electoral malpractices increased, particularly after the Supreme Tribunal decided to dismantle the Venezuelan Congress."

> "in January 2018 the illegitimate national Constituency Assembly decided to convene an early presidential election. The single-party assembly was installed in a clear violation of the Venezuelan Constitution. In any case, according to the Venezuelan Constitution, elections must be called with at least six months’ notice."

>"The national constituency assembly decided to ban the participation of several opposition political parties [...]. In addition, several political leaders were banned, while others were prosecuted or are in exile. The right to participate in public affairs and to be elected was violated."

> "The National Electoral Council’s Directors were appointed by the Supreme Tribunal, and not by the Venezuelan Congress, as established in the Constitution. This facilitated its politicization, as was demonstrated during the 2016 recall referendum against Maduro, which was blocked by the Council."

> "The right to equal opportunities to vote and universal suffrage was violated due to several inconsistencies in the electoral register. This included issues for Venezuelans living abroad: only an estimated hundred thousand Venezuelans [of the 4-5 million exiles] were able to comply with the electoral register."

> "Freedom of opinion and expression has been violated, particularly, since the Constituent Assembly approved an “anti-hate law”, that established ill-defined crimes punished with prison up to twenty years. Criticizing the Government can be considered a hate crime."

> "Several critics stated that the Government used social programs to coerce voters, in violation of the Anti-Corruption Law. For instance, Henri Falcon (Maduro’s main opponent in the election) denounced that Maduro used the “fatherland card” –required to access medicine and food provided by the Government- to coerce voters."

> the 2018 election had a 40% turnout (half the turnout in the previous election but the EIP also notes: "abstention could not be deemed as the cause of Maduro’s “victory”. On the contrary, abstention is the consequence of fraudulent actions that allowed Maduro’s reelection".

It is also worth noting that the one legitimate source Maduro insists on evoking to proclaim the legitimacy of its election is the Carter Center which also issued a statement calling those claims misleading and claiming that "The Carter Center has not observed elections formally in Venezuela since 2004"[5].

As for Bolsonaro, his electorial upset and later actions was met with an Economist cover calling him "Latin America's latest menace" [6], An opinion piece by the Editorial Board calling him "Brazil's Sad Choice"[7], an extended segment by John Oliver [8], an extended segment by Hasan Minhaj specifically about the Amazon in May [9], an entire documentary about his rise to power distributed by Netflix [10]. The numerous articles in major media organizations about these recent fires are part of a long trend of robust (and rightful) scrutiny of Bolsonaro's beliefs from election to administration.

I'd like to emphasize this is not my apology of American diplomacy in Venezuela or of Bolsonaro's administration. I am troubled by Mr. Bolsonaro's medieval worldview and assaults on institutions. I also am worrisome about how much US seems to be flirting with military intervention in Venezuela.

But claiming that (a): the 2018 Venezuelan poll was a "legitimate election" and that (b): Brazil's government "gets no media coverage" is resolutely false and doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

This is question begging to say the least. Political obligation [0] is "the moral duty to obey the law". Debt is money owed to someone [1]. Is that a political obligation? Yes, if the laws concern themselves with debts. But what if the law didn't concern itself with debts do you cease to owe money to someone? Not if they are able to enforce the contract of the debt in some other manner.

> Banks are simply professional lenders. If the transaction were purely numeric and not political they'd be peripheral to the economy instead of central to it.

Yes, state intervention in money markets is of monumental importance in achieving the system we have now. But it wasn't always like this and those systems were far from peripheral [2]. Free banks put themselves in debt every time they issued currency and the state was absent from the interactions.

To clarify, I'm not advocating against the state's importance in defending debt money. The free banking days of multiple competing notes was one of volatility and disastrous crashes. What we have now is strictly better than before. But to say that fiat currency "comes from the state" as OP did is simply not a historical fact. Period.