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Lots of different kinds of people, of course. True info, false info, exaggerated info, maybe some other kinds of info too. 
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I sometimes think of my colleague Ivan who grew up and started a career and family in pre-1990 Yugoslavia. He would occasionally say: “Sometimes I feel sorry for you people who grew up in capitalist countries; you never got a proper education on propaganda. In Yugoslavia, our propaganda was done by, well, government employees. And it showed. You could see it a mile away, so we got to learn where propaganda appears, why, and what message it will try to deliver. But you people: your propaganda was done by professionals. You never knew what was real and was was the thing people in power wanted you to think, because it was very hard to tell the difference.”
In this graphic, it’s not hard to tell, and I think of Ivan.
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By describing the result as a “triumph for the Venezuelan people” she equated the Maduro government with the people. She implied that a victory for the oppostion would be the fruit of “sabotage” and “interference” by the United States and therefore illegitimate.
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ETA
ETA
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By describing the result as a “triumph for the Venezuelan people” she equated the Maduro government with the people.
No, she instead means that based on her organization’s observations, democracy won. You know, “the people.” When someone wins an election fairly, despite efforts to overturn it – which is what her organization has determined happened in this election – anyone who believes they’re defending democracy would describe that result as a “triumph" for that country’s people.
Regarding efforts to overturn the result, Adely said the outcome is a triumph for the Venezuelan people,
“especially considering the level of U.S. interference and attempted sabotage of the democratic process, particularly through sanctions and coercive economic measures aimed at producing ‘regime change’ in Venezuela.”
You also wrote,
She implied that a victory for the oppostion would be the fruit of “sabotage” and “interference” by the United States and therefore illegitimate.
That would also be an observation made, if it were true, on the basis of neutrality and objectivity. It would be a statement made simply on the basis of fact. And if her organization has determined that Maduro’s victory was legitimately democratic, and if that can otherwise be determined to be true, than an overturning of it would indeed be “the fruit of ‘sabotage’ and ‘interference’ by the United States and therefore illegitimate.”
The US has long sought to sabotage and interfere with elections in that region, and in Venezuela; as noted upthread, the US failed to install Juan Guaidó.
I don’t know at this point if this election’s result seems democratic or not. I do wonder, though, why we should suddenly trust that the habiutally meddling, resource-thieving US did a sudden about face and sat this one out.
As recalled in this article,
Nearly 12 years ago, when Maduro’s predecessor President Hugo Chavez was running for reelection, CEPR’s co-director Mark Weisbrot reminded readers why the U.S. government continued to “demonize” the idea of democracy in Venezuela despite former U.S. President Jimmy Carter himself calling the Latin American nation’s election system “the best in the world.”
“In Washington, democracy has a simple definition: does a government do what the State Department wants it to do?” Weisbrot wrote at the time. “The State Department tries to keep its eyes on the prize: Venezuela is sitting on 500 billion barrels of oil, and doesn’t respect Washington’s foreign policy. That is what makes it public enemy number one, and gets it the worst media coverage.”
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The way I read it, she was implying that any election result other than victory for Maduro would be illegitimate on the grounds that it could only be the result of foreign interference.
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Okay. We read it differently then.
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Opposition member explaining how the claimed results are impossible.
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And the alternate agency that enforces the foreign policy of the US chamber of commerce:
They forced Sweden to amend its constitution to protect Scientology’s copyrights.
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Ok, lets review a few things.
The 109% thing is just a presentation mistake. Thats not the real pointer to why this is a fraud.
The situation was like this. The process started and, as designed, the updates from the polling stations would go to the central command of the electoral board, while the machines also print a tally and the actual paper votes that the machines give the voters so they can confirm they got the correct one are put in a ballot box to recount later and match with the tally.
And every single indicator was showing a big lead for the opposition candidate. Which is not surprising, as Maduro’s popularity is abysmally low.
Suddenly, the transmision was down. No more updates.
And then the head of the electoral board, who is a) Chavista ex-parlamentary and b) the same guy that as Comptroller ratified that opposition politicians, including Maria Corina, were barred from office, came with an explanation - there was a “massive hacking” going on and they knew that all their enemies in the continent and inside were behind it but dont worry, because he has the real data and Maduro won and thats it. In fact, they insist now on that, with the Attorney General equivalent saying it will investigate María Corina and others and that they traced the “hacking” to North… Macedonia.
There are 2 bits that arent making much sense on this, apart from the sudden inclusion of a Balkan country in this mess. The first one is that, well, the system doesnt run on the Internet - all the voting centers have dedicated lines to the central command. So, North Macedonia has some really good hackers.
The second is that Elvis Amoroso, the electoral board head, said that they had 80% of the tallies done and Maduro was winning and it was a “irreversible tendency” so that is it. But the difference between both candidates in that communication is some 700000 votes, and the other 20% would be some 2.6 million. So, not precisely irreversible.
Note that there are widespread cases of the opposition “witness” not being allowed to do their job, or being removed when the counting was to start, etc.
The opposition says now that they have managed to get 70% of the tallies and that those show a completly different picture, an actually mathematically irreversible victory for Edmundo, 6 million vs 2 million votes for Maduro. They in theory have published scans of those on a web, I’ve not been able to confirm yet.
Yesterday there were protests in all the country, lots of people arrested, some deaths, etc. Today, well, lets see what happens, the opposition was asking people to form “assemblies” around 11-12 am today to make a display of strength and then return home in peace, but well, who knows what is going to happen. The questions are basically how intense and widespread the protests are going to be, and how intense the repression or if at some point groups of the armed forces are going to say that hey, it is a much better idea if you guys leave. Problem is, of course, that all the leadership of the Armed Forces is aligned with Maduro, but who knows.
Apart from that, well, the usual, a ton of misinformation from inside and outside the country, a lot of people trying to manage this for their own ends, and a lot of people talking without any knowledge whatsoever of the country and explanations that somehow dont require anybody to exists and do things but the US. I mean, for real, just try to have the intellectual humility to recognize that if you dont know the situation, maybe you should get more info before saying things like the opposition has a big advantage against the government due to unlimited funds from the US; where are they going to use those funds exactly? In the thousands newspapers, websites, radio and TV stations that have been closed or blocked? To get interviews in the few remaining ones that dont want to do those interviews because that is a sure way to get closed too? To hire very expensive lawyers that they dont get to use because when the Chavistas jail them and torture them they dont let them see their own lawyers? Meanwhile the use of public funds for Chavista propaganda is very well documented, and yes, the country may be poorer now, but that is still a significant bit of money to be used as they see fit.
One of my worries, as a Venezuelan that has been out of the country for decades now, is to keep myself informed about who is who and what is what in the country. You cant understand what happens somewhere just by going aha, the US interests/actions/whatever. You need to know the country, the leaderships, the culture, the struggles, the shared ideas, foundational stories, etc. The other worry is that yes, I see that the political environment at least in the online part of the Venezuelan diaspora is more and more rightwing every day, and I’m very worried about that. But it is not surprising when you have to live with the humilliations, abuses, and all that imposed in the name of the “revolution”, and leave, and then you find people that havent faced 1/4th of any of that defend the “socialist revolution” because US bad not US good.
I hope democracy returns and I hope actual really socialdemocrat, democratic socialist, etc… parties can freely compete in clean elections; I’m not going to return, already made my life in Spain, but that would be the kind of party I would vote for if I could. I dont like the way at least the online part of the Venezuelan diaspora gets more and more right wing. But for sure having people that dont know anything about the country rushing to defend the group of thieves and murderers in power because US bad no US good doesnt really make it easy to convince any of them about anything.
Back to me waiting some more and try to navigate a torrent of bullshit by interest from the world left and world right and trying to find the actual events in Venezuela and what the implications are.
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Thank you and please keep us informed. Sometimes you need a personal eye to cut the bullshit, and in general I found that, in regards to Venezuela, is easier to find misinformation than information 
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It is very difficult. Although it is a bit easier outside than inside Venezuela, for the obvious reasons of censorship.
But to make an example, you have tons of videos in Youtube now with titles like “THE ARMED FORCES TURN ON MADURO AND TELL HIM TO GET LOST!!!”, and the content is something like 5 guys in a checkpoint decided to tell the people protesting that they were on their side. So, something happened, but not exactly that…
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Yep, that is big. I mean, I dont trust Lula much in this*, because he has been covering for Maduro for years now, but this last month and specially this week it seems he wants, well, not to feel embarassed by the PSUV I guess? Good if he keeps demanding this.
Oh, and btw, Maduro has been proclaimed president by the CNE - like, yes, there are no official results for the whole election but they already went and put him in the seat. Which ignores stuff like still not publishing the tallies, the fact that in theory they should have waited for the opposition to lodge a claim of fraud, and probably doesnt play well with winning back friends like Lula.
- Yes, yes, Bolsonaro was an incredible piece of shit, well, still is, but well, Lula has many good things and this … is not one of them. Hopefully he moves to “was”.
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Thats the problem. Bolsonaro must be beaten by now, but the Bolsonarism is alive and it doesn´t depends on the Captain anymore. Lula is facing a lot of criticism these days, both from the opposition and even from the people who voted for him. It seems Mr. Lula loves to get into a new crisis every week. He must say something, but I think he doesnt want to offend his national support base nor Venezuelan Chavismo.
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With transcript:
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined in New York by Alejandro Velasco, associate professor at NYU, where he’s a historian of modern Latin America, former executive editor of the NACLA Report on the Americas and the author of Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela . He was born and raised in Venezuela. And in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, we’re joined by Andreína Chávez, a reporter who writes for the news site Venezuelanalysis.
Excerpts:
ANDREÍNA CHÁVEZ: I think I need to start by saying that Venezuela right now is facing a coup attempt. That is the reality on the ground today. So, we saw — we celebrated presidential elections on Sunday. And then, immediately after, when the National Electoral Council gave the results, as was expected, the hard-line oppositions didn’t recognize these results, and they immediately called for protest in the streets. So, that’s what we’ve been seeing. We’ve been seeing violent protest in the streets. We already saw many people getting caught. We already saw dozens of people arrested. And according to the general attorney, a lot of these people actually have criminal records. Some of them came back recently to Venezuela. So, we can see that this was something orchestrated, especially because a lot of these people have weapons. And everything indicates, everything points the finger that the extreme opposition, led by María Corina Machado and her political organization, Vente Venezuela, is behind this new coup attempt against the government of Nicolás Maduro, who was just reelected president of Venezuela for a third term.
ALEJANDRO VELASCO: The vast academic literature, both in the case of Venezuela and more broadly around the world, has proven that sanctions have negative intended political outcomes than those that they seek. In most cases, the significant effects are felt not by governments in power, but by the population at large. We have to remember that when Trump came into office, he instituted what he himself called a maximum pressure campaign against Venezuela, which Marco Rubio called the harshest set of sanctions since the Cuban embargo of the 1960s and, of course, until today. It’s unquestionable that that has had a massive impact on the Venezuelan economy and certainly led to so many people leaving, millions over the course of the last 10 years.
However, it’s also true that it has shifted the policy agenda of the Venezuelan government towards dollarization, towards reducing some of the social programs that it had championed under the presidency of Hugo Chávez, which has in turn led to discontent on the part of the population.
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