I’m not so sure about that. There were a few people on the main site who had to be educated about Ukraine, but for the most part, the main site had the proper anti-imperialist stance. The few Ukraine supporters either got educated quickly or just decided to leave because both the mega and the main site people would (mostly kindly) correct them. But Palestine? No, I don’t think there was ever a divide between the newsmega and the rest of the site in general about that. The majority of the site had the correct stance on Palestine all along, before Oct 7th. The burning Israeli flag emoji struggle was only a few people opposing and even they would have stood with Palestine and fully recognize that Israel was committing a genoicde, they said so repeatedly anyway. It’s also not like the main site and the news thread are two entirely separate things either, with lots of people who participate in both.

https://www.presstv.co.uk/Detail/2026/11/03/779847/trespassing-tankers-hit-by-blasts-massive-fires-after-striking-naval-mines-in-hormuz-irgc-navy

Video at the above link

IRGC Navy:

Three oil tankers have gone up in blaze after striking naval mines while navigating unauthorized routes in the Strait of Hormuz, the IRGC Navy says.

Tuesday, November 3, 2026 at 03:14 PM

Three oil tankers have gone up in blaze after striking naval mines while navigating unauthorized routes in the Strait of Hormuz, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)’s Navy says.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the IRGC Navy said the vessels had been rocked by explosions resulting in “massive fires” since the early hours of the day after switching off their navigation and identification systems and attempting to transit unauthorized routes through the strategic waterway.

The vessels were left off the southern coast of the strait and stayed ablaze, according to the statement.

The statement described the fires as so intense that fishermen in the eastern part of the waterway witnessed the resulting “brightly lit night.”

Thanks! It means a lot coming from the master.

I guess I’m a decryer (the defenders have called me much worse names, so I’ll take it) but I would like to make it known that I never claimed to be an expert on Venezuela. I know there are people here, including people in the Delcy Defender camp, that know a lot more about Venezuela than I do. My problem with all of this was not and is not that there are people here who firmly believe Delcy is carrying on the revolution. I actually still hope they’re right, though I can’t help but see with my own eyes what is happening and see that it is constantly becoming less and less tenable to hold that position.

Even if they were to believe Lenin will soon come back from the dead and save us all, I would still just look at them as being a bit kooky but I would not consider them to be adversaries or enemies, comrades that need to learn a few things sure, but so long as they are still fighting for liberation and fighting to bring about communism, I would still look to them as comrades. For example, I consider myself a Marxist Leninist but I still consider principled and knowledgeable anarchists to be my comrades, despite some fundamental differences and disagreements. The fact that I disagree with their takes on Venezuela is not what I have a problem with (though I do think they have a problem with me simply because of that disagreement).

What I do have a problem with is being told (literally, this happened more than once) to “just shut up,” I think one time it was “shut the fuck up” but maybe my memory is adding the expletive. I have a problem with being called an ultra, I have a problem with being called a liar and instigator, I have a problem with being called worse things I don’t want to repeat here. I have a problem with being ridiculed and silenced, all simply because I do not believe in their version of reality. I have a problem with not being allowed to discuss the possibility that AES countries can sometimes make mistakes or not be able to imply that they are not infallible. I have a problem with their burning disdain and derision towards me and towards anyone who doesn’t fully swallow the narrative they have developed on Venezuela. I have a problem with being compared to fucking Zionists just because I think this leadership in Venezuela does not have the best interests for the revolution in mind when they do these things that the US is demanding of them. But to people like my harasser, that is a crime deserving of their hatred and deserving of hounding me off the site. I have a problem with being told I’m not allowed to discuss my thoughts as a Marxist Leninist - imperfect but improving - about what’s happening without being told I’m essentially stupid and evil and literally that I “want all Venezuelans to die” which is a common refrain when anyone has the audacity to question the Delcy Defenders. They say if we don’t believe that Venezuela is in the right hands and the revolution is being protected, then we obviously must want every Venezuelan citizen to die a horrible death being martyred by the US, when of course we want nothing of the sort. But that’s what people get told, especially in the news mega, if they go against this absurd narrative they’ve cooked up. One user who is active in the newsmega and always posts fascinating and illuminating comments, u/InexplicableLunchFiend, was called a white supremacist! For the crime of disagreeing with the narrative.

People would ask simple questions and would get harshly berated for daring to wonder if Delcy and the cabinet were maybe making bad decisions or asking about opening up for US capital, or for privatizing national assets. People had (and still do) have to walk on eggshells so as not to rile up the wrath of a select few users who will go ballistic with their scorn and derision. If you care to, you can see some of this if you go into my history (which another user in this thread said the Delcy-Can-Do-No-Wrong Clique are using against me somehow, which is laughable because I have talked about all kinds of maybe silly things but nothing bad or out of line with good hexbear standards over the past five years I’ve had this account - though I’ve been around hexbear since its founding, and on the CTH sub before that.) Apparently they’re frothing about me right now, beneath my comment in the newsmega sharing this same article as I did for this post. This is the kind of behavior I won’t put up with.

That’s why I decide to de-lurk and make a post when I see something happening with Venezuela that very clearly demonstrates the absurdity of their position. It’s not a “gotcha! You were wrong, nyea nyeah!” it’s just showing how their narrative is becoming less and less tenable with each new Venezuela-related newsworthy event. And how misdirected their sheer hatred of me and others really is. I’m simply posting news about what is going on, which is exactly what this comm is supposed to be about. And yes, part of the impetus for posting about Venezuela specifically is because it’s my only way of fighting back (since I won’t stoop to their level of bile and cruelty), fighting back against that abject disgust they have for me and for @Awoo@hexbear.net and for @InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net , and for a bunch of others who I don’t know if they would want to be named here, just because we disagree with the dominant clique’s faltering narrative.

Both “sides” of this issue are not the same, and even regardless of “who is right” they are still the ones being inexcusably despicable towards those of us they should embrace as comrades despite disagreement on this topic. So no, it’s not about two sides and neither one knows much about Venezuela but thinks they do. Like I said, I have MUCH to learn about Venezuela, and I would even be glad if by some miracle that defies recent events, that the other group was right. I would be very very happy if Delcy somehow turned all this into something genuinely beneficial for the Bolivarian movement, for the Chavismos, for the communes and for the Venezuelan people. However, my harasser and the followers would love to just spit in my face no matter what ends up happening because somehow I deeply offended them by not agreeing with their supposedly superior ability to do material analysis that the rest of us Marxist Leninists are just incapable of.

That’s a massive wall of text, I know, but I really did just want to get it out there and explain what’s really going on and explain my position in all this, partly because I know there are lies being told about me right now (most of which I can’t see because I blocked the worst offender). So I hope that if anyone cares enough to want to understand what’s happening here, that this helped clear things up.

No, China and DPRK are indeed socialist countries. They have a dictatorship of the proletariat (DotP if you see that acronym, that’s what it means) and are led by a communist party. But to reiterate what Awoo already said, neither Russia nor Iran are socialist. But a country does not have to be socialist to be anti-imperialist, they need only to be fighting the imperialists and not extracting superprofits from poorer, vulnerable nations. The imperialists are those countries that keep their proverbial boots on the necks of the global south countries, forcing unequal exchange for the extraction of superprofits, keeping those countries forever indebted while siphoning away their raw materials and exploiting the cheap labor, cheap labor which the imperialists enforce by forcing those countries into defacto vassalage, often installing a comprador government (as we see is happening with Venezuela) to do the bidding of the imperialists, namely the US, usually against the will of their people.

The superexploitation of global south countries is similar to how capitalism steals the surplus labor of workers, only it is at the scale of nation states interacting with each other. The US is the hegemonic leader of this exploitation and extraction that defines imperialism, and its western capitalist vassals (who also happen to be largely made up of the countries that in the past engaged in direct colonization and open enslavement of the global south countries who are still being exploited - see the British Empire as one clear example), are the beneficiaries of these superprofits. Russia and Iran are considered enemies of this US-led hegemonic order, they do not engage in this extraction and unequal exchange and are not beneficiaries of the US’s imperialism. Instead, they are both actively fighting against this imperialist world order. And that is why Russia and Iran are included in the anti-imperialist bloc despite not being socialist countries (in Russia’s case, they are not socialist anymore sadly, not after the collapse of the Soviet Union which was one of the greatest tragedies of the 20th century).

Hopefully that clears some things up for you and doesn’t confuse you even more. u/Cowbee no doubt would have done better.

It is strange how vicious some people are about refusing to see this. It’s not just a disagreement, it’s a rabid attack against anyone who doesn’t buy into their specific narrative.

Ah, that does make more sense. Thank you for the context. Would you say it is reasonable then, that they were the ones who conducted the attack on the Colombian military base?

You are of course correct. But the Delcy Defenders will still try to make those arguments, they are too entrenched on this issue now to let go of their self-imposed illusions, too emotionally invested to allow something like reality and the growing mountains of evidence sway them from their certainty that the current leadership of Venezuela isn’t compromised but is just putting on a show while secretly maintaining the revolution, or that Delcy and the cabinet are just doing a “tactical retreat”. That last bit is a lot harder to claim now that Venezuela is literally bombing ELN guerillas for the US.

I can understand the need to believe that those now in control of Venezuela are still paragons of socialism despite all this, that the kidnapping of Maduro actually was not a significant and game-changing win for the US. It’s hard to take a punch to the gut like that. But the insistence of some here that their denial of reality is actually them doing “material analysis” just makes me wince. And even worse are the attacks whenever someone posts an article like this, where the Delcy Defenders do everything they can to ridicule and silence anyone who doesn’t conform to their “analysis”

More discussion about this here.

Something else to make note of. The Chavez/Maduro government allowed the ELN to use Venezuelan territory as a sanctuary for decades. This attack marks the first time Venezuela has bombed the ELN on its own soil, which makes it easy to see this as a direct consequence of Maduro’s kidnapping-ouster and Delcy Rodriguez’s increasing alignment (forced or otherwise) with the US.

I wonder if “gangs” is now being used as the main cover word again in place of “drug dealers/drug runners” (innocent Venezuelan fishermen) now that Trump, whether correctly or not, considers Venezuela to have been conquered with the kidnapping of Maduro. Seriously, what “gangs” have both the drone capability and the motive to attack a military installation? Of course drones are relatively easy to acquire which also makes it that much easier to blame drone attacks on unrelated parties. I would bet we will be seeing more occurrences like this and of false flag operations in general, with drones as the centerpiece in the coming years.

Venezuelan Armed Forces Bomb ELN Guerrilla Camp: Reports

The operation allegedly relied on US intelligence support, with open-access flight radar confirming the presence of US reconnaissance aircraft in Venezuelan territory.

The Venezuelan armed forces reportedly attacked a camp belonging to Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) in the Pedro Camejo municipality, Apure State, on Friday.

The military operation relied on US intelligence support, according to Stratfor-owned geopolitical and intelligence platform RANE Worldview.

The interior minister additionally rejected any foreign interference in Venezuelan affairs. However, open-access flight radar confirmed the presence of US military assets in Venezuelan territory in recent days, including reconnaissance planes spotted flying over border areas.

Since the January 3 US attack and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, senior US military brass have visited the Caribbean country, including Southern Command Commander General Francis Donovan and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine.

In June, US forces conducted an airstrike in Bolívar State that they claimed to have extrajudicially executed Héctor “Niño” Guerrero, an alleged leader of the Tren de Aragua gang. Washington thanked Caracas for “cooperation,” while the Venezuelan government issued a statement informing of a “joint operation.”

I’m really not sure how even getting Ds in office is going to help anyone except by reducing their moral injury

This is really the important bit, I think. The problem with thinking that a wave of Democratic Party wins in the midterms will impede the harm Trump does is that most of the harm he does has bipartisan support. If it were a wave of genuine anti-Israel Democrats then we might be onto something worth celebrating, but as it is most Democrats are all for sending more money to the Entity so it can wipe out Palestinians. How many of the candidates have expressed that they want to put a stop to the current genocidal policy of starving Cuba to death? (Some of them may well have expressed that, I honestly don’t know and would be glad to hear if some did). Even with the candidates who purport to be against sending more “aid” to Israel, for me it is a “believe it when I see it” situation, and even if they were truly and actively anti-genocide, their presence, while a net positive, still doesn’t erase the majority pro-genocide ghouls in their party.

With respect to solely domestic issues, Democrats rarely if ever do more than give lip service to progressive policies while standing as a shield against actual grassroots efforts attempting to improve the lives of working people. There is no mechanism in place within the US political system that can actually curtail the kind of harm that president after president after president has inflicted on the world and on most people, working class people, in the US itself.

Just block them and move on.

This really is the best thing to do, yes. Part of the problem is that there was a whole loud clique of them, some of whom I actually did appreciate their analysis on other topics. Fortunately their attempts to silence anyone who didn’t buy into their Delcy-5D-chess-theory seems to have significantly diminished now that reality has apparently sunk in, at least for a number of them. But I did block the worst one who was full on harassing me and making it outright impossible to have a conversation especially in the newsmega, the same one who called you a “white supremacist” because you weren’t sufficiently sycophantic to a leader selling out her country to imperialism. And judging by the fact I can see a “1 more reply ->” button beneath both mine and your comments, that when clicked doesn’t load another comment, I’m guessing it’s that same pathetic blocked harasser still throwing a tantrum about this, still attacking me every time I de-lurk to comment. But now that I don’t have to read their slander and vitriol, it’s actually pretty funny.

Anyway, I appreciate your thoughtful analysis on Venezuela and in general. If it weren’t for you and a couple other commenters who would calmly stand up to the polyannish nonsense cohort and offer a more realistic if sobering perspective, I would have ditched the newsmega entirely, which would have sucked because it really is a great resource on the whole.

It was getting downright embarrassing around here how one would get pounced on, told to shut up (literally) and showered with abuse for having the gall to suggest that maybe Delcy Rodriguez didn’t have the best interests for the revolution in mind when she was opening up Venezuela to foreign capital (US imperialism) and giving warm compliments to the US president responsible for her predecessors illegal kidnapping and torture. It wasn’t possible to have any conversation rooted in dialectics without being told you were an instigator (a word no doubt used to get around the no fed-jacketing rule) non-dialectical anti-materialist, among other worse insults. I would hope those holdouts, are now off sulking in a corner where they belong rather than filling up these threads with their bile and flecks of spittle, maybe even doing some very needed self-crit and learning how to look beyond their own egos and personal desires, but I doubt it.

Though as others have mentioned here, sometimes it still does suck to be right. For all their disgusting abusive behavior, I wish the cope clique had been right, and that Delcy was akshually just hiding her power level and building up the revolution behind the scenes while only putting on an elaborate show for Western imperialism by… readily acceding to all their demands. But no, real materialist analysis predicted this was the most likely trajectory even months ago, and sure enough, here we are.

Assuming it wouldn’t be pointing a finger at anyone who doesn’t want it, do you know what user(s) here actually live or lived in Venezuela? I would have appreciated a perspective from such a user. Especially because all I remember seeing here is a group of weirdly rabid western leftists who would go apoplectic and froth about how everyone else needed to swallow the same ridiculous cope they were main-lining whenever someone dared to express some worry about what was happening in Venezuela. It looks like those users may finally be sulking silently in the corner (like they should have from the beginning) rather than flinging spittle and bile while accusing others of being “instigators” for having the audacity to question Delcy’s genuine commitment to the revolution. The worst one I finally just blocked, something I almost never do, because their abuse was just too over the top, so that one may still be coping and raging and I wouldn’t know.

It is deeply regrettable what has happened and is happening with Venezuela, that’s an understatement. But if we can finally actually talk about it honestly here again without having to defend ourselves against being dogpiled by the Panglossian Posse, I would be grateful at least for that much.

…continued.

Mao is famous for telling people to shut up if they don’t know what they are talking about.

Oh, and you’re Mao now, on top of being an omniscient telepath? Why haven’t you led the world revolution yet? Seriously, do you genuinely not see how fucking cringy arrogant it is to say something like that? Hexbear is not a vanguard party fighting in an active revolution. More importantly, no one fucking elected you as arbiter of truth and get to say which other comrades knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t. You may notice that the people you keep telling to shut up never say the same to you. Why do you think there is that asymmetry? Is it because you are infallible and therefore get to judge who deserves to speak and who doesn’t? Or is it that the people you are always trying to silence actually recognize they aren’t infallible and shouldn’t be able to tell you to shut up just for being the other side of a dialectical disagreement? Your lack of self-awareness is really something else, and in my experience, those who lack self awareness tend to be the least equipped to engage in real material analysis. But I never once told you to shut the fuck up for posting your “analysis,” the way I have been repeatedly told to shut up for saying that I don’t want people who I know are comrades to be silenced for having a dissenting opinion.

After months of asking people what evidence they have for their positions and being ignored with our own evidence,

I’ve barely been around the last few months because you were already getting too cliquey, hostile, and asinine for me to want to stick around. But before I left, I saw tons of great responses to your polyannish, myopic views of geopolitical events. I saw evidence presented to you and I saw you reject it outright because it didn’t line up with your faith. So I am confident that’s what has continued to happen these last couple months, you just refuse to recognize it because it pokes holes in your uh “analysis.”

And since you are all parroting imperialist and white supremacist positions that only result in dead Venezuelans, the utter disgust you deserve in holding such positions warrants no kindness or civility.

FUCK YOU. I generally am cordial even with those I strongly disagree with if they’re comrades, but this is beyond the pale. I work with, sometimes live with families from South America and other global south countries irl in an uphill battle to try to help keep them safe FROM white supremacists, and their unambiguous gratitude is something I’m more proud to have than just about anything else in my life. So you can FUCK RIGHT OFF with telling me I’m “parroting white supremacists” bullshit. I have never in my fucking life, even before learning about Marxism and anti-imperialism done such a thing. Shame on you for sinking that fucking low, you slanderous petty little shit. I hope more people read this and see what a grotesque slimeball you are, and the kind of heinous shit you’re willing to heap onto comrades because they dared to disagree with your majesty. Spit. I’m not going to read the rest of your comment, you’ve demonstrated the kind of vindictive and egotistical liar you really are, worse than I had even realized. Shooting down your spiteful venomous lies isn’t worth my time, and anyone with an interest in truth can already readily see this for what it is.

This goes to show you are just an instigator.

Oh fuck off, I have never “instigated” shit. I lurked on the newsmega, speaking up a few times only to defend comrades with sensible analysis getting bullied for having an opinion different than yours, people being hounded for having the audacity to say that the leadership running Venezuela now may be making terrible mistakes. And after that, I fucking left. I barely read it now even though it used to be an enjoyable part of my daily routine. I’m sure you’ll celebrate that though, because that’s your intent, to drive out any dissent so that you can have an echo chamber where everyone falls in line with how you say things are, period. And yet you call me the instigator? Yeah, you can fuck right off.

Myself and plenty of others have very directly explained and discussed this topic for months, with no hostility.

Maybe so! But if you haven’t been dishing out hostility like you used to (which I doubt) it’s only because you were successful at driving out anyone who dared question your omniscience. I check in from time to time, see the same garbage being spewed, and go back to reading the news on the rest of HB or other ML news sources that aren’t infected with a panglossian clique. But there certainly was plenty of hostility from you. It’s why I spoke up months ago, as seen in my account history, and why I left. But again, I doubt that it’s true there has been no hostility, it’s possible, but I certainly don’t trust you to tell the truth, considering the falsehoods you’re saying even in the comment I’m responding to now.

Our points are ignored, as well as our questions of how firmly cemented opposing positions are justified, like smugly suggesting an entire movement of millions of people is “dead,” a term used over and over

I never said any such thing, and I’m suspicious about your claim that someone else did, but maybe so. I definite would not say it’s dead but I would say it is being threatened not just by the imperialist US but also by the capitulation of its leadership to the imperialists. But you can keep going and lying about what people are saying, it doesn’t actually help your position the way you think it does.

about these actual people who actually have to deal with what is going on, yet you have the audacity to call us smug for pushing back against people claiming chavistas are not actual revolutionaries.

You’re just going to make a long list of my supposed crimes and none of them are going to remotely resemble reality, aren’t you? It seems clear all you can do is lie when called out on your bullshit. It’s pathetic.

Why are you lot allowed to declare millions of people actively in an ongoing struggle as not revolutionary enough

First of all, unlike you, I am not a member of any “you lot,” I spoke up to try to curb what I saw as a nasty current in the newsmega that was ruining a community I enjoyed being a part of from the sidelines. Unlike you, I am not part of a group that is trying to police the kind of analysis that is allowed in the newsmega, I’m not the one dedicated to stamping out any analysis that dares to include the fact that even socialist states are not perfect and pristine and always know exactly the right thing to do in a hostile, complex, and ever-changing world. So I guess I am part of a group if being part of that group just means remembering what happened in the early 1990s and having concerns that something similar is within the realm of possibility. And see, that’s another part of it, I freely admit that I don’t know for sure what’s going to happen but I refuse to rule out negative possibilities like those of you who insist that all of this is absolutely for the best which is an undeniable fact that is beyond questioning and any questioning is actually doing an imperialism. Massive eye roll.

As for the ongoing struggle of millions of people, it is literally my uncritical support of them and a desire to act in solidarity with them as best I can that leads me to have fears regarding what their leadership is doing, which to me and other principled communists (some of whom are in this thread as well), it sure as hell looks a lot like betrayal.

but clutch pearls when we point out you are not only ignorant as fuck but also showing your complete lack of understanding of the very foundation of Marxist analysis?

And there it is, that’s your typical bullshit. There has been excellent analysis not from me, but from others who do not toe your line, those who come to mind are @InexplicableLunchFiend@hexbear.net and @Leegh@hexbear.net. But in response to their analysis, your first reaction is to screech things like how they’re “ignorant as fuck” and unlike you aren’t real Marxists. You’re so full of shit with all your whining and fit throwing about the supposed “pearl clutching” of people who don’t think you actually know as much as you pretend to. “If you don’t agree with my analysis [which depends on knowing the minds of the post-Maduro Venezuelan leadership] then you completely lack understanding of the foundation of Marxism!” You say that to people who have been reading Marxist theory for more than two decades and applying it in the real world through organizational work, community building, and direct aid to families who need it, but your reasoning for telling any Marxist who disagrees with you that they’re not real Marxists like you are, always just comes down to you somehow knowing the inner machinations of Venezuelian leadership, and lying, as you have throughout your comments to me. When you do that, you’re trying to con us into accepting you’re telepathic, and calling it analysis - analysis that can’t be argued with. It’s not analysis when you’re being a petty tantrum-throwing crybaby because others dared to disagree with your magically unimpeachable conclusions. I’d say trying to reason with you is just as bad as trying to get through to a dyed in the wool liberal but it’s actually worse because you should know better.

You are really going to cast stones on an entire nation and then cry when you get called out?

More of your bullshit and lies. Making up absolutely absurd accusations to throw at your detractors. Yeah, I’m “casting stones on an entire nation.” Wut. It would be laughable if it weren’t so aggravating. I never “cast stones on an entire nation,” well… not Venezuela anyway, and neither did anyone else you’re trying to bury in your bullshit accusations. THINKING THAT WHAT IS HAPPENING, WHAT HAS HAPPENED SINCE THE KIDNAPPING OF THE HEAD OF STATE AND THE FOLLOWING CAPITULATION WITH THE US IS NOT IN THE BEST INTEREST OF VENEZUELA AS AN ANTI-IMPERIALIST COUNTRY is nothing at all like the lies you’re accusing me of. And for the record, I wasn’t even “called out,” I spoke up in defense of others that you and your clique were constantly shitting on.

It is you all who claim to know delcy is a comprador, despite there not being any validity to the claim. You are a hypocrite, plain and simple, assuming you know the inner motivations of a person you just heard about for the first time.

Ok, show me anywhere, anywhere where I claimed to know her inner motivations. You can’t, because I never did. I’m not the one whose understanding and “analysis” of the situation heavily relies on faith that Delcy and the current Venezuelan leadership can do no wrong and are masterful 5D chess players whose moves you alone can magically see for what they are. I never even called her a comprador, but I committed the evil crime of considering the possibility she might be, oh no! She may or may not be, I honestly don’t know, but I do know it really isn’t looking good. We’re half way through the looking like, walking like, and quacking like phase, so I am fine with saying that yes, I am worried that it might be a duck.

No, this is what we are pushing back against. It is you all who claim to know delcy is a comprador, despite there not being any validity to the claim. You are a hypocrite, plain and simple, assuming you know the inner motivations of a person you just heard about for the first time.

So you’re really just going to flat out do the “every accusation a confession” thing, I see. Bad look on a supposed principled communist. I speak for no one else, but personally I never once pretended to know what Delcy’s inner, private motivations are and it’s an absurd thing to say that I did. To the contrary, I openly admit I do not know what is going on in her head, if she is knowingly selling her country out, or if she genuinely thinks that she’s saving the movement. I go by her actions, which include unnecessarily praising the president of the country that kidnapped her president and murdered some of her comrades, opening up to western capital, and as the title of this OP states, talking about “transitioning fully to democracy.” My position is entirely based on what has actually happened and unlike yours, does not rely on pretending to know her mind. So no, the hypocrite is clearly you, who has to invent secret inner motivations to preserve your cope that all of this complicity and kowtowing to the US is somehow obviously done for the benefit of Venezuela.

Same, for the most part, but I will qualify that by adding: while I don’t care that they have opinions I think are wrong, I do care about their smug relentless ridiculing of anyone who doesn’t agree with them, because that behavior has a real silencing effect on the kind of discussions that can be had, especially in the newsmega. They have this obnoxious air of superiority and insistence that only they are capable of doing material analysis, and only they know the minds of Delcy and any other leader of any state or movement that is the target of imperialism.

Their response to anyone unhappy with Venezuela’s “opening up” or the transition to “full democracy” isn’t to simply disagree and have a dialectical back and forth, it’s to tell you literally to shut up, as seen multiple times even in this thread. If you express any doubt that what is happening with Venezuela is totally good and all part of the socialist plan, then you are shamed and shouted down as being a stupid western lib ultra who doesn’t understand the 5D chess that Delcy is playing. You’ll even be accused of secretly wanting to see all Venezuelans get killed in a futile attempt to defy the US. And not just in whatever thread the discussion is happening, but in snide remarks in completely unrelated threads. I remember one comment using the emote to equate the people in the newsmega concerned about Venezuela with Zionists. It would be nice to just say I don’t care that they’re wrong, but in reality I sure as fuck don’t want to stick around somewhere where I’m compared to a Zionist because I think it’s possible for a socialist state to make an error. And I know I’m not the only one, because as @purpleworm@hexbear.net also pointed out, we’ve lost a number of people who used to push back against their smug superiority, people who made important contributions to the discussions and added unique non-western perspectives in the newsmega. And I do care about that.

I’d say our lack of experience entirely disqualifies any of us from having any real kind of opinion on this.

Then why the hell do you get to be the one to tell others to shut up and stop complaining? If none of us know, then neither do you.

If you really do think that literally all of us should just “shut up and listen” without pushing your own opinion (an insistence that everything happening is obviously great and for the best) as the only Correct and True Materialist Analysis, then you are in the minority of the clique that usually tells anyone concerned about what’s happening in and with Venezuela that they’re ignorant ultras, or worse.