The US has reimposed economic sanctions against a Venezuelan state-owned mining company and says it could go on to reimpose further sanctions on the country’s oil and gas sector after Venezuela’s Supreme Court barred main opposition candidate Maria Corina Machado from running for president last week.
The US Treasury on Monday revoked General License 43, which had authorized dealings with mining conglomerate CVG-Minerven. The Treasury said US companies have until February 13 to wind down transactions that were previously authorized by that license.
While US economic sanctions against the mining company are unlikely to cause significant damage to the Venezuelan economy, the US State Department has crucially signaled it intends to renew oil and gas sanctions from April 18, if there’s no progress between Venezuela’s authoritarian president Nicolas Maduro and the opposition “particularly on allowing all presidential candidates to compete in this year’s elections,” it said in a statement.
Kinda weird since the US bars anyone from running under many different reasons from age to location of birth. Hell, in some states you can’t run for office if you have a felony or are atheist. In Florida if you don’t like someone running against you there just needs to be some bullshit charges and a paid off judge to gets some felony charges. Then in Arizona they are trying to remove the way the state delegates electorates based on popular vote so that the votes don’t matter.
People can be barred from running under many legal reasons in mostly every government. Baring people from running if they are advocating for things that are believed to be bad for the nation is at least well intentioned. What intention does baring someone from running for president simply because they were born somewhere else?
All of this ignoring how the US general elections are decided by two parties and the primaries they run where you can be snubbed for your platform. “Ah well it’s not the government doing it, it’s just the parties that control the government that are doing it”
Look at that deafening silence. You know you’re speaking truth to power when people are upset at you but don’t try to contest what you’re saying.
First of all, all censorship and undemocratic laws are justified by “protecting the people” from dangerous ideas, case and point, the Kids Online Safety Act, the problem being, who defines what is bad or good? and the fact of the matter is that people on power will always conveniently decide that the opposition is “dangerous” and “extremist”.
Secondly, the US system, as broken as it is today, actually started in a time where there were no political parties and as such, it was a popularity contest between whoever wanted to run, and still is to a point, had the system not had been enveloped by them.
Finally, the point of the location of birth is that most people tend to be faithful to their nation, especially the one they were born (of course it is not linear, but it is a reasonable rule)
That’s the point. It’s not fascism if it serves the purpose of benefiting everyone, it’s just a rule.