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Even if Venezuela goes to hell even deeper, she still deserves the prize for what she has already done!
The way she, and her team, managed to convince venezuelans that the election mattered, and to prepare to gather the evidence of the elections under constant threats from the government, that we all knew they were going to steal, and do it entirely peacefully, was an extremely impressive achievement on its own.
What an impressive act of coordination from MCM
:standing-ovation:
Disclaimer: I'm not accusing you of (intentionally or unintentionally) doing this but your comment brought up the issue.
For a lot of horrific events in the world, you will find a bias exposed by the use of active vs passive voice. Compare:
- "100 children died". How?
- "100 children killed". By whom? Why? How?
- "100 children killed in conflict". Between who? How? Why?
' "100 children killed in air strike on refugee camp by X". Oh...
The point is that a lot of people treat what is happening in Venezuela like it's some kind of unavoidable natural disaster like an earthquake. This reinforces the idea that nobody is responsible and, more improtantly, there's nothing we can do.
Venezuelans are being intentionally starved to death by economic sanctions (that's what sactions are). Why? Because Maduro is bad. Sound familiar? It should. Castro was bad. Saddam Hussein was bad (despite being a US puppet for decades).
The actual issue is that these people threaten the interests of Western companies. That's it. That's the only thing that matters.
The Venezuelan regime makes money from oil. They do not need to involve the population to generate most of the GDP.
To them, spending resources to have a healthy and happy populace is just a waste of money that would otherwise go to the rulers of the regime. The CGP "Rules for rulers" explains how this happens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rStL7niR7gs
They stay in power with the help of a paramilitary group of bullies that intimidates people: colectivos. The Venezuelan colectivos are based on the Cuban CDR (committee for the defense of the revolution). And there are other elements of the Cuban "model" of staying in power that has "worked" for 66 years, that Venezuelan regime has adopted. And the CDR resembles the Nazi Sturmabteilung in their modus operandi.
So in the end what's holding the regime together is all violence, all the way down.
The history lesson is that when the most of the GDP generation doesn't need without the help of the population, the result is a regime. Scalable and cost efficient AGI will do the same to countries that do not make most of their GDP from extracting natural resources because once the citizen is not needed for wealth generation, territorial control, etc., their political representation goes away.
Its like the Iraq war all over again, you gobble this shit up like its sophisticated propaganda. Like she literally went on Fox&Friends to glaze Trump bombing those Venezuelan boats and supports US sanctions hurting her own citizens. You think she is some sort of popular resistance fighter or something? You Americans are so fucking stupid its hilarious.
Any meaning associated with the Nobel Peace Prize was demolished when Obama got it without having done anything meaningful except running a campaign on 'Hope'. This was the person that subsequently ok'd 3,000+ drone strikes in Afghanistan, a huge number of which caused heavy collateral damage. Imho, the Nobel Peace Prize should have no money associated with it and be given only posthumously.
To paraphrase the Nobel writeup: he advocated international cooperation, denuclearization, social progress, and work to reverse climate change.
This was against the backdrop of a president who lied to the UN so he could depose a dictator, initiated ground invasions of two countries, had a VP who openly advertised that he was okay with doing evil stuff to accomplish his objectives - e.g. Gitmo and Abu Graib, and created a regulatory environment that led to the GFC.
That prize was awarded to Obama but it was meant for the US electorate for embracing what you reductively call "hope".
Pretty sure they had already spoiled it by giving it to F.W. de Klerk, Yasser Arafat, and Henry Kissinger.
To be fair, the Obama administration specifically designed rockets that did not carry high explosives, but rather sharp blades intended to kill individuals with minimal risk of collateral damage.
If you're looking at it like how an athlete would get a gold medal, maybe? Even then, the fact that an unqualified person (such as with doping and cheating) was given a medal, doesn't take away from someone's accomplishment.
But back on Obama, was your expectation that he wouldn't hurt a fly? Did he start a war? Did he not set the stage for withdrawing from two wars (both justified imho!)? Did he order the killing of anyone who wasn't a legitimate military target? I'm not saying he should have been given any award, and certainly his was premature, but it is hardly without precedent.
The peace prize is given to leaders who worked towards peace. It gives them recognition, sort of like a pat on the back so they won't give up.
Would you rather a retired politician get the prize so he can boast about it? or an active politician so that he now has the prize as a reminder of their promises and work towards peace?
He said it best:
"Throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes," Obama said. "And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action—a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century."
Either way, in retrospect, him winning an election is in the long term arguably, and to no fault of his own, a catastrophe. But the US did pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and conflicts in Syira, Libya and all over the world sprung that were too easy for the US to be involved in but the US didn't. The US military responded to various natural disasters providing crucial aid, such as with the 2011 Haiti earthquake.
I think this sentiment is held largely by people who don't want to be bothered by nuance and who have an immature concept of peace, one that doesn't involve violence or military action (despite concepts like "peace keeping force" existing).
I was going to say Nobel Prize for Peace was irretrievably compromised when they gave it to Kissinger.
Don't get me wrong. She has firmly opposed maduro and is a beacon of hope for many in Venezuela but she hasn't accomplished anything meaningful yet? She is just a career politician that just happens to be in the opposition of the venezuelan goverment when Maduro (a dictator) is in power. But she hasn't done anything extraordinary to merit the award.
The US is about to invade Venezuela and she is cheering for it.
Its fair. She done a crucial job uniting the different interests of the oposition of the venezuelan goverment/cartel.
Too bad they where so divided for so many years, that when they trully worked together to wind a election it was too late because now MAduro dont even care to steal the ellections in plain sigth and probably theres no more solution without violence.
I don't know much about her but it's truly sad to see how absolutely eeeeeveryyyyy media reporting about this have to report it with Trump, or in relation to his statements. Man must sucks to be her, limelight is still on Trump, truly a showman.
And to repeat my point that I do every year: Nobel peace prize is the only part of the price that is actually given out by a foreign political body (Norway, founding member of NATO and Oil nation) and not the Swedish academy.
It's famous recepients include presidents that bombed/joined war during/just after been given it and bloggers that kept blogging after surviving shootings. And Henry Kissinger
Petition to rename it to "Norwegian peace price". /signed, a Swede
As an Ethiopian man, I view this new Nobel Peace Prize with profound skepticism, a feeling rooted entirely in the disastrous outcome of Abiy Ahmed's utterly undeserved award. The premature praise he received for peace-making quickly evaporated, leading instead to a catastrophic war and the fragmentation of our nation. His prize has been followed by widespread conflict, massive displacement, and an alarming return to authoritarian rule. For us, the entire Nobel Peace Prize now feels meaningless, a hollow symbol given its failure to prevent—or perhaps its role in emboldening—such terrible suffering in Ethiopia
Looks like this would prompt Maduro to kill her, and gave US a reason to invade Venezula.
Notice what they said: This year's peace prize is being given to someone for transitioning a country from dictatorship to democracy. They sure as hell aren't going to give it to someone doing the opposite!
~10 hours or so before the announcement bets on her skyrocketed on Polymarket
https://x.com/polymarket/status/1976434242386317640
Someone without any history whatsoever put 70k on her 5 hours before the announcement
https://x.com/polywhalewatch/status/1976499384373121488
Trump was never above 5-10% and out of nowhere she was the winner (see the 1 day market view) https://polymarket.com/event/nobel-peace-prize-winner-2025?t...
Before authoritarian rule, Venezuela was one of the wealthiest nations in the global South (if not one of the wealthiest period in the 50-60s). Then Chávez came along and stacked the courts with lackeys, intimidated critical media outlets and harassed journalists, diverted state spending for political patronage, demanded loyalty oaths from underlings, injected "Bolivarian" ideology into schools and sports, took control of private industry...
I'd tell you what he did to elections but we'll all find out soon enough.
Here come the sanctions
I guess giving it to Juan Guaido would have been too obvious.
I wonder if she would rather not have won it? Being the focus of frustration of someone with enormous capacity to thwart your efforts or even destroy your country can't be a pleasant position to be in. For her sake I hope he quickly finds something else to be pissed off about.
This is absolutely huge, the biggest one. Congrats to Maria. It's really a big one.
Things in the US seem to keep sliding toward further power centralization. Regardless of politics, that is bad policy of the highest order (bit).
Great opportunity for someone to create some effective opposition.
There is a medal in it!
Ironically, someone who badly wants a medal is actually in the perfect position to turn around the brain/competency drain, “bring back science”, boost US competition with China’s green tech wave, help Ukraine win (instead of the endless: “not lose for now”), fire the all the senate confirmed bozos…
If he did, a Nobel prize would be unconventional under the circumstances. But well worth it nevertheless.
No Rushmore. There isn’t enough room left on that mountain for that size of an ego. But maybe a genuine gold working toilet installation for Rushmore tourists.
———
Humor, despair and any bias of mine aside. I am quite seriously unaware of anyone with a good opposition plan, to reverse the power centralization, at this point.
Perhaps a constitutional amendment, reaffirming key points of the existing constitution with a highlighter for supreme justices with poor eyesight, might be one promising approach.
> “No person shall” [something, something] “hold any office” [something, something], “who, having” [something, something] “engaged in insurrection”, [something, something] “or given aid” [or incited, or encouraged insurrection, or threatened a vice president for not implementing an insurrection, or delayed relief for law enforcement engaged in stopping an insurrection] “or comfort” [or praise or approval or promises of pardons] “to the enemies thereof.”
> […All the powers of the purse given to the representative branch, with no provision for presidential “creative” reinterpretation…]
> [Etc., etc.]
If anyone wants to give a shout out to anyone building effective resistance to the avalanche of presidential power, essentially being voluntarily abdicated by the other two branches, I would be interested to hear of them.
(Traditionally that has been a very high consensus bipartisan issue. Not everyone, but most everyone.)
That's interesting. I think the last Venezuelan election showed there are limits to what you can accomplish with peace.
I sincerely pray that Maria Corina achieves her goals. Incredible bravery. I'm pretty sure she remains in hiding in Venezuela to this day
My "acid test" for whether or not someone on the left actually cares about freedom, democracy, etc is whether or not they support the Maduro government
There's a shocking amount of people who do!
Living in the information age was supposed to mean we'll be better informed. Reading the opinions in this thread just shatters any hope for humanity.
"This recognition of the struggle of all Venezuelans is a boost to conclude our task: to conquer Freedom.
We are on the threshold of victory and today, more than ever, we count on President Trump, the people of the United States, the peoples of Latin America, and the democratic nations of the world as our principal allies to achieve Freedom and democracy.
I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!
>The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 was awarded to Maria Corina Machado "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy"
>I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause - Maria Corina Machado
Seems to me democracy isn't her real priority or why flatter someone who tries to transition from democracy to dictatorship?
There is a lot of conflict in the world. Causes that seem more urgent and important than yet another supposed authoritarian regime in Latin America.
To my understanding the biggest problem in Venezuela (and it’s a big problem) is the terrible living conditions. I don’t know how much the supposed regime is to blame for that and if a supposed good government would have done a better job. Maybe a good goverment would have still managed a country with poor living conditions for the majority. But we wouldn’t hear about it in the news because The West has labelled it as a good government. (How selective is the reporting on countries with bad living conditions?)
I read the bio. I don’t know enough about Venezuela to judge whether she is a pro-democracy fighter or just another politician who wants power for herself. Certainly you can label any candidate pro-democracy if they oppose your most disfavorite regime.
So I’m not going to spend two hours researching what the Venezuela situation is about and whether this is a good award or if it’s just trying to stick a thumb in the eye of a regime that The West doesn’t like. Just so I can argue through six replies with five different people about (either) how downtrodden the Venezuelans are or how manufactured the outrage against the government is. (But you can guess which side I am most likely to fall on.)
Wake me up in two weeks when there’s a topic on democracy itself. And then the tone has shifted from Democracy Uber Alles to actually, did you know that Plato the most smartest man in the world was skeptical about democracy, actually I think a pseudo-democracy where only smart people get to decide would be great, actually.
I did not recognize her name, but after doing some research, I am impressed by her work, and do not have an issue with her getting the prize.
However, her accomplishments were also clear last summer, and I feel it would have been far more appropriate to give her the prize last year. Instead, it went to an organization that has been around for 70 years. While they have done great work, there was nothing they did specifically in 2024 that stood out, at least that I could find. So, clearly, Machado was not an obvious choice, at least last year.
Also want to add that I don't think Trump should have gotten it, simply because it is far too early to tell if the current "middle east peace plan" will actually turn out to be more than just fanfare.
A better statement would have been to have no peace prize this year.
Trump will never win, nobody who floods the zone with a low signal/noise ratio will ever win this prize or any of the 'elite' prizes.
The low signal/noise ratio people are at best perceived as 'communicators' more often jesters.
If anything the anomaly of the social media era is that people who put themselves out there as low signal/noise ratio character are even taken seriously at all.
Prizes like that are given to people who are perceived to be special, the more you talk and yap the more you give people an opportunity to realize how NOT special you are and how NOT special your character is.
Peter Grant did it best with his clients Led Zeppelin back in the days, keeping them in the dark before and after the 3.5 hour shows.
Oh, my dear corrupt Nobel prize. I love oil too.
It made my day a 100x better that they didn't cave and give it to Trump. Him sewing division at home is grounds for impeachment I'd hope but congress doesn't function anymore so.
For the record:
Hamas leader Dr Basem Naim has publicly acknowledged Trump's part in bringing terrorists to the table, saying: ”Without the personal interference of President Trump in this case, I don't think that it would happen to reach this end, the end of the war.”
“Norway braces for Trump’s reaction if he does not win Nobel peace prize”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/09/norway-braces-...
White House knocks Nobel Committee for snubbing Trump, but Peace Prize winner praises him: https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/10/trump-nobel-peace-prize-mach...
Would have preferred it going to aid workers in Gaza or something like that but an NED-funded dissident politician will do as long as it's not Donald Trump.
She’s been in hiding since the last elections that Maduro blatantly stole. I lost hope myself about Venezuela but I wish the regime ends soon for those still there enduring it.
Rigged
In other news, the US appears to be preparing for war with Venezuela, an invasion is imminent. I wonder if that source of thing affects the committee?
She definitely trumped this one.
Now, go out and fight for what you believe in.
https://x.com/leadingreport/status/1976662248887402924?s=46
Uh oh! Time to flip the switch! Mega-LMAO.
Why on earth did she dedicate it to Trump?
Trump is going to be upset.
She supports Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Genocide of the Palestinians