the irony is, of course, that canadian mining companies are some of the worst human rights abusers in the hemisphere.

i have a different proposal for how the rome statute should be used, namely to bring canadian mining companies to justice.

http://dghjdfsghkrdghdgja.appspot.com/thoughts/essays/conflictoflaw.html

this is actually completely outrageous.

what a horrible mockery of the rome statute.

http://www.oas.org/documents/eng/press/Venezuela-Executive-Summary.pdf

i can pinpoint the exact moment.

it was when optimus prime died.

that's when i lost all hope in this universe, and adopted the cold ways of a distant cynic.

i am in fact not alone. there's a literature on the topic, if you care to look.

a generation died on that day.

the media wants you to believe that this election was rigged.

but, the opposition boycotted the vote.

so, it's quite clear that maduro won - the opposition refused to vote.

a more pressing question is what would have happened if the opposition would have shown up. as this has been going on for years, it's not clear how close it would be.

and, i mean, of course there's going to be some irregularities - there are everywhere. but, you fundamentally cannot claim an election was rigged when the opposition didn't show up; the government wasn't even given the opportunity to meaningfully rig it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/world/americas/venezuela-election-opposition-boycott.html

to clarify a specific point about the elections in venezuela, though.

the corporatist media presents a half-truth when they point out that the opposition doesn't take part in the elections. that much is actually true - and i don't think anybody debates the point. what the media declines to clarify is that the opposition routinely boycotts the elections.

even if maduro were to give in to the ridiculous demand from the eu to call an election (and, can maduro demand a new vote on brexit while we're at it?), recent history suggests that the opposition would be unlikely to take part in it.

there is consequently somewhat of a level of uncertainty attached to the outcome, but it isn't due to state repression. the reality is that it's not entirely clear just how big the opposition actually is, because they've been boycotting elections for the last ten years. marches are a bad metric - they could be representative of a very well organized bourgeois minority, as is generally assumed, or they could be representative of a much larger bloc. but, they don't vote. so, we don't know - we're robbed of the ability to compare what we see in the pictures to what we can quantitatively analyse, and are left to our biases to try and work it through.

they want to make you think that the opposition is outlawed, oppressed, intimidated - and that is a lie. rather, they are holding strong to what are now very old accusations, always presented without proof, to uphold a years-long boycott.

and, we just don't know what the numbers really are, at this point.

cotler's history on speech makes dershowitz seem consistent and reasonable.

the guy's a nut.

oh, i see irwin cotler is on it.

this is a guy that wants to put people in jail for saying mean things to people - and has fought hard to enforce the laws. when i say that canada is somewhat of an embarrassment on free speech laws, irwin cotler is one of the primary reasons why.

some "human rights expert".

but, one may also note how strange it is to see the post pushing talking points by irwin fucking cotler, of all people.

an Organization of American States panel of human rights experts 

how do you even finish reading an article with that line in it?

yikes.

was kissinger on the board? how about oliver north?

they no doubt meant to say an OAS panel of liberal interventionists and neoconservative war criminals...

i have not seen a single credible source criticize the elections in venezuela since, like, 1999, or whenever it was that chavez won. all i've seen is a periodic, if tiring, repudiation of all of these right-wing smear campaigns.

what is "right" here is to stand up for the rule of law, respect their sovereignty and avoid interfering in their country. what is "wrong" here is to intervene in the situation for our own economic self-interest.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/canadian-unions-helped-fund-delegation-that-gave-glowing-review-of-venezuela-election-widely-seen-as-illegitimate?video_autoplay=true

“I think we can do that,” Simons said. “I just don’t think this bill, as currently written, accomplishes what it sets out to do.”

well, then resign your post on the fucking guardian council, and run for elected office on a mandate to change it.

https://nationalpost.com/news/senators-promise-robust-review-of-bill-c-69-as-provincial-angst-deepens-over-trudeau-energy-reforms