HN Reader

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:

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

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.

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...

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.)

  "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!

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.

I'd tell you what he did to elections but we'll all find out soon enough.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/09/norway-braces-...

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!

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.

>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?

The man has the shortest attention span in history, and needs constant dopamine hits to continue on something.

But as I said in another thread, María Corina Machado is more than worthy - and well deserved. It is just such a shame that Trump will likely throw the biggest tantrum, and destroy stuff, for no other reason that he didn't get the big shiny thing he wanted.

Date: June 2025 Deal: Rwanda-DRC Peace Agreement Parties: Rwanda, DRC Desc: Preliminary White House deal + Qatar ceasefire; ends proxy wars over resources. RW troop pullout, DRC disarmament, investment. US Role: Trump-brokered; signed late June, impl. July. Fragile per critics.

Date: July 2025 Deal: Cambodia-Thailand Ceasefire Parties: Cambodia, Thailand Desc: Truce halting border skirmishes (40+ killed, 300k displaced); med. by Malaysia w/ US-China input. Tackles old border disputes. US Role: Trump supported via leader calls; started July 28, but accusations of violations linger.

Date: July 2025 Deal: Egypt-Ethiopia Peace Accord Parties: Egypt, Ethiopia Desc: De-escalates Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam tensions; water-sharing & security coop to avoid Nile conflict. US Role: US shuttle diplomacy; fits African stability efforts.

Date: July 2025 Deal: India-Pakistan Truce Parties: India, Pakistan Desc: Renews/expands Line of Control ceasefire; cuts firing, opens econ corridors. US Role: Personal Trump calls; credited w/ averting nuclear risks.

Date: July 2025 Deal: Israel-Iran Rapprochement Parties: Israel, Iran Desc: Econ normalization & de-escalation; security guarantees, less proxy fights in Syria/Yemen. US Role: Brokered post-Iran nuclear pressure; called a "major stride" for stability.

Date: August 8, 2025 Deal: Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Declaration Parties: Armenia, Azerbaijan Desc: Ends 35+ yr Nagorno-Karabakh war; White House-signed. Creates "Trump Route" (TRIPP) corridor for trade/energy, cuts Russian sway. US Role: Trump hosted & negotiated; boosts Caucasus transit/resources.

Date: October 8, 2025 Deal: Israel-Hamas Gaza Ceasefire (Phase 1 of 20/21-Point Plan) Parties: Israel, Hamas (med. Egypt/Qatar/US) Desc: Ends 2-yr war: ~100 hostages freed by Oct 13, prisoner swaps, troop pullback to pre-2023 lines, 72-hr truce. Long-term: Hamas disarm, Gaza rebuild under intl board (Trump chairs). US Role: Trump's big win; Kushner/Witkoff finalized in Egypt. Hailed as "everlasting peace."

Just to see what happens.

Because a few phone calls and document-signings can bring about many orders of magnitude more "peace units" in the world, if backed by the world's largest economy and the world's most effective military at projecting power.

Beeing thrown in prison for years reasons: • owning a walkie talkie. Can be used to organize a revolution they said • listening to foreign radio stations

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.

Uh oh! Time to flip the switch! Mega-LMAO.