Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of Iheartrading.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Nola.
Speaker 3: They called me Bed. We're joyed with our guest super
Speaker 3: producer returning, Max white Pants Williams. Most importantly, you are here.
Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Look,
Speaker 3: the world is full of increasingly bizarre stories. Now are
Speaker 3: there more than there were in the past? Or is
Speaker 3: it just easier to find them? That's a question for
Speaker 3: another evening. What we do know is it could be
Speaker 3: tough to keep track of everything. That's why many people
Speaker 3: in the West. We're probably surprised to learn that the
Speaker 3: president of Venezuela came out on social media and in
Speaker 3: official press releases pretty recently and said that he might
Speaker 3: just you know, f around and invade the neighboring, much
Speaker 3: smaller nation of Guyana. Paul, have that rewind? What here
Speaker 3: are the facts? I don't know, like we all heard
Speaker 3: of Guiana or we've all heard of Venezuela. Maybe we
Speaker 3: start there because we haven't. I don't think a lot
Speaker 3: of people think about Guyana.
Speaker 4: I just know French Guiana. Is that the same thing
Speaker 4: or is that a different gap, that's a different place.
Speaker 4: I only know it because of the French attached to it,
Speaker 4: because I'm such a you know, western minded fool.
Speaker 5: This this was well known in some circles as British
Speaker 5: Guiana for a long time before it became independent. There's
Speaker 5: actually a ton to learn about Venezuela, Ben. I think
Speaker 5: I think most people don't know anything about Venezuela either.
Speaker 6: I mean again, for me, it's mainly the name.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, yeah, Venezuela, if we think back, was
Speaker 5: in the news quite a bit when Hugshaves was running it,
Speaker 5: and there was like tension between the US and Venezuela
Speaker 5: right largely around oil and how it is traded with
Speaker 5: what currency? Remember that everybody.
Speaker 3: Right shout out confessions of an economic hit man exactly.
Speaker 5: But I, you know, I just I was looking through
Speaker 5: the old CIA World fact Book again and just looking
Speaker 5: at how little I know actually about Venezuela.
Speaker 3: You say, video out online yet not.
Speaker 2: Yet I don't know.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, we've got a little little teaser for that
Speaker 4: very book coming out on the social media's keep an
Speaker 4: eye out.
Speaker 5: But yeah, it's just it's something. It's something you can
Speaker 5: look at online. By the way, you don't need a
Speaker 5: physical book the World fact Book, check it out.
Speaker 3: I would also fact check the CIA's claimed facts.
Speaker 2: Oh definitely, yes.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we've mentioned in the video that they are the
Speaker 5: opinions and facts about the world.
Speaker 4: Well, if there's nothing that we've learned doing this show,
Speaker 4: and hopefully you out there listening to the show, is
Speaker 4: to always double check the quote unquote facts, triple check
Speaker 4: if you can.
Speaker 3: I want to shout out to one of my favorite
Speaker 3: talk shows of all time, which was Ugo chav is
Speaker 3: alo Presidente, where, yeah, he had a talk show that
Speaker 3: would go however long he wanted it to go. Where
Speaker 3: in the midst of being sort of a despot. You
Speaker 3: could see clips on this on YouTube. I think he would.
Speaker 3: He would set up in kind of like somewhere between
Speaker 3: a radio thing and an Oprah Wimfrey thing, and he
Speaker 3: would just take what I can only imagine are very
Speaker 3: closely screened calls from the populace.
Speaker 6: It's funny.
Speaker 4: It reminds me of a thing that happens in the
Speaker 4: movie Casino, where eighth Rothstein played by Robert de Niro,
Speaker 4: sort of gets deposed because he do to legal struggles,
Speaker 4: he can't do his casino manager job, so that he's
Speaker 4: give him this talk show where he just takes potshots
Speaker 4: and like the governmental entities that are preventing him from
Speaker 4: doing the job he really wants to do.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 5: But the whole thing about the about Venezuela is that
Speaker 5: it has such a rot history in you know, coups
Speaker 5: and fights for power and which ended up in I
Speaker 5: think it was ninety nine when Hugo Chavez was elected
Speaker 5: president and then he lasted until he passed away in
Speaker 5: twenty thirteen of cancer from cancer that he alleged was
Speaker 5: you know, done to him by some powers in the West.
Speaker 5: And then you get Nicholas Maduro, who was his number
Speaker 5: two in command, and he has been in power since then.
Speaker 3: Ever since and shows no signs of abdicating.
Speaker 4: A good quick question, do we have any proof of
Speaker 4: giving someone cancer as an assassination tool?
Speaker 3: Is that a thing that has to be possible? Will
Speaker 3: cancer again? Is such an umbrella?
Speaker 6: It's a revolution carcinogens perhaps over time.
Speaker 5: Well, I in my mind, it's more like in a
Speaker 5: radiated substance like a small amollium.
Speaker 2: Yeah, shows exactly.
Speaker 5: Need a tiny amount once it gets into your system
Speaker 5: and like attaches to your body and there she goes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The issue with that kind of attack on someone
Speaker 3: really is predictability, like you don't know, you know, novelty
Speaker 3: or navalny. For instance, when he got polodium poisoning, it
Speaker 3: didn't kill him. But yeah, so log answer short, we
Speaker 3: know people have probably attempted it, just because over the
Speaker 3: course of targeted killings, people have tried pretty much anything
Speaker 3: you could imagine.
Speaker 4: Makes perfect sense of just that kind of claim by
Speaker 4: such a you know, unilateral despot like you mentioned, strikes
Speaker 4: me as the stuff of paranoia to a degree. But
Speaker 4: I do understand what you're saying that it's certainly as
Speaker 4: possible good to clarify.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 5: Well, he had reason to be paranoid, I would say.
Speaker 3: But yeah, also, people do just get cancer.
Speaker 4: So how about we get a little bit of a
Speaker 4: rundown of some of the stats surrounding Venezuela first, and
Speaker 4: then we'll move on to the one that maybe people
Speaker 4: know even less about.
Speaker 3: Yep. So Venezuela. The full name is the Bolivarian Republic
Speaker 3: of Venezuela. It's pretty big, especially it's the goliath to
Speaker 3: the David of Guiata. It's about nine hundred and sixteen
Speaker 3: issue square clicks population in twenty nine million, so smaller
Speaker 3: than the US for comparison. It is an opponent of
Speaker 3: many US regimes. That's one thing both sides of the
Speaker 3: US political aisle agreed upon for many years. That's why
Speaker 3: most of this stuff you see about Venezuela and Western
Speaker 3: news is going to look at economic woes, inflation, shortages,
Speaker 3: speculation in oil, allegations of massive corruption. And Venezuela is
Speaker 3: a particular interest to the powers that be in Latin
Speaker 3: America and across the world because it has the largest
Speaker 3: oil reserves on the planet.
Speaker 2: Isn't that crazy more than Saudi Arabia?
Speaker 3: Sorry, KSA.
Speaker 4: What's crazier too, is still is that we people don't
Speaker 4: seem to know that in.
Speaker 5: General, Well, it isn't talked about in the same way
Speaker 5: as it is about the Middle East. Well, and it's
Speaker 5: really interesting because the United States very publicly entered the
Speaker 5: Middle East several times over the course of the last
Speaker 5: thirty forty years. It's like, it's weird in that we
Speaker 5: haven't entered Venezuela in the same way. There's been some actions, right,
Speaker 5: but never a war or anything like that.
Speaker 4: Is our relationship a little cozier with South America in general?
Speaker 7: Or is that over a gross generalization cozy the way
Speaker 7: like an abusive step fig has a cozy relationship with
Speaker 7: their kids.
Speaker 3: Ah dear, there are a lot they live in the
Speaker 3: same house. There are a lot of beatings and a
Speaker 3: lot of opinions about what the kids can can or
Speaker 3: cannot do.
Speaker 4: Last question maybe beyond the scope of today's episode, but
Speaker 4: I couldn't help but notice the Bolivarian part. Bolivia is
Speaker 4: of course also quite a large country in South America,
Speaker 4: but it's on the opposite border.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's not about Bolivia, no connection at all.
Speaker 5: It's it's really interesting and again it's just it's like
Speaker 5: world history that maybe we were taught at some point
Speaker 5: but probably has left most of our minds. Just about
Speaker 5: how when Colombia was officially formed, I think Ecuador and
Speaker 5: Venezuela there it was one state that was then broken.
Speaker 2: Up at one point.
Speaker 5: But yeah, Bolivarian revolution, there's a whole history to that
Speaker 5: as well.
Speaker 3: Simon Bolivar, the Venezuelan leader who led what are now
Speaker 3: some of those countries you named, matt and the guy's
Speaker 3: a legend in his time. He was instrumental in the
Speaker 3: escape from colonialism, the move toward independence for these countries.
Speaker 5: It was Columbia. By the way, I misspoke. I named
Speaker 5: one of the countries wrong. But Colombia was the other
Speaker 5: country that was formed.
Speaker 3: Ah, yes, it's no. I think you got like Peru, Panama, Bolivia,
Speaker 3: to Ecuador, Venezuela, Venezuela's made what well, yeah, it was the.
Speaker 5: One that formed Venezuela to anyway, I got somewhere wrong.
Speaker 2: You have to look it up because I don't know
Speaker 2: my stuff.
Speaker 3: So well, it's independence from the Spanish Empire. That's our
Speaker 3: big takeaway. That's the shadow of colonialism looms large. It
Speaker 3: wasn't the US this time. It was a fight against
Speaker 3: these European powers and something similar happened with Guyana. Giada
Speaker 3: is right next door. Pull up a world map, play
Speaker 3: along at home. It's fascinating because if you look at
Speaker 3: a digital map, you'll see the mileage may vary, but anyway,
Speaker 3: this place full name Cooperative Republic of Guiata. You hear
Speaker 3: about it way less often the west, and to be honest,
Speaker 3: there's not a ding on anyone. A lot of folks
Speaker 3: might have a tough time finding it on a world map.
Speaker 3: I mean it's confusing because like there are three countries
Speaker 3: named some variation of Guinea, and there's French Guiana, and
Speaker 3: then there's this Guiana which is spelled differently. Like it
Speaker 3: gets confusing. It's an understandable thing. Also, this is a
Speaker 3: blink and you miss it country. If you're looking at
Speaker 3: the entirety of South America, it's eighty bitty thing. It's
Speaker 3: the third smallest country on that continent. I think the
Speaker 3: only smaller ones are Surinam, which is right next door,
Speaker 3: and Uruguay. And this place. Even though it's very very tiny,
Speaker 3: it's also one of the least densely populated countries on
Speaker 3: the planet. Very rural, high, high amount of wilderness, jungle biodiversity,
Speaker 3: and it's all packed into just like eighty three thousand
Speaker 3: square miles two hundred and fifty thousand kilometers. It's it's
Speaker 3: weird though, because like the digital map, if you guys
Speaker 3: pull it up, anybody playing along at home, if you
Speaker 3: pull it up now on your let's say you go
Speaker 3: to Google Maps or Google Earth. When you look at
Speaker 3: the map of Guiana, you'll see that it has a
Speaker 3: typical border demarcating the country, but then a little bit
Speaker 3: to the right of center, it has another thing that
Speaker 3: looks like a borderline. It's as if you looked at
Speaker 3: a map of the US and the Mississippi was also
Speaker 3: somehow an international border.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is.
Speaker 5: It is the the river, right, the Escuba River. Okay,
Speaker 5: So that's gonna factor in heavily as we continue through
Speaker 5: the story, which again we can't stress enough. If you
Speaker 5: look at it, Ben isn't joking. It goes through and
Speaker 5: cuts this thing well in over half. So so most
Speaker 5: of the country of Guana is to the west of.
Speaker 2: That line, and of Venezuela.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. Okay, let's just let's keep that in mind.
Speaker 3: So, no matter what the news might imply, these two
Speaker 3: countries have a long history of not quite getting along.
Speaker 3: Guiata also is they. I think it was first Dutch,
Speaker 3: then the British were running stuff. And just like the Falklands,
Speaker 3: the British Empire still has its vestiges active. So when
Speaker 3: our boy Maduro comes out and says, hey, this is Venezuela.
Speaker 3: It's always been Venezuela. He's harkening back to earlier stuff.
Speaker 3: He didn't just like, what's that drug that makes people
Speaker 3: that made people talk trash on Twitter? Ambient geez, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what it was.
Speaker 4: Like, Well, it makes you, It makes you make weird
Speaker 4: sandwiches in the night and also apparently say things that
Speaker 4: you regret and have no recollection.
Speaker 3: Of if you're a celebrity who had a bad day
Speaker 3: on Twitter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, my mom used to take Ambient and we get
Speaker 4: home and we stayed with her briefly when my kid
Speaker 4: was born. We come home from being out and that
Speaker 4: she'd be up making like peanut butter and mustard sandwiches
Speaker 4: and talking absolute nonsense.
Speaker 3: I'll try the I'll try a peanut butter mustard sandwich.
Speaker 3: Who knows, but but you're right like this this statement
Speaker 3: he's making. As wild as it may sound, it does
Speaker 3: refer back to a centuries long dispute. This border territory
Speaker 3: around the river. You mentioned, Matt the Escuba River, it's
Speaker 3: sixty two thousand square miles, and they said, look, that's Venezuela.
Speaker 3: It's always been Venezuela, why are you playing? They tried
Speaker 3: to gas light an entire country, actually two entire countries.
Speaker 5: Well, and just listen to that number. Sixty two thousand
Speaker 5: square miles of area. All of Guyana is eighty three
Speaker 5: thousand square miles, right, So that's like, we'll take half
Speaker 5: your country plus oh you know what, how about a
Speaker 5: whole let's take another third.
Speaker 3: It's like Canada say, we've looked at the map and
Speaker 3: based on our objective estimate, everything north of Tennessee in
Speaker 3: a straight line is actually Canada. Yeah, you have three
Speaker 3: months to move.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a nuts thing to
Speaker 5: even state, right, even if it is going back to this,
Speaker 5: you know, the eighteen one hundreds, eighteen ninety nine or
Speaker 5: eighteen thirty, going way back, it's still crazy to come
Speaker 5: forward and just say, yo, most of your countries are
Speaker 5: is actually right?
Speaker 3: The jewels, they also said, you know, because what's the
Speaker 3: deal with that? Why do a half measure? They also said,
Speaker 3: And the water offshore is also ours. Has also been
Speaker 3: part of this, and that's because during the Latin American
Speaker 3: Wars of Independence, which you mentioned earlier, Venezuela pulled a
Speaker 3: game of thrones, little finger move and said chaos is
Speaker 3: a ladder, and they did claim about two thirds of
Speaker 3: Kiana's land, but they got caught and they couldn't do
Speaker 3: it because everybody else was like, come on, man, we're
Speaker 3: supposed to be the good guys in this narrative.
Speaker 5: That's sort of a dick move, dude. But there's this
Speaker 5: whole other thing, and I don't know, ben, are we
Speaker 5: going to get into it. There's this whole thing where
Speaker 5: this whole process that we're talking about, and decades and
Speaker 5: decades centuries of dispute here is actually one of the
Speaker 5: primary things that sets the United States up as a
Speaker 5: world power because of this. In the dispute, the US
Speaker 5: basically stepped up to the United Kingdom, to Great Britain
Speaker 5: and said, actually, no, the Monroe Doctrine is the way
Speaker 5: to go and this is the way the border should be.
Speaker 5: And they were like, man, we should fight a war
Speaker 5: with you. But they were also like, uh, actually, we
Speaker 5: can't really fight another war right now, so all right,
Speaker 5: you can have it.
Speaker 3: Because their resources were expended across the globe, it's expensive
Speaker 3: to project force like that, which is also part of
Speaker 3: the story.
Speaker 5: Right, but it's one of the reasons. The United States
Speaker 5: kind of as again as though it's an entity of itself,
Speaker 5: the powers within the United States, the leaders decided, oh,
Speaker 5: we can, actually we can have a say in some
Speaker 5: of these global things like disputes like this.
Speaker 3: M yeah, and become more internationalists. And then also let
Speaker 3: us not forget millions upon millions of people are living
Speaker 3: in Latin America and they're going, hey, we're also in
Speaker 3: the room.
Speaker 2: We live.
Speaker 3: This is actually our room. Ye gays are fighting over
Speaker 3: why did these guys break into our house and start
Speaker 3: arguing about.
Speaker 2: The you know, the ungshways off in here?
Speaker 3: Whatly, so you're referring to, we're referring to something called
Speaker 3: the Arbitral Award of eighteen ninety nine. Sorry a messed
Speaker 3: up name. Guiana is still part of the British Empire.
Speaker 3: And they say they go back to this constantly, and
Speaker 3: they say, look, that's the agreement. Remember when these Europeans
Speaker 3: came in and did everything surveyed the land, surveyed the land,
Speaker 3: which was a big, big deal. Shout out to Ridiculous
Speaker 3: History episodes there. We saw immediately that Venezuela bucked at this.
Speaker 3: They actually called it quote an Anglo Russian conspiracy, so
Speaker 3: they are the first to allege conspiracy, even though colonialism
Speaker 3: is a conspiracy. By nineteen sixty two, they said, okay, guys,
Speaker 3: enough time has passed. That decision was bs. We don't
Speaker 3: respect it because this has always been Venezuela. You know,
Speaker 3: aren't you fighting those European colonists with us? What happened
Speaker 3: to unity? Give us all your stuff?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Well, should we also bring up just the idea of resources.
Speaker 5: We mentioned that Venezuela has the largest oil It is
Speaker 5: the most oil rich country on the planet.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: Then, Also that was found in Venezuela, and especially in
Speaker 5: this region that's in dispute is gold.
Speaker 3: Ah, yes, yeah, the resource curse is true.
Speaker 5: Right, And so they gave it sixty years and then
Speaker 5: they're like, hmm, there's gold over there.
Speaker 2: You said, well we need to we need to look
Speaker 2: at this again.
Speaker 3: Also, yes, similar to the Darien Gap. You know, when
Speaker 3: you have that much jungle coverage, it's very difficult to
Speaker 3: build infrastructure and it's very difficult to enforce laws. So
Speaker 3: there's a lot of smuggling operations, a lot of illegal
Speaker 3: mining operations, and those mining operations, the illegal ones have
Speaker 3: a lot of powerful entities who want them to continue
Speaker 3: the big They're not fighting over, you know, OSHA standards
Speaker 3: or workers' rights. They're fighting over who gets that stuff
Speaker 3: pulled from the ground, shout out black Monday murders.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Well, then a little spoiler here.
Speaker 5: What happens if you, as a country that is not
Speaker 5: officially in control of that land, starts giving like citizenship
Speaker 5: to people who are living in on that land. All right, well, no,
Speaker 5: well they are actually our citizens living over.
Speaker 2: There, right?
Speaker 5: What this this thing gets so twisted?
Speaker 3: Or you start giving concessions legal rights to mine to
Speaker 3: private entities, and you just it happens to be for
Speaker 3: a country that is not yours, the soil that is
Speaker 3: not part of your thing. So it's getting nasty. The
Speaker 3: idea is there for several decades at different times Venezuela
Speaker 3: was saying, well, why don't we just behave as though
Speaker 3: it is Venezuela, and then eventually we can not just
Speaker 3: gas like Yiana. But the world that.
Speaker 6: Works long term?
Speaker 3: Yeah, sure, if I keep showing up to that like
Speaker 3: squatters rights, they're doing squatters rights. If I keep showing
Speaker 3: up to this else long enough, someone will say it's mine.
Speaker 4: Well, It's one of those rhetorical devices too, where if
Speaker 4: you repeat the lie long enough and with enough confidence,
Speaker 4: maybe it'll take people will start to believe it as
Speaker 4: the truth and not you know, fact check you like
Speaker 4: we recommended doing, but it seems like an awful risky move.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so we said then in the sixties, so that
Speaker 5: was eighteen ninety nine all the way up to like
Speaker 5: or the early nineteen sixties, right, that that was a
Speaker 5: span of time when Venezuela just said, Okay, we'll just
Speaker 5: deal with these borders as they are. In nineteen sixty
Speaker 5: two they said, actually, we have a problem. Then in
Speaker 5: nineteen sixty six they took it to the United Nations,
Speaker 5: right or wait, well they took.
Speaker 3: Into still bodies.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they took it to international bodies. I know, the
Speaker 5: United Nations or the UN started stepping in early in
Speaker 5: the process to try and negotiate, to be almost a
Speaker 5: middle man for the negotiations. And you guys, it hasn't
Speaker 5: stopped since nineteen what sixty six.
Speaker 3: Yes, since nineteen sixty six, when the UK of Venezuelan
Speaker 3: and Guyana sent representatives together to try to map out
Speaker 3: the borders. And the problem is in any negotiation. If
Speaker 3: you're not if you're negotiating good faith, there has to
Speaker 3: be some give and take. Turned out that wasn't the case,
Speaker 3: and so the Venezuelan government, under different iterations, had one constant,
Speaker 3: which was to to try to deep power Guyana internationally,
Speaker 3: like prevent them from being members of the of the
Speaker 3: like the OAS or the United Nations. Try to keep
Speaker 3: them out of touching on any judiciary bodies internationally, like
Speaker 3: the ICJ International Court of Justice. It's a dumb name,
Speaker 3: but they tried to do good work. And this just
Speaker 3: went back and forth over and over until Venezuela said, ah,
Speaker 3: we might just invade. We had a little kind of
Speaker 3: rigged vote about it. They are essentially saying, if the
Speaker 3: courts and the world at large won't give us all
Speaker 3: the stuff we want, we are just going to take it.
Speaker 3: That is a very, very what we call it diplomacy.
Speaker 3: It is a provocative statement. It is somewhat bellicose, and
Speaker 3: it carries a lot of possible consequence and costs. So
Speaker 3: they had to decide it was worth it. Why why
Speaker 3: did they make this wild ass decision or even bring
Speaker 3: it up. We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets grazy gold, but not just gold oil,
Speaker 3: black gold, Texas, tea, et cetera. The gunk that to
Speaker 3: this day moves the modern world.
Speaker 5: Ye, well, all the golds, all the golds.
Speaker 3: All of the all the gold.
Speaker 6: You can imagine, black gold makes me want to whoop
Speaker 6: and holler.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, it's you know, Beverly Hillbillies for anybody unfamiliar,
Speaker 3: has a neat, catchy little Hollywood Hillbilly theme which was
Speaker 3: an intro.
Speaker 4: So it's only one of those ones that describes the
Speaker 4: plot of the show in the right.
Speaker 3: That's what I was gonna say. Yeah, it's like the Nanny,
Speaker 3: It's like the Mister Belvedere stuffs. I enjoy those much
Speaker 3: more than the actual show.
Speaker 6: Of course, to.
Speaker 4: Those in the know, is often referred to as the
Speaker 4: New Guitar and Venezuela reactivated that claim to the territory
Speaker 4: after finding some eleven billion barrels of oil, recoverable oil
Speaker 4: and natural gas off of Guyana's coast. So the government
Speaker 4: then held a super controversial referendum on this issue in
Speaker 4: December and early December last year.
Speaker 3: And that was after Guyana had gone to the Guiana
Speaker 3: knew this was coming. It's just it was originally called
Speaker 3: a referendum. Means that if they're enacted in good faith,
Speaker 3: the government is asking the people, hey, what do you
Speaker 3: guys think about this? Right, Like they're saying, hey, kids,
Speaker 3: who want pizza? Or do we want you know, we
Speaker 3: want to get lasagna or something. However, this is not
Speaker 3: a There's some serious problems, as you mentioned, with the
Speaker 3: referendum itself, and it goes super deep in the weeds
Speaker 3: because people have been looking at this. Giada was trying
Speaker 3: to get international bodies not to allow this referendum to happen. Sorry,
Speaker 3: kind of tricky, right. It's like how South Korea has
Speaker 3: this law that says, if you are South Korea national,
Speaker 3: you can't gamble anywhere in the world.
Speaker 2: Did you know that?
Speaker 3: That's so crazy? I don't know how you enforced that.
Speaker 5: I don't know, man, but I've been I keep thinking
Speaker 5: about how nuts this would be if it was just
Speaker 5: two neighbors right in a house, like one house next
Speaker 5: to the other house and one one You guys have
Speaker 5: always had problems with where the fence should be, you know, right, Yeah,
Speaker 5: But like all of a sudden, one of the neighbors
Speaker 5: discovers like incredible stuff in their backyard, like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: there's this cave system on there and there's resources inside it.
Speaker 5: And the neighbors like, actually, we're gonna have a little vote,
Speaker 5: and I think that's actually mine.
Speaker 2: So yeah, you come downstairs.
Speaker 5: Ye, we are going to vote in our house about
Speaker 5: your terrihouse.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And it's it's crazy because when people who do election
Speaker 3: monitoring looked at this, they found they found the number
Speaker 3: Venezuela offered to the world, which was ninety five percent
Speaker 3: approval to take over this part of Guiana. They found
Speaker 3: that that just didn't hold up, and it looked like
Speaker 3: it looked like if it was ninety five percent of voters,
Speaker 3: it was less than ten percent of the population. So
Speaker 3: you have to you have to be careful with those statistics.
Speaker 5: And well, and it's almost like having a vote on
Speaker 5: whether or not we should go to war basically, and
Speaker 5: so like, what does that have to do with anybody
Speaker 5: else besides your own country deciding it's going to go
Speaker 5: to war.
Speaker 3: That's also doing the war vote at sea pack, you know,
Speaker 3: or at like at a aerospace defense industry meeting. And
Speaker 3: so I like, okay, you guys vote.
Speaker 2: Though, yeah, yeah, yea, yeah.
Speaker 5: We just needs she checked the temp of the old
Speaker 5: room here exactly all your weapons manufacturers.
Speaker 3: Or I read something recently. I can't remember what it was,
Speaker 3: so it was a more conservative publication where they had this.
Speaker 3: They were like, this report shows that, as a matter
Speaker 3: of fact, workers are very excited about returning to the office.
Speaker 3: And I looked into it, and the study was conducted
Speaker 3: by an architectural firm that builds offices, So you gotta
Speaker 3: look at that stuff. Anyway. Giata is already having a
Speaker 3: game changing moment with this oil because one of the
Speaker 3: important words there we don't want to miss is recoverable.
Speaker 3: You can get this stuff out and still make a
Speaker 3: profit off of it. So there are other places in
Speaker 3: the world where there's a ton of some sort of
Speaker 3: fossil fuel, but it's just right now too expensive to
Speaker 3: get it, and.
Speaker 5: Or you have to use something like fracking exclusively to
Speaker 5: get to it, right, which is not as great as
Speaker 5: just being able to get that oil. Get at that oil,
Speaker 5: let's say, in more traditional ways.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah, Beverly hillbilly style. Yeah, put a spike in
Speaker 3: the ground and then build a little, a neat, little
Speaker 3: mini and build an oil Derek around it. But I
Speaker 3: was going to call it the mini Eiffel Tower. That
Speaker 3: doesn't work. Right now, Guyana is creating four hundred thousand
Speaker 3: something barrels per day of oil and gas, and they're
Speaker 3: going to make more than one million barrels per day
Speaker 3: very soon in twenty twenty seven. So this is huge
Speaker 3: for small country's economy and it's going to change people's
Speaker 3: lives in a measurable way. The question is, you know,
Speaker 3: if we're all neighbors, if we survived colonialism, if we
Speaker 3: have a shared history of fighting for independence, well, Venezuela,
Speaker 3: are you being a hater? Like why why are you
Speaker 3: flipping the script? Don't you don't you literally have more
Speaker 3: oil than anybody in the world already. It's it's a
Speaker 3: weird question, like why is this? Why is this the fight?
Speaker 3: Part of it is because the US has made it
Speaker 3: very expensive and costly for the Venezuelan government to exist.
Speaker 3: Production in oil has fallen significantly. There are all kinds
Speaker 3: of allegations of corruption. The infrastructure is bad. You know,
Speaker 3: people who can leave Venezuela, and I'm sure we have
Speaker 3: a lot of Venezuelan listeners today people who can leave
Speaker 3: Venezuela have been doing so on mass it's just very
Speaker 3: difficult to live there now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know something I was thinking about this morning,
Speaker 5: you guys, I didn't know. Guyana is the only predominantly
Speaker 5: English speaking country in South America. Yeah, which for look,
Speaker 5: and it doesn't necessarily mean that there's major strategic interest
Speaker 5: by you know, the United States and the UK and
Speaker 5: other Western governments, but it feels as though maybe that's
Speaker 5: enough of a reason to really want to support the
Speaker 5: independence and continued growth of Guyana versus a country like Venezuela.
Speaker 5: Just when I'm thinking, Sorry, this is kind of random
Speaker 5: thought here, but I'm just I'm imagining as all of
Speaker 5: this is heating up, like maybe maybe there is some
Speaker 5: kind of strategic interest that is simply based in the
Speaker 5: language of the people spoken in Guyana.
Speaker 3: That's part of it. Yeah, there's that colonial well, there's
Speaker 3: that history, right, so they are part of the anglosphere
Speaker 3: I would advance. Also, maybe that is a facet of
Speaker 3: the larger thing, which is Guyana is a US friendly country.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If Guyana has access to that oil, then all of
Speaker 3: a sudden, it's much easy. It's easier to work with
Speaker 3: them than it is to say, work with some of
Speaker 3: our friends out east, or you know, these other things.
Speaker 3: And now, of course, obviously the US creates its own oil,
Speaker 3: its own fossil fuels. But it's you know, it's nice
Speaker 3: to have someone that you could have a cool conversation with,
Speaker 3: or whatever America sees is that instead of a instead
Speaker 3: of a thing that could almost always go sideways. So
Speaker 3: I think that's maybe part of it. But also when
Speaker 3: we look at Venezuela's motivations, sure you already got all
Speaker 3: the oil in the world, don't you want a little more?
Speaker 3: I mean you could. They could definitely use the cash.
Speaker 3: It would definitely bolster the reputation of the Maduro government.
Speaker 3: I posit that is one of the big big things.
Speaker 3: I think that might be the actual thing, because he's
Speaker 3: coming down hard. He said, Guiana can't sell the rights
Speaker 3: to explore or drill for oil here. He also did
Speaker 3: not say specifically which areas of Guiata should be under control.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows what he's talking about, but he doesn't want
Speaker 3: to like paint himself into a corner. Instead, he said,
Speaker 3: without telling you exactly, which areas I think are Venezuela.
Speaker 3: If you are working with Guiata in the oil trade.
Speaker 3: Right now, you have three months to leave gt FO
Speaker 3: and the clock is ticket.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And these are the big boys too. These are like
Speaker 3: the BPS, the exons, et cetera.
Speaker 4: If an invasion were to occur, however, Guyana would not
Speaker 4: be in.
Speaker 6: A very advantageous position. I believe the term he used
Speaker 6: ben in the research was thick.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Their army is just about five thousand strong, meaning that
Speaker 4: they would be very quickly overtaken unless a much larger
Speaker 4: power came to their aid.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And the thing that is in dispute right is offshore.
Speaker 5: So if you imagine the if you look at Gion
Speaker 5: on the map, just the northern border right is the ocean.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: And as we know, naval naval powers are very strong
Speaker 5: in countries often that have large oil supplies. Doesn't mean
Speaker 5: that Venezuela's naval, you know, force.
Speaker 2: Is the strongest.
Speaker 5: The US is is like how I forget how many
Speaker 5: times stronger the US Navy is than any other country.
Speaker 2: But it's insane.
Speaker 3: The US Navy is crazy. It's the uh, it's the
Speaker 3: US Navy is the world's second largest air force, in
Speaker 3: addition to be the first is the USAF.
Speaker 5: So, but they don't even really factor into here. It's
Speaker 5: just like Venezuela has a lot of coastline, has a
Speaker 5: lot of shipping, has a lot of reasons to have
Speaker 5: very strong forces on the water, and if they were to,
Speaker 5: you know, have a dispute and an actual hot war,
Speaker 5: they would be coming in so much, not even just
Speaker 5: the five thousand member army, but the ships and the
Speaker 5: weapons that would be that Guiana would be facing would
Speaker 5: be tremendous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and the army for Venezuela, I think as of
Speaker 3: like nineteen twenty, nineteen twenty twenty, it's like three hundred
Speaker 3: and forty three thousand versus five.
Speaker 5: Thousand, little significant.
Speaker 3: It's tough. It's tough. And again that's not a ding
Speaker 3: on the people in Guyana's arm services. That's just the math,
Speaker 3: and the math is scary. So, like you're saying, a
Speaker 3: larger power would have to step into help to prevent
Speaker 3: this from being an absolute, just one sided massacre, honestly, well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, and there are only so many candidates
Speaker 4: for who that larger power might be.
Speaker 3: Right exactly, because we can name some people who won't
Speaker 3: come in to help. China, Russia, properly. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Brazil is a very interesting question for this.
Speaker 5: One because just as a reminder of the geography there,
Speaker 5: they are just south like all you know, Brazil has
Speaker 5: so many different states within it, but the entirety of
Speaker 5: Brazil is below Guyana and Venezuela.
Speaker 3: And Lula wants to maintain peace in the region, right,
Speaker 3: so they would definitely have a stake in this. We
Speaker 3: haven't mentioned the president of Guyana yet. Irfan Ali Ali
Speaker 3: is going through. Ali knows all this obviously and is
Speaker 3: going through the correct theoretical. International channels went to the
Speaker 3: United Nations International Court of Justice, talked to the UN
Speaker 3: Security General and it's like, hey, Maduro is unhinged, guys,
Speaker 3: we need something to happen here. Here is my country, Guyana.
Speaker 3: We're playing by the rules. We're doing everything we were
Speaker 3: told we should do. Help and so we can say
Speaker 3: at this point no invasion has occurred. However, it for
Speaker 3: quite some time it seemed very close. We'll have some
Speaker 3: good news at the end. But right now it's sort
Speaker 3: of like if there were a doomsday clock for this,
Speaker 3: the world would have been at two minutes to midnight.
Speaker 3: And in late December, the United Kingdom dispatched a Royal
Speaker 3: Navy Patrol vessel to Guyana just to sort of swim
Speaker 3: around the waters like in simulation games, like in Civilization,
Speaker 3: you want to repel other forces, so you just start
Speaker 3: sort of putting your boats out, you know, putting your
Speaker 3: troops out in these different areas. Kind of like holding
Speaker 3: a parking space in a crowded mall. When people used
Speaker 3: to go to malls, but now the question with guns,
Speaker 3: but with very launch guns.
Speaker 4: Kind of like going to a mall in Texas today.
Speaker 4: I love going to mall. I'm a mallwalker. I love
Speaker 4: a dead mall too, or a dying mall. That's sort
Speaker 4: of an interesting.
Speaker 3: I'm okay with those because they're less crowd that's fair. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the North of Cabmall here indicator is a good example.
Speaker 3: Number one spot for Bollywood films.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna say this, The borrow game at dead
Speaker 5: Mall's is kind of weak, so I'm not really into it.
Speaker 3: It's advantages, disadvantages, pros cons cost benefit. I say, with
Speaker 3: that in mind, let's pause for word from our sponsors
Speaker 3: and get to one of the big questions. Why now?
Speaker 3: All right? Why now? Might be saying well, because of
Speaker 3: the oil dummies. The oil discovery is new, but itself
Speaker 3: it's not that new. Instead of a conspiracy to control
Speaker 3: more of the fossil fuel market, it feels like the
Speaker 3: conspiracy here is to shore up Maduro's government and get
Speaker 3: the people to support them, because there we're serious problems
Speaker 3: with that vote. A crooked vote is nothing new in Venezuela,
Speaker 3: nor in Latin America, in the world overall, for being honest.
Speaker 3: But Maduro took this one referendum as a mandate and
Speaker 3: ran with it. And if you ask folks, like if
Speaker 3: you ask policy wonks, which I mean is a compliment,
Speaker 3: Like Anderson Sekira over at a political analysis firm based
Speaker 3: in Venezuela, you'll see them say stuff like the government's
Speaker 3: only options are to try to rile up national sentiments
Speaker 3: and escalate the situation because it helps them increase political
Speaker 3: repression and it helps them persecute anybody who is an
Speaker 3: opponent of Maduro. Sort of like and this might be
Speaker 3: a hot take, but it's very true. Sort of like
Speaker 3: how in the wake of the attacks of September eleventh
Speaker 3: in the US, politicians who aligned with the current president
Speaker 3: had to field day saying like, you're an American if
Speaker 3: you disagree with me and my party about anything, right,
Speaker 3: you support terrorists, if you think school lunch should be affordable.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, and also remember what comes along with a
Speaker 5: hot conflict, like if they actually did go to war
Speaker 5: with Guiana, the money that would be spent on building
Speaker 5: a war machine even larger so that they could, you know,
Speaker 5: as the country itself could maintain security internally while fighting
Speaker 5: a war across the way, right, and all of these,
Speaker 5: all the contractors that get paid, all of the there's
Speaker 5: just so much money that gets generated or spent, let's say,
Speaker 5: during war, which we kind.
Speaker 2: Of know this about money.
Speaker 5: You do kind of have to borrow it from somebody,
Speaker 5: but you can also kind of just print it in
Speaker 5: some ways. So it's interesting, like the way you can
Speaker 5: you can make things better for a little bit. Often,
Speaker 5: as you're saying, there been when you go to war.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's always a great way to get re elected,
Speaker 3: unfortunately in even even things that are problematic democracies or
Speaker 3: democracies and names only I know, I mean something different.
Speaker 3: But the idea here is that you make up an
Speaker 3: enemy of them, and you rally your people behind it.
Speaker 3: At that point. As crazy as it sounds, at that point,
Speaker 3: it doesn't really matter if you win the conflict. It
Speaker 3: matters that you get the support to wage the conflict
Speaker 3: and then rationalize the outcome to an increasingly isolated public.
Speaker 3: That's how fascism works, right, and that's what's so brilliant
Speaker 3: about it. I also note, uh, I still I shouldn't
Speaker 3: do it, but I still read The Economist and they
Speaker 3: had an article that speaks to what your point was
Speaker 3: about about borrowing money. They had a very tone deaf
Speaker 3: article that came out out pretty recently where they were like,
Speaker 3: what would world war iie mean for investors? That's not kidding,
Speaker 3: not the onion, that's what I mean. Yeah, I know, right,
Speaker 3: So okay, so that's the idea, Like, is this just
Speaker 3: a push for support, you know, something I can do
Speaker 3: a culture war and then a hot war all mixed up, right,
Speaker 3: to keep to keep people from coming out in the
Speaker 3: streets with torches and pitchforks and overthrowing you.
Speaker 5: So yeah, Ben, Ben, It's also like the situation in
Speaker 5: Crimea in my mind. Yeah right, It's a dispute in
Speaker 5: somebody else's land that you felt like was once yours
Speaker 5: in some way right with the two disputing countries stallid.
Speaker 3: In nineteen fifty four, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Exactly, exactly, well then and then how crime was taken
Speaker 5: back over again, and so it's just to me, it
Speaker 5: feels like we're moving to another one of those I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: just went with that out there.
Speaker 3: That's perfect. I think that's a perfect comparison, man, because
Speaker 3: you know, the Putin administration was encountering terrible, terrible problems,
Speaker 3: very similar problems, and now there's a there's a war
Speaker 3: in another country, and like, if you disagree, you're a
Speaker 3: very bad person. You're on Russian you know. Like if
Speaker 3: we said this, though, if Venezuela actually did invade, and
Speaker 3: this isn't just a cynical fascist attempt to support a
Speaker 3: failing government, then several things would happen. If Yana has
Speaker 3: no on the ground four and support, Like your point,
Speaker 3: no Venezuela will win instantly. It will simply happen and
Speaker 3: the world will have to deal with it later. And
Speaker 3: if that happens, venezuel will pay a heavy price geopolitically.
Speaker 3: But what's the nature of that is that? Does that
Speaker 3: mean toothless condemnation? The UN writes an angry letter and
Speaker 3: says you can't come to the pizza party because they'll
Speaker 3: still sell the oil.
Speaker 5: It's weird, though, because they're already kind of not invited
Speaker 5: to the pizza party, and they have been for a
Speaker 5: long time.
Speaker 3: The sanctions, right, yeah.
Speaker 5: So I mean, what wow? What really is the major price?
Speaker 3: That's the thing. It might be a little bit more
Speaker 3: of a discount than we think. There are sanctions related
Speaker 3: to Venezuela, and a lot of sanctions are that get
Speaker 3: applied to different countries come from the US directly. But
Speaker 3: even in those cases, people other governments and companies they
Speaker 3: need fossil fuels still, so they're going to buy them.
Speaker 3: You can still make a buck off of it. We
Speaker 3: know that. I don't know. The more chaotic thing is
Speaker 3: what happens I Venezuela invades and then a third party intercedes.
Speaker 3: That's very frightening. At first it sounds like, oh, the
Speaker 3: good guys, America's police, and that may to a degree
Speaker 3: be somewhat true, but it also means this could escalate
Speaker 3: into a proxy war. We don't know what Venezuela's allies
Speaker 3: would provide, but it'd be enough to make things ugly.
Speaker 3: There would be a blood price, and then the people
Speaker 3: who would fight in that that third party, which would
Speaker 3: probably be the United States, who were being honest, their
Speaker 3: resources would be spread increasingly thin. You know, this would
Speaker 3: like if I were interested, if we were hanging out
Speaker 3: and we were waiting for a good time, it's be
Speaker 3: a good time to get a little closer to Taiwan, right,
Speaker 3: because the boats are somewhere else.
Speaker 5: It's true, And we do we say that China is
Speaker 5: Venezuela's primary receiver of exported oil.
Speaker 2: We do not, well, we should.
Speaker 5: We should say that China receives around four hundred and
Speaker 5: thirty thousand barrels per day of oil from Venezuela, which
Speaker 5: does mean they were It does mean they would be
Speaker 5: the ones. China would be the one who would say, hey,
Speaker 5: hold on, hold on, maybe I've gotta do something here, right,
Speaker 5: And when we're talking about a proxy war that becomes
Speaker 5: larger with bigger players, that's what it could be could be.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And then also if you are a certain Russian
Speaker 3: day dat not naming names hoping to get some distractions
Speaker 3: from say a failing war in hypothetically Ukraine, then chaos
Speaker 3: like this is fantastic because it dilutes your opponent's resources,
Speaker 3: It spreads them further across and further away from your
Speaker 3: particular conflict. It also shifts international attention and therefore political
Speaker 3: will away from opposing you.
Speaker 2: So this is I.
Speaker 3: Don't know, like we can play the game where this
Speaker 3: spins out further and further and further in each of
Speaker 3: these if thens is troubling, but how likely is it
Speaker 3: to occur?
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Fascism just needs an external enemy, a thing for you
Speaker 3: fight against.
Speaker 6: Oh my gosh, that's a really interesting thing that you mentioned.
Speaker 4: I was listening to a podcast with Adam Conover the
Speaker 4: other day and he was just talking about the history
Speaker 4: of the Right and talking about how oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 4: historically the right has been a reaction to being disenfranchised
Speaker 4: of the wealthy, kind of having things taken away from
Speaker 4: them and then creating a situation where they have a
Speaker 4: perceived enemy, uh, and they want to kind of crib
Speaker 4: from the other side, the creative of the situation that
Speaker 4: took the things away from them in order to get
Speaker 4: the things back, and in order to do that, they
Speaker 4: have to have a perceived enemy. And that's just a
Speaker 4: really you know, important touchstone in that kind of rhetoric
Speaker 4: and that kind of sort of political gas lighting and maneuvering.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you just need the eternal war. And the problem
Speaker 3: is with people who are fans of fascist ideology and
Speaker 3: tactics is it's a lot like it's a lot like
Speaker 3: playing a dark lottery. It's it's writing or it's trying
Speaker 3: to ride a bull. Right, It's an unpredictable thing because
Speaker 3: the nature, the specific nature of the enemy will always
Speaker 3: shift once you kind of deplete the first one, and
Speaker 3: then eventually it's going to be your turn in the
Speaker 3: stone chair. So that's why, that's why fat is not sustainable.
Speaker 5: Stone chair is the sacrifice for anyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just sounds cool.
Speaker 3: I don't know, God, but luckily I don't know. It
Speaker 3: seems like they are seeking de escalation, so all this
Speaker 3: is hypothetical right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's weird to me that a dispute like this
Speaker 5: can be so long agoing, Like the dispute really hasn't
Speaker 5: stopped since eighteen ninety nine, and the International Court of
Speaker 5: Justice has officially had something in front of them since
Speaker 5: twenty eighteen that they've just been mulling over since twenty eighteen. Like,
Speaker 5: h guys, come on, we really got to decide what's
Speaker 5: happening here, and it just hasn't happened, which it is
Speaker 5: just it's to me, it's crazy. It could be a
Speaker 5: five year long court battle, right right.
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 3: Venezuela also considers ICG a kangaroo court.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you can do that.
Speaker 3: When you're a country, you could just say I reject
Speaker 3: this court. Imagine geting a parking ticket and saying, like,
Speaker 3: you know, traffic Court of Atlanta, malarkey, everybody knows it.
Speaker 3: You guys are clowns.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 5: I don't respect your entire international justice system. Sorry, right exactly.
Speaker 4: Geez, you guys just reminded me that I have to
Speaker 4: show up for jury duty on Monday.
Speaker 3: Nice tell if you don't want to do it. Whenever
Speaker 3: they ask you a question, talk about jury nullification. It's
Speaker 3: your one way ticket out.
Speaker 6: I did. I tried last time, and they totally picked me.
Speaker 4: I also said, I'm They said, I suppose anything that
Speaker 4: would prevent me from being objective. It was a case
Speaker 4: surrounding police or whatever, and I said, I'm actually the
Speaker 4: co host of a conspiracy podcast and we objectively do
Speaker 4: not trust the government.
Speaker 6: And that wasn't enough. To get me struck.
Speaker 3: Wow, asking you.
Speaker 6: That question, I swear anyhow, we'll try it again this time.
Speaker 3: But anyway, well, the thing is right now there is
Speaker 3: some good news we can end on. The leaders of
Speaker 3: Venezuela and Guiana had a recent long meeting what Corporate
Speaker 3: America will call an off site a summit, and resulted
Speaker 3: in a declaration that they both signed, or I shouldn't
Speaker 3: say declaration, a joint statement they will call it, where
Speaker 3: they said, look, we don't get along. Venezuela is like,
Speaker 3: we're totally right, and gian is like, that's a lie.
Speaker 3: We're totally right. However, we can agree that we're not
Speaker 3: going to use force against each other. The question is
Speaker 3: how long that's going to hold. Instead, they said, you
Speaker 3: know what we're gonna do, because it worked so great
Speaker 3: over the past few centuries, we're gonna put together a
Speaker 3: little team, well team of bureaucrats, and they're going to
Speaker 3: figure it out peacefully. Sounds and surely the forty eighth
Speaker 3: millionth time is the charm, right, And then what they
Speaker 3: say in baseball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's it.
Speaker 3: That's a that's a quote for our pal Max. But
Speaker 3: also at the same time, like how off. Can you
Speaker 3: try us the statements of these various countries. Can trust
Speaker 3: the statements of Venezuela because true story, the Venezuelan government
Speaker 3: has already ordered new maps that include land from Guyana
Speaker 3: as part of Venezuela. Which parts you might ask, Oh, well,
Speaker 3: it's the ones with the oil, Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and they're super into that whole region we talked
Speaker 5: about where that one river cuts through most of the country.
Speaker 3: Yeah, somewhere between two thirds and three fourths. And look, obviously,
Speaker 3: when I feel like it's important for us to say this,
Speaker 3: whenever we talk about governmental actions, we are not talking
Speaker 3: about the people living in these countries. No, people living
Speaker 3: in these countries are chill. They want the same stuff
Speaker 3: anybody else in any other part of the world wants.
Speaker 3: They also probably have serious issues with world governments, with
Speaker 3: their own government, and they are not the people who
Speaker 3: want a war overwhelmingly throughout history.
Speaker 5: No, there's a great Can we shout out a couple
Speaker 5: of articles just for people who shout out, there's one
Speaker 5: in Al Jazeera I would just send everybody to. It's
Speaker 5: one of the more recent stories that was written about this.
Speaker 5: On January eleventh, written by Nozima Raghubir and it is
Speaker 5: titled Fears Simmer in Eskibo Region as Venezuela eyes the
Speaker 5: Disputed Territory.
Speaker 2: It's just there's so.
Speaker 5: Many written like this, and they have been really since
Speaker 5: I guess early December of last year. Right that that
Speaker 5: give a pretty good overview of what's happening on both sides.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point too. And an
Speaker 3: American representative also visited they're seeking a bureaucratic solution at
Speaker 3: this point, and I know, bureaucratic. The word bureaucracy has
Speaker 3: some connotations for an effectiveness, and it's earned those connotations
Speaker 3: to a degree. But still that's better than a hot war.
Speaker 3: You know, Guyana is not a wealthy country. The people
Speaker 3: who live there for the most part are the people
Speaker 3: who people of Venezuela. They're not the people who can
Speaker 3: afford to say, oh, fiddle d D there's a war.
Speaker 3: I guess I'll go summer in Monaco. You know, we
Speaker 3: have to exercise humanity with this stuff, and we can't
Speaker 3: put oil barrels over that. But as a society we do.
Speaker 2: Really got gion over an oil barrel.
Speaker 3: And on that note, thank you, as always so much
Speaker 3: for duty in Folks, listen, send on a goodwin. We
Speaker 3: can't wait to hear your thoughts. If you have first
Speaker 3: and experience visiting living in Guyana and Venezuela, if you
Speaker 3: have ties with these countries this region, let us know.
Speaker 3: We'd love to hear your thoughts. We try to be
Speaker 3: easy to find online. I'm try.
Speaker 4: You can find us at the handle Conspiracy Stuff where
Speaker 4: we exist on Facebook, or we have our Facebook group.
Speaker 6: Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 4: We are also conspiracy Stuff on x FKA Twitter, and
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Speaker 4: We are Conspiracy Stuff Show however on Insta and TikTok.
Speaker 4: And be on the lookout for new social media short
Speaker 4: form videos.
Speaker 6: And maybe even some longer form stuff coming in the
Speaker 6: new year.
Speaker 5: Hey, if you've got a moment, why not head to
Speaker 5: our YouTube channel and check out the videos we made
Speaker 5: on who Hugo Chavez back in.
Speaker 2: Ten years ago? Maybe we made those videos?
Speaker 5: Go check those out because there's really interesting information in
Speaker 5: there about again, maybe how the country was going, what
Speaker 5: the fears were at least at the top of the
Speaker 5: chain ten years ago.
Speaker 3: Also, the US definitely did Dirton Venezuela just to be
Speaker 3: very clear. Oh yeah, did bad stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the CI that made the fact book. Anyway, it's fine,
Speaker 5: everything's fine. Call our number one eight three three std WYTK.
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