to go with that whine.

It's a pretty interesting theory. I'd thought of Venezuela and the plunging oil prices--how it might destroy the leftist democracy revolution there, which is, currently, overly-dependent on oil profits. (They need to learn some things from Cuba--how to do without oil for energy, transportation and agriculture, and learn, as Cuba has, how much better that is for people/community and the earth)--but I didn't think that Exxon Mobil and pals would take such a hit in their BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of profit just to kill the revolution in Venezuela. However, as a joint strategy of the U.S. military-industrial-prison complex--government, military, CIA, Wall Street and transglobal corporate monstrosities, all working together, with RUSSIA, Venezuela and, say, Iran, as the targets for demolition, that DOES make sense to me.

That you are posting it for the purposes of ridicule, not discussion, makes me even more interested in Maduro's theory. I think he may be right.

You're Peace Patriot.

It's an interesting theory. And you calling it "lunatic" makes it even more interesting.

Reasonable people have to wonder at the sudden plunge in gas prices, from $4/gal to $2/gal in such a short time period, especially given the WAR that the U.S. corporate oil monsters just waged, in the previous decade, with our tax dollars and our young cannon fodder, on Iraq and points east (Afghanistan, Libya, Syria) with rumblings of war against Iran, Russia and Venezuela (the latter by the U.S. Senate--starting with sanctions--and by the Miami mafia). In short, these corporate monsters--Exxon Mobil & pals--run our government. What they want, they get. And it is very clear that one of the things they want is to regain control of Venezuela's huge oil reserves, and another desire is to gain control of Russia's and Iran's, if they can. There is most certainly a geopolitical strategy designed by these corporate oil monsters, and implemented by our toady U.S. government, to control the last oil reserves on earth. One of the obstacles to that goal is Venezuela's leftist democracy revolution, and most certainly they want to--and have continually tried to--end that revolution--with violent coup d'etat attempts, international lawsuits (attempts to seize Venezuela's assets), and dozens of nasty CIA/USAID projects.

Venezuela is no small trophy in the corporate oil wars. It controls twice the crude oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. Still, I don't think that they would slash oil prices in half just to destroy Venezuela's democracy, but I do think that a geopolitical strategy that COMBINES certain goals--including toppling Venezuela's leftist government--is quite possible. I would like to hear more about it. I would like to discuss it. I don't think it's "lunatic" at all. And just for the record, I don't think that the president of Venezuela is a "lunatic," nor the president of Argentina--both of whom have been targeted by CIA/Corporate News propaganda campaigns to paint them as crazy. I see echoes of this propaganda campaign in our rightwing posters here at DU. Nicolas Maduro is crazy? Cristina Fernandez is crazy? And Dick Cheney is NOT? Come on.

likely due to an economic slowdown in China.

Would you like prices to be higher? You said you wanted to discuss.

They are the ones who basically have the final call on the prices. I honestly haven't seen any reason for them to make things harder for Venezuela and Russia. Iran, sure, they're their Shiite rivals, but other than that, Maduro's theory makes no bloody sense, and is just trying to blame others besides his administration for the poor state of Venezuela's economy when it's the government itself that has more control than any other entity in that country over media, production, industry, etc.