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.
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.
Maduro, Castro, and Saddam Hussein are/were bad. Castro and Hussein, at least, committed murders to maintain power and Maduro pulled a coup after he lost an election.
Whether they were worth removing is another question, but if you could flip a switch and magically replace them with something better (with no cost and a guarantee the replacement would not be a murderous authoritarian) you would of course do it.
Venezuelans are being starved by the sheer incompetency/corruption of its leaders. It’s a kleptocracy.
The collapse started way earlier than the sanctions. It’s funny, but it’s even insulting that some people cannot comprehend that there is evil beyond their own frontiers. Not everything wrong that happens in the world is because an empire is meddling, we are also capable of being useless by ourselves!
I don't understand why don't deal with Maduro but Trump regards Putin as practically an old friend, while both treat their people equally shitty. Same with some other countries, what is the litmus test?
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.
> 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.
You may think that but Alfred Nobel disagreed and it is his prize. If she fits the criteria is another question but it was certainly not intended to just be about real wars and real peace (whatever that is).
den som har verkat mest eller best för folkens förbrödrande och afskaffande
eller minskning af stående arméer samt bildande och spridande af
fredskongresser
shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations,
for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and
promotion of peace congresses
English translation is taken from Wikipedia and not totally exact but close enough.
Consider this. There are circumstances in Venezuela that some would consider worthy of a civil war. This award winner has chosen peaceful resistance, acts that may have prevented war.
There’s kidnapping, imprisonment, torture and rape of political dissidents.
They created an exodus of 8 million people.
Starved the population.
Killed people in the thousands in the favelas and other poor areas without a trial.
Steals elections.
To me that’s a regime at war with its own population and it deserves all the condemnation possible and all the support necessary to help transition back to democracy.
... and yet the consequences of what's going is as if there was war, the economy is suffering as if there was war, the people are fleeing as if there was war and dying as if there was war
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".
And then electorate turned around and voted for Trump twice, republicans loosing their minds over president being black. And this year, Trump wanted the prize.
I gotta agree. I'm not sure Obama was the straw that broke the camel's back in that particular regard.
That said, it depends on how old you are. I think there are a lot of young people on HN, and for them, maybe that was a meaningful indication of a purportless Nobel Peace Prize?
Some slightly older than them may have checked out with the whole Aung San Suu Kyi - Arafat - de Klerk thing.
They don't really attach much import to that prize in any case because of the bad taste those picks left in their mouths.
I guess I mean that every generation kind of learns anew that, "Hey.. wow, this prize doesn't really mean what it did even 60 years ago."
It's definitely the Nobel Prize that's the most politically biased and least merited by winners at the median over the last 30-40 years.
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 would prefer if awards were given to people for something they achieved, not for something they promised to achieve.
The Arab Spring did not occur in a vacuum. If you're satisfied with America's public or private involvement, great. General Wesley Clark has a rather infamous interview from 2007 that you may want to consider.
Anyways, I think Trump is better motivated by not giving him the Peace Prize.
Obama basically created the modern drone war, with his heavy investment in drone killings in all of the middle east. He is also the first US president to openly admit to ordering the assassination of a US citizen without trial.
Of course, not everything he did was bad. He did have better intentions on combating climate change than president before or after him, for example.
> Either way, in retrospect, him winning an election is in the long term arguably, and to no fault of his own, a catastrophe.
Due to the right-wing backlash against a black president?
I don't view his winning as the catastrophe, I view it as leading to a revelation about what was just under the surface. The catastrophe has been caused by others.
Obama can’t possibly be the catalyst for your disregard of the NPP. There were far more controversial picks for decades prior.
This obsession with Obama’s award is just further evidence Fox News decides what we recall and get angry about. It comes up every single year. It’s a meme at this point. Obama but not Arafat or Kissinger? Get out of here lmao
Arafat and Rabin received it for "their efforts to create peace in the Middle East."
Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ received it because they "jointly worked for a ceasefire and for bringing peace to Vietnam," though Lê Đức Thọ refused it and Kissinger did not attend the ceremony.
Obama received it nine months into his Presidency for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," despite having few if any concrete foreign policy achievements.
Obama could have at least matched Kissinger by ducking the ceremony, or even by refusing it like Lê Đức Thọ did because it wasn't justified.
I think the GOP lost its mind when a black man won the Presidential election and had the audacity to get the peace prize as well. It has never left their news cycle since that time and why Trump is obsessed with getting a NPP.
While I completely agree with the loss of actual meaning, however I do think it's nice that we tell people they did well while they're still alive. Assuming they did actually do something to deserve it that is.
This is such a highly disingenuous bad faith argument, Obama won it in 2009, are you suggesting the Nobel committee should have used some time travel technology to peer into the future?
No, the point is that Obama won it in 2009 when he had literally done nothing, except having won an election. The point about what happened after is just to show that the committee was not prescient and full of foresight, that it did turn out that the man who had simply won an election based on promises did not live up to those promises.
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.
Don't get me wrong, but perhaps what was missing was greater media coverage and genuine interest in Venezuela's situation.
María Corina Machado orchestrated a HUGE covert months long operation to collect tally sheets from the overwhelming majority of voting machines during the 2024 presidential election. Her team trained poll watchers to demand vote receipts (as legally permitted) then capture and transmit that data through various channels, even from the most remote regions of the country.
There are documented cases of people—poll workers and participants in the plan—being imprisoned or even killed for their involvement.
Thanks to this operation, the website resultadospresidencialesvenezuela2024.com exists, where venezuelan can verify the actual vote count per candidate, backed by fingerprint records and the serial numbers of both the software and hardware used.
These verified results confirm that Edmundo González was the true winner of the election.
The data provides undeniable evidence that Nicolás Maduro installed himself as a dictator, with the full support of the national electoral authority, which, to this day, has refused to release the official election results (a procedure that has historically been routine).
You can also verify the results here https://macedoniadelnorte.com/ (a whole story behind this hostname). Again, only possible by the María Corina's huge effort
We can only hope that she will not behave like the previous career politicians that got the Nobel Peace Prize in recent years.
Abiy Ahmed (2019), from Ethiopia, ended the cold war with Eritrea. Then he launched a war against the region of Tigray, with mass rapes and mass civilian killings. He harassed the free press, and turned the country into an autocracy.
Juan Manuel Santos (2016) from Colombia and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (2011) from Liberia later appeared in Paradise Papers because they had secret offshore companies in Panama and Barbades. Their political activity was more tame after the prize than before. Both ended their presidential tenures with plummeting approval rates, especially because of corruption allegations.
Barack Obama (2009) received the Prize for his generous discourses on foreign policy, just after being elected. Then he lead the USA to more war in Afghanistan, and a new war in Libya. He helped Saudi Arabia invade Yemen (UN states this war killed 300,000 people). He helped the Egyptian army with its coup, that killed thousands of opponents and sent 60,000 in jails (including the elected president who died there).
In my opinion, this prize is, most of the time, a dark and heavily political joke.
The peace prize is often given to people still working on something, not having achieved something. In that way it is different from the science prizes.
I think that is a understandable approach (providing support), though it can lead to giving the prize to people who never achieve any of their goals. Whether that’s a worthy trade off I do not know.
Being the opposition leader there is already something extraordinary. While other opposition figures have ended up coziying up with the regime she hasn’t relented. All while important members of her party have been imprisoned or murdered.
She’s also in hiding since the last elections, likely on an embassy but undetermined.
In a dictatorship, running against the leader involves more personal risk than in a country that is already democratic. Also, democracies tend to be more peaceful than dictatorships; my understanding is that efforts to transition from dictatorship to democracy may be regarded as a contribution to peace.
She also received the Sakharov Prize not long ago; if she had to receive only one, the latter would be easier to explain.
What exactly do you mean by "career politician?" Being a member of the opposition in a dictatorship means giving up material wealth and putting your life & liberty on the line.
People imagine political movements as something to accomplish in their lifetime. When the real movements are multi-generational and involve planting trees you'll never enjoy the shade of.
I get frustrated in the US we are always thinking in terms of the next election. Movements that effect lasting change: civil rights, national independence movements, ending slavery, heck even the current conservative regime in the US, are all multigenerational efforts with clear principles and goals that get passed down.
That reminds me a bit of former winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who got the prize in 1991, while not having done or said that much at the time of the award, other than be a political prisoner.
I respect that she opposed the Burmese military junta most of her life, but then a year after coming to power in 2015, she defended the military against charges of complicity in the Rohingya genocide to preserve her fragile government.
Personally, I think the Peace Prize shouldn't go to politicians at all.
It's so disappointing to see many folks engaging with the troll you are. You made this account just to post this garbage. Why didn't you post with your regular account? You can't even face folks on the internet. Do you think you have what it takes to face a dictator in the real world?
Yes but this is a way for them to give it to someone who supports Trump’s worldview so that they can try to dodge the controversy and pressure being put on them to give it to Trump
She managed to convince a people of a country that has been entrenched in authoritarianism that the vote was rigged without using violence.
Imagine one day we wake up after the usual yawn-inducing sham elections in Russia and Putin won as usual but a large chunk of the country, probably a plurality of it, is utterly convinced that it was completely fake and that Navalny won.
Without anybody using violence to do it.
Those who think there is nothing to be done but to counter authoritarianism without another authoritarian, or violence, or just to give up and suffer it - might be inspired by this.
I'm not the NNC but that seems like a "meaningful accomplishment".
You could ask: "Sure, allright, the populace was convinced that election was a sham. But... Maduro is still in power so she still hasn't done much". Let me flip it around, perhaps: What did Gandi ever actually accomplish? Isn't it the same thing: Show that violence is not a necessary element, get the people to reframe the situation a bit?
Can we prove Gandi sped up the UK's exit? Even if we can, one of those holocaust level holy heck humanity can get extremely dark moments in history that is rarely talked about is the absolute terror that occurred during the split of the Raj into India and Pakistan.
My point is: Judging the eligibility of a person for a peace prize on the basis of 'measurable meaningful accomplishment' is not how it works and probably shouldn't be how it works. It's either a bullshit prize (kissinger got one...) or it is like making a statue of somebody: It takes a person, turns them into a principle or ideal. Even though humans are much more complex than that.
The notion of "one is capable of being in opposition in an autocratic regime and get stuff done without resorting to violence" got a peace prize, but as per the dictat of Alfred Nobel, only people can get it, so, they stuck the label "Maria Corina Machado" on it. And that wasn't a bad labelling: She really did accomplish 'meaningfully' that goal, at least, I'd gather according to most folks' definition of the word 'capable'.
lol. Speaking of careers, leave it to HN to get a bunch of careerists whose main priority is their own pockets to engage in some armchair debate about how people who have likely done significantly more for the world than they will ever do don't deserve a peace prize.
The amount of presumption, ignorance, and lack of reflection in your comment is astounding. It shows that you don't take life seriously and/or don't understand what risks being an opposition party in a dictatorship actually entails.
The prize is a joke. Its almost an anti-prize at this point. Look at the company you would be with. I definitively would not want to be included in that group.
That's why she won the "peace" award. She wants trump to invade venezuela. If people didn't realize what a farce the nobel "peace" prize has always been. It's always been a geopolitical weapon having nothing to do with actual peace.
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
For me, that skepticism began when Obama received the award. To his credit, he did not think he deserved it. But I have never viewed it in the same light since.
There's a "curse" in Nobel peace prize for sure. Not long after Obama got it, he got US dragged in to Libya and Syria. Merely 2 years after EU got it, Crimea was annexed during Ukraine trying to get closer to EU (and EU really did nothing about this).
Not to the fault of the people per se, but I see too much "awarded for effort, then oops turns out the complete opposite happened" with the peace prize.
Norwegians are known for their oil and salmon. not knowledge, but being spoiled. so maybe the committee are just painfully incompetent to the level we should now bet that Venezuela should expect big turmoil in the coming years
It's probably best to see the prize more as encouragement rather than endorsement of everything the person has ever done. Abiy Ahmed won the award "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea". His actions in the last few years notwithstanding, he did do that. And insofar I can follow Ethiopian politics, his other actions from the early years were also generally in the spirit of the Nobel Peace Prize. At least in theory, celebrating and rewarding this kind of thing is good? I don't see how it would embolden him, or anyone else?
I apologise in advance for making light of the situation in your country, but did you find the peace awards more meaningless than Hinton's award for PHYSICS?!!
I won't deny some of the recipients are questionable, but I don't see how someone receiving the award or not would help prevent - or embolden - suffering in a country? I'm not familiar with what happened in Ethiopia, so apologies if this is obvious.
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!
They certainly wouldnt have given it to Hugo Chavez in 2002 when he overcame the American backed anti democratic coup to overthrow him.
Dissidents in countries which are enemies of the west? With enormous oil reserves? With an American fleet poised offshore ready for regime change? Definitely. Who are zionists to boot? Even better.
Dissidents in brutal, dictatorial countries (e.g. Saudi) which are allies? Hell no. Never. The nobel prize is a tool of statecraft and that would be a self defeating use of its PR potential to advance western foreign policy goals.
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.
This isn't illegal but feels like it should be illegal. You don't see corporate officers trade their stocks right before a big announcement, because there are laws on it.
Other than the fact that polymarket is legally not a stock market, what really is the difference between insider trading on a stock market vs insider trading on polymarket? Does anyone have a good argument for why one should be illegal while the other is legal?
Are you suggesting that an unregulated gambling system primarily advocated for by gamblers in an ecosystem rife with degenerate gambling and outright fraud that advertises itself with an entirely theoretical and vibes based theory of "better information" that is primarily filled with people desperate to make gambling a "good thing" and provides ample opportunity for the incestuous and deeply connected crypto community to fleece people who have repeatedly demonstrated themselves to be delicious targets...
You think maybe that might not be on the straight and narrow?
Maybe we should get people to bet on it! Gamblers routinely show that they have a strong understanding of the world, right? What? No I don't have a problem. Hey do you have a few dollars I can borrow?
It would be interesting to see if someone can develop insider trading tracking algorithms to uncover highly probable useful information out of prediction markets before major public announcements. It would be unfair to people involved in markets, but highly beneficial to everyone else, at least so long as prediction markets remain relatively niche.
Venezuela is already heavily sanctioned and on the cusp of military invasion by USA. Machado is a core part of this campaign. She won't be sanctioned, she will be installed.
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.
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.)
> 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.
Interesting point! Bit of a tangent, bit Brazil is in the process of holding Bolsonaro to account for power grabs that have a lot of similarities with what's happening in the US.
Too early to call their long term efficacy, but definitely one to watch.
>I am quite seriously unaware of anyone with a good opposition plan, to reverse the power centralization, at this point.
Trump, and the regime associated with him, are an exploitation of preexisting degradation of limited, democratic and responsible governance in the United States. The restoration of"good government" is the obvious counter to his rising dictatorship, but that would result in other existing power blocs (themselves also abusive, if not so gratuitously as Trump) loosing their own ability to exploit the system after he exits the stage. Faced with a choice between "stop Trump and end our own abuses as a consequence" or "let him run rampant and hope the US survives so that we can exploit it later" established American institutions have overwhelmingly gone with the second option.
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
I mean, Poland managed to get rid of communist rule through a peaceful process(which doesn't mean people weren't arrested, tortured, intimidated and beaten). There was a desire for free and democratic elections and it happened.
"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!
> Reading the opinions in this thread just shatters any hope for humanity.
the fact that you are able to read opinions that don't match yours is for me a positive. better to have it imho than to only see what one agrees with at all times.
now whether the discourse is healthy or not is up to the rest.
The funny thing is, both sides can read your comment and assume you’re talking about the other side having the "wrong" opinion. It’s the kind of platitude that doesn’t really add anything, it just signals that you see yourself as being above "the wrong side", whichever side that happens to be.
Why do people have this weird idea that humans reliably pick the correct answer, even given infinite information?
Humans are incapable of being rational, it's not how our brains function. We can, with great effort, emulate what we think rational thought would be like.
Human brains regularly lie to themselves because it is cheaper or easier than actually processing input.
You know that fun retort: "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?", and how it's always trotted out as this supposed retort to someone suggesting you ignore obvious info, but our eyes are lying to us constantly. There are tons of ways your eyes cheat, or lie, or outright ignore reality in favor of some internal model. This isn't even limited to optical illusions!
And the same is true of all sensory input we have. There are auditory illusions and ways your ears lie to you. There are things like phantom limbs that demonstrate your brain will ignore explicit and clear reality for no reason.
Humans are emotional creatures, like all biological creatures. Humans make choices emotionally
Do you think the most emotionally charged information will always be truthful?
The outcome we are experiencing was obvious, but people ignored it because that sort of implies that information needs to be filtered or curated and that makes people nervous.
>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.
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.
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.
I understand your frustration. But you may want to avoid a foreign interference/invasion more than a bad regime. The former is arguably worse than the latter, though there are exceptions.
Definitely. Machado fits the profile of a "smol bean opposition" and is involved in a situation that USA government has great interest in (and she has great relationships with those on Capitol Hill). While Trump personally wants the award, the USG would have no qualms also lobbying for Machado as part of their "maximum pressure" campaign against Venezuelan sovereignty.
She's a vocal Trump supporter [1]. Last time Trump was president his administration did attempt to coup Venezuela [2]:
> Tapper returned to Bolton’s remark about having helped plan coups.
> Bolton said: “I’m not going to get into the specifics.”
> Tapper asked: “Successful coups?”
> Bolton said: “Well, I wrote about Venezuela in in the book and it turned out not to be successful.
> Before Bolton joined the Trump administration, it was widely reported that Trump wanted to use the US military to oust Maduro. In August 2017, Trump told reporters: “We have many options for Venezuela, this is our neighbour.”
> “We want as our principal objective the peaceful transfer of power but I will say again, as [Trump] has said from the outset, and Nicolas Maduro and those supporting him, particularly those who are not Venezuelan, should know, all options are on the table.”
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.”
It was a MAGA talking point from the start, meant for MAGA ppl... The chance he got it was 0%, because:
1- The Nobel Peace Prize is chosen by a committee of 5 Norwegians. Having Russia or Israel expressing support doesn't help, it's probably even counterproductive. Random endorsements on Twitter don't matter either..
2- The committee values international cooperation, not trade wars, isolationism, or cozying up to dictators.
3- They prize the defense of democracy, not attacks on it.
4- The cherry on the cake: Machado got the prize while he's been threatening war with Venezuela itself. It almost feels like a big f*ck off
100% true, although the opinion is unpopular in this forum. In the end, this is rewarding some very bad people just because they oppose somebody (supposedly) even worse. But that doesn't have anything to do with "peace". This award lost its meaning a long time ago, maybe Netanyahu will be the winner next year.
Yeah it's the same a criminal dictator than the person risking her life to overthrown him peacefully. Maria Corina is trying to get all the support possible, and in Spain that support clearly comes from the right, not the left. Maybe because the two main left parties have well known ties with the regime.
Between Kissinger, Obama, the Myanmarese CIA asset, etc., it's basically the Nobel Crimes Against Humanity prize at this point. I'm surprised they didn't give it to the Orange Thing.
There has been some speculation that if Trump didn't win this one, he'll lose all motivation in making peace, at least in the near future. Like for example Gaza.
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.
> There has been some speculation that if Trump didn't win this one, he'll lose all motivation in making peace, at least in the near future. Like for example Gaza.
Were this the reason for him to receive it, he would deserve it even less, and erase every shred of dignity this award ever had.
lol!! Most people from rest of the world, minus west, knows what Nobel prize is all about. It is just a political tool for usa and west. Clearly, it about Venezuela oil and gold. Pathetic to see their hypocrisy and double standards.
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."
You know, funilly enough, if trump's peace plan for the gaza war actually holds, then that idiot has somehow probably done more for peace than most nobel peace prize winners.
Is the Nobel Peace Prize given to people who accomplished a lot as individuals (like Maria Corina Machado) or people who accomplished a lot at scale without doing much beyond a few phone calls and document-signings, like Trump?
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.
The Nobel peace prize cannot be given to someone who rebrands the ministry of defence to the ministry of war and proclaims on a stage that he hates his enemies. These things are mutually exclusive.
Isolated, I think his efforts in the middle east, particular around normalising Israel's relations with its neighbours (though I believe he did fuck up handling Iran because of his personal bias) could have let to a peace prize in a few years time (maybe a shared one) and certainly be more deserved than Obama's, however I agree with others that all his other actions, including threatening to invade allies, should disqualify him.
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
Who said there are no good news? For the people that never lived in a dictatorship here are a few reasons people were killed in one:
• grafitty agains the regime
• making anti refime jokes
• beeing a top official and saying you don't think the direction we are going is good
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
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.
Maduro, Castro, and Saddam Hussein are/were bad. Castro and Hussein, at least, committed murders to maintain power and Maduro pulled a coup after he lost an election.
Whether they were worth removing is another question, but if you could flip a switch and magically replace them with something better (with no cost and a guarantee the replacement would not be a murderous authoritarian) you would of course do it.
Venezuelans are being starved by the sheer incompetency/corruption of its leaders. It’s a kleptocracy.
The collapse started way earlier than the sanctions. It’s funny, but it’s even insulting that some people cannot comprehend that there is evil beyond their own frontiers. Not everything wrong that happens in the world is because an empire is meddling, we are also capable of being useless by ourselves!
When will this stop being controversial? All you need to do is look at past winners of this farcical prize
It's debatable who's fault starvation is. Maduro might have something to do with it. I'm not sure how it threatens western companies.
I don't understand why don't deal with Maduro but Trump regards Putin as practically an old friend, while both treat their people equally shitty. Same with some other countries, what is the litmus test?
what interest does north korea threaten?
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.
> 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.
That's a great insight
> The history lesson is that when the most of the GDP generation doesn't need without the help of the population
Counterexample: China. Or plenty of African countries. Being a petrocracy certainly makes authoritarianism easier, but it's not at all a requirement.
For further reading - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
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I would rather give the "Fire Safety" prize to the people who installed sprinklers and smoke alarms than to firefighters
You may think that but Alfred Nobel disagreed and it is his prize. If she fits the criteria is another question but it was certainly not intended to just be about real wars and real peace (whatever that is).
English translation is taken from Wikipedia and not totally exact but close enough.Consider this. There are circumstances in Venezuela that some would consider worthy of a civil war. This award winner has chosen peaceful resistance, acts that may have prevented war.
Who would you give the Nobel Peace Prize to?
There’s kidnapping, imprisonment, torture and rape of political dissidents.
They created an exodus of 8 million people.
Starved the population.
Killed people in the thousands in the favelas and other poor areas without a trial.
Steals elections.
To me that’s a regime at war with its own population and it deserves all the condemnation possible and all the support necessary to help transition back to democracy.
... and yet the consequences of what's going is as if there was war, the economy is suffering as if there was war, the people are fleeing as if there was war and dying as if there was war
You don't need a war to have a lack of Peace!
I don't know honestly if some people feed on negative attention or if they just live their life trying to fit square pegs into round holes
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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.
> You Americans are so fucking stupid its hilarious.
LOL. The person you replied to is from Venezuela:
https://hn.algolia.com/?query=author:madacol+Venezuela&type=...
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".
And then electorate turned around and voted for Trump twice, republicans loosing their minds over president being black. And this year, Trump wanted the prize.
Pretty sure they had already spoiled it by giving it to F.W. de Klerk, Yasser Arafat, and Henry Kissinger.
Yeah.
I gotta agree. I'm not sure Obama was the straw that broke the camel's back in that particular regard.
That said, it depends on how old you are. I think there are a lot of young people on HN, and for them, maybe that was a meaningful indication of a purportless Nobel Peace Prize?
Some slightly older than them may have checked out with the whole Aung San Suu Kyi - Arafat - de Klerk thing.
They don't really attach much import to that prize in any case because of the bad taste those picks left in their mouths.
I guess I mean that every generation kind of learns anew that, "Hey.. wow, this prize doesn't really mean what it did even 60 years ago."
It's definitely the Nobel Prize that's the most politically biased and least merited by winners at the median over the last 30-40 years.
Insane that Kissinger got it
Can some ELI5 why Kissinger gets the heat all the time these days?
Asking genuinely as a person who is not familiar with the US political climate before the 90s…
And Aung San Suu Kyi.
oh wow I didn't know about those figures getting the price, super crazy!!
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).
The US did not pull out of Afghanistan under Obama.
>Either way, in retrospect, him winning an election is in the long term arguably, and to no fault of his own, a catastrophe.
What do you mean by this?
I would prefer if awards were given to people for something they achieved, not for something they promised to achieve.
The Arab Spring did not occur in a vacuum. If you're satisfied with America's public or private involvement, great. General Wesley Clark has a rather infamous interview from 2007 that you may want to consider.
Anyways, I think Trump is better motivated by not giving him the Peace Prize.
Obama basically created the modern drone war, with his heavy investment in drone killings in all of the middle east. He is also the first US president to openly admit to ordering the assassination of a US citizen without trial.
Of course, not everything he did was bad. He did have better intentions on combating climate change than president before or after him, for example.
> Either way, in retrospect, him winning an election is in the long term arguably, and to no fault of his own, a catastrophe.
Due to the right-wing backlash against a black president?
I don't view his winning as the catastrophe, I view it as leading to a revelation about what was just under the surface. The catastrophe has been caused by others.
Hitchens argued it best imho: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nwGSSzPuEaM
I was going to say Nobel Prize for Peace was irretrievably compromised when they gave it to Kissinger.
You didn't draw the line at Henry Kissinger, Yasser Arafat or even the European Union itself?!?
Do you object to the EU? This was very much founded as a peace project.
Obama can’t possibly be the catalyst for your disregard of the NPP. There were far more controversial picks for decades prior.
This obsession with Obama’s award is just further evidence Fox News decides what we recall and get angry about. It comes up every single year. It’s a meme at this point. Obama but not Arafat or Kissinger? Get out of here lmao
Arafat and Rabin received it for "their efforts to create peace in the Middle East."
Kissinger and Lê Đức Thọ received it because they "jointly worked for a ceasefire and for bringing peace to Vietnam," though Lê Đức Thọ refused it and Kissinger did not attend the ceremony.
Obama received it nine months into his Presidency for "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," despite having few if any concrete foreign policy achievements.
Obama could have at least matched Kissinger by ducking the ceremony, or even by refusing it like Lê Đức Thọ did because it wasn't justified.
> obsession with Obama’s award
It is amazing how many hits you get when you Ctrl+F 'Obama' on this post.
I think the GOP lost its mind when a black man won the Presidential election and had the audacity to get the peace prize as well. It has never left their news cycle since that time and why Trump is obsessed with getting a NPP.
While I completely agree with the loss of actual meaning, however I do think it's nice that we tell people they did well while they're still alive. Assuming they did actually do something to deserve it that is.
This is such a highly disingenuous bad faith argument, Obama won it in 2009, are you suggesting the Nobel committee should have used some time travel technology to peer into the future?
No, the point is that Obama won it in 2009 when he had literally done nothing, except having won an election. The point about what happened after is just to show that the committee was not prescient and full of foresight, that it did turn out that the man who had simply won an election based on promises did not live up to those promises.
Why does Trump want it so badly if it's just an award given to war mongers and drone strikers then?
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.
Don't get me wrong, but perhaps what was missing was greater media coverage and genuine interest in Venezuela's situation. María Corina Machado orchestrated a HUGE covert months long operation to collect tally sheets from the overwhelming majority of voting machines during the 2024 presidential election. Her team trained poll watchers to demand vote receipts (as legally permitted) then capture and transmit that data through various channels, even from the most remote regions of the country. There are documented cases of people—poll workers and participants in the plan—being imprisoned or even killed for their involvement. Thanks to this operation, the website resultadospresidencialesvenezuela2024.com exists, where venezuelan can verify the actual vote count per candidate, backed by fingerprint records and the serial numbers of both the software and hardware used. These verified results confirm that Edmundo González was the true winner of the election. The data provides undeniable evidence that Nicolás Maduro installed himself as a dictator, with the full support of the national electoral authority, which, to this day, has refused to release the official election results (a procedure that has historically been routine).
You can also verify the results here https://macedoniadelnorte.com/ (a whole story behind this hostname). Again, only possible by the María Corina's huge effort
Opposing a dictatorship at great personal risk, being exiled, banned from elections, and still leading a democratic movement isn't "nothing".
I think this prize recognizes her courage and fight for human rights.
Dismissing that as "just being in the opposition" ignores the reality of what it takes to stand up to Maduro's dictatorship.
We can only hope that she will not behave like the previous career politicians that got the Nobel Peace Prize in recent years.
Abiy Ahmed (2019), from Ethiopia, ended the cold war with Eritrea. Then he launched a war against the region of Tigray, with mass rapes and mass civilian killings. He harassed the free press, and turned the country into an autocracy.
Juan Manuel Santos (2016) from Colombia and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (2011) from Liberia later appeared in Paradise Papers because they had secret offshore companies in Panama and Barbades. Their political activity was more tame after the prize than before. Both ended their presidential tenures with plummeting approval rates, especially because of corruption allegations.
Barack Obama (2009) received the Prize for his generous discourses on foreign policy, just after being elected. Then he lead the USA to more war in Afghanistan, and a new war in Libya. He helped Saudi Arabia invade Yemen (UN states this war killed 300,000 people). He helped the Egyptian army with its coup, that killed thousands of opponents and sent 60,000 in jails (including the elected president who died there).
In my opinion, this prize is, most of the time, a dark and heavily political joke.
The peace prize is often given to people still working on something, not having achieved something. In that way it is different from the science prizes.
I think that is a understandable approach (providing support), though it can lead to giving the prize to people who never achieve any of their goals. Whether that’s a worthy trade off I do not know.
Being the opposition leader there is already something extraordinary. While other opposition figures have ended up coziying up with the regime she hasn’t relented. All while important members of her party have been imprisoned or murdered.
She’s also in hiding since the last elections, likely on an embassy but undetermined.
In a dictatorship, running against the leader involves more personal risk than in a country that is already democratic. Also, democracies tend to be more peaceful than dictatorships; my understanding is that efforts to transition from dictatorship to democracy may be regarded as a contribution to peace.
She also received the Sakharov Prize not long ago; if she had to receive only one, the latter would be easier to explain.
How much had Obama done in 2009? Maybe they forgot the criticism from back then.
What exactly do you mean by "career politician?" Being a member of the opposition in a dictatorship means giving up material wealth and putting your life & liberty on the line.
People imagine political movements as something to accomplish in their lifetime. When the real movements are multi-generational and involve planting trees you'll never enjoy the shade of.
I get frustrated in the US we are always thinking in terms of the next election. Movements that effect lasting change: civil rights, national independence movements, ending slavery, heck even the current conservative regime in the US, are all multigenerational efforts with clear principles and goals that get passed down.
That reminds me a bit of former winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who got the prize in 1991, while not having done or said that much at the time of the award, other than be a political prisoner.
I respect that she opposed the Burmese military junta most of her life, but then a year after coming to power in 2015, she defended the military against charges of complicity in the Rohingya genocide to preserve her fragile government.
Personally, I think the Peace Prize shouldn't go to politicians at all.
It's so disappointing to see many folks engaging with the troll you are. You made this account just to post this garbage. Why didn't you post with your regular account? You can't even face folks on the internet. Do you think you have what it takes to face a dictator in the real world?
Yes but this is a way for them to give it to someone who supports Trump’s worldview so that they can try to dodge the controversy and pressure being put on them to give it to Trump
She managed to convince a people of a country that has been entrenched in authoritarianism that the vote was rigged without using violence.
Imagine one day we wake up after the usual yawn-inducing sham elections in Russia and Putin won as usual but a large chunk of the country, probably a plurality of it, is utterly convinced that it was completely fake and that Navalny won.
Without anybody using violence to do it.
Those who think there is nothing to be done but to counter authoritarianism without another authoritarian, or violence, or just to give up and suffer it - might be inspired by this.
I'm not the NNC but that seems like a "meaningful accomplishment".
You could ask: "Sure, allright, the populace was convinced that election was a sham. But... Maduro is still in power so she still hasn't done much". Let me flip it around, perhaps: What did Gandi ever actually accomplish? Isn't it the same thing: Show that violence is not a necessary element, get the people to reframe the situation a bit?
Can we prove Gandi sped up the UK's exit? Even if we can, one of those holocaust level holy heck humanity can get extremely dark moments in history that is rarely talked about is the absolute terror that occurred during the split of the Raj into India and Pakistan.
My point is: Judging the eligibility of a person for a peace prize on the basis of 'measurable meaningful accomplishment' is not how it works and probably shouldn't be how it works. It's either a bullshit prize (kissinger got one...) or it is like making a statue of somebody: It takes a person, turns them into a principle or ideal. Even though humans are much more complex than that.
The notion of "one is capable of being in opposition in an autocratic regime and get stuff done without resorting to violence" got a peace prize, but as per the dictat of Alfred Nobel, only people can get it, so, they stuck the label "Maria Corina Machado" on it. And that wasn't a bad labelling: She really did accomplish 'meaningfully' that goal, at least, I'd gather according to most folks' definition of the word 'capable'.
lol. Speaking of careers, leave it to HN to get a bunch of careerists whose main priority is their own pockets to engage in some armchair debate about how people who have likely done significantly more for the world than they will ever do don't deserve a peace prize.
The amount of presumption, ignorance, and lack of reflection in your comment is astounding. It shows that you don't take life seriously and/or don't understand what risks being an opposition party in a dictatorship actually entails.
Look up the winners of 1991 and 2009.
The prize is a joke. Its almost an anti-prize at this point. Look at the company you would be with. I definitively would not want to be included in that group.
The US is about to invade Venezuela and she is cheering for it.
That's why she won the "peace" award. She wants trump to invade venezuela. If people didn't realize what a farce the nobel "peace" prize has always been. It's always been a geopolitical weapon having nothing to do with actual peace.
Maduro is a cartel drug boss. One of the worst criminal on Earth. Exiled citizens from Venezuela are counted by millions.
And still your comment is about 'US invading Venezuela' and not about the people suffering.
Maduro is a scum that has took Venezuela by brute force. Any effort to wipe him out will improve dramatically the lives of millions.
But please go on with your 'US invading countries' narrative and don't even think for a minute about the people.
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
What, are you not impressed by us putting retired politicians into an independent committee according to their party's political power in parliament??
Are you suggesting that the committee should consist of some kind of qualified experts instead of non-competent politicians?!
Preposterous. Typically of a Swede.
(To be fair to Nobel himself, the world was a bit different when he authored his testament, and Norway was relatively innocent still.)
> Man must sucks to be her, limelight is still on Trump, truly a showman.
She did dedicate this prize to Trump [1]:
> I dedicate this prize to the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support of our cause!
She is a vocal Trump supporter after all [2].
[1]: https://x.com/MariaCorinaYA/status/1976642376119549990
[2]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
This is deeply related to Trump and is all part of manufacturing consent for the eventual invasion or coup on Venezuela.
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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
For me, that skepticism began when Obama received the award. To his credit, he did not think he deserved it. But I have never viewed it in the same light since.
There's a long tradition of the Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to weirdly undeserving people, capped off by Henry Kissinger.
There's a "curse" in Nobel peace prize for sure. Not long after Obama got it, he got US dragged in to Libya and Syria. Merely 2 years after EU got it, Crimea was annexed during Ukraine trying to get closer to EU (and EU really did nothing about this).
Not to the fault of the people per se, but I see too much "awarded for effort, then oops turns out the complete opposite happened" with the peace prize.
Norwegians are known for their oil and salmon. not knowledge, but being spoiled. so maybe the committee are just painfully incompetent to the level we should now bet that Venezuela should expect big turmoil in the coming years
It's probably best to see the prize more as encouragement rather than endorsement of everything the person has ever done. Abiy Ahmed won the award "for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighbouring Eritrea". His actions in the last few years notwithstanding, he did do that. And insofar I can follow Ethiopian politics, his other actions from the early years were also generally in the spirit of the Nobel Peace Prize. At least in theory, celebrating and rewarding this kind of thing is good? I don't see how it would embolden him, or anyone else?
I apologise in advance for making light of the situation in your country, but did you find the peace awards more meaningless than Hinton's award for PHYSICS?!!
I won't deny some of the recipients are questionable, but I don't see how someone receiving the award or not would help prevent - or embolden - suffering in a country? I'm not familiar with what happened in Ethiopia, so apologies if this is obvious.
Looks like this would prompt Maduro to kill her, and gave US a reason to invade Venezula.
The US attacking Venezuela before 2026 is now at 31% on metaculus.
https://www.metaculus.com/questions/39336/us-attacks-venezue...
Or someone else on his behalf - even his enemies.
Alright, we are into conspiracy theory territory now. But let me just say that these awards make me a bit nervous.
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!
They certainly wouldnt have given it to Hugo Chavez in 2002 when he overcame the American backed anti democratic coup to overthrow him.
Dissidents in countries which are enemies of the west? With enormous oil reserves? With an American fleet poised offshore ready for regime change? Definitely. Who are zionists to boot? Even better.
Dissidents in brutal, dictatorial countries (e.g. Saudi) which are allies? Hell no. Never. The nobel prize is a tool of statecraft and that would be a self defeating use of its PR potential to advance western foreign policy goals.
Not for transitioning, for "struggle to achieve transition".
To be honest, only Donald Trump takes seriously the Nobel Peace price. He cares because Obama got one, no one else cares because Obama got one.
Actually its not limited to Obama, its whole history is ridden with scandals, definitely a far cry from the Nobel prizes in natural sciences.
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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.
~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...
This isn't illegal but feels like it should be illegal. You don't see corporate officers trade their stocks right before a big announcement, because there are laws on it.
Other than the fact that polymarket is legally not a stock market, what really is the difference between insider trading on a stock market vs insider trading on polymarket? Does anyone have a good argument for why one should be illegal while the other is legal?
Are you suggesting that an unregulated gambling system primarily advocated for by gamblers in an ecosystem rife with degenerate gambling and outright fraud that advertises itself with an entirely theoretical and vibes based theory of "better information" that is primarily filled with people desperate to make gambling a "good thing" and provides ample opportunity for the incestuous and deeply connected crypto community to fleece people who have repeatedly demonstrated themselves to be delicious targets...
You think maybe that might not be on the straight and narrow?
Maybe we should get people to bet on it! Gamblers routinely show that they have a strong understanding of the world, right? What? No I don't have a problem. Hey do you have a few dollars I can borrow?
It would be interesting to see if someone can develop insider trading tracking algorithms to uncover highly probable useful information out of prediction markets before major public announcements. It would be unfair to people involved in markets, but highly beneficial to everyone else, at least so long as prediction markets remain relatively niche.
Here come the sanctions
Venezuela is already heavily sanctioned and on the cusp of military invasion by USA. Machado is a core part of this campaign. She won't be sanctioned, she will be installed.
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.)
> 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.
Interesting point! Bit of a tangent, bit Brazil is in the process of holding Bolsonaro to account for power grabs that have a lot of similarities with what's happening in the US.
Too early to call their long term efficacy, but definitely one to watch.
>I am quite seriously unaware of anyone with a good opposition plan, to reverse the power centralization, at this point.
Trump, and the regime associated with him, are an exploitation of preexisting degradation of limited, democratic and responsible governance in the United States. The restoration of"good government" is the obvious counter to his rising dictatorship, but that would result in other existing power blocs (themselves also abusive, if not so gratuitously as Trump) loosing their own ability to exploit the system after he exits the stage. Faced with a choice between "stop Trump and end our own abuses as a consequence" or "let him run rampant and hope the US survives so that we can exploit it later" established American institutions have overwhelmingly gone with the second option.
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!
That's interesting. I think the last Venezuelan election showed there are limits to what you can accomplish with peace.
Of course there are limits to everything, but conversely look at what people like Gandhi achieved
I mean, Poland managed to get rid of communist rule through a peaceful process(which doesn't mean people weren't arrested, tortured, intimidated and beaten). There was a desire for free and democratic elections and it happened.
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.
> Reading the opinions in this thread just shatters any hope for humanity.
the fact that you are able to read opinions that don't match yours is for me a positive. better to have it imho than to only see what one agrees with at all times.
now whether the discourse is healthy or not is up to the rest.
The funny thing is, both sides can read your comment and assume you’re talking about the other side having the "wrong" opinion. It’s the kind of platitude that doesn’t really add anything, it just signals that you see yourself as being above "the wrong side", whichever side that happens to be.
Why do people have this weird idea that humans reliably pick the correct answer, even given infinite information?
Humans are incapable of being rational, it's not how our brains function. We can, with great effort, emulate what we think rational thought would be like.
Human brains regularly lie to themselves because it is cheaper or easier than actually processing input.
You know that fun retort: "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?", and how it's always trotted out as this supposed retort to someone suggesting you ignore obvious info, but our eyes are lying to us constantly. There are tons of ways your eyes cheat, or lie, or outright ignore reality in favor of some internal model. This isn't even limited to optical illusions!
And the same is true of all sensory input we have. There are auditory illusions and ways your ears lie to you. There are things like phantom limbs that demonstrate your brain will ignore explicit and clear reality for no reason.
Humans are emotional creatures, like all biological creatures. Humans make choices emotionally
Do you think the most emotionally charged information will always be truthful?
The outcome we are experiencing was obvious, but people ignored it because that sort of implies that information needs to be filtered or curated and that makes people nervous.
>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.
The final nominations are received in January...
The "middle east peace plan" is based on threats by Trump, so even if it works that's not Nobel Peace Price worthy
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.
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...
Do you also think that strippers are into their customers?
“Norway braces for Trump’s reaction if he does not win Nobel peace prize”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/09/norway-braces-...
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.
Greta or aid workers in Gaza would have been great choices
I don't think you understand what the Nobel prizes are actually about
Rigged
Care to elaborate?
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.
I understand your frustration. But you may want to avoid a foreign interference/invasion more than a bad regime. The former is arguably worse than the latter, though there are exceptions.
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?
Definitely. Machado fits the profile of a "smol bean opposition" and is involved in a situation that USA government has great interest in (and she has great relationships with those on Capitol Hill). While Trump personally wants the award, the USG would have no qualms also lobbying for Machado as part of their "maximum pressure" campaign against Venezuelan sovereignty.
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?
She's a vocal Trump supporter [1].
[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
She's a vocal Trump supporter [1]. Last time Trump was president his administration did attempt to coup Venezuela [2]:
> Tapper returned to Bolton’s remark about having helped plan coups.
> Bolton said: “I’m not going to get into the specifics.”
> Tapper asked: “Successful coups?”
> Bolton said: “Well, I wrote about Venezuela in in the book and it turned out not to be successful.
> Before Bolton joined the Trump administration, it was widely reported that Trump wanted to use the US military to oust Maduro. In August 2017, Trump told reporters: “We have many options for Venezuela, this is our neighbour.”
> “We want as our principal objective the peaceful transfer of power but I will say again, as [Trump] has said from the outset, and Nicolas Maduro and those supporting him, particularly those who are not Venezuelan, should know, all options are on the table.”
[1]: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politic...
[2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/former-senior-us-official-j...
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.”
Trump is going to be upset.
She supports Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Genocide of the Palestinians
She just dedicated her award to Trump, lmao.
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It was a MAGA talking point from the start, meant for MAGA ppl... The chance he got it was 0%, because:
1- The Nobel Peace Prize is chosen by a committee of 5 Norwegians. Having Russia or Israel expressing support doesn't help, it's probably even counterproductive. Random endorsements on Twitter don't matter either..
2- The committee values international cooperation, not trade wars, isolationism, or cozying up to dictators.
3- They prize the defense of democracy, not attacks on it.
4- The cherry on the cake: Machado got the prize while he's been threatening war with Venezuela itself. It almost feels like a big f*ck off
I also know someone who expects a peace prize after creating a department of war.
I predict no more US oil for Norway ...
Expect a ketchupnado in the White House...
I think that whole discussion was aimed at people who know nothing about the Nobel Peace Prize ... but many of those would be his fans.
>The White House has denounced the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Nobel peace prize to someone other than Donald Trump.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/10/trump-nobel-...
Check her Twitter. She supports Trump.
Yep, but why do we care what the socialist dictator Maduro thinks?
That is nonsense. Even if the Gaza deal was worthy a Nobel Peace Prize, nobody, including Trump, would expect to be honored two days after the deal.
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Can't the baby get one for economics?
I'm so happy as a Finn that we signed big icebreaker deal with Trump just before this.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-finlands-stubb-expect...
The same big baby that is allied with Machado in destroying Venezuela's sovereignty?
This does look like the second best option, given his current agenda, though.
Well instead of him directly, his deep state apparatus got it, so there is that.
Stop injecting that fool into every conversation, the world doesn’t revolve around him. Discuss the recipient and her accomplishments.
Poor Trump /s
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100% true, although the opinion is unpopular in this forum. In the end, this is rewarding some very bad people just because they oppose somebody (supposedly) even worse. But that doesn't have anything to do with "peace". This award lost its meaning a long time ago, maybe Netanyahu will be the winner next year.
Yeah it's the same a criminal dictator than the person risking her life to overthrown him peacefully. Maria Corina is trying to get all the support possible, and in Spain that support clearly comes from the right, not the left. Maybe because the two main left parties have well known ties with the regime.
She is also a fervent supporter of Israel, and has said, "Israel's fight is Venezuela's fight."
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Release the files.
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Between Kissinger, Obama, the Myanmarese CIA asset, etc., it's basically the Nobel Crimes Against Humanity prize at this point. I'm surprised they didn't give it to the Orange Thing.
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Nobel Peace of Shit.
There has been some speculation that if Trump didn't win this one, he'll lose all motivation in making peace, at least in the near future. Like for example Gaza.
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.
Do you think he would be motivated to continue, had he been awarded the medal? His wishes would have been satisfied after all.
> There has been some speculation that if Trump didn't win this one, he'll lose all motivation in making peace, at least in the near future. Like for example Gaza.
Were this the reason for him to receive it, he would deserve it even less, and erase every shred of dignity this award ever had.
I think Trump would totally deserve it... if the peace turns out to be a lasting one.
Big if, there have been many agreements between Israel and Palestine!
Probably need to wait at least 2 years, preferably like 8-10 but by then he might already be dead (natural causes).
sage
lol!! Most people from rest of the world, minus west, knows what Nobel prize is all about. It is just a political tool for usa and west. Clearly, it about Venezuela oil and gold. Pathetic to see their hypocrisy and double standards.
Instead of Trump, they decided to award a democratic party asset that's relevant to current agenda. Just to piss him off apparently.
What a joke.
Performative
CIA congratulating itself
Everyone knows who the real winner is.
This is very sad.
Peace Deals Under Current Admin (2025–Present)
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."
Is the US going to invade Oslo in retribution?
I feel I speak for a lot of us when I say that Barrack Obama or Hillary Clinton should have won it.
Just to see what happens.
You know, funilly enough, if trump's peace plan for the gaza war actually holds, then that idiot has somehow probably done more for peace than most nobel peace prize winners.
Eh, I'm not holding out much hope, Israel was doing more bombing runs a couple hours ago according to the news.
Is the Nobel Peace Prize given to people who accomplished a lot as individuals (like Maria Corina Machado) or people who accomplished a lot at scale without doing much beyond a few phone calls and document-signings, like Trump?
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.
The Nobel peace prize cannot be given to someone who rebrands the ministry of defence to the ministry of war and proclaims on a stage that he hates his enemies. These things are mutually exclusive.
Isolated, I think his efforts in the middle east, particular around normalising Israel's relations with its neighbours (though I believe he did fuck up handling Iran because of his personal bias) could have let to a peace prize in a few years time (maybe a shared one) and certainly be more deserved than Obama's, however I agree with others that all his other actions, including threatening to invade allies, should disqualify him.
Purely political topics such as this should be automatically banned by policy on HN.
The guidelines state:
> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
How is it a political topic here? Perhaps in Venezuela it is, but here?
No, some comments are good. But make sure to flag the offending ones.
What a boring fucking site that would be. Just man up and admit you don't like these specific politics.
Why?
Who said there are no good news? For the people that never lived in a dictatorship here are a few reasons people were killed in one: • grafitty agains the regime • making anti refime jokes • beeing a top official and saying you don't think the direction we are going is good
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