Nobel Peace Prize 2025: María Corina Machado

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:

Who would you give the Nobel Peace Prize to?

From the New York Times "The Daily" podcast today:

  Mark, what you've described and what we're seeing unfold is genuinely an impressive feat by Trump. To be able to capitalize on what seemed like this giant setback. Israel literally bombed the negotiators and the mediators. To turn that around and get a deal that Biden couldn't get done, that no other leader in the world had managed despite trying for two years straight. It is significant achievement. He was able to bring these sides together that had shown no willingness to end the war. And now they've come to this agreement. And it should also be said that one of the biggest things here is that he was willing to put pressure on Netanyahu in a way that President Biden was unwilling to do. Why do you think that's the case?
  I think there's a few reasons. First, I think Trump genuinely wanted to end the war. He campaigned on ending the war in Ukraine and in Gaza.

Too late for this year, but if it holds it should be considered for next year.

Far more importantly, this might force Trump to continue the pressure on the Israelis, whose very nature is to be untrustworthy, not worth trusting, since they love not just violating agreements but also using agreements as a lever for abuse. There are all the typical Israeli fingerprints all over the current deal that the Israelis will likely use to bring the whole thing back down around Trump unless he can maintain pressure. This prize increases the slim likelihood that he will have to of he covers that prize as much as it seems he does. I do not think he can or will though, and the Israelis may just even persuade him that they have a far more juicy prize to offer him instead.

I think Trump wanted to force the rather compromised committee to make a similarly foolish decision as giving Obama the prize, which would have then permitted immediate Israeli breach of the settlement.

Not to take away from Machado’s work, but this year’s prize is at the very least political, to both appease Trump in line with the above and also send a message in the face of the war build-up against Venezuela. At the same time their decision also facilitates the American takeover through less than lethal means by CIA revolution and the combined pressure of it all on the Venezuelan government. Machado is in fact a CIA asset, whether she realizes it or not.