Devil's Excrement: Venezuela's Uneducated Socialists - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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As either the transitional stage to communism or legitimate socio-economic ends in its own right.
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#13678804
Venezuela's government is trying to implement "socialism of the 21st century", something which, upon closer inspection, sure looks to me like populist fascism mixed with personality worship of Chavez and a lot of theft and corruption. The Chavez regime is also characterized by the appointment of ministers who don't know what they're doing. Why do I bring up the subject? Because these socialist regimes seem to invariably degenerate into corrupt fascist-like kleptocracies. In other words, communism/socialism's end state is fascism and dictatorship - unless the people are able to reverse course and throws the bums out.

This is what the Devil's Excrement has to say about Minister Giordani:

Strange statements from Minister Giordani. First he admits drastically, that the capitalism system works because of individual incentives. Yes, capitalism simply works, but then he seems to go on to say that his problem with it is the fact that individual profit is what motivates people, not the “common” good” He got the most important part about basic Economics right: “People respond to incentives”. Cost and benefits determine how we behave, no communal thinking, no matter how human or generous we may be.

But then Chavez’ ignorant economic guru, who never studied economics, cites studies from last century... which probably means that he only read the old ones, because nowhere in modern economic theory, Marxist or Capitalist, is oligopolic pricing and speculation associated with inflation. Least of all, for the state to participate in the markets like the Chavez Government is doing.Inflation is just a monetary phenomenon, Venezuela and Giordani’s policies are proof of that, but Giordani has not had time to study that chapter apparently (or learn it from experience). And he never will, between screwing up Venezuela’s economy and writing his books, who nobody reads, he has no time to study.


http://devilsexcrement.com/
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By ihofidel
#13678809
President Hugo Chavez is a good man. Without Chavez, CIA should have been successful in bleeding Cuba dry of oil and other energy sources. We, communists whether Marxist-Leninists or Stalinists or Maoists should be thankful to Chavez who is inidiscriminating in supporting either the Maoists of the Philippines or the Marxist Leninists of Partido Komunista ng PIlipinas (Moscow oriented)/ Hola senor Hugo. Como esta?

The events happening today in Venezuela is effective marketing. Chavez's ministers' deportments or press statements does not reflect on Hugo himself or his government. It is again I say an effective marketing strategy which reflect the democratic character of Hugo's government. Even the future government which I would preside in the Philippines as President and Chairman of CPP-NPA putting Janos Sison at the sidelines or exiling him to China would prefer that my ministers speak their minds. I would not dare pass them to a kangaroo court to settle their fates. That is simple and plain evil. Good is good, evil is evil and Joma is evil because he would do that the way he had his Central Committee member, Kintanar, assassinated.
By Kman
#13678827
Some interesting reading on that website, this caught my eye in particular:

-According to El Nacional, the shortages of diapers and sanitary napkins persists, which means is only good to be a young man in Venezuela these days…

I see Chavez is carrying on a proud socialist tradition here. 8)
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By ihofidel
#13678850
Devil's Excrement: Socialist's Uneducated Jose Maria Sison and his son Janos.

Eagerly wants to enter the fray and start posting but do not know anything about how prices are determined under leninist centralism or market socialism They are just mere copycats parroting all of Mao's teachings without understanding if they need revision,, amendment or deletion. Their main agenda is to kill as many dissidents that both of them can produce through provocative and arrogant statements they will make. That is the terrorist Sison and terrorist MSantor of pdff.sytes.net or Janos Sison for you. Murderers through NPA or Chinese criminal syndicate, the Triads.
By Social_Critic
#13678906
Kman, the recent internet law leads to self censure by Venezuelan newspapers. Therefore it's hard to get all of the information as it happens. However, I talk to people who live there almost every day.

The latest I heard, which hasn't been reported in the media, is a milk shortage. We had milk shortages when I was living there, they were cyclic, caused by government price controls and the inefficiency of the currency exchange control system.

Price controls means private milk producers divert milk to make yogurt or long duration milk because fresh milk and powdered milk prices are regulated. To make up for the shortages the government provides dollars to importers, but the dollar flows are syncopated, meaning they come at irregular intervals. When the importers get the dollars, they go buy milk abroad. Because they get the dollars using the artificial "CADIVI" rate (which means they get twice the US dollars they would get if they dealt in the black market), they can bring milk and sell it at a profit. So the government is subsidizing milk imports while at the same time driving domestic production down - or shifting it to yogurt and long duration milk.

Because there's no fresh milk on the shelves, those who can afford it buy the long duration, which costs a lot more. So the end result is the price of milk people do buy is a lot higher than would be if they just released the price controls and allowed local producers to make a profit. To make matters worse, some of the importers getting the subsidized CADIVI exchange rate are raking in profits because the price difference between wholesale milk in Colombia and the price controlled price in Venezuela provides for a wide profit margin. Which means those who get the subsidized dollars to buy milk abroad are "connected" and share the spoils with corrupt government officials.

Typical socialist mumbo jumbo. Venezuela is suffering a lot from these policies.
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By ihofidel
#13678930
Venezuela has adopted social democracy. Sweden does not complain of shortage of milk. Scandinavian countries too. They all remain dependent on how industrious the farmers or peasants are. If you remember, Che Guevarra's export of revolution to Bolivia did entail some live videos when they were in the hinterlands. The peasants just laid idle staring at their ceilings or sleeping. Agricultural employees of the government of Bolivia were teaching the townfolks the viable way of farming but they were just simple and plain indifferent. God helps those who help themselves...
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By daft punk
#13678958
It is not true that socialism leads to dictatorship, but its a big subject to explain, I have written 18,000 words on the USSR, but it's on another forum.

I dont have the energy to write it all out again. However a few basic points.

There has never been a socialist country or a communist one.

Socialism is impossible in a backward country IN ISOLATION. This is why the failure of the Russian revolution to successfully spread meant it was doomed. The German revolution could have saved it, but that was crushed by 30,000 troops.

Bolshevism did not lead to Stalinism. Stalin killed most of the original Bolsheviks. Stalin represented the middle class who overwhelmed the revolution.

Chavez is a sort of socialist, but he is far from doing things right. Actually he is being pushed along by the masses and events, I dont think he started out as a socialist. This happens quite a bit, Castro was not a socialist for example, until some time after the revolution, and only then because he was forced to nationalise and turn to Russia.
By Social_Critic
#13678968
I lived in Cuba, and I lived in Russia. And I lived in Venezuela. Which means I know the practical endpoints - and I know them very well.

18,000 words are not sufficient to convince me that socialism is anything but a failure. You see, it always fails. It's as if you were trying to levitate, and then when you crash you write a 2000 word essay explaining why levitation failed this time, or that time. Or why to make it work we must all levitate at the same time. So you have written many essays explaining why socialism isn't a failure. I don't have to write that much. All I have to do is point to history.

My friend, communism is a serial killer. I know it's hard to accept that such a nice idea is always bound to fail, but that's the way it is. And the problem, you see, is that every time you fail you cause enormous pain and disruption. Communists have played their music on my body too many times. I won't allow you to play on me anymore, that's all.
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By ihofidel
#13679013
You can hate all that socialism can be but do not say anything bad about Chavez. I also felt the way you do. But the man (Hugo) attained power through a legitimate excercise of votation. The people elected him. Imagine yourself a diplomat of Russia or Bolivia and you start saying thhose things. Those are valid grounds for starting war.. Hugo was good to us Filipino communists who are now waging war through parliamentary struggle. If all systems fail and we have reason to rise up against the duly constituted government by bearing arms, Hugo Chavez promised us help and support. He is our only way to achieve a democratic communist government. All other alternatives or personalities like terrorist Jose Maria Sison and his heir, Janos or MSantor are all unacceptable. We want Chavez to lead us to a fully democratic socialist country. He is a perfect example of a democratic communist. Nowhere in this world has a communist or socialist been elected to office..We Filipinos have diplomatic ties with Venezuela including an extradition treaty. What if your country has and Hugo extradites you for "attempting to overthrow a foreign government" like what Obama did to Egypt? What is you excuse?
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By daft punk
#13679094
18,000 words are not sufficient to convince me that socialism is anything but a failure.


well, you haven't read it have you?

Marxist theory predicted that socialism would be impossible in an isolated backward country. Russia was backward. Therefore socialism could only exist if it spread to advanced countries. The German revolution was crushed by 30,000 soldiers. That was more or less the death warrant for socialism in Russia. Of course they had to keep trying. A second revolution was wasted in Germany. Other revolutions were similarly crushed eg the Hungarian on crushed by Romanian troops.

Ok, I cant explain it all now but Russia was democratic in 1918. It was a coalition of Bolsheviks and Left SRs, but the Left SRs pulled out of government over Lenin's peace deal with Germany. They went over to sabotage, ie became the enemy. Of course a lot of their members later joined the Bolshevik Party. Same happened with other parties, the best people joined the Bolsheviks and the rest were fighting on the enemy side. This is how a one party state emerged. But it was a democratic party.

In 1923 Trotsky wrote the New Course, warning of the dangers of growing bureaucratism. The fact that all these people had joined was actually a problem, many of them were not socialists! Thousands were kicked out, but they rejoined in greater numbers.

Lenin warned that a few thousand communists could not direct that hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats, administrators, specialists and so on they inherited from the Tsar, in fact he said it was the other way round. And not only that, the Bolshevik culture could get overwhelmed by this petty bourgeois culture.

Lenin set up an organisation to fight corruption and bureaucratism unfortunately it was headed by Stalin. He also got later shunted into the non-job of party secretary, but used that position to build a base of cronies.

Lenin said on his deathbed that he wanted Stalin out, but that never got carried out as the message got to too few people, too late.

Stalin personified the degeneration (slow collapse) of the revolution. By 1928 he was consciously working to STOP SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONS happening around the world, although he did lurch to a pseudo-left position from 1928 to 1934. One reason for that was his former power base, the middle class, growing to become a threat. This zigzag was called the Third Period.

He invented the theories of Socialism in One Country, the Two Stage Theory, or Stagism, and Popular Fronts (collaboration with capitalism) to sabotage revolutions around the world.

The irony is, in backward countries, capitalism is often incapable of carrying out even the most basic progress such as kicking out colonial rulers, so these countries are very prone to revolutions, but they have little chance of leading to socialism because:

1. They are backward so socialism is impossible unless backed up by a genuine socialist revolution in advanced countries. Socialism is based on the urban working class.
2. Stalinism sabotaged or corrupted them, I can give dozens of examples.
3.Their leaders are generally not Marxists, more like nationalists wanting to carry out land reform (land to the peasants), kick out colonial rulers, and implement democracy. But these plans fail, partly because the bourgeois are incapable of a progressive coalition, other reasons also, a bit complicated. So people like Mao end up collectivising even though that was never on the agenda initially. Castro did it because the industry was mostly American owned and the American business owners were trying to sabotage the revolution, probably directed by Washington.


By the way, Chile had a democratically elected socialist government. America organised a bloody coup.

Yes there has been misery. The Russian revolution happened in a less than ideal place. Why? Well, the Tsar had taken Russia into WW1, a bloody imperialist carve-up, and 3 million Russians had died. A revolution was the only way they could force a peace.

When the Bolsheviks took power. 2 people died. Ho many died in the American revolution and civil war, the English civil war (bourgeois revolution), the French revolution (ditto), the capitalist WW1, WW2, the cold war launched by Truman, despite Stalin wanting to be an ally.

In Indonesia, Suharto killed a million unarmed civilians while the leders in Britain and America literally clapped their hands and whooped for joy, Thatcher later described him as a very dear friend.

Yet it communism thats the bad system, a system which has never ever been allowed to succeed. Yes it failed in Russia. 200,000 British, American and Japanese troops aiding the counter-revolutionaries didnt help, not did the west's economic blockade to starve the Russians.
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By ihofidel
#13683821
Daft punk, watch the movie THE WHITE COUNTESS starring Ralph Fiennes. You'll watch what happened to the relatives of the Tsar. One ended up as an occasional prostitute and hostess in a taxi dance hall in China during the Japanese invasion..The hero pirated him from the taxi dancehall annd turned him into a centerpiece in his own bar as princess in Russia's Tsarist rule. Although it was a happy ending, you can try to place yourself as son or daughter of the princess. How would you feel? The Tsar was not that bad. He gave so many amnesties to Vladimir Lenin even though he anticipated Lenin's triumph after the revolution. Rule of Democratic law should be revered. Communst law is barbaric. The rulers take laws into their hands.
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By ralfy
#13683936
State and free market capitalism are simply two sides of the same coin. Ultimately, both will experience a resource crunch, but the second will have an additional problem in the form of a credit crunch.
By Social_Critic
#13684390
No punk, I haven't read it. As you said, it's 18 thousand words in another forum. But I have spent over 40 years reading apologies by communists, and I've had endless discussions with communists - I'd say it probably ranges upwards of 1000 hours. So I'd say I have a partition in my brain filled with files written by your buddies. And the thing is, they can argue over and over and over again, and I keep making a simple observation: no matter how hard you guys try, it never works. And unlike many of you, I have lived inside the monster's belly. And I have had a very very close inside look at the way things fail. So why do you expect me to believe anything communists have to say to apologize for the Soviet Union and its cousins, when I have seen over and over how it fails? As far as I'm concerned, you had your chance. And unless you can come up with something really original, then all I can say is "been there done that", and no way josey, you won't get me to walk your talk.
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By ihofidel
#13684872
Socialcritic, if you are still single and you want to find somebody trustworthy with respect to the same ideolgical fervour as you have, marry a Ukrainian. I am getting married to one. Believe me, they've seen what it was under communism. And even if she tells me she fell for a communist and doesn't love me anymore, I would not believe her. You see, Ukrainians here in Canada all wear trench coats and highboots. They can survive on welfare after having been terminated in employment by a Marxist-capitalist. "There are no leaking roofs among Ukrainians." That means they are not going to tell on you even if somebody bribes them with 20 million dollars. They are pure anti-communist.
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By Imperial Spaghetti
#13739490
daft punk wrote:There has never been a socialist country or a communist one.

Socialism is impossible in a backward country IN ISOLATION. This is why the failure of the Russian revolution to successfully spread meant it was doomed. The German revolution could have saved it, but that was crushed by 30,000 troops.


What makes you believe that pure socialism in the way you intend it will happen? Everywhere people tried their luck with it, (i.e. USSR, Venezuela, North Korea) the people ended up much worse than when they started. What Social Critic believes is that people shouldn't start out with socialist ideologies because it always gets out of hand, and the blatant proof of that is right in our geopolitical history.
By grassroots1
#13739567
Frankly I think this thing would have worked better if Chavez did not dabble in censorship to such a great extent. It creates a system where criticism is shunned, where opportunists rise up the political ladder, and where any realistic and pragmatic thinking can be denounced as counter-revolutionary. When Chavez nudges the system along that path, it acquires its own logic and becomes out of control. Chavez himself could become a victim of it. Frankly I think they had a chance, but they squandered it by relying on force instead of the force of truth.
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By ozone
#13739623
May the Lord grant justice then to Chavez who took power by consensus and was elected. He did not force himself on the people of Venezuela. They were the coup plotters of the pro-capitalsit political party who forced themselves on the people. You should then know your history.
By grassroots1
#13739624
Are you talking to me? Just because he was democratically elected does not mean he can do no wrong. I just finished studying the Chinese Communist experiment in school and I see parallels in the way that Venezuela deals with dissent. Now, I've never visited and haven't extensively studied what's going on in Venezuela, but I hope that I'm wrong in expecting it to go the same route.
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By ozone
#13739632
The Venezuelan Supreme Court is always the last resort. If one has gripes against a democratically elected socialist president, then bring your case to court. Remember that Hugo Chavez is coverd by international law. Refusal to submit himself to Supreme Court proceedings can cause him to be violating international laws like Milosevic was during the Balkan wars. This is not a simple case of ousting a democratically elected president by mere criticism which was not given merit through due process. This covers the entire issue of electioneering, democracy, constructive criticism, rule of law and due process.

Hugo Chavez is a staunch Marxist-Leninist. He disavows Maoism. For Hugo, Maoism is an ideology of a simpleton whose doctrines villify those who 'do ot swim among the fish or the masses'. But to Chavez, there is more to that. There is must be a valid legitimate excercise of votation. Jose Maria Sison, the terrrorist chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines does not subscribe to this. Revolutions comes from the barrell of the gun, according to Sison.

When it comes to emulating China, Hugo loves the market but he does not surrender to capitalism. Sison's hardline approach on all things 'socialist' presumes his adherence to the Leninist centralist economy or command economy. Their disparities are complex and ambiguous. But overall, Hugo and Fidel are good democratic communists. Sison is evil!
By grassroots1
#13739651
Hmm, well I appreciate the analysis. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Like I say, I'm just concerned that this censorship won't stop where Chavez suggests it will. Human Rights Watch doesn't paint a pretty picture:

http://www.hrw.org/en/world-report-2011/venezuela
The Venezuelan government's domination of the judiciary and its weakening of democratic checks and balances have contributed to a precarious human rights situation. Without judicial checks on its action, President Hugo Chávez's government has systematically undermined journalistic freedom of expression, workers' freedom of association, and the ability of human rights groups to promote human rights. It has also harassed political opponents.

Police abuses and impunity are a grave problem. Prison conditions are deplorable, and fatality rates high due to inmate violence.

Venezuela enjoys vibrant public debate in which anti-government and pro-government media are equally vocal in criticizing and defending the president. However, the government has discriminated against media that air views of political opponents, and has strengthened the state's capacity to limit free speech and created powerful incentives for government critics to self-censor. Laws contributing to a climate of self-censorship include amendments to the criminal code extending the scope of "desacato" laws that criminalize disrespect of high government officials, despite international standards that require such laws be abolished, and a broadcasting statute that allows arbitrary suspension of channels for the vaguely defined offense of "incitement."

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