[redcarpet]

My proposal would shift Venezuela back to a rational economic regime, such as we see practiced in Peru, Chile

For less than 1% of the population, while 99% would be shafted with less services, higher unemployment and higher prices for essentials. Citing Peru & Chile only highlights my point.

[Maas]

Most of them are young and lack experience.

IMHO: Most are extremists that seek the internet as a way to finally meet people who agree with their point of view. Afteral, the percentage of commies, far right extremist, nazi's, Judean/Christian culture fanatics is sky high. That people support such views does suggest that they lack experience and are young, sence of reality etc. And than I come in and rub the dirt in their eyes.

What´s happening in Venezuela is a real tragedy.

It's not.

50% of the Venezuelan population lived on or under the povertyline before Chavez. Plenty of people suffered from malnutrition. Ergo, the country was really really fuck poor and the wealth distribution was just out of control. Capitalism completely failed in Venezuela, and the people had enough of it.

Hence the cards got reshuffled in a dramatic way. People who didn't got shit, now got something. People who had a lot got less, people who had something now got less. People who now got less are bitching about it. And I say, fuck 'm since their wealth is less important than the absolute degrading way 50% of the country had to live.

[Social_Critic]

50% of the Venezuelan population lived on or under the povertyline before Chavez....Capitalism completely failed in Venezuela, and the people had enough of it.

As I have mentioned a zillion times, Chavez got lucky because when he got elected in 1999 oil prices took off.


Image shows historical oil prices. Chavez won the presidential election in 1999, eventually changed the constitution to allow his permanent reelection, but handed power to Maduro in December 2012 when he was dying with cancer.

Chavez didn´t run as an anti capitalist, or as a communist in 1999. He deceived the people, because communism has never been that popular in Venezuela. Your "the people had enough of it" is bullshit.

You are also failing to deal with the fact that, in spite of high oil prices, Maduro has managed to cause an economic crisis and poverty is increasing at a fast rate.

[Maas]

As I have mentioned a zillion times, Chavez got lucky because when he got elected in 1999 oil prices took off.

It's not excusable in any way that 50% of the entire country was THAT poor and suffered from malnutrition. The rather develloped Venezuela was on par with ethiopia. Gas/oil prices are totally irrelevant to that. It's absolute mismanagement and a total fail of the capitalistic system. The right wing governments simply shunned that 50% of the country and let them to rot in their missery.

And you fail to acknowledge the severity of that catastrophic state Venezuela was in due to unopposed and out of control capitalism. The right wing capitalists are the only ones to blame why there is such a strong reaction of the poor masses in that democratic country.

[Social_Critic]

It's not excusable in any way that 50% of the entire country was THAT poor and suffered from malnutrition.

I´m not the one making excuses for a government you saw in power two decades ago. I´m pointing out that in 2014 Venezuela lacks a working democracy, it is emerging as a shitty satrapy led by an idiot, and poverty is increasing very fast as the country descends into hell.

Now if you would move forward to the present tense, please explain what you would do if you were Venezuelan and you saw the way the government conducts itself.

FOOD LINES


CRIME AND GOVERNMENT REPRESSION


A SHITTY DICTATORSHIP DISCONNECTED FROM THE PEOPLE (DID YOU NOTICE HOW WHITE THEY ARE?)

[QatzelOk]

All self interest and lies aside, I just thought of a reason why "Venezuela is not a Democracy" is worthy of a thread. It's because Venezuela needs nukes.

Why?

Because Venezuela "not being a democracy" means that some country that calls itself a democracy can invade it and take all the oil.

Thanks for the heads up, So Crit.

[Demosthenes]

However, did you notice your posts tend to be attacks on this personage known as Social Critic

No, not really actually. That's just something you can say so you can play the victim and try to win sympathy. At some point I have to criticize you directly because of the volume of your spam and your wild claims about your past. Had you never brought your "alleged past" into any discussion I would agree that pointing to that-- particularly when you use it as validation for your arguments-- would be an ad hom. Because that isn't case, and you use this... claim as validation so very often (with your only proof being "trust me") I have no choice but to attack said claims as invalid.

You bring it on yourself. Whereas... out of the blue, you ignore any counterclaim to your propaganda, can't address any of it, and instead go on about some stupid liberal stereotype about leftists being young. Hardly academic.

Did it sink in that poverty increased in Venezuela in 2013?

And this fact alone does what exactly? Please answer this question to its fullest if you want to be taken seriously. What exactly does a raw stat prove? Does it prove how the government works? Does it show-- in coherent detail-- HOW the government of Madura and/or Chavez actually did this? Is is a slight trend in an overall economic recovery? Further, who are these people that are now impoverished? I mean... as Redcarpet has noted several times, the people of Venezuela were dirt poor shit farmers before Chavez and Maduro due to the ravages of their local bourgeois--- YOU, in other words--- working in collaboration with western capital to enrich themselves at the expense of the nation's resourses and labor, so its hard to see how people already dirt poor are getting poorer.

What this really means is that the bourgeois is losing money. Too bad. Fuck them. They-- AND YOU, apparently (If I can believe anything you say whatsoever) brought this on yourselves.

I shouldn't have to pretend with a learned genius like yourself that western capital and it's tendrils (and specifically Big Brother to the North) haven't controlled Latin America since the Conquistadors, but here we are pretending all the things you say happened in a vacuum of self sufficiency for both Venezuela and the Latin American countries.

You want to be taken seriously? Get honest and show that you really understand perspective or stop whining.

Unless... you don't really know your own history after all... despite being a Spanish speaker. Btw- since when does speaking the language make you some historian again? By this logic, I am right all the time any time anyone makes a counterclaim to anything I say regarding American, British, and to a lesser extent German history... since I speak and write English like a true and utter genius. Sounds fucking stupid doesn't it?

So, stop claiming it.

The economic failures lead to a lot of discontent.

Many of these "economic failures" are tied to the fact that the largest "Democracy" in the world is directly opposed to the current government. Particularly when said "Democracy" has already tried to assassinate one leader, and actively subverts it otherwise. And let's face it, the US has been caught doing this, so don't play your "deny" game.

This leads to protests, protests lead the government to become much more repressive. Today Venezuela´s democracy is essentially dead. They keep a semblance of democracy, they vote, and some opposition politicians are allowed to "win" to keep the pretense. But at the national level what they have is an evolving dictatorship.

I can make the same claim, and be just as accurate about any western "Democracy". It's meaningless drivel.

This is why last week they announced new rules to censor the cable, and told CNN´s correspondent in Caracas he couldn´t have a permit to do his work.

Wait, you're bringing up the media? Ahhh... how about how in the US/West a grand total of six companies control 98%(some) of the media? The eventual owners of said media move in and out of office regularly.

Where is the freedom of the press, and Democracy here? Seems its been de-regulated out of existence. One day people will study your willful blindness to this quite troublesome development and will make it a case study in the aloofness of the petit bourgeois, who allowed "Democracy" to die by ignoring the obvious.

They are gradually moving towards a full scale dictatorship while keeping the pretense of having a democracy. Now discuss the subject if you wish.

So is the US and the west. Do you have a point here? Wait, lemme guess... its somehow magically different... even though it's not.

Are you guys making the assertion that poverty is NOT increasing in Venezuela ?

I'm making the assertion that impoverishing the bourgeois is a good thing relative to a true proletarian state. In fact, in come circles, some would say that only impoverishing them is actually quite humane.

Even if it is, privatisations and de-regulations would only increase it. Which is what Social Critic proposes. ROFL!

I think what you mean to say is that, these actions might increase the average wealth in the nation on paper, but in reality would do so simply by enriching the same old bourgeois all over again at the expense of the peasants who somehow always find themselves in perpetual poverty in Latin America. Particularly when right wing regimes take over. If so, I agree completely.

First you say Maduro is a communist. Now you say he's a fascist and you say he's the same as Hitler.

Godwin's Law.

So wide scale nationalization and regulation is causing an increase in poverty,

Neither of you have shown this to be the case. Only the lone, floating factoid that poverty is increasing... and I'm not actually sure I've seen a link for this directly or not.

My proposal would shift Venezuela back to a rational economic regime

Translation: Back to full cooperation with Western capital which will maintain the "Rich get richer, poor get poorer" paradigm that has governed Latin America since the 1600s.

These right wing regimes have been performing much better.

Translation: The rich are getting richer, as they should and deserve to do. Fuck the peasants.

If Venezuela remains under Maduro's emerging dictatorship poverty will continue increasing,

Translation: Former bourgeois (or perhaps current depending on perspective) is scared that his fellow bourgeois will also lose their wealth.

As mum points out current policies are causing very steep increases in poverty

This hasn't been shown.

This has to be undone urgently.

If the people are as ill treated as you say, then they have the power to become revolutionary and overthrow the government as they did when backing Chavez. There is absolutely NO REASON whatsoever for the US to get involved save raw, naked imperialism.

Please address this head on and directly without calling everyone young or posting some random pic.

For less than 1% of the population, while 99% would be shafted with less services, higher unemployment and higher prices for essentials. Citing Peru & Chile only highlights my point.

Agreed.

50% of the Venezuelan population lived on or under the povertyline before Chavez. Plenty of people suffered from malnutrition. Ergo, the country was really really fuck poor and the wealth distribution was just out of control. Capitalism completely failed in Venezuela, and the people had enough of it.

Amen.

People who had a lot got less, people who had something now got less. People who now got less are bitching about it. And I say, fuck 'm since their wealth is less important than the absolute degrading way 50% of the country had to live.

Exactly. And this is why no one cares about Social_Critic's constant propaganda. It amounts to sour grapes. Bourgeois got gamed, and whines about it all the time. When the poor lose they just go off and die properly. No one has to listen to them whine about losing the game.

As I have mentioned a zillion times, Chavez got lucky because when he got elected in 1999 oil prices took off.

Bullshit. Oil is oil and has been oil since at least the end of WWI. It has always been worth something. Chavez nationalized it and allowed profits to benefit the rest of the country as opposed to a very small selection of western-capital-collaborating-bourgeois.

Chavez didn´t run as an anti capitalist, or as a communist in 1999. He deceived the people, because communism has never been that popular in Venezuela. Your "the people had enough of it" is bullshit.

Chavez came in on the heels of a military coup that had support of the people. End of story. Stop lying.

You are also failing to deal with the fact that, in spite of high oil prices, Maduro has managed to cause an economic crisis and poverty is increasing at a fast rate.

You have yet to show this is due to his domestic economic policies.

The rather develloped Venezuela was on par with ethiopia.

Its atrocious for a nation with that much oil wealth to be impoverished. A plain crime on the part of the participating bourgeios and their western leeches.

The right wing governments simply shunned that 50% of the country and let them to rot in their missery.

As they always do.

And you fail to acknowledge the severity of that catastrophic state Venezuela was in due to unopposed and out of control capitalism. The right wing capitalists are the only ones to blame why there is such a strong reaction of the poor masses in that democratic country.

EXACTLY! He acts as if none of us can know the sorry state of both Venezuela and the entirety of Latin America! It's not as if reading history of the continent is some rare, hard to come by knowledge that only a Spanish speaker could possibly fully understand.

The very claim is beyond ludicrous, it's nonsensical.

I´m not the one making excuses for a government you saw in power two decades ago.

No, but you sure as hell ARE doing it for all the previous governments that ruled Venezuela for the previous 472 years prior to the Chavez administration. Which is worse?

I´m pointing out that in 2014 Venezuela lacks a working democracy, i

So do most so-called "Democracies". If your argument is good for one, its good for them all. So, if yours is true, all are true. So none of us have Democracy anymore. Stop whining about it already.

A SHITTY DICTATORSHIP DISCONNECTED FROM THE PEOPLE (DID YOU NOTICE HOW WHITE THEY ARE?)

What is this supposed to mean? So you're a racist too? On top of everything else? I would offer up some Spanish words for you right now, but I won't ad hom you. Instead I will point out the things you should know quite well. All of Latin America is of mixed race, as you well know descended from some mixture of Spanish, Indian, and African, and to a lesser extent the other European countries, most specifically British and German.

This isn't news to you or me, though you pretend none of us should know that. Further it is well known that many are racists in Latin America, as the overlords in the Americas taught everyone that "light is right", and so the lighter skinned the more privilege, the less mixture with the Indians and Africans, etc. But you DO know about that, because that's why you said this.

So, the question becomes, since you pointed it out, how "white" are all the other ruling regimes? The only "indian-looking" leader I ever saw in Latin America at all in recent times was Evo Morales. Perhaps you can do me one better and point to ONE, just ONE non-white president or dictator prior to Chavez and Maduro in Venezuela. Perhaps you might do me one further and explain to me why the only Venezuelans I've ever met IRL are also very white? Why is it that I've never personally met a darker skinned Venezuelan who has traveled to the US?

Please answer these concerns directly without dodging them or posting random pics.

Funny thing that.

[Maas]

I´m not the one making excuses for a government you saw in power two decades ago. I´m pointing out that in 2014 Venezuela lacks a working democracy, it is emerging as a shitty satrapy led by an idiot, and poverty is increasing very fast as the country descends into hell.

1) It's a working democracy. You just don't like who keeps on winning.
2) You refuse to take into account the catastrophic state Venezuela was in due to unopposed and out of control capitalism. It is crucial to why Venezuelans still are voting for a radical change.
3) you refuse to take into account that the radical change has helped the poor and the exceptional poor on a massive scale. That you claim the success is only due to high oil prices is a joke. It obviously has to do with how Chavez and co are distributing the wealth completely differently.

And the historic state Venezuela was in -> how the exceptionally poor people benefited.... results that they keep on voting on Chavez and co.

It really is not hard to add things up.

[Demosthenes]

It really is not hard to add things up.

So simple even a Batista should be able to do it...

[Social_Critic]

1) It's a working democracy. You just don't like who keeps on winning.
2) You refuse to take into account the catastrophic state Venezuela was in due to unopposed and out of control capitalism. It is crucial to why Venezuelans still are voting for a radical change.
3) you refuse to take into account that the radical change has helped the poor and the exceptional poor on a massive scale.

It really is not hard to add things up.

Would you describe for all of us the reasons why you think Venezuela is a working democracy? I already described why I think it´s a dictatorship.

There was no "uncontrolled capitalism" in Venezuela when Chavez took over in 1999.

Venezuelans are thoroughly opposed to Maduro, who is considered an idiot who can´t solve the country´s problems. This is why they are having massive protests and why Maduro´s response has been to have protesters murdered, jailed, and the media muzzled so they can´t report on the ongoing unrest.

Now you go add that up with your Stalinist friends.

The radical change hasn´t really helped the poor. The radical change wrecked the economy. Also you seem to think the only people who deserve to improve their lives are these "poor" you bring up all the time. Venezuela had a population of lower middle and middle class working stiff who weren´t living in poverty. By your own accounting they were 50 % of the population. And your buddies messed them up real bad with their dumb communistoid policies. So if you screw up the lives of half the population and then start making the poor return to poverty as Maduro is doing, then what the hell do you think the Venezuelan people think about your red clown?

THe only thing Chavez had was the enormous cash flow from oil price increases (how come you skirt around the issue? I must have put that oil price plot in front of your eyes about 40 times in the last two years. Other than that, that dumb asshole had nothing. Empty words, theft, corruption, and megalomania. Chavez was a gigantic piece of shit when it came to running things.

For less than 1% of the population, while 99% would be shafted with less services, higher unemployment and higher prices for essentials. Citing Peru & Chile only highlights my point.

My proposal would help about 90 to 95 % of the population. Keeping things as they are yields over 50 % of the population living in poverty! lacking health services and with no human rights as they tremble in the dark fearing the roaming gangs of criminals encouraged by the Maduro regime. The 5 to 10 % I intend to hurt are corrupt Chavistas! the Cuban agents and the criminals. Many of them will have to be sent to reeducation camps. The ones who can't be remedied will live in penal colonies in Guayana.

I'm starting to wonder if you are educated in Cuba to post Internet garbage and fail to grasp that Peru is doing much much better than Venezuela?

[Social_Critic]

So simple even a Batista should be able to do it...

l

If you want to insult me you will have to try a lot harder. When I left Cuba and landed in a refugee camp in Europe I was nicknamed "el Vietnamita" by the other youngsters in the camp. That's because I spent all the time saying I wanted to go to Vietnam, where I could get paid for killing communists. Later I got wiser and mellowed, the trauma from being insulted and abused by communists when I was in Cuba went away ..

.... But I had a cousin who left Cuba and did go to Vietnam. Eventually I met him at a family reunion in florida, and he told me he had really enjoyed killing Vietnamese, which he got to do because he was in military intelligence and had to dispose of Charlie after he interrogated them. I thought he was kinda sick, had lost his wiring from the stress in Cuba and ended up being a psychopath. I never saw him again, he went to Central America working fir the CIA and disappeared near the Nicaraguan border. That's what I heard from his mom, who told me she wasn't that sorry because he had turned out to be pretty bad and was a poor example for his younger brothers.

So...I think I escaped that shit. The insults you guys try on me mostly amuse me, so I am like Jesus and always ask the god of the Jews to forgive you.

[Demosthenes]

If you want to insult me you will have to try a lot harder.

Who's insulting you? You are a Batista. How is it an insult to call you that? If you aren't that, please tell us what you really are Mr. World Traveling Cuban James Bond.

Also, please address all my points in my longer post... the one I bothered to write up to counter all your absurd claims...

I'd like to put to bed once and for all, this assumption of yours that you are honest. By deliberating ignoring my long post, we can do that. I also have my sources ready, so be prepared.

[Demosthenes]

Because this thread has become a mostly on-topic thread related... *somehow* to the OP, I am moving it back out of Gorkiy and back to the Latin America forum.

[Social_Critic]

Who's insulting you? You are a Batista. How is it an insult to call you that?

I suppose it hasn´t crossed your mind that being labeled a dictator could be considered an insult? How would you like it if I started calling you Pinochet?

Returning to the debate, these are the latest issues I noticed in the Spanish media:

US Senate approves sanctions against Venezuelan officials. The article I link below describes what the US Senate is doing to punish individual Venezuelan officials they feel are abusing human rights. The Obama administration is opposed to such sanctions because they provide the Maduro dictatorship the excuse to claim the USA is interfering with their internal affairs (the Madurista position is that a government can abuse its people as it sees fit, and other nations can´t criticize it or do anything about it).
https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/56544

Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño spearheaded the inclusion of all Western Hemisphere nations in the American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José) at the UNASUR meeting taking place in Ecuador. I consider this a subtle move by the Ecuadorean government to rebuke Venezuela, which recently abandoned the Convention. It also seems to be a move to move the OAS to a more even handed posture with regards to human rights violations by its members. I suspect the Ecuadoreans are extremely concerned by the human rights violations, climate of violence, and polarized politics in Venezuela. Recent statements by human rights NGO´s such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch point to serious human rights violations in Venezuela by the Maduro regime. I think Maduro is just applying the repressive techniques he´s being told to use by the Cuban dictatorship.
http://www.eluniversal.com/nacional-y-p ... -venezuela

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

I suppose it hasn´t crossed your mind that being labeled a dictator could be considered an insult? How would you like it if I started calling you Pinochet?

A "Batista" is typically a Cuban-American with reactionary views who supports regressive policies in regards to Cuba, and sometimes other nations of Latin America. Being termed a Batista does not mean Demos is saying you are Batista who ruled Cuba up to the end of the 1950s. Being labelled as a "Marxist" doesn't make that person the instant reincarnation of Karl Marx (although that would actually be fairly cool).

[redcarpet]

My proposal would help about 90 to 95 % of the population.

For the first country in the first time in the history of the world? Bold claim. Pre-Chavez there was plenty of testing of such economic policies. And look what happened!

And whining about personal attacks, then going on to attack me my alleged Cuban education.......sour grapes. Keyboard warriors rarely can hack debating pressure.

[Demosthenes]

A "Batista" is typically a Cuban-American with reactionary views who supports regressive policies in regards to Cuba, and sometimes other nations of Latin America. Being termed a Batista does not mean Demos is saying you are Batista who ruled Cuba up to the end of the 1950s. Being labelled as a "Marxist" doesn't make that person the instant reincarnation of Karl Marx (although that would actually be fairly cool).

Exactly. Now stop Whining Social_Critic and answer my long post. Its actually kind of funny that the rugged world traveler, and bringer-down-of-the-Soviet-Union-and-Cuba doesn't know a simple thing like that.

Some might even call it damning on some level.

Returning to the debate, these are the latest issues I noticed in the Spanish media:

Let's return to the debate where you are held accountable for the things you say by answering my long post. There is no need to continue ducking, dodging, and warbling off-topic

[Social_Critic]

A "Batista" is typically a Cuban-American with reactionary views who supports regressive policies in regards to Cuba, and sometimes other nations of Latin America

I consider the term "Batista" an insult. You see, you presume about my intentions. I think this may be caused by your training or education, which keeps you within a mental box in which one has to be either an abject follower of the Castro dictatorship or a reactionary who wants to return back to life a Batista-like regime.

To make sure you get things clear and try to avoid insulting me the way you do (and this applies to your friends): I support replacement of the Cuban dictatorship with a democratic government. By democratic I mean elected representatives, separation of powers, a free press, a legal code similar to the State of Vermont´s, and end to the homophobia and subtle racism we see in Castro´s regime, and a strict adherence to international human rights conventions. I´m not really concerned over the decisions the people may make regarding economic systems.

I think well regulated capitalism works much better than communism, but if they vote to be communists that´s the people´s choice.

I also got the sense some of you fail to understand the political implications when poverty is rising so fast in Venezuela. Increasing poverty may not be important in a dictatorship such as Cuba´s, but in most nations people tend to "vote with their wallets" and such a steep increase in poverty is a recipe for protests and possibly a full scale revolt. Do you think the Venezuelan people will be happy to see poverty increase at 6 % per year for several years? How is the government going to stop this trend when their policies are so stupid, and are the main cause of such poverty increases?

[Maas]

I'd like to put to bed once and for all, this assumption of yours that you are honest. By deliberating ignoring my long post, we can do that. I also have my sources ready, so be prepared.

There is nothing wrong with proving you point, ... with a source / link. But lets be honest. Most of the time it's just quoting wikipedia, and otherwise it's some news article that got blasted world wide. Only a tiny fraction comes from more obscure harder to find places.

To find something on wikipedia / a general news article with google is just a matter of time. It is something anybody on pofo should be able to do. So obviously the responsability to read the appropiate articles of wikipedia lies at all the participates of the subject. You might want to consider that point of view.

And when you agree with that point, than you logically conclude that the entire custom that has develloped on pofo of treating people like dogs to fetch and source texts for the ignorant and unwilling,... is something to despise.

[Social_Critic]

There is nothing wrong with proving you point, ... with a source / link. But lets be honest. Most of the time it's just quoting wikipedia, and otherwise it's some news article that got blasted world wide. Only a tiny fraction comes from more obscure harder to find places............

And when you agree with that point, than you logically conclude that the entire custom that has develloped on pofo of treating people like dogs to fetch and source texts for the ignorant and unwilling,... is something to despise.

Well Maas, as you know when I started writing here I didn´t post any links. The PoFo rules said posts in foreign languages weren´t appropriate, so I just started writing...and I started getting a lot of flack asking me for "proof". So I started using a lot more links and cut and paste to keep you guys satisfied.

I do want to make sure you do realize links to propaganda sites such as venezuelanalysis and the junk said by Amy Goodman and George Cigarello about Venezuela don´t mean an iota. I sent a buddy to tape Cigarello at the University of Michigan, and what he spouts comes directly from Golinger´s propaganda script.

We do have to remember the venezuelanalysis site is a government financed site. Posting Amy Goodman, Cigarello, or Eva Golinger is like posting Tokyo Rose, or Lord Haw Haw ...their claims are usually a pack of lies, and focus on the same old tired script ("it´s the CIA, the yankees, the opposition is a paid minority, blah blah blah).