[JohnRawls]

I'm sure it's purely coincidental that the coup happened just days after the Bolivian government cancelled a deal with a German lithium mining corporation because the local indigenous population wasn't benefiting enough from it.

It's also very reassuring that various dead-eyed rogues in the Trump administration have been on hand to confirm that it definitely wasn't a coup and that actually, a right-wing military junta is the most democratic thing that can happen.

As i said, it is not a 100 percent correlation. In recent history the right is more "tame" and passes down the leadership to the left if they loose in South America. While for the left to leave, it takes some kind of a monumental effort and usually involves a lot of strife, revolution, a coup etc Again not in all cases.

[Julian658]

What can we say. Populist leaders do a shit job.

Socialist never have success. However, the left wingers will likely say that was not real socialism. Or they may simply blame the USA.

[JohnRawls]

Socialist never have success. However, the left wingers will likely say that was not real socialism. Or they may simply blame the USA.

I don't think this is true. Chavesez first term was a success for example. Evo Morales was also not so bad overall. If we talk about South America. If we talk globally then you are forgetting about Northern Europe for example and some others. Its a bit different compared to South American socialism but never the less it is still socialism ideas implemented within a liberal capitalist democratic society. Basically Europe proves that socialist ideas can live and thrive within a liberal capitalist democracy.

[Heisenberg]

In recent history the right is more "tame" and passes down the leadership to the left if they loose in South America.

The right literally just lost an election in Bolivia. And they responded to that defeat by rioting and getting the military to overthrow the guy who won it.

[skinster]

...there is a problem with left leaders in South America.

This is the problem.


They refuse to use their nation's wealth to serve empire, and instead serve the people and bring the poor out of poverty. This doesn't look good to empire which wants all the country's wealth and none of the people.

This is quite obviously a coup and anyone claiming otherwise is either gullible as hell or a shitty liar.

People all over the country are revolting because Morales won the election. He left the country because rightwing scumbags have been running around vandalising his and his family's homes, attacking people within his government as well as his supporters amongst the people.

Here's hoping this ends the way it did for Chavez the last time they tried to run him out of the country. They being the U.S. regime-changers and their allies within the opposition, as usual.

I am still laughing my ass off at people here who claim this is democracy at work and not another U.S. regime change war. Please PM me for discount rates on WMDS. Hat-tip to Rugoz who was salivating over and supporting the war on Syria, but then shut the fuck up for years after, when it was clear what that war was really about. These war-thirsty cockroaches keep running out at any new regime-change war that comes into their focus...

[Rugoz]

Hat-tip to Rugoz who was salivating over and supporting the war on Syria, but then shut the fuck up for years after, when it was clear what that war was really about.

No idea why you keep repeating that nonsense. I never "salivated over the war in Syria". The only intervention I approved of was the one in Libya, which admittely was a disaster in retrospective. Even then my "approval" must be seen in context. In practice I'm a staunch anti-interventionist. I would never want my country to get involved in that kind of nonsense. In a world where everybody meddles though, I can approve of certain meddling or not.

No doubt you would support the most hideous tyrants and bloodiest conflicts as long as they promote your left-wing ideas.

[Tainari88]

Double post deleted.

[Tainari88]

I actually think you are not understanding then. I am not saying that what the left does is bad. Fight for equality, fight for education, fight for indigenous rights etc. Those are good policies at its core but not all reforms and changes are positive when they are executed by humans. They have negative outcomes if its not correctly implemented or just unintended negative outcomes along with positive outcomes. That is just how life is. So when such things happen, the people get angry and want somebody else in charge.

Where do you get your politics from JohnRawls? Disney world?

Lol. No, John, if you want a whole run down on South American fights for power with the corporations stick around this thread and I will summarize it for you? Are you up for that challenge?

I think @Heisenberg the man from Wales has a better idea of what is going on in South America than you do. Really.

[Julian658]

I don't think this is true. Chavesez first term was a success for example. Evo Morales was also not so bad overall. If we talk about South America. If we talk globally then you are forgetting about Northern Europe for example and some others. Its a bit different compared to South American socialism but never the less it is still socialism ideas implemented within a liberal capitalist democratic society. Basically Europe proves that socialist ideas can live and thrive within a liberal capitalist democracy.

I don't disagree. Anyone that is dirt poor and living in the gutter will benefit from socialism and wealth redistribution. I would be a commie if I was poor, no doubt. The problem is that socialism does little for the middle class and above. Furthermore, states that promote socialism generally have to use coercion to prevent those that prefer a free market economy do their own thing. So yes, at the onset socialism seems to work and then it collapses when there is no additional wealth to confiscate. Furthermore, socialists do not know how to create wealth. That is why China adopted a state capitalist system.

[Ter]

I have my own petty reason to like Evo Morales : he refused to export natural gas to Chile.
Chile stole Bolivia's only access to the sea. Fuck Chile. Well done Evo Morales.

[MadMonk]

I don't disagree. Anyone that is dirt poor and living in the gutter will benefit from socialism and wealth redistribution. I would be a commie if I was poor, no doubt. The problem is that socialism does little for the middle class and above. Furthermore, states that promote socialism generally have to use coercion to prevent those that prefer a free market economy do their own thing. So yes, at the onset socialism seems to work and then it collapses when there is no additional wealth to confiscate. Furthermore, socialists do not know how to create wealth. That is why China adopted a state capitalist system.

If one is "dirt poor and living in the gutter" as you say, reducing the number of citizens living in extreme poverty should be any States first and foremost priority. It should be any societies regardless of political ideology in order to create a functioning system for humans to live in.

Basic housing with heat, a roof and clean water. Adequate and healthy food. Medical needs covered. Public transportation. Educational opportunities and a sense of wellbeing in terms of employment.

These are not extravagant demands and as long as they are denied from too many this will continue to be the cycle of political volatility. I'm financially well off, my relatives even more so, but that doesn't make me a short-sighted capitalist troglodyte believing that this is the best system we can achieve. This is a power-grab with soldiers on the streets, benefitting the few over the many. Nothing more.

[Rancid]

Grumble Grumble Grumble
... Leftist, rightist ...
Grumble Grumble Grumble

[blackjack21]

Maduro and Fernandez already call this one a coup.

It's got some fingerprints of a coup--all the flag waving in the square is generally for media consumption.

The election was legal, since the Bolivian Supreme Court abolished term limits before the election.

What makes you think a high court can strike down a provision of the constitution from which it gets its power? Court officers get bribed too. The left wants to abolish the Second Amendment in the US, but they can't because it is express. However, the court does read things into the constitution that are clearly not there like abortion and gay marriage.

This constitutes a coup, in my opinion.

More or less. It's like the CIA trying to overthrow the president of the United States right now.

You can call it a coup if you like, I don't care. When those in power blatantly violate the democratic order, it's up to everybody else to restore it by whatever means necessary. AFAIK Corbyn not only calls it a coup, he's supportive of Morales.

Corbyn is a communist. It's to be expected.

I think the whole thing with Evo Morales is about the liberals being upset that their models of neo-liberalism has had a populist backlash.

Well, it's clear Evo Morales was getting very fond of power and wanting to hang on to it for a bit too long. That's why Roosevelt overstaying his welcome was the impetus to formalize term limits for US presidents.

The liberal pro corporate people have a deep hatred of populist Leftism.

Do you find the timing interesting? With Nixon, Washington wanted to end the Vietnam war. With Clinton, they wanted bombing in Iraq and action against Al Qaeda. Trump's impeachment hearings are this week, and low and behold...

I'm sure it's purely coincidental that the coup happened just days after the Bolivian government cancelled a deal with a German lithium mining corporation because the local indigenous population wasn't benefiting enough from it.

It's also very reassuring that various dead-eyed rogues in the Trump administration have been on hand to confirm that it definitely wasn't a coup and that actually, a right-wing military junta is the most democratic thing that can happen.

Ibid. Notice that Trump is under a bit of pressure this week? Nothing he can't handle, but while he's distracted the CIA might be playing games.

Do the job of dealing with the underclass already!! Don't live off of them.

Much of the underclass are not exploited. This is not the 19th Century. In many cases, underclass people have no work. It's not that they have too much work and horrible pay.

But the Republicans did not repeal it and democracy prevailed. ( They had majority literally everywhere ).

Or as Tainari88 might put it, they sold out the people who put them in office--lying for 6 years straight holding repeal after repeal only to reveal their true colors when they finally had the power to repeal.

Chavesez first term was a success for example.

If you're not fond of democracy. Chavez was able to appear successful, because oil prices bottomed out and started to rise. By the time they hit $147, he was able to dole out all sorts of politcal patronage to his cronies. When oil prices collapsed, so did PDVSA. It was so bad that Venezuela began importing gasoline.

Basically Europe proves that socialist ideas can live and thrive within a liberal capitalist democracy.

It's a host and parasite system. Full socialism basically destroys prosperity though.

[Atlantis]

Meet the new fascist coup leaders of Bolivia. Rich oligarchs and fascists thugs, what could possibly go wrong ...



Bolivians will come to regret having dumped Evo Morales.

[Rugoz]

So yes, at the onset socialism seems to work and then it collapses when there is no additional wealth to confiscate.

Whenever socialism failed it's because it tried to replace free markets with central planning. Autocrats love that for obvious reasons.

As for Morales, he nationalized oil a gas production a long time ago but did not go beyond that. In contrast to Venezuela his economic policies were largely pragmatic and sustainable.

[Tainari88]

@blackjack21 wrote:

It's a host and parasite system. Full socialism basically destroys prosperity though.

Aha, do you think I would promote a system that would be bad economically for the group of people I love more than life itself? No, I would not.

We might have to go at it one of these days about this topic of socialism killing prosperity. Lol. Because that is patently not true.

In fact, the reason capitalism prospers is because it relies on what the masses consume and produce through their labor and the access to an entire planet's resources. If you restructure it to serve the needs of the many instead of the needs of the few? You got a lot of prosperity.

We are going to have to go at this subject someday BJ. The problem is that you don't believe in equality. And as such you don't care about the ones without anything. You never did. You are narrow in many ways. A shame, because you have a fine mind. But a very cold, hard and unfeeling heart. And in order to be a true humanist socialist like I am? Can't be that way. It means you will promote a system of exclusion and exploitation. And you will impede prosperity for the many. Just like a hoarder who thinks by getting rid of the excess shit somehow they lose what is valuable. It is the opposite. But tell that to the possessive hoarders. They scream. Their whole lives is about hanging on to shit that if they let it go and put it to circulating and producing instead of a system of exclusive possession and petty power over objects and so on?

All wealth resides in humans. The gold in a mine is just gold....another element in the periodic table. What makes it so coveted is human beings giving it value. Human beings are the source of wealth, and the solution to it too. Everything resides within a human framework to suffer from and also to prosper from my dearest and most prolific foe...el Relampaguito.

[Zionist Nationalist]

If you restructure it to serve the needs of the many instead of the needs of the few? You got a lot of prosperity.

Capitalism is built around the middle class if the middle class is the minority than it need to be expanded and not reduced because if you distribute everything equally you will make everyone poor thats how it was in the soviet union

[Potemkin]

Capitalism is built around the middle class if the middle class is the minority than it need to be expanded and not reduced

Tell that to the neo-liberals in the US and the UK, because I don't think they got the memo.

because if you distribute everything equally you will make everyone poor thats how it was in the soviet union

Almost everyone was already poor in Russia. In fact, the Soviet Union's industrialisation drive of the 1930s lifted millions out of millennial poverty. Then Nazi Germany invaded and smashed it all to bits... but that's another story for another thread.

[Heisenberg]

Almost everyone was already poor in Russia. In fact, the Soviet Union's industrialisation drive of the 1930s lifted millions out of millennial poverty. Then Nazi Germany invaded and smashed it all to bits... but that's another story for another thread.

It's truly amazing how liberals either don't get this, or, more likely, pretend not to get it. If I see another person ask Jeremy Corbyn if he sees the still-developing, semi-industrialised economies of Venezuela or Bolivia as the ultimate end-game for socialism in a wealthy, industrialised, late-capitalist country like the UK, I might scream.

[Rugoz]

Almost everyone was already poor in Russia. In fact, the Soviet Union's industrialisation drive of the 1930s lifted millions out of millennial poverty. Then Nazi Germany invaded and smashed it all to bits... but that's another story for another thread.

The Nazis could never do as much damage as the commies themselves. Just look how the economy tanked after they took over:



Of course Stalin corrected that by sending them all to the Gulag.