Venezuela Εconomic Situation

PapaDragon wrote:

flamming_python wrote:...And the chavistas could been way smarter. What they've built is not the way to build socialism.

You can't build something which is dead to begin with

Socialism died in July 1972 when USSR purchased wheat from USA

It was the moment the entire political ideology was proven to be nothing more than a failed experiment

Nothing has been proven anymore than when England restored the Monarchy after Cromwell's death, or when the Bourbon dynasty was restored in France after Napoleon was deposed.
It took until WW1 to finally break the power of the aristocracy in Europe and consign it to history.

One way or the other the current plutocracies and their backwards ideologies governing the world will eventually yield way to something better.

Of course Venezuela, as a minor half-developed state, was never going to be that catalyst of change in the first place, nor was it ever meant to be. Whatever it started out as, it quickly went down the familiar road of a beurocracy enriching itself while conducting failed economic policies, and playing at being socialists.

Really?

So the US relying on Soviet Titanium to build their SR-71s and now Russian Titanium to build their Boeings and F-35s means the democracy has failed too?

Venezuela is starting to diversify its economy... sure it is something they should have been doing for decades but they listened to western advice to ride the high oil price bubble and be lazy... previous right wing Venezuelan governments the US promoted and encouraged did the same thing, so quit with the bullshit about this being a problem with socialism... all parties made the same mistake, but only the socialists would ever be held to account for it by the west... they are afraid their own people might think the government has some responsibility of care for its own people... especially for all the taxes they are paying these days.

I mean you either have socialism or you have every man for himself... the former is big government, but also education and healthcare provided free to everyone, while the latter is very low taxes but you are pretty much on your own.

What America seems to have is the tax system of the former but the social programmes of the latter...

Perhaps when the democrats demand semi auto rifles are banned and they have a good long civil war over it their might be some solutions... particularly less interference in the business of other countries would be a good start.

PapaDragon wrote:
Neither feudalism or capitalism failed at their core purpose

Feudalism was the method of control by the aristocracy and wealthy land-owners. When it gradually started to evolve from despotism and tribalism, I'm sure there were a few false starts too.

The plutocracy started to gain their own wealth and power owing to the establishment of capital, investment. Capitalism gradually evolved, new elites arose based on the reinvestment of capital, trade, control of small industries and manufacturiers, then followed by heavy industries, corporations and so on. This is what today's economic system essentially harkens back to. Yet when the plutocracy, the borgouise, etc... tried to actually wrest power from the aristocracy; they failed a few times, then gradually started to gain power in the form of constitutional monarchies - and then finally, either confined the aristocracy to the background or full on got rid of them. In the earlier years, they also attempted to emulate them - as they knew and were taught in society nothing else. Napoleon was famous for the title of Emperor, increasingly taking on aristocratic garb, and in all essense eventually running his country as a monarch.

The next step is that of the masses, a full-on meritocracy, where everybody controls the fruits of their own labour. How much you earn is a function not of how much capital you invest, but your own work and success. If you want to earn more - work harder, or work smarter. If there's more than one of you - then split the profits based on how much you each put in and your value (skills, work hours). Democratically decide on business decisions, or democratically appoint someone to do so. This is the basis in all essense of the Marxist economy, where capital, investment, stocks, etc... are abolished. We're seeing some of that at least, with the establishment of small business, start-ups and ventures (particularly in IT, engineering, some other service sectors) where shares, profits and control are split between all the people actually doing the work.. usually no more than 4-5 of them. Computer technology and increasing automation have raised the portion of such business models in the economy. However, outside the sectors I named, the development of such business models is still prohibitive owing to the need for large amounts of start-up capital; and the need for outside investment, as well as outdated methods of organization and management.

Socialism on the other hand failed completely and miserably at one basic thing it was supposed to deliver on

Socialism was from the outset fought using the very same methods and practices that it was established to fight against; this is where the contradiction begins and its not a good one. Lenin's propaganda, red terror, intellectual vanguard, abolition of Soviets, war communism economy won him the civil war but it was all these sorts of things that socialist ideology characterized as results of imperialism and class antogonism. Such can be justified owing to the circumstances of the time, but nowadays there is no need to establish a socialist state in this manner

Stalin took power in the USSR and gradually established a beurocratic caste that took on elements of class privelege itself.
Gradually, through his (and earlier) efforts, the country became less and less socialist, and took on more and more aspects of the same Russian Empire that it deposed.
Restrictions on free speech & expression, abolishment of more democratic decentralized rule in favour of centralized authortarianism, wars of expansion, ethnic discimination, psuedoscience and doctrine replacing Marx's and Lenin's intellectual criticism, the ideology taking on in some essense the role of a religion and so on. Stalin himself followed in Napoleon's footsteps to a large extent, putting himself above the party and the rest of society as a grand leader, or emperor.
Stalin did keep control of the beurocrats though, and forced society to obey certain socialist concepts. After Khruschev's de-Stalinization, there were a bunch of reforms, that although made the USSR a more open society, failed to move it back towards socialism, and also increased the power of the beurocracy further.
By the 80s; the beurocratic caste, characterized by their privelege of consumption, but as a constantly replenishing layer of society - new coming in, old retiring, were no longer satisfied with their position. They wished to establish themselves as an outright class, and to legalize their gains and pass them onto their families - not merely make use of them for the time that they were part of the KGB or Communist Party. It's at this point that the USSR collapsed and we had the establishment of oligarchs and new political elites from the ranks of those at the tops of Soviet power structures.
The last point is exactly what was predicted by Trotsky, while some of the earlier ones were his observations that he made before anyone else (I'm not saying I'm his adherent, but he spoke a lot of truth while in exile)

All other socialist systems took their cues from Stalin and set-up the same systems. And most collapsed in the same manner for the same core reasons. China and Vietnam have chosen a smarter route, where the communist beurocracy invites foreign capital to develop the country. This is much smarter than what Gorbachev attempted of course. But the beurocracy is again transforming into a class, a new plutocracy; although for now - keeping the vestiges of the ideology.

I won't say there weren't any successes of these systems (if India had taken on Stalinism, it might be a lot closer to China in development levels right now); but ultimately it was a dead-end for the development of both the intellectual ideology and the Marxist economic model.

If current system is ever replaced by anything (extremely unlikely) it will not be socialism

It will one way or the other be replaced by a meritocracy and an economic model that favours hard work and skills over the accumulation and reinvestment of capital; drastically reducing inequality and unlocking people's full potentials.
Which is what I see socialism as.

Also once large monopolies or oligopolies get established a regulatory framework is appears in their areas of operation such that it becomes very difficult to enter their markets. Only a crash of the legal system or fundamental political upheaval can alter that, like what happened in Venezuela and the US is trying to get back to there.

PapaDragon wrote:
Socialism was polar opposite of meritocracy, it's ability to put incompetent people in positions of authority was legendary and unsurpassed

Hard work and skills were frowned upon in favor of uniformity and stagnation, sticking out would get you imprisoned and/or killed

It definitely did a good job of getting rid of capital (alongside everything else of any measurable value) I definitely give it that

As for reducing inequality it made everyone equally destitute with the exception of ruling class who made sure they have everything capitalists would have but common folks in socialism were legally barred from even wanting let alone having

Finally it unlocked true human potential of getting the hell out of Dodge at first available opportunity and making sure that anyone with half a brain would rather die than to inflict socialism on himself or his family ever again

Entire continents and billions of different people joined together to stop socialism from happening to them, this stuff doesn't happen just because someone doesn't want to "unlock his own full potential"

This is all without counting the very massive cost of socialism measured in human lives and decades of cultural, scientific, technological and civilisational progress lost forever

You successfully disregarded everything I said and returned to the familiar set of platitudes.

Fact of the matter is that everything you said and quite a lot more could be applied to most of the world's capitalist countries in the 20th century.. oops I mean not countries, but colonies.
What countries do you think were the ones that adopted socialism around the world?
The most developed of them was the Russian Empire - which was also among the most backward of the powers in Europe. Lenin and Trotsky were convinced that socialism could not even work in Russia itself; it was for all intents and purposes still in the feudal epoch - just with a massive army and some industries, intelligentsia in the cities (which the Russian Empire to be fair did a good job founding). Under Stalinism, it went from a backwards agrarian society of superstitions to a technological and industrial powerhouse, nuclear-armed superpower that launched the first man into space in what - 30-40 years?
Although it was a deformed worker's state and lost a lot of its socialist characteristics, the USSR still achieved a lot.
It's satellite states in Eastern Europe less so (although rather more than is these days alleged), which just showed the limitations of the Stalinist-Khruschev model past a certain point of economic and social development.

Anyway I'm not here to convince anyone. I'm no model socialist myself and I don't subscribe to any doctrines and orthodoxies when it comes to politics. But I'm quite sure that sooner or later human society will begin to demand socialism once again. There is nothing in Marx's and Lenin's analysis of social dynamics and world problems that has been disproven, or doesn't apply today. Same old shit as at the beginning of the 20th century once again, and it will only become more apparent as the ideological battle of Cold War times wanes and multipolarity in world politics increases. That the answer to these problems proposed by Lenin and developed by Stalin failed to deliver, or was not truly implemented - is a seperate question.

Socialism was polar opposite of meritocracy, it's ability to put incompetent people in positions of authority was legendary and unsurpassed

Bolton, Pompeo, and Elliot Abrams, so the Trump government is socialist?

Pompeo: successful businessman and former head of CIA

Yeah, Bush was head of the CIA too and he was a as well.

Trump was also a successful businessman... really don't understand why you think that means anything in politics or diplomacy.

Iran wont even talk to him, which shows what a wonderful and capable diplomat he is.

Bolton: successfully implementing his policies despite obstruction from all levels of US government

No, he hasn't provoked the war he wants with Iran yet, so he has failed too... he is probably also the driving force behind all these international arms agreements getting torn up, which will lead to an enormous blow out of US and EU defence budgets which will ultimately lead to their downfall... plus he is a shit negotiator.

Abrams: played key role in preventing spread of socialism in Latin America during Cold War

Abrams played a key role in undermining democracy and peace on the entire continent of America, and is directly responsible for death squads and the suffering and deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in central and south america.

He is probably personally responsible for the deaths of more democratically elected people than all the communist countries put together in the 20th and 21st centuries to date.

Commies could only dream of having someone this efficient in change, instead they had morons like Gorbachev, Chebrikov and Ustinov

Efficient?

I suppose zero is a level of efficiency, but you are looking at the wrong end of the scale...

Most likely deep state said if you pick these losers then russia gate will ultimately fail and you will beat any attempts by the democrats to remove you from power before the next election.

The CIA and other US agencies above US or international law have often boasted in the past about being able to use the tools and methods of the Soviet and Chinese secret services to make it look like they did it... how hard would it have been for them to manufacture evidence of Russian hacking with Putins signature.... pretty damn easy I would suspect... they control SWIFT so all the relevant payments could have been faked rather easily... so why didn't they do that?

Obviously because Trump is just another president that they can control like all the previous ones... invade and threaten and keep the US MIC in work and you can remain president... as long as you put our thugs in positions we choose to loosen up some international trade rules that bother us and effect our income... which means new trade deals with other countries so we can make the changes we need to keep stealing from countries around the world and make enormous amounts of money without needing to pay tax or anything.

And then he was the president.

Since when is being good person requirement for being good politician?

Gorbachev was lovely person. A real Teddy Bear. He was also completely incompetent moron and total failure.

Just because you personally don't like results doesn't mean desired results aren't being achieved.

You were the one that said all communist politicians are idiots and all western politicians are brilliant... BTW I am sure a lot of your fellow citizens will be turning in their graves at your going into the internet and telling a New Zealander that Madeline Allbright and Hillary Clinton are human elites that should be coveted and promoted... what a great job they did...

Iran? What makes you think he or anyone else wants to talk to Iran?

Pompeo has said he is open to talks with Iran but they are not returning his calls and didn't accept his offer to come to Iran to speak with them...

They want to Afghanistan them not talk to them.

Which makes them evil... it does not make them good politicians.

US presidents aren't elected to negotiate.

Almost right... take the two words off the end and you are closer to the truth... hope this truth doesn't get a billionaire murdered in a shower... shot five times in the head from behind alone in a locked jail cell... must have been suicide...

Iran is getting what's coming to them. You think something will change? Check the news, it's all moving in same direction without exception.

And yes Bolton is tearing up all those agreements which is what he is supposed to be doing.

He has job to do and he is getting it done unlike any commie would.

Perhaps Iran was right to interfere in the Balkans... you want the US and Saudi Arabia to wipe them out don't you.

Everything the US has done in the last 10 years has increased Irans power and reach in the region... they complain about Irans aggressive expansion, but if you look at the region all the US has done is broken Iraq and Syria and temporarily stayed in Afghanistan doing nothing at all to help them in any way... and now they realise that their actions at destabilising the region has made Iran into an important and respected ally for many factions in the region, and rather than suffer, they have grown in capacity and stature amongst the real people of the region... I am not talking about the terrorist shitheads SS is supporting who think killing is the way to get what they want... well it did work for the jews, but you need serious international support to get away with that.

The US has created its own problem and I think will find the last three American governments have been too inept to solve it... in fact they have made it worse because Iran can get out of that stupid deal and now get trade deals with Russia and China and develop... not as fast as with western investment but they can grow and they can make nuclear weapons if they want now too... and the can point the blame directly at Trump.

Democracy? Who gives a sh*t about democracy? Are commies bringing democracy?

He prevented entire continent from falling into the claws of communism. He did his job and delivered result unlike commies. Victory.

He created more death squads than the Soviets ever did... and BTW what claws? The US is still using its claws around the world, but the Soviet Union stopped... it is pretty clear that the best place to be when the music stopped was in the communist camp for the most part.

And that is what you are not up to date on brother... communism and democracy had nothing to do with the cold war... it was the US vs Russia... always was and always will be... even if a bernie sanders socialist America and a Navalny led corporate sold out Russia existed they could not be friends and they would in fact be enemies...

Can you imagine what dumpster fire that entire place would have been today had the reds were given a chance to do with it what they did to Russia and East Europe?

Cuba, but with over a dozen countries that will trade with it on equal terms... sounds like paradise to me...

Things are bad enough there as they are. Violence, poverty, crime, corruption... You think adding massive civil wars, cultural and ethnic genocide, societal collapse and mass starvation is something they would be able to handle without going extinct?

Bullshit... you already said America was in charge and it is fucking perfect... I will not hear any different description except if it is on MSNBC.

And do you think they would be grateful for it? I don't see East Europe being too grateful despite being "blessed" with red democracy and peace.

The governents know they can't openly pine for the day when they could decide what immigrants entered their borders, but most of the hate from eastern europe was because Russia held them back from the economic utopia they are enjoying now... they think... they will have to check with Washington first of course before giving a final answer and nothing in writing.

The people... who knows because people in the EU don't get a say unless you are French and wearing a yellow jacket and even then the media ignore you.

Is there even enough room in some Latin American countries for all the necessary mass graves?

Yeah, communism in eastern europe was all under stalin... perhaps you have been watching the History channel?

Of course during that period of the 1930s in the great democracy of the US ford hired goons with machine guns to shoot striking workers who wanted better working conditions... or how about the picnics for the children to look at mutilated black people... but that is fixed now... there is no racism there at all... they have had a black president you know...

I did say that all communist politicians are idiots (I would have used stronger words but I don't want to get banned for violating rules that only apply to me)

But I never said that Western politicians are brilliant, just that they are not as stupid as communist ones which is more than enough when your objective is to stomp communism

This thread is about Venezuela, and they have never had a communist government. Chavez and Maduro are not communist, they were democratically elected by the people of venezuela... and they are having trouble making Venezuela a better place because of the governments that came before them that turned the economy to survive on their oil wealth... so now the price of oil has dropped they are struggling... just like Frackers in the US and kashogi whackers in Saudi Arabia... the difference is that the reserves that Venezuela had were being used up by Chavez and Maduro to improve the lives of the Venezuelan people... now that the US has turned the western world against them they are in trouble... this has nothing to do with communism and everything to do with the US wanting to control the oil wealth in the region... the exact same reason they destroyed Iraq and Syria and Libya are trying to do the same with Iran and Russia.

I never said this, stop putting word in my mouth, if you can't formulate a reply then just admit to being wrong

If you want to be a Trump and Pompeo and Bolton and Abrams fanboy you need to pray at the feet of all their sacred ones... that includes not so bright and Clintons wife.

They did of a great job... for themselves, their side and those writing their paychecks

Fact that we didn't like the results has no bearing on their success rate

So you are saying Hitler wasn't bad... he was great for Germany for a while there...

More of your ancestors rolling in graves...

It does make them good politicians, being evil or good is completely​ beside the point

Of course, and when the war starts... in Iran or Venezuela and lots of people die and many more people suffer, they will likely get huge bonuses... I don't really understand civil wars like that but you are the expert... please explain to us how wonderful that feeling of air raids is, and that powerlessness is... but hey, thems is great politicians they have there...

Of course I want them wiped out (along with all of their cousins)

They interfered

Yeah, and their children and their neighbours... and the people who most benefit are the people who dropped bombs on you and yours... perhaps the NATO intervention on Serbia wasn't such a crime, you hate people you never even met like they do and are happy for an entire population to suffer for the choices and actions of a few...

And those more numerous death squads somehow killed less people than commies ever did while accomplishing their objectives in the process (unlike commies)

Yeah, the thing is that a lot of those people the commies killed seemed to come back to life again and reappeared in 1942-43, and while the claims of numbers killed kept getting higher and higher, when the final count was made... well if I have told you once I have told you a million times... don't exaggerate.

But that couldn't have happened of course, it would have been intelligent move which is antithesis to communism

Of course... the Soviet leadership dragged the Russian population into the industrial revolution and into the space age by being stupid... they challenged the colonial west who was enormously wealthy but made their money on slavery and exploring the known world and robbing it, until the early 1990s because Russia was stupid and the west was smart?

But then you say that politicians are not good or bad, and they just work for the interests of the people who pay their wages... but that is not true because western politicians don't work for the interests of the taxpayer... another war is not in the interests of the taxpayer... the taxpayer doesn't give a shit about Boeings earnings this year... these politicians are lining up jobs after they leave politics in these big MIC companies, they are looking after their own interests and it is the taxpayers children who get to go to war, or pay more for their stuff made in china because of the new tarriffs one side or the other added this week.

America is in charge but I never said it's perfect. I said it's not communism which is enough.

But hang on... Russia isn't communist either so are they perfect too?

Venezuela isn't communist either are they perfect?

Take away tropical climate and Cuba becomes Romania under Chausescu

Like Serbia is becoming Greater Albania?

Every single Romanian and vast majority of Cubans would violently disagree

Yeah, if the vast majority of Cubans violently disagreed there would not be a communist government in Cuba... that is how things work.

Or how about being forced to live alongside those Nazi collaborators who were slaughtering their families during WW2 but were now walking free all in the name of reconciliation?

Well those nazi collaborators in your neck of the woods were celebrated by the west when they were fighting Serbs... and they put them in power in the Ukraine too... see any pattern there?

Nowhere near as much as other New Zealanders if they knew that one of their own is a commie

Well first of all if I was a commie, then why would I have any time for Putin... who is clearly not a commie.

Second New Zealand used to be a rather socialist state... the electricity and timber and railroads and telecomunications were all run by the state when I was growing up... and things were actually rather better then.

I assume you will be giving up citizenship of that filthy capitalist pro-american colony and be filling for citizenship of some prosperous place like North Korea or Iran?

After all, what are we without our principles?

It is easier to effect change from the inside.

Will it effect your citizenship being an American fanboy supporting their regime ops around the world after they regime changed your country.

He was also extremely bad for Germans because he lost, being good for a while doesn't cut it

Communism was also good for a while but since it failed miserably it wasn't really good at all

But he was good before they had to say he was bad... because when times are good like the times he provided, he was popular... it was only when all the bad things he did came back to bite them in the ass was he considered bad... perhaps the leadership of Germany in WWI who paid for Lenin to return to Russia and start the revolution was more to blame... if Russia remained Russia then in the period up till the early 1930s when Hitler got into power in Germany when Germany actually cooperated with the Soviets because they were both practically the losing sides of WWI unfairly treated by the UK and France... if Lenin wasn't leading a revolution and Russia was still Russia then when Hitler took power he could have not only continued cooperation with Russia, he could have strengthened it... the Tsar or Tsarina in power might have cooperated much more closely with Germany... the T-34 evolved from experience in Spain but experience in WWII could have led to the something similar being developed a bit later on and with a more sensible crew layout more suited to the German method of tank operation, but with better guns and armour. Germany with the resources and manpower of Russia on their side could easily have taken all of Europe with no need to worry about going in to Africa or the Middle East, and over in Japan they could have supplied Japan with oil and resources to overcome the US and UK blockade that led to their attack on Russia and then into the Pacific... the Pacific war might have come much later and mostly been about getting rid of French and British colonialism...


Communism isn't fundamentally bad, Hitler was fundamentally bad.

Not a single child or neighbor here ever did anything wrong to Iran and yet they still ended up on receiving end of Iranian and Saudi hired goons

You want the Iranian people to go through what you and yours went through because of the decisions made by their leaders 20 years ago.

What you are suggesting is preventable, what you are saying they did you you has happened and cannot be changed but you think their entire population should suffer... perhaps that is the problem... you didn't suffer enough... you suffered just enough to get angry, but not enough to think this is wrong and shouldn't be allowed to happen again for what ever reason.

So yeah, their children and neighbors, what makes their children and neighbors inherently more valuable than someone else's?

Exactly... why should anyone care about some people you will never meet... ignore the blood on the hands of the American politicians because that is the blood of people who are probably guilty of something else anyway... there are no innocent people right?

What goes around comes around, they dropped a coin so now they get to listen to the whole song

Of course... they started it so murder them all... except the people picking the songs generally are never the ones whose coin is used, and so it is the general population that have to keep listening to Aky breaky heart by Billy Ray Cyrus...

Funny how it's only Russian population that got the dragging while everyone else in USSR got the kiddie glove treatment?

Look at the other soviet republics... they are hardly leading the world in much at all except complaining that all their problems stem from Moscow... perhaps if conditions in the other republics weren't subsidised by the Russian population doing the heavy lifting they might still be a useful entity and working together for a better future for all of them.

We had something similar here, just replace Russians with Serbs

Classic commies

But Kosovo is a unique case... you heard Allbright...

Russia ain't communist which makes them definitely more perfect than alternative

Venezuela is communist, that's why they are ones getting welfare from Russia instead of other way around

Communism: Russia imports wheat without being able to afford it

Not-communism: Russia exports wheat and makes lots of cash

Economy 101

WTF is the point of discussing this if you don't even know the meanings of some very basic words... Venezuela is not communist, and Russia is trading with Venezuela just like it trades with other countries... communist or not.

Communism: China is currently in a trade war with the US because the US thinks China has some unfair advantages... wow communism must be weak if the only remaining super power thinks they are at a disadvantage in terms of economics. It also means that China has clearly out-manovered the most successful and powerful western elite in terms of economics... how did they do that with stupid politicians?

Kill those who disagree and they won't be around disagree, that's how things work

(Or just let them swim North into that horrible capitalism)

Communism 101

So where is all this evidence of these mass graves of people who disagree?

Or are they like all the Albanians killed in Kosovo in enormous mass graves that nobody could find either... careful... America is rubbing off on you...

In both cases commies didn't exterminate the Nazis after 45 and in the end Nazis came out on top

That's commies for ya'

Hilarious... first commies are bad because they murder there enemies and now you are saying they are bad because they didn't murder enough...

Had New Zealand ever gotten even close to socialism it would have been dirt poor toilet bowl instead of filthy rich as it is in reality

So no, you never had socialism

Do you even know what socialism is?

Do you?

We have something called ACC, or accident compensation corporation... a state run organisation that compensates you if you have an accident, so you don't have to sue anyone if you get hurt. We have technically free healthcare and free education, though it used to be freer...
The Government pays out an unemployment benefit for those out of work and there are lots of socal benefits for various groups including the sick and the with child. The electrical grid, all telecommunications, the forestry industry, were all state controlled, there were only two TV channels and both were state run until about the mid 1980s.
Mentally ill people were locked away in what we called funny farms, where they were cared for but kept mostly out of sight, out of mind.

Of course a lot has changed and not for the better. Most areas have been deregulated and sold off to foreign interests who are only interested in profit so costs go up and quality gets worse because maintenance costs money... most of the time they fired off the majority of the workers and then sold it again for an enormous profit... yeah, I know exactly what socialist and democratic governments are like... to this day there are two main political parties who are so similar it really doesn't matter whether you vote or not... even if one side does something good they are often replaced at the next election and any changes are undone.

And here it is, the line we all knew was coming lol1

The good old Starbucks Socialist spirit, do as I say not as I do

Oh get off your high horse... what you did there was basically the old "If you don't love it then leave" routine... how fascist can you get... the system is perfect and should never be changed... makes me wonder why you don't love Hitler... he didn't like descent in the ranks either... I don't even know what Starbucks is.

If there is one thing you can count on with any good communist is that they wouldn't be caught dead anywhere near actual communism (unless they know they will be on top which would allow them to continue enjoying capitalist lifestyle)

Fuck off, if I was a communist then I would say so... I don't give a shit what you or anyone else thinks about me, but seeing as how you think Venezuela is communist then hey maybe we are all communists because it doesn't mean anything any more.

After all, capitalism is much more comfy, healthy and gentle isn't it?

Well you tell me... it was your neck of the woods that enjoyed the benefit of capitalism most recently... the last time we saw war here was the Maori wars two centuries ago.

Good crack dealer never uses his own product!

Hahahahaha... never touch drugs... don't really even drink alcohol much... only crack addicts here are lesbians...  

And why the hell were they being subsided by Russian population in the first place instead of other way around?

Complete stupidity but that's what you get when illiterate clowns are given the control of the country

Reminds me of a biography of a Soviet Soldier from the post WWII period... he made a mistake... not a big one, but it was enough to get him sent to military prison and he loved it... proper food proper clothes everything done properly... because he was from a unit in the far east where supplies were irregular and of course some of the officers didn't think such good stuff should be wasted on the conscripts so they didn't get what they were supposed to be getting.

In prison everything was done by the book... sound familiar?

Kosovo was in 99, you ignored entire period between 45 and 89

You trying to question Allbright?

Commies were killing their own population for disagreeing and then they were pussyfooting around Nazis instead of doing to them what they did to dissidents

Of course... the nazis of today are direct descendants of WWII nazis... by direct breeding is the only way to get white supremacy skin heads...

Hilarious, because the western complaint is that the commies killed as many people as the nazis did and now you are complaining that they didn't wipe out all nazis... well for a start all the nazis in West Germany mostly went to high paying jobs and nice living conditions in the US building missiles and rockets and weapons, so they were pretty much out of reach anyway...

They should have been protecting their own population and exterminating the enemies, instead they were exterminating their own population and protecting the enemies

They ended up being fairly indiscriminate... the problems with witch hunts is that it might start out with the old bitch that has a black cat and nobody likes or trusts, but pretty soon it turns into accusations because if you don't accuse someone else they might accuse you, but they hardly protected any real enemies.

Morons (or were they? Because I refuse to believe that this kind of f*ckup can be accidental)

Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons... sounds like the exact polar opposite of American democracy... doing right and wrong things for the wrong reasons.

We had communism which failed miserably and caused several wars

You had peace and structure with communism that was taken away by zealot democracy proclaimers... I call them proclaimers because they talk about it but their motives have nothing to do with democracy... about which they could really care less... Saudi Arabia does not have democracy and they could care less about that... unless the Saudi Monarchy suddenly stopped buying their weapons and doing as they are told...

You never had communism and didn't have a war in two centuries

You never had communism, and you clearly didn't learn anything from the wars you were involved with if you want more of it in other countries.

Shot themselves in the foot. Again

Whoever wrote and signed of the indictment also made a huge mistake. The charges included Clíver Antonio Alcalá Cordones, a former General in the Venezuelan armed forces, and put a $10 million reward on his head.

Alcalá Cordones is no friend of Maduro. He retired in 2013 when Maduro was elected after Hugo Chávez had died. Alcalá Cordones fled to Colombia from where he supported the U.S. chosen clown Juan Guaidó as self proclaimed president of Venezuela.

After the Justice Department indictment against him he came out and revealed that he was involved in coup plans in support of Juan Guaidó:

Alcalá is implicated in a recent plot to attack the Maduro government. On March 24, Colombian authorities seized a truck full of weapons and military equipment, including 26 assault rifles, worth $500,000. Venezuelan intelligence services linked the weapons to three camps in Colombia where paramilitary groups of Venezuelan deserters and U.S. mercenaries are training to carry out attacks against Venezuela. According to Venezuela’s Communication Minister Jorge Rodríguez, these groups were planning to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic to attack military units and plant bombs. He also linked the groups to Alcalá.

These allegations proved to be correct, as Alcalá, in a video he posted online hours after the indictments, admitted that the weapons were under his command. He further admitted that the weapons were purchased with funds given to him by Juan Guaidó, with whom he allegedly signed a contract. Additionally, Alcala claimed that the operation was planned by U.S. advisors, with whom he supposedly met at least seven times. Aclalá also alleged that Leopoldo López, the founder of Guaidó’s party Voluntad Popular who was sprung from house arrest during Guaidó’s April 30 attempted insurrection, had full knowledge of the terror plot.

As a result of these videos, Venezuela’s Attorney General has opened an investigation into Juan Guaidó for an attempted coup.

The U.S. blew it by accusing the one man that was willing to help its chosen clown and by not informing him before the indictment came out. That man then freaked out and blew the whistle. This is now threatening the whole opposition plan the U.S. concocted with Guaidó and the men behind him.

On Friday Alcalá Cordones decided it was unsafe for him to stay in Colombia. He 'called up' the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and gave himself up. He was extradited to New York and will now become a 'witness' against Maduro who he has publicly opposed in the first place.

This chaos was certainly created by Elliott Abrams, the neoconservative U.S. Special Representative for Venezuela. Abrams has a talent for messing things up.

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/03/in-a-time-of-crisis-us-foreign-policy-gets-worse.html#more

Hilarious...

Of course having re read some of the discussion between myself and PD I find it amusing that when democracy is taken over by corruption and money and stops representing the people like in the US where the US acts to increase the wealth of the 1% instead of benefitting the American people as an entire group, then you get these sorts of idiots elected. Nobody with morals or intellect could rob from the majority to pay the already obscenely rich, so the presidency is now limited to failed businessmen and ex CIA directors... white men who know where the power is.

While in Venezuela, people like Chavez and Maduro actually want to help more of the Venezuelan people than the richest ones that don't need any help, and while being elected in free and fair elections they get called dictators and communists by western corporation controlled officials who can only dream of getting the election results these two got...



But democratically elected opposition is communism when you don't agree with the results... look at the reaction when Obama got voted in... not much really... and then when Trump got elected there were riots and protests and demands for recounts... democrats not only don't understand democracy, they don't like its results when the results don't suit them...