Things Not Going Well in Venezuela, 2.0

[RomaVicta 30565]

We're gonna start killing people thinking that they'll like us for doing so, aren't we?

We'll call ourselves liberators and our surrogates will be freedom fighters. We'll congratulate ourselves for knowing how to straighten out the problems in other countries because we're such a bright shining example ourselves. Anybody opposing this will be called soft, socialist, or idealist.

Then it all goes to shit and we just wait a couple of years and do it all again.

I don't like this movie. This movie sucks. 

[Fozzz 152]

Does the fact that VA's web server services and bandwidth are donated by Aporrea invalidate the assertion of opposition politician Henrique Capriles that the majority of opposition parties did not agree with the self-swearing in of Juan Guaidó as interim president of the country?  Does it invalidate the assertion from opposition politician  Laidy Gómez that US intervention would "generate death of Venezuelans"?  These people have wikipedia entries too, so you should be capable of validating their identities.  

 

[suddenly shaggy 929]

Post some more Pravda comrade. 

[suddenly shaggy 929]

Or post the same thing from an actual news source, rather than a propaganda rag and maybe it's worth discussing it. 

[hayden_horn 11402]

3 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

We're gonna start killing people thinking that they'll like us for doing so, aren't we?

We'll call ourselves liberators and our surrogates will be freedom fighters. We'll congratulate ourselves for knowing how to straighten out the problems in other countries because we're such a bright shining example ourselves. Anybody opposing this will be called soft, socialist, or idealist.

Then it all goes to shit and we just wait a couple of years and do it all again.

I don't like this movie. This movie sucks. 

yes, i agree. i'm 100% against any kind of military intervention. i'm far more for a multilateral american coalition influencing a good result. that includes sanctions that hurt the state-owned oil industry, and on-the-ground aid for citizens.

[hayden_horn 11402]

5 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

Does the fact that VA's web server services and bandwidth are donated by Aporrea invalidate the assertion of opposition politician Henrique Capriles that the majority of opposition parties did not agree with the self-swearing in of Juan Guaidó as interim president of the country?  Does it invalidate the assertion from opposition politician  Laidy Gómez that US intervention would "generate death of Venezuelans"?  These people have wikipedia entries too, so you should be capable of validating their identities.  

 

seriously, dude. come the fuck on. you posted a chavista source to gird the foundation of your argument. surely you realize how ridiculous that is. that's like using judicial watch to demonstrate that muslim terrorists are coming across our southern border. 

[suddenly shaggy 929]

Just now, hayden_horn said:

seriously, dude. come the fuck on. you posted a chavista source to gird the foundation of your argument. surely you realize how ridiculous that is. that's like using judicial watch to demonstrate that muslim terrorists are coming across our southern border. 

Yes, but you have no evidence that the bandwidth at this exact second is being paid for by the Venezuelan government, so check mate hayden. 

[bad_teammate 13508]

1 minute ago, hayden_horn said:

seriously, dude. come the fuck on. you posted a chavista source to gird the foundation of your argument. surely you realize how ridiculous that is. that's like using judicial watch to demonstrate that muslim terrorists are coming across our southern border. 

Good luck finding sources that aren't pure propaganda.

[Fozzz 152]

15 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

while us sanctions hurt the venezuelan oil industry, the us is also trying to import food and medicine to those affected. from my link above:

is maduro responsible for this food and medicine not entering his country? because he says he is. i understand his political position, but that's of his and chavez's making. their governments have been a disaster for venezuela. they've been able to propagandize past it up until now, when people are leaving if they can, starving if they cannot, and having to deal with runaway, worse-than-zimbabwean inflation. 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevehanke/2019/01/01/venezuelas-hyperinflation-hits-80000-per-year-in-2018/#6ee8ce3d4572

80,000%. totally normal, yall. fascism works.

chavez and maduro created this diaspora and internal humanitarian crisis.

 

who was better for venezuela: chavez or caldera?

You have no idea what you're talking about.  The hyperinflation is a result of the domestic scarcity that has been fueled by US sanctions.  Even US-based media won't deny the negative impact of US sanctions on the welfare of Venezuelans.  

Quote

An even more problematic idea driving current U.S. policy is the belief that financial sanctions can hurt the Venezuelan government without causing serious harm to ordinary Venezuelans. That’s impossible when 95 percent of Venezuela’s export revenue comes from oil sold by the state-owned oil company. Cutting off the government’s access to dollars will leave the economy without the hard currency needed to pay for imports of food and medicine. Starving the Venezuelan economy of its foreign currency earnings risks turning the country’s current humanitarian crisis into a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe.

That’s what began to happen in 2017. Last year, Venezuela’s export revenues rose from $28 to $32 billion, buoyed by the recovery in world oil prices. Under normal conditions, a rise in a country’s exports would leave it with more resources to pay for its imports. But in the Venezuelan case, imports fell by 31 percent during the same year. The reason is that the country lost access to international financial markets. Unable to roll over its debt, it was forced to build up huge external surpluses to continue servicing that debt in a desperate attempt to avoid a default. Meanwhile, creditors threatened to seize the Venezuelan government’s remaining revenue sources if the country defaulted, including refineries located abroad and payments for oil shipments.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/12/why-more-sanctions-wont-help-venezuela/

Instead of engaging in PR stunts, if the US wanted to improve the lot of Venezuelans they could cease sanctioning the country.  The UN and Red Cross warned the US not to use aid as a tool for inducing a coup, but the US did it anyway because fomenting a coup is all that matters.

 

[Fozzz 152]

2 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

seriously, dude. come the fuck on. you posted a chavista source to gird the foundation of your argument. surely you realize how ridiculous that is. that's like using judicial watch to demonstrate that muslim terrorists are coming across our southern border. 

Are the opposition politicians sourced in the article chavistas, too?  Why can't anyone itt answer a simple question.  

[bad_teammate 13508]

The US has a long history of completely ignoring the UN, Red Cross, and Doctors Without Borders in the region.

[bad_teammate 13508]

6 minutes ago, hayden_horn said:

that includes sanctions that hurt the state-owned oil industry, and on-the-ground aid for citizens.

Why would hurting the state-owned oil industry be something you want to happen? Don't you realize that adds to the suffering and starvation of the people?

[suddenly shaggy 929]

3 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

Are the opposition politicians sourced in the article chavistas, too?  Why can't anyone itt answer a simple question.  

Because no one is going to read your propaganda, just like none of us would comment on articles in Pravda. Post an actual news source or get the fuck out. I don't know if those quotes are legitimate, I don't know if they are taken out of context. I do know they are being posted by both a disingenuous source and poster. 

[Fozzz 152]

Just now, suddenly shaggy said:

Because no one is going to read your propaganda, just like none of us would comment on articles in Pravda. Post an actual news source or get the fuck out. I don't know if those quotes are legitimate, I don't know if they are taken out of context. I do know they are being posted by both a disingenuous source and poster. 

It's not like scrolling through wikipedia, but if you are concerned you can simply clink through the links in the article to see the source quotations.  Here is the English translation from the Ultimas Noticias article concerning Capriles:

Quote

The former governor of Miranda, Henrique Capriles, said during an interview with AFP that the majority of the Venezuelan opposition parties did not agree with Juan Guaidó's self-regulation as interim president of the country, and that the proclamation January 23 surprised them.

In the interview, he affirms that they considered that the action could "unleash a political confrontation (...) There was doubt within the opposition that this public act would bring the consequence (that) the government will close the National Assembly".

http://www.ultimasnoticias.com.ve/noticias/politica/capriles-partidos-no-apoyaban-autojuramentacion-de-guaido/

Here is a link to the video of Gómez denouncing US intervention.  If you know a little Spanish it is not hard to understand what she's conveying 

 

 

[Fozzz 152]

lol of course he won't

 

 

[bad_teammate 13508]

That video was edited by the Communists. In the original version she says it's awesome that the US is helping starve the Venezuelan people and that American men are well-hung and attractive.

[bad_teammate 13508]

1 minute ago, Fozzz said:

lol of course he won't

 

 

OH BOY I AM SURPRISED! EVERYONE LOOK HOW SURPRISED I AM!

[Fozzz 152]

I don't think they are going to get military authorization passed through Congress, so this will need to be on the DL like when we armed terrorists to fight Assad.  I don't know if there are any local guerrilla forces we can use or if we'll need to ship al Nusra over or something. lol

[bad_teammate 13508]

That's why you bring in Elliot Abrams. He's really good at finding ways to fund/arm death squads.

[suddenly shaggy 929]

Lulz, you should have posted that instead of propaganda in the first place. 

Henrique Capriles says the majority of Venezuelans do not agree with this decision, specifically because they are worried Maduro will use it as an excuse to crack down further and dismantle the National Assembly. The average Venezuelan opposes this because it will make Maduro even more of a dictator. Somehow that's supposed to support your point. 

Gomez is opposed to US interventionism, which places her solidly in consensus with virtually all of the posters on this thread. 

[bad_teammate 13508]

5 minutes ago, suddenly shaggy said:

Lulz, you should have posted that instead of propaganda in the first place. 

Henrique Capriles says the majority of Venezuelans do not agree with this decision, specifically because they are worried Maduro will use it as an excuse to crack down further and dismantle the National Assembly. The average Venezuelan opposes this because it will make Maduro even more of a dictator. Somehow that's supposed to support your point. 

Gomez is opposed to US interventionism, which places her solidly in consensus with virtually all of the posters on this thread. 

*pssssst*
Collaborating with the opposition and instituting economic sanctions is interventionism

[Fozzz 152]

Just now, suddenly shaggy said:

Lulz, you should have posted that instead of propaganda in the first place. 

Henrique Capriles says the majority of Venezuelans do not agree with this decision, specifically because they are worried Maduro will use it as an excuse to crack down further and dismantle the National Assembly. The average Venezuelan opposes this because it will make Maduro even more of a dictator. Somehow that's supposed to support your point. 

Gomez is opposed to US interventionism, which places her solidly in consensus with virtually all of the posters on this thread. 

They did not support it because they knew it would make the situation worse and lead to a political confrontation and maybe worse.  When someone, who most citizens have never heard of, attempts to assume power through backing from the most powerful state in the hemisphere (a state that is actively destroying their economy and killing their people), it is not unreasonable to expect a reaction from the other side.  Aligning the opposition with the US could also be bad politically for the opposition and provide legitimacy to Maduro.  

Also, most people on this thread appear to support US intervention, at least to the extent of sanctions meant to crush Venezuela's economy and starve its population by preventing Venezuela from importing food and medicines.  

[David Dennison 19529]

12 minutes ago, suddenly shaggy said:

Lulz, you should have posted that instead of propaganda in the first place. 

Henrique Capriles says the majority of Venezuelans do not agree with this decision, specifically because they are worried Maduro will use it as an excuse to crack down further and dismantle the National Assembly. The average Venezuelan opposes this because it will make Maduro even more of a dictator. Somehow that's supposed to support your point. 

Gomez is opposed to US interventionism, which places her solidly in consensus with virtually all of the posters on this thread. 

How do you know?

[GHOSTUSER 361]

hpslugga why haven’t you responded to the facts I laid out with respect to Venezuela under Chávez and Maduro’s rule and how it meets the textbook definition of socialism. Please let me know why I’m wrong.

[David Dennison 19529]

3 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

hpslugga why haven’t you responded to the facts I laid out with respect to Venezuela under Chávez and Maduro’s rule and how it meets the textbook definition of socialism. Please let me know why I’m wrong.

Why do you focus on the socialist aspects of those regimes instead of their authoritarianism? 

Edited February 9, 2019 by David Dennison

[workswithseed 2204]

7 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Why do you focus on the socialist aspects of those regimes instead of their authoritarianism? 

Cause its a givin' that he's authoritarian either fascists or communists. That's why I don't get why Haydon says fascists when its clearly communists.

[GHOSTUSER 361]

19 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Why do you focus on the socialist aspects of those regimes instead of their authoritarianism? 

He said I don’t have the foggiest clue what socialism is. I state the facts of the expropriation of the means of production from private interests for the benefit of the masses which is the classic definition of true socialism. What am I missing?

[David Dennison 19529]

5 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

He said I don’t have the foggiest clue what socialism is. I state the facts of the expropriation of the means of production from private interests for the benefit of the masses which is the classic definition of true socialism. What am I missing?

Where does true socialism exist?

[workswithseed 2204]

On 2/4/2019 at 1:17 PM, Brisketexan said:

Pay attention to who is getting them, and what they'll be used for.

Hint: it's good if you're a miner or rancher.  It's very, very bad if you are an indigenous person living on the land the miner or rancher wants.  Just as one point of reference.

I haven't seen anything about that, but I can believe it.

[suddenly shaggy 929]

3 hours ago, David Dennison said:

How do you know?

I incorrectly paraphrased Capriles' quote, members of the opposition party think that. 

Quote

In the interview, he affirms that they considered that the action could "unleash a political confrontation (...) There was doubt within the opposition that this public act would bring the consequence (that) the government will close the National Assembly".

Edited February 9, 2019 by suddenly shaggy

[RomaVicta 30565]

2 hours ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

hpslugga why haven’t you responded to the facts I laid out with respect to Venezuela under Chávez and Maduro’s rule and how it meets the textbook definition of socialism. Please let me know why I’m wrong.

You mind explaining what you hated about my post dreading a murderous intervention in the politics of another sovereign nation? I'd like to hear your thoughts. Truly.

[bolverk 30320]

22 hours ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

so·cial·ism

/ˈsōSHəˌlizəm/

noun

1. a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.

   synonyms:

   leftism, Fabianism, syndicalism, consumer socialism, utopian socialism, welfarism; More Mr. Chávez expropriates farms and businesses, and uses oil revenue to build homes, distribute food and upgrade health care. The programs reduce poverty and make him popular. But he also saddles Venezuela with high inflation, billions in foreign debt and makes the country even more oil dependent.

2

2

This is where the application of the ideals of socialism breaks down in places like Venezuela. Chavez/Maduro have been appropriating businesses and property without regulation by the community as a whole. Instead, they've stolen assets to satisfy their own greed and to consolidate power, effectively making them authoritarian tyrants.

As someone (Brisket, I think) pointed out up thread, the use of the term "socialism" is a thin veneer when applied to Venezuela because it doesn't actually describe their economic system which is actually more akin to a mob boss stealing everything and then doling out goodies to curry favor from the masses. Instead, it's the political side of the system that has broken down and has become an authoritarian regime.

Edited February 9, 2019 by bolverk

[GHOSTUSER 361]

11 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

You mind explaining what you hated about my post dreading a murderous intervention in the politics of another sovereign nation? I'd like to hear your thoughts. Truly.

I negged your post because you’re so self-assured that the US not intervening is somehow morally superior to using our clout to bring about regime change while having no issue with our Russian and Iranian enemies shoring up support for their Venezuelan ally. It’s the same shit I’d hear with history grad students I’d interact with who’d pontificate like you with no knowledge of life other than the comfortable background they were born into where they never had to personally witness their own family being forced to flee their homeland leaving behind their property and possessions bringing just their clothes with them.

You don’t have family in Iran or Venezuela whose savings have been destroyed by runaway inflation and currency devaluation by inept, murderous regimes despite both countries sitting on the largest oil and gas reserves in the world. Millions of Venezuelans and Iranians have been forced to leave their homelands. Venezuelans are literally starving. Those that have stayed in both countries are both subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. I have a cousin who is an environmentalist in Iran who has been imprisoned for over a year and tortured on trumped charges of being a spy. I have not returned to Iran because I could be thrown into prison and held as a hostage as they have done to countless others.

Attitudes like yours is why I have never trusted Democrats when it comes to foreign policy. The Venezuelan people have been demoralized and are literally starving and President Guaidó has given them hope that a transitional government can be formed and fair and free new elections can be he’d once Maduro steps down. You have no conception of the desperation the people of Venezuela and Iran feel and their willingness to do ANYTHING to change the status quo. John Bolton and Elliot Abrams might be assholes but you, Fozz and bad teammate are the real cruel ones to ignore the suffering of the Venezuelan people by not not wanting the US to get involved so that you can feel better in a pseudo-intellectual debate at a Starbucks. Fuck all of you.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Iconoclast Texan

[Fozzz 152]

lol. 

[GHOSTUSER 361]

2 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

lol. 

Lol because you have nothing to counter what I say. I have to say I never thought we’d have a unapologetic Stalinist on this messageboard. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

2 hours ago, bolverk said:

This is where the application of the ideals of socialism breaks down in places like Venezuela. Chavez/Maduro have been appropriating businesses and property without regulation by the community as a whole. Instead, they've stolen assets to satisfy their own greed and to consolidate power, effectively making them authoritarian tyrants.

As someone (Brisket, I think) pointed out up thread, the use of the term "socialism" is a thin veneer when applied to Venezuela because it doesn't actually describe their economic system which is actually more akin to a mob boss stealing everything and then doling out goodies to curry favor from the masses. Instead, it's the political side of the system that has broken down and has become an authoritarian regime.

Exactly, that's not socialism, that's fascism and or the mafia.  The mafia is a better definition, because why they're really doing is stealing, and not trying to glorify or strengthen the actual state, unless you consider them the persona of the state.

 

My main issue with socialism in a country as large as the US is the larger a bureaucracy gets the less efficient it becomes, the less responsible it gets with others money, and the less of a return on tax dollars citizens get for those taxes taken.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Onboard 2.0

[bolverk 30320]

18 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

My main issue with socialism in a country as large as the US is the larger a bureaucracy gets the less efficient it becomes, the less responsible it gets with others money, and the less of a return on tax dollars citizens get for those taxes taken.

 

Yeah, I can maybe buy into that concept and theory about more localized control in some respects.

Unfortunately, we've never been able to fully test it because (in my opinion) there's never been a true fully socialist state that has been regulated by the community as a whole. The idea has been applied to numerous public services that the State offers for the collective good - and the frequency of use of those services varies by nation (the US on one hand and Sweden on the other, while both still retain aspects of a managed free-market economy) - but, to my knowledge, there has never been a fully, comprehensively socialist State that meets the above-italicized and underlined ideals.

[Fozzz 152]

42 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

Lol because you have nothing to counter what I say. I have to say I never thought we’d have a unapologetic Stalinist on this messageboard. 

If what you said were true Guaido would be in power now and not begging the US to invade his own country and murder his own people. 

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Just now, bolverk said:

Yeah, I can maybe buy into that concept and theory about more localized control in some respects.

Unfortunately, we've never been able to fully test it because (in my opinion) there's never been a true fully socialist state that has been regulated by the community as a whole. The idea has been applied to numerous public services that the State offers for the collective good - and the frequency of use of those services varies by nation (the US on one hand and Sweden on the other, while both still retain aspects of a managed free-market economy) - but, to my knowledge, there has never been a fully, comprehensively socialist State that meets the above-italicized and underlined ideals.

Why should there be a full test of a different form of gov't than the one a nation was founded upon ?  We have a land mass greater than all of Europe, a more diverse racial culture (with different expectations and needs form each), a completely different economic culture, and a psyche of citizens based on democratic rule.  Those are all hard things to over come, and why should we ?  It's not a coincidence that we're the last  super power and a democratic state to boot, IMO of course.

I think socialism can and does work at a local level where it benefits those in it's immediate sphere, and it can be regulated and controlled.

The central American empires of the Incas, and Aztecs were total integration socialist states I believe (other the the rulers and priests that is, which is always the case in social states (priests today being the bureaucrats ).

[Fozzz 152]

A psyche of citizens of democratic rule?  No, we have a privatized citizenry who’s engagement with politics resembles an interactive reality tv show like American Idol.  We had a citizenry conditioned for democratic rule during the new deal years. Now we are conditioned for managed or virtual democracy that has little in common with the genuine article.  

[bolverk 30320]

52 minutes ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

I negged your post because you’re so self-assured that the US not intervening is somehow morally superior to using our clout to bring about regime change while having no issue with our Russian and Iranian enemies shoring up support for their Venezuelan ally. It’s the same shit I’d hear with history grad students I’d interact with who’d pontificate like you with no knowledge of life other than the comfortable background they were born into where they never had to personally witness their own family being forced to flee their homeland leaving behind their property and possessions bringing just their clothes with them.

You don’t have family in Iran or Venezuela whose savings have been destroyed by runaway inflation and currency devaluation by inept, murderous regimes despite both countries sitting on the largest oil and gas reserves in the world. Millions of Venezuelans and Iranians have been forced to leave their homelands. Venezuelans are literally starving. Those that have stayed in both countries are both subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. I have a cousin who is an environmentalist in Iran who has been imprisoned for over a year and tortured on trumped charges of being a spy. I have not returned to Iran because I could be thrown into prison and held as a hostage as they have done to countless others.

Attitudes like yours is why I have never trusted Democrats when it comes to foreign policy. The Venezuelan people have been demoralized and are literally starving and President Guaidó has given them hope that a transitional government can be formed and fair and free new elections can be he’d once Maduro steps down. You have no conception of the desperation the people of Venezuela and Iran feel and their willingness to do ANYTHING to change the status quo. John Bolton and Elliot Abrams might be assholes but you, Fozz and bad teammate are the real cruel ones to ignore the suffering of the Venezuelan people by not not wanting the US to get involved so that you can feel better in a pseudo-intellectual debate at a Starbucks. Fuck all of you.

This is a stance that I can respect and am sympathetic to, and it's definitely worthy of respectful debate.

The real question is determining at which point outside intervention is justified. Do we have a specific metric that can determine when the US (either alone) or with partners can make the case for intervening in the internal affairs of another nation? If so, do we have a well-defined strategy for effectively ensuring success without causing further conflict among parties or distress borne on local citizens?

This gets to the question of the US being the world's cop. What are the specific circumstances that would cause the US and its allies (stated because I don't think the US should ever act unilaterally) to step into a situation that dramatically alters the future of another sovereign nation and how are they applied to Venezuela?

Given the level of debate in this thread, I'd argue that those criteria have not been conclusively proven as necessities that would warrant US action beyond what we're already doing through sanctions. If there is a solid case to be made, I'm more than willing to listen.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

17 minutes ago, Fozzz said:

A psyche of citizens of democratic rule?  No, we have a privatized citizenry who’s engagement with politics resembles an interactive reality tv show like American Idol.  We had a citizenry conditioned for democratic rule during the new deal years. Now we are conditioned for managed or virtual democracy that has little in common with the genuine article.  

The people who vote ?? yeah, they still have that psyche.  As for people who don't exercise that right I can't really say much other than they're giving up  their rights, and don't even realize it, but that's part of a free society, ya can;t force people to vote (well yeah ya can, but that's not democracy). in socialism many of your economic rights have been taken away from you because you have no choice all any more about how funds are allocated and to whom and by whom.

[bolverk 30320]

33 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Why should there be a full test of a different form of gov't than the one a nation was founded upon ?  We have a land mass greater than all of Europe, a more diverse racial culture (with different expectations and needs form each), a completely different economic culture, and a psyche of citizens based on democratic rule.  Those are all hard things to over come, and why should we ?  It's not a coincidence that we're the last  super power and a democratic state to boot, IMO of course.

I think socialism can and does work at a local level where it benefits those in it's immediate sphere, and it can be regulated and controlled.

The central American empires of the Incas, and Aztecs were total integration socialist states I believe (other the the rulers and priests that is, which is always the case in social states (priests today being the bureaucrats ).

10

I'm not trying to advocate the US turn into a socialist economic system but am only discussing the theoretical concept. Right now, I would argue that the debate should remain within the realm of theory because the system - as defined by community regulation - has never been tested in the modern world.

But, again, I'll remind you that we're talking economic theory and not political. Your question that I've underlined is based on the arguably false premise that the US was founded upon a capitalist economy as we know it today. Instead, it was essentially a mercantilist (colony) economy that later evolved through careful government management into a full-blown free-market economy. Where the essential differences between modern modern-day conservatives and liberals lie is to what degree should the government intervene in order to manage our economy.

Should we be more laissez-faire in our approach or more Keynesian? Liberals would argue that a more managed approach tends to reduce the wild swings in the market and the profits should be distributed more equitably (both of which they argue are justified on the basis of the common good and the overall social cohesion that are necessary to maintain a functioning democracy). For myself, you can put me squarely in the camp that would agree with that approach - especially when it comes to what I think should be basic human rights (e.g., education and healthcare), which I'd argue are necessary foundational conditions for a healthy, functioning modern economy and democracy.

Edited February 9, 2019 by bolverk

[Fozzz 152]

5 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

The people who vote ?? yeah, they still have that psyche.  As for people who don't exercise that right I can't really say much other than they're giving up  their rights, and don't even realize it, but that's part of a free society, ya can;t force people to vote (well yeah ya can, but that's not democracy). in socialism many of your economic rights have been taken away from you because you have no choice all any more about how funds are allocated and to whom and by whom.

People vote on American Idol, too. It doesn’t make it any more real. 

[RomaVicta 30565]

1 hour ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

I negged your post because you’re so self-assured that the US not intervening is somehow morally superior to using our clout to bring about regime change while having no issue with our Russian and Iranian enemies shoring up support for their Venezuelan ally. It’s the same shit I’d hear with history grad students I’d interact with who’d pontificate like you with no knowledge of life other than the comfortable background they were born into where they never had to personally witness their own family being forced to flee their homeland leaving behind their property and possessions bringing just their clothes with them.

You don’t have family in Iran or Venezuela whose savings have been destroyed by runaway inflation and currency devaluation by inept, murderous regimes despite both countries sitting on the largest oil and gas reserves in the world. Millions of Venezuelans and Iranians have been forced to leave their homelands. Venezuelans are literally starving. Those that have stayed in both countries are both subject to arbitrary arrest and imprisonment. I have a cousin who is an environmentalist in Iran who has been imprisoned for over a year and tortured on trumped charges of being a spy. I have not returned to Iran because I could be thrown into prison and held as a hostage as they have done to countless others.

Attitudes like yours is why I have never trusted Democrats when it comes to foreign policy. The Venezuelan people have been demoralized and are literally starving and President Guaidó has given them hope that a transitional government can be formed and fair and free new elections can be he’d once Maduro steps down. You have no conception of the desperation the people of Venezuela and Iran feel and their willingness to do ANYTHING to change the status quo. John Bolton and Elliot Abrams might be assholes but you, Fozz and bad teammate are the real cruel ones to ignore the suffering of the Venezuelan people by not not wanting the US to get involved so that you can feel better in a pseudo-intellectual debate at a Starbucks. Fuck all of you.

Laugh repped because you used all those words to to say you hate the person you imagine me to be. The entirety of your post inveighs against experiences, thoughts, habits, and snobbery not represented in my post nor could you know from the substance of any other post of mine.

Further, your post reflects self-righteous emotionalism that leads some persons to support "using our clout for regime change" which has always proven to be a euphemism for inflicting suffering and death to attain our own ends. The rubes believe it's about liberation and letting freedom reign. For them, it's always going to be WWII Paris.

I don't drink coffee often and never debate at Starbucks. By your description, you'd do well to stay away from that place because the psuedo-intellectuals would likely devour you in any intellectual contest. Hang on to your hermetically sealed righteous fervor; it will get you through the experience.

I do thank you for answering my question, and you deserve the posrep point for that.

[GHOSTUSER 361]

1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

If what you said were true Guaido would be in power now and not begging the US to invade his own country and murder his own people. 

You seem to ignore the fact that Maduro has a military behind him that has been purged of potential opponents and controlled by Cuba. That alone is why President Guaidó is not in the Presidential Palace and Maduro hasn’t fled. You have no problem with Cuba, Iran and Russia’s intervention in Venezuela resulting in the starvation of their people and rule by a tyrant that is in power through sham elections. In your fucked up worldview, the US is the bad guy here for trying to assert our influence for a better outcome for their people and our interests.

Edited February 9, 2019 by Iconoclast Texan

[GHOSTUSER 361]

15 minutes ago, RomaVicta said:

Laugh repped because you used all those words to to say you hate the person you imagine me to be. The entirety of your post inveighs against experiences, thoughts, habits, and snobbery not represented in my post nor could you know from the substance of any other post of mine.

Further, your post reflects self-righteous emotionalism that leads some persons to support "using our clout for regime change" which has always proven to be a euphemism for inflicting suffering and death to attain our own ends. The rubes believe it's about liberation and letting freedom reign. For them, it's always going to be WWII Paris.

I don't drink coffee often and never debate at Starbucks. By your description, you'd do well to stay away from that place because the psuedo-intellectuals would likely devour you in any intellectual contest. Hang on to your hermetically sealed righteous fervor; it will get you through the experience.

I do thank you for answering my question, and you deserve the posrep point for that.

Is Panama better off now versus when we came into arrest Noriega when they were a narco state?

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

People vote on American Idol, too. It doesn’t make it any more real. 

Uhhh yeah... whatever man...

[RomaVicta 30565]

1 hour ago, Iconoclast Texan said:

Is Panama better off now versus when we came into arrest Noriega when they were a narco state?

Does Panama's history begin with Noriega being deposed? I thought it started with the US creating that country by wresting it away from Colombia by military force because we wanted to build a canal there. Then we ran the place. Then we installed Noriega who created the ebil narco state.

At about the same time your heroic mission to Panama happened, US-trained death squads were roaming numerous Latin American countries. Not long before that, we colluded with murderous dictators in Argentina and Chile.

Nice try.

[GHOSTUSER 361]

This article describes the hell and desperation caused by the Iranian Revolution. It should illuminate those like Fozz and RomaVicta on why overthrowing such a regime is so difficult despite widespread dissatisfaction and highlights the cruelty of those willing to allow such conditions to continue in order them to continue to spout platitudes about dialogue and constructive engagement despite decades worth of evidence to show that such actions lead to no change in behavior by these rogue regimes. No one disputed that apartheid South African government had to go. Why are the Venezuelan people not worthy of such liberation from their own tyranny?

 

Iran Needs a New Revolution

Iranians are still suffering 40 years after the last one.

Eli LakeFebruary 9, 2019, 1:00 AM EST

He just told people what they wanted to hear.

Photographer: AFP/AFP

Bloomberg Opinion is marking the 40th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution with a collection of columns from around the world. 

Four decades ago, in the months leading up to the Islamic Revolution in Iran, the exiled Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini made many promises. He spoke about respecting the rights of minorities, democracy and equality for women.

 

Western intellectuals like the late French philosopher Michel Foucault praisedKhomeini’s vision. In Iran, liberals and communists were happy to join with his followers to topple the corrupt regime of the shah. The charismatic Khomeini was saying what they wanted to hear.

Or, to put it another way: He was lying. Khomeini “was not locked into everything he had said” then, according to Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the country’s first president after the revolution. Speaking in an interview this month, the former president said that Khomeini described the promises he made before he came to power as “convenient.” 

That’s putting it mildly. Soon after declaring himself supreme leader, Khomeini abandoned almost all of his public pledges. In his 2016 book “Democracy in Iran: Why it Failed and How it Might Succeed,” the professor Misagh Parsa describes the post-revolution government of Khomeini as “an exclusive state” that “rejected the promise of democracy.” 

 

The clerics and their enablers had a lot of work to do. They banned alcohol, and popular music on radio and television, and taking your dog for a walk in the park. They also launched a campaign of public cruelty, promulgating decrees to punish adulterers and other criminals with lashes and stoning. In 1988, there were mass executions of as many as 40,000 enemies of the state. Between 1979 and 2009 the regime arrested, imprisoned or killed at least 860 journalists, according to Reporters Without Borders. 

To this day, state television broadcasts coerced confessions. It was just last summer that Maedeh Hojabri, a teenaged gymnast, confessed to the crime of posting videos of herself on Instagram dancing without the required hijab.

The cruelty extends to Iranians living abroad. The regime has been known to send assassins to Europe to murder opposition leaders; former Prime Minister Shapour Bakhtiar, who briefly led a reformist government in the last months of the shah’s regime, was stabbed multiple times the chest in his Paris apartment in 1991. Just last week, Iran’s justice minister announced he would begin prosecuting the U.S.-based journalist and activist Masih Alinejad after she met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. She, too, stands accused of encouraging Iranian women to share videos of themselves taking off their hijab.

 

Meanwhile, as the state built by Khomeini is persecuting its citizens, it is enriching its leaders. In this regard the Islamic Republic today is not very different than the corrupt regime it replaced 40 years ago. The army’s Revolutionary Guard, for example, also functions as a kind of criminal syndicate, controlling large chunks of the country’s economy. The current supreme leader and Khomeini’s successor operates a slush fund worth tens of billions of dollars, according to a 2013 Reuters investigation, built in part on assets the state seized from Iranian citizens.

Many Iranians now realize that their leaders are corrupt and inept. Nationwide protests and strikes began in December 2017 and continue. Ordinary Iranians, at great personal risk, frequently register their dissatisfaction with their rulers in marches, with graffiti and on anonymous social media accounts. Iranians abroad, exiled by choice or by necessity, are beginning to plan for what comes next. Some dissidents are calling for a national referendum on the powers of the supreme leader.

No serious person believes Iran is a democracy. And yet it is still possible to hear, in some quarters of Brussels and Washington, pleasant nonsense about the contest of ideas between Iran’s moderates and hardliners. Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, still sits for fawning interviews and pretends to be the envoy of a free country. 

 

It’s a con that goes back 40 years. On Feb. 16, 1979, the New York Times published a column by a professor of international law at Princeton. The depiction of Khomeini “as fanatical, reactionary and the bearer of crude prejudices,” he wrote, “seems certainly and happily false.” That op-ed was aptly titled, “Trusting Khomeini.”

Too many Western leaders continue to trust Khomeini’s successors. Even now, the European Union and former Secretary of State John Kerry are working to save the 2015 deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program. They believe the Iranian regime’s promise not to build a weapon when much of the agreement expires in less than 15 years. 

The good news is that millions of Iranians no longer believe anything this regime says. They have endured the terror, deprivation and cruelty unleashed by the Islamic Revolution 40 years ago. The least Americans and Europeans can do is defend and support them and their struggle for a democratic revolution.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Eli Lake at elake1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.net

Edited February 9, 2019 by Iconoclast Texan