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Posted
  On 2/9/2019 at 4:55 PM, Iconoclast Texan said:

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

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Why not focus on a more recent example like Haiti, where literal rivers of shit flow down the streets of Port au Prince while Martelly  jokes about the country being a latrine?

Posted
  On 2/9/2019 at 7:08 PM, Iconoclast Texan said:

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?

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When did we invade South Africa?

Posted

The Republicans in Congress are insisting that military authorization be included in the new legislation they are trying to pass.  

Sanctions rarely work to implode a government, so they will likely need to intervene militarily openly or covertly via weapons/training.  Seeing how it is unlikely that Congress will sanction open military intervention, they may look to support some force in the region. However, unlike Syria where we could use a group like ISIS for this purpose, I’m not sure what force they could work with here. 

Posted
  On 2/10/2019 at 3:33 AM, Fozzz said:

The Republicans in Congress are insisting that military authorization be included in the new legislation they are trying to pass.  

Sanctions rarely work to implode a government, so they will likely need to intervene militarily openly or covertly via weapons/training.  Seeing how it is unlikely that Congress will sanction open military intervention, they may look to support some force in the region. However, unlike Syria where we could use a group like ISIS for this purpose, I’m not sure what force they could work with here. 

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Forever war continues!!!

Posted

Venezuela is a great example of why everyone should be leery of Gov solving anything...and why you never give up your guns.

That said, I don't think we should intervene with any military activity.

  • Fuck You 1
Posted (edited)
  On 2/8/2019 at 5:52 PM, Iconoclast Texan said:

So Chávez and Maduro didn’t expropriate the means of production from private hands for the benefit of the masses? 

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This is why I say that people such as yourself haven't the foggiest idea what socialism is: it's because you really do not know what it is.

The definition you posted is curiously vague, and even with its simplicity, you still failed horribly to comprehend it. It clearly states "the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole." From those last five words, you read that as "Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro," two individuals in a state of 31 million people. That's as irresponsible, not to mention rectally derived, as it is when right-wingers in the US say "Donald Trump speaks for all Americans."

Yeah, so they undertook a few expropriations here and there. That doesn't change the fact that, as an AP article from 2010 pointed out, "the private sector still controls [over] two-thirds of Venezuela's economy— the same as when Chavez was elected in 1998, according to estimates by the Central Bank." The same types of studies conclude that around 87% of the US economy is in the private sector. More on that later.

Back to the definition(s) of socialism. When looking at any term in search of its meaning, you do what any sensible person does and trace its origins. I'm about 95-99% sure that you're one of those people that associates its foundation with Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx, neither of which are even remotely close to true.

Socialism's foundation was best articulated in 1649 with the publishing of a pamphlet entitled The New Laws of Righteousness by Gerrard Winstanley, one of the founders of The Diggers, which was an anarchist movement in England during its First Civil War. The overarching principle of the Diggers' vision of society in New Laws was that there "shall be no buying or selling, no fairs nor markets, but the whole earth shall be a common treasury for every man." Here's where you need to start paying attention: "there shall be none Lord over others, but every one shall be a Lord of himself." 

That's a call to anarchism.

Taxonomically, the first published uses of the term "socialism" came with a flurry of literatures in the late 18th-early 19th centuries (Charles Fourier, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Louis Blanc, Henri de Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, and a host of others that Marx/Engels decried as "utopians"), but they were all based on the ideas that New Laws put forth. The point being, Engels and Marx are correctly viewed within the socialist community as being a couple of perverted johnny-come-latelys with outlandish ideas. In fact, Mikhail Bakunin once wrote of Marx "the instinct of liberty is lacking in him" and that "he remains from head to foot, an authoritarian." 

So let's take Winstanley's concept, fuse it with the one you posted, and see if we can detect even the slightest hint of contradiction:

"There shall be no buying or selling, no fairs nor markets, but the whole earth shall be a common treasury for every man, the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole, there shall be none Lord over others, but every one shall be a Lord of himself."

I see no contradiction there...at all. In fact, I see repetition. Those two definitions are talking about the same thing, which was actually best articulated by Sylvain Maréchal when he longed for "the communal enjoyment of the fruits of the earth" and the elimination of "the revolting distinction of rich and poor, of great and small, of masters and valets, of governors and governed," and so it goes right through the pre-Leninist period. In fact, even Marx' writings made it clear that the societal order he envisioned was one of statelessness at the very end of the revolution. Yet from that one definition you posted, let alone from the ones with which I've been familiar for quite a long time, you read the exact opposite. What's particularly comical is that you do it because you read into that definition things that it does not say, and then you didn't read what it did say. So you read in between the lines, but didn't bother to read the lines.

Socialism and statism are like oil and water. That having been said, states have introduced ways to incorporate socialist elements in them, to be sure. But to call that "socialism" or even "pure socialism," as I've seen some right-wingers screaming about, is just partisan masturbation and you're beyond reason if you think it passes as a "coherent world view." 

Furthermore, the US is one of those nation states that incorporates socialist elements. The USPS, Medicare, Medicaid, the military, Social Security, etc? Who do you think funds those? We do. 

I'm going to close this with a trump card that I teased earlier: 

Venezuela's economy is around 70% based on its private sector. You call that "socialism."
The US economy is around 87% based on its private sector. You call that "capitalism."

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That is a textbook definition of socialism as witnessed above. 

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Except it's not, you've been absolutely wrong about absolutely everything you've said about this issue in general, and what @hayden_horn said earlier is absolutely correct: what's happening in Venezuela is fascism, and it's getting uglier with each passing day.

Edited by hpslugga
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Posted
  On 2/10/2019 at 9:01 PM, LowPressure said:

Venezuela is a great example of why everyone should be leery of Gov solving anything...and why you never give up your guns.

That said, I don't think we should intervene with any military activity.

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Is it even worth pointing out that there are plenty of examples of government solving lots of things?

Posted (edited)
  On 2/10/2019 at 10:55 PM, David Dennison said:

Everyone? Are you sure?

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Again it wouldn’t even matter if he could prove that stupid cartoon was 100% accurate as Venezuela isn’t a socialist state in the first place. Starting with the premise of “given that Venezuela is a socialist state” is like saying “given that the moon is made of green cheese.” I suppose that sentences like those provide a mechanism towards some sort of measure of physical and/or emotional gratification to the person uttering them, but they never end well in terms of actual discourse. 

Edited by hpslugga
Posted (edited)
  On 2/11/2019 at 8:53 AM, workswithseed said:

 So are we saying socialism and fascism can be in the same boat?

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They absolutely can be.  Our perception of fascism being only far right is misguided IMO. 

Fascism is unique because it takes ideas from the left like revolution/radical change and marries them to the extreme nationalist authoritarian style of governing found mostly on the right.

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
Posted

Not that the necons itt care about what Venezuelans think, but...

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A study conducted by the polling firm Hinterlaces between January 21 and February 2, 2019, revealed that 57% of respondents consider that the government of the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is legitimate.

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http://globovision.com/article/hinterlaces-57-reconoce-legitimidad-del-presidente-nicolas-maduro

Posted (edited)
  On 2/11/2019 at 12:56 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

They absolutely can be.  Our perception of fascism being only far right is misguided IMO. 

Fascism is unique because it takes ideas from the left like revolution/radical change and marries them to the extreme nationalist authoritarian style of governing found mostly on the right. 

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You're doing great until the last part.  I don't agree that the right is authoritarian.   Sure there are Big Gov Republicans (RINOS) but I'd say most agree with Mark Levin, that there is only Freedom & Tyranny

If you look at what the two parties want...which side has everything that must be enforced and implemented by Gov?  Which side is creating programs with endless regulations, fees, and taxes? 

For all the talk of Trump doing this or that...what oppression has Trump put on anyone?

There are only two areas I can think of...

Immigration, which is long existing law on our books.  Laws that even when Dems had full control of the Gov they didn't change.  And frankly almost all of them have said that illegal immigration needs to be addressed and fixed at some point, including Schumer, Obama, both Clintons, and even Nancy.

Abortion, which most people on the Right view as murder and the Left view as 'choice'.  OF course the left doesn't want to acknowledge that there are choices before that could be changed that negate the need for abortion all together.   

Edited by LowPressure
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Posted
  On 2/11/2019 at 3:08 PM, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Nothing says “Not Authoritarian” like holding the taxpayers hostage over a 2000 mile 30ft concrete border wall.

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A.  It's been approved multiple times but never funded.

B. It's a national security issue, a task that the Federal Gov is Constitutionally charged with carrying out.

C. As the Dems are proving by not coming back to the table after Trump reopened the Gov...it's not 100% on him.

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Posted
  On 2/11/2019 at 3:28 PM, LowPressure said:

A.  It's been approved multiple times but never funded.

B. It's a national security issue, a task that the Federal Gov is Constitutionally charged with carrying out.

C. As the Dems are proving by not coming back to the table after Trump reopened the Gov...it's not 100% on him.

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He turned down $25 billion in funding in January of last year. It's 100% on him.

Posted
  On 2/11/2019 at 8:53 AM, workswithseed said:

Doesn't look good then. So are we saying socialism and fascism can be in the same boat? Cause that's what it exactly looks like.

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What I'm saying is that, particularly in the United States, our level of understanding of politics is at a level of superficiality that's very hard to describe. We operate in a way that encourages people to assert inanities like "the reason Adolph Hitler was a socialist was that the Nazi flag was red." 

I can't believe I'm going to quote this character of all people to prove a point here, but it really sums it up perfectly: "If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it fucking so!" The same applies to political affairs. Just because some person says that they're a socialist, fascist, anarchist, conservative, liberal, et al don't necessarily make it fucking so. The same is true for when some government says some other government is one or another of those things, in fact even more so because there's a 100% degree of certainty that such proclamations are made with self-interest and only with self-interest.

 

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Posted
  On 2/12/2019 at 4:04 AM, bad_teammate said:

I, too, go to Funker530 in order to get my authentic Venezuelan intimidation videos.

Fucking idiot.

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Bad, you leave your sense of humor out in the satchel on your Vespa?

Lighten up Francois.

Posted (edited)

Welp, I guess that settles it.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov warned U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo against any interference, including military, into Venezuela’s internal affairs, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement following a phone call between the two. 

Lavrov said that Russia was ready for consultations about Venezuela in line with the United Nations charter. 

Lavrov also criticized plans to tighten U.S. sanctions against Russia over the poisoning of ex-spy Sergei Skripal in England, saying new sanctions would hurt bilateral ties, the statement said.

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
Posted
  On 2/11/2019 at 6:40 PM, hpslugga said:
What I'm saying is that, particularly in the United States, our level of understanding of politics is at a level of superficiality that's very hard to describe. We operate in a way that encourages people to assert inanities like "the reason Adolph Hitler was a socialist was that the Nazi flag was red." 
I can't believe I'm going to quote this character of all people to prove a point here, but it really sums it up perfectly: "If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it fucking so!" The same applies to political affairs. Just because some person says that they're a socialist, fascist, anarchist, conservative, liberal, et al don't necessarily make it fucking so. The same is true for when some government says some other government is one or another of those things, in fact even more so because there's a 100% degree of certainty that such proclamations are made with self-interest and only with self-interest.
 

You mean the soviets werent socialists? And the Norks are not in a Democratic Republic?
Posted (edited)
  On 2/11/2019 at 12:21 AM, bad_teammate said:

 

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Fuck this loser spreading lies. 80% of Venezuelans want Maduro to be deposed. Handsoff Venezuela means support for mass starvation and an abdication of our role as a superpower. Read it right here in the NYTimes from someone in Venezuela.

More than 80 percent of Venezuelans want Mr. Maduro to resign.

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Edited by Iconoclast Texan
Posted

Love that y’all are trumpeting Ilhan Omar, a rabid anti-Semite who I’d have under constant surveillance if I was President. China is hedging their bets and have already reached out to President Guaidó about protecting their investments in Venezuela after Maduro is deposed. When China is acting this way that has to mean the Cahavez/Maduro reign of terror is about to end. I hope Maduro is as full of hubris as he seems and is not making plans to flee. I want him dead and so do the Venezuelan people. The catharsis and joy the people will feel when they see his dead body will be off the chain. Long live President Guaidó!

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Posted

After Venezuela is liberated, I can’t wait to see what Bolton and Abrams have in store for Iran. Having Maduro’s government toppled will be a significant foreign policy victory for Trump. 

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Posted
  On 2/13/2019 at 8:12 PM, Iconoclast Texan said:

After Venezuela is liberated, I can’t wait to see what Bolton and Abrams have in store for Iran. Having Maduro’s government toppled will be a significant foreign policy victory for Trump. 

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The sanctions in Iran are having the exact opposite effect. It's only helping the hard liners. And we'll never send troops there, so I have no idea what you think they have in store.

 



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