Flanker,
yes, things are looking worrisome on this front. The attack on the Ultimas Noticias reporters was disgusting.
Even worse though was the various pro-Chavez media resorting to all sorts of absurd justifications of the violence.
The we have the video of the roof top stone and brick throwing (which easily could have killed someone).
This is starting to look like a pattern sad to say.
People need to be able to peacefully assemble and protest. Its the governments repsonsibility to make sure that they aren't attacked by thugs and if they are attacked the police need to do something quickly.
People need to be able to peacefully assemble and protest. Its the governments repsonsibility to make sure that they aren't attacked by thugs and if they are attacked the police need to do something quickly.
OW, nice sentiments--from a guy living in a country that murders hundreds of thousands of people in a typical decade.
Creating destablization through "peaceful" protests has always been the game-plan, and we know what happened before the coup.
And we all know *(anyone that is honest and doesn't have amnesia) that the US is working hand-in-hand with Venezuela's rightwing opposition to destablize the nation.
No, you hypocritical stoodges, the Venezuelan government isn't 0utlawing protests, even though drama-queen OW will go to great lenghts to shimmy up to the pro-imperialist/capitalist Venezulean opposition to show that he is, indeed, 'his own man' (lol).
OW, when you militate and engage to bring the criminals that run your own imperial system (that serves you quite well, economically) to some semblence of justice, your hollow and hypocritical fear-mongering about Venezuela becoming a totalitarian state might have a degree of resonance.
That you support class domination, undemocratic control over the flow of information, ect. is a given--but that you are so hypocritical and selective with your missives (e.g., completely silent on the US backed coup in Honduras) is simply pathetic.
Venezuela is under attack from your government, doesn't that have any bearing as to what types of strategies and laws are engaged to thwart such an effort on the part of the Venezuelan government?
If Venezuela were to follow your weak-kneed advice, the country would be once again under the thrall of the neoliberal, imperial world order.
Look no further than Iraq. Are you down with that now? That you seek to ingratiate yourself with proven liars and censors (Quico and Daniel) speaks volumns.
"OW, nice sentiments--from a guy living in a country that murders hundreds of thousands of people in a typical decade."
SR, and you live in what country.....
"Creating destablization through "peaceful" protests has always been the game-plan, and we know what happened before the coup."
I see, so people aren't supposed to be able to express their beliefs, protest, demonstrate, etc. etc. etc. because SR thinks it might destabalize the government!!!!
Well, at least you are giving your true sentiments, as anti-democratic as they may be. Would you be ok if the country YOU lived in restricted peoples rights to protest or allowed protesters to be attacked with some regularity without seeming to do much to stop it?
"And we all know *(anyone that is honest and doesn't have amnesia) that the US is working hand-in-hand with Venezuela's rightwing opposition to destablize the nation."
I wouldn't be surprised if the U.S. is doing just that, it certainly does do things like that all the time. Then again, maybe they realize they don't need to in the case of Venezuela. The Chavez administration through its own mismanagement of its economy is likely doing far more to undermine itself and any foreign government could ever do to it.
"That you support class domination"
This assertion is based on what???
"undemocratic control over the flow of information"
Total BS. I wrote a number of posts on how the media could be democratically controlled. I oppose it being dominated by rich individuals as well as it being dominated by the government. You seem to have no problem with at least one of those two undemocratic systems.
"Venezuela is under attack from your government"
My government? Isn't it "your" government as well? Regardless, no I will not support any government denying citizens basic rights on the flimsy premise that it is "under attack". Your government could easily do the same to you. Wonder if you'd be so accepting of that.
"If Venezuela were to follow your weak-kneed advice, the country would be once again under the thrall of the neoliberal, imperial world order."
I don't know, I think if they had followed some of the advice that others have given they might not have an economy that was in a recession now, unemployment might not be going up, and manufacturing might not be be in a steep decline. Creating an economic decline, as the policies of the Chavez government look virtually certain to do, is probably the best thing the enemies of Chavez could hope for.
"Look no further than Iraq. Are you down with that now?"
Huh, what in the world is the point of this? Do you think Saddam was too democratic and that is what got him into trouble?!?!?!?!?!?!?
To sum up, I do think that if the Chavez led movement was more internally democratic and didn't have a cult of personality it would be much stronger; if the media were truly controlled democratically rather than by private intere
continued...
To sum up, I do think that if the Chavez led movement was more internally democratic and didn't have a cult of personality, it would be much stronger; if the media were truly controlled democratically rather than by private interests or the State, Venezuelan democracy would be much stronger; and if the Chavez government followed saner and more coherent economic policies the Chavez led movement would be stronger and more sustainable over time.
Lets just hope it doesn't go down the path some other erstwhile leftists have gone down of scapegoating their own failures on others and then resorting to repression to prevent those shortcomings ever being challenged and changed.
They backed down on one case, but the other still stands.
"Creating destablization through "peaceful" protests has always been the game-plan, and we know what happened before the coup."
Any government that can be toppled through peaceful protests deserves to fall, Chavez has been subject to quite literally 300 protests and he did not fall, their only excuse has been to protect Miraflores from mobs, and now that has extended to the AN and almost every other major institution.
Lets just hope it doesn't go down the path some other erstwhile leftists have gone down of scapegoating their own failures on others and then resorting to repression to prevent those shortcomings ever being challenged and changed.
ow | Homepage | 08.31.09 - 8:27 pm | #
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ow, we are always a step ahead of you. You always end your comments with a "let's hope" statement that is rhetorical, since there is no way in Chavez's world that it is possible. This falls under that category.
I commend you and Flanker for, finally, start seeing the light. My only piece of advise would be not to give the benefit of the doubt to this revolution that is corrupt to the core.
Something big is coming up: I just do not see this government hanging on to power for much longer without totally showing its true colors. We'll see.
Lets just hope it doesn't go down the path some other erstwhile leftists have gone down of scapegoating their own failures on others and then resorting to repression to prevent those shortcomings ever being challenged and changed.
ow | Homepage | 08.31.09 - 8:27 pm | #
Too late.
That is exactly what Chavez is doing.
Props for even taking the time to respond to SR.. hes a looney.
What is incredible is that you Chavez haters ignore that the Venezuelan rightwing is aligning with the major terrorist organiAtion on earth..
Ow, you ignore amble and incessant political oppression here in the US.
And why not a peep about US support of the Honduran dictatorship? Your outrage and ire is hypocritical and selective.
Dan Burnett's chavismo probably began not because of his venezuelan wife, but because of the hate he feels towards his own country. He must have thought that if Chavez was anti-whatever-the-U.S.-stands-for, then he must be good.
Burnett had been warned about Chavez's real intentions since pretty much the first day he posted his chavista crap on this blog. He didn't listen. He preferred to just parrot whatever came from Aporrea (grassroot activists, yeah right) or VenezuelAnalysis (independent my foot), dismissing any opposition point of view as coming from the 'rich-white-oligarchs' that didn't want to give the 'indigenous venezuelans' a chance. I mean, just look at his blogroll links at the right side of this blog.
I don't know how people are willing to just whitewash all these years of him posting chavista propaganda as gospel. He has somewhat backpedalled from his radical chavista position (though he prefers to write on the economy rather than chavista fascism), but he is yet to do the same from his pro-terrorists, 'freedom-fighters' remarks on Iraq. Until then, he will remain a leftopath in my book.
Any government that can be toppled through peaceful protests deserves to fall,
Flanker | 08.31.09 - 9:59 pm | #
The government has a responsibility to strive for an environment in which it can function and get to solving the problems of the nation and the people. The Government of Venezuela has a right and duty to do whatever is necessary to protect the state and people. They aren't obligated to wait until things are too out of hand. to protect government installations including the presidential palace, from being stormed would seem to be quite minimal and not a unique and purely Venezuelan notion.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the US has murdered a few million people in recent years and intervened militarily in several countries. The US has thousands of troops and serious military technology in the neighboring Dutch islands and in Colombia (and who knows where else?) These are aimed at who and what?Secessionists are governing strategic states. US allies have tumbled the government of Honduras.
no I will not support any government denying citizens basic rights on the flimsy premise that it is "under attack".
ow | Homepage | 08.31.09 - 8:25 pm | #
So much for Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt...
"ecessionists are governing strategic states. "
Eugene,
Your sheer ignorance about Venezuela was particularly demonstrated with this sentence.
I suppose you are one of those gringos who believe haggis are wee animals
Wikipedia
"A frequent tale is that a "Haggis" is a small Scottish animal with one set of legs longer than the other so that it can stand on the steep Scottish Highlands without falling over. According to one poll, 33% of American visitors to Scotland believe haggis to be an animal"
http://
www.democraticunderground...dress=405x16270
"Venezuelan Government: Separatist Opposition Uses Paramilitaries for Social Cleansing, Destabilization
June 15th 2009, by James Suggett - Venezuelanalysis.com
Paramilitary troops on Venezuela's border (YVKE archive)
Mérida, June 15th 2009 (Venezuelanalysis.com) -- Venezuelan Minister for Justice and Internal Affairs, Tarek El-Aissami, accused the governors of opposition-controlled states along the Colombian border of permitting bands of Colombian paramilitary troops to destabilize the region and carry out a wave of "social cleansing" murders in recent months.
Speaking from the southwestern border state of Táchira last weekend, El-Aissami said the paramilitaries include members of state police forces and have contributed to a more than 43% increase in Táchira's crime rate. Governor Cesar Perez, his chief of staff, and the regional director of Perez's political party COPEI, plan to use the paramilitaries to launch a violent separatist movement, said El-Aissami.
"We are not going to permit the fascist right wing, headed by a fascist governor, to pretend to separate Táchira from the national territory," El Aissami declared. "We alert the country to this secessionist plan of the state governor and his veiled intention to create paramilitary groups."
In the past two months, pamphlets were distributed in dozens of communities across western Venezuela threatening to assassinate sex workers, transvestites, homeless people, drug consumers and traffickers, gang members and alleged thieves. Local newspapers in the states of Táchira, Mérida, and Zulia reprinted the pamphlets, which advised parents to keep their children in their homes after dark to avoid being killed during "the hour of social cleansing."
Many of the pamphlets were signed by the paramilitary group known as the Black Eagles (Aguilas Negras). The Black Eagles are presumed to be a splinter group of the now dissolved United Self-Defenses of Colombia (AUC), a conglomeration of paramilitary groups formed in the 1990s to fight Colombian guerrilla rebels on behalf of large estate owners, cattle ranchers, and right-wing politicians using cash earned mostly from drug trafficking.
In three municipalities in Zulia state, local residents attribute a dozen murders over the past two months to paramilitary groups, according to the regional Panorama newspaper.
"They arrived armed to the teeth commando-style and they put us up against the wall to search us. They said that if they saw us talking on the corner again, they were going to kill us," a teenager in Zulia state recounted of his experience with the paramilitaries last month.
In late April, pamphlets also circulated in three municipalities in Mérida, and shortly afterward a transvestite sex worker was brutally murdered. Friends of the victim reported that men approached them on the street and attributed the crime to param
"They arrived armed to the teeth commando-style and they put us up against the wall to search us. They said that if they saw us talking on the corner again, they were going to kill us," a teenager in Zulia state recounted of his experience with the paramilitaries last month.
In late April, pamphlets also circulated in three municipalities in Mérida, and shortly afterward a transvestite sex worker was brutally murdered. Friends of the victim reported that men approached them on the street and attributed the crime to paramilitaries and threatened to kill more transvestites working on the streets at night.
Venezuela's national Criminal, Scientific, and Penal Investigations Unit (CICPC) and national intelligence officials have opened investigations into the pamphlets and the murders.
On Sunday President Hugo Chávez called on ordinary Venezuelans to employ "popular intelligence" to assist in the fight against paramilitary infiltration. "We must organize the people, it's not only a job for our comrades in the armed forces," he said.
Chávez threatened to bring Governor Perez to trial for treason, citing alleged intelligence documents that reveal a burgeoning "nest of paramilitaries" that plan to assassinate Chávez and promote secession in the opposition-controlled border region.
Last year, Zulia state legislators approved a feasibility study for autonomy and compared their efforts to the violent, U.S.-backed secessionist movement in eastern Bolivia. Earlier this year, the secessionist rhetoric of opposition officials in Táchira and Zulia intensified after the National Assembly approved the transfer of authority over transportation hubs from the states to the national government.
Chávez also said the paramilitary activity in Venezuela is an attempt to "re-create the phenomenon of the Colombian paramilitaries." Members of Venezuela's substantial Colombian immigrant community report that the language of the pamphlets is identical to the pamphlets distributed in urban and rural Colombia last year.
Chávez had previously denounced the presence of Colombian paramilitary groups operating in Venezuela with United States government support in early 2008. Venezuelan authorities have captured more than 160 paramilitaries in the outskirts of Caracas on separate occasions in 2004 and early 2009. Investigations revealed the armed groups were engaged in the infiltration of poor neighborhoods and planning a coup d'etat. Since an agrarian land reform law was passed by the Chávez administration in 2001, paramilitaries have murdered as many as 214 rural community activists, according to the Ezequiel Zamora National Farmers Front. "
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/...s.com/news/
4521
I suppose you are one of those gringos who believe haggis are wee animals
Kepler | Homepage | 09.01.09 - 6:38 pm | #
And I suppose you are a dirtbag who has sold his country.
We have a similar sort of thing happening in several US states. Most of these states recieve more from the federal government than the federal taxes they pay. Looks like they want to duck out of the bills coming due for the wars they have cherished and largely foisted upon the whole country.
This movement is also largely fueled by folks who just cannot accept governance by a party they see as pro-black and now is actually led by a black person. It's an ideological cousin of the Venezuelan oppos.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?i...5,87.890625&
z=3
Yes, Eugene. You would probably believe in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were you not a Jew.
What else? 11 of September?
Mankind has never been to the Moon?
What else?
I was a Jew. Judaism is a religion that I do not adhere to but was born into. After decades I've figured it out.
The protocols of the elders of zion came fromsomewhere I don't know where. Whild to some extent history seems to confirm parts of it I do not believe that the overall path of world history is determined by any conspiracy. I do believe that events are often the results of conspiracies. Whatever version of the 9/11 events you accept you are accepting the idea that a conspiracy took place that resulted in the fall of several skyscraper buildings, crashing of several airplanes and attack on an undefended and unprepared Pentagon and the deaths of several thousands of people. The dispute is over who the conspirators were.
You claim to uphold science. Check out the website of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.
http://www.ae911truth.org/
Also Pilots for 9/11 Truth.
http://pilotsfor911truth.org/
Eugene,
Are you still dicking with that 9-11 inside-job crap? For a while I though you were going to get you sanity back (not sure if you were ever sane), but these last few comments show me that you are as loony as ever.
Still, I prefer you to the other lefties that post stuff in here.
When are you moving to Venezuela? I'd like to see your transformation once you hit paradise.
Mankind has never been to the Moon?
Kepler | Homepage | 09.01.09 - 7:26 pm | #
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Back in the 60's the US was able to multi task because it was a rich creditor nation. It could wage the very massive and expensive criminal Vietnam War, launch major social programs like Medicaid and Medicare, maintain its Social Security system and initiate manned space flight including the first steps of moon exploration. All at the same time.
Given how things have gone since then I can see how some people think that all that was impossible but actually that was the way things were. Now the US cannot actually duplicate the equivalence of any one of these things.
When are you moving to Venezuela? I'd like to see your transformation once you hit paradise.
Impartial | 09.01.09 - 7:47 pm | #
Probably in a couple of years God willing. I know Venezuela is not and never has been paradise. I know that the government of Venezuela is not and never has been perfect. It does seem however to be the best government that can exist in Venezuela's reality of now. I don't expect to be advising it or the Venezuelan people on how they ought to solve their problems. I hope to spend lots of time in a hammock, fishing, swimming, gardening and maybe some part time job.
I hope to spend lots of time in a hammock, fishing, swimming, gardening and maybe some part time job.
Eugene | Homepage | 09.01.09 - 7:56 pm | #
I suggest you drive a non-official cab. I've heard it's one of the safest, most rewarding professions nowadays in Venezuela.
Los tres chiflados se quedaron pendejos...
I suggest you drive a non-official cab. I've heard it's one of the safest, most rewarding professions nowadays in Venezuela.
Well, if I could do that a few hours a week it might be fun. And why don't you give it a spin? Maybe I'll meet up with you on the road.
Los tres chiflados se quedaron pendejos...
Are yopu talking about the Three Stooges? Those were some very funny guys...
Eugene:
Your stacking together of an heterogenous group of people known as "the opposition" under a right-wing, racist label is insulting and demonstrative of your intellectual laziness. If you can't understand that anybody criticizing the government is not automatically in bed with rich, white american jews, it's because you're so full of hatred you need to bundle up people in your fantastic, delirious, scapegoat category and wish they would all bowl over to whatever Chávez says or be destroyed.
Your way of thinking completely illustrates all that is utterly wrong with politics in Venezuela. You and fascists like Ricardo Koesling, who argue black people are stupid and follow Chávez just because of the money he throws them; both of you are the same: limited people, incapable of seeing differences and understanding other people and so short-sighted and full of yourself you'll never say your wrong no matter what.
You idiots are the reason we're in a low-scale, 21st century civil war, you retards wouldn't hesitate to shoot or throw rocks at "the enemy" just because he's different.
Well, there is a low intensity war directed at the Venezuelan people on the part of the terrorist empire and it's supporters. What are the Colombian bases for?
Why shouldn't traitors that pine for their beloved empire's blood-soaked, necrophilic attentions and undemocratic intervention be rebuked?
What OW and other pro-capitalists engage is a willful denial of context (as is evident with the statement that the empire 'might' be in Venezuela plotting the destruction of democratic constitutional order).
Again, OW is thouroughly on the side of empire as is evident by his constant and telling silences. His country is a rouge state that frequently engages terrorism to determine outcomes. Now it is developing bases in Colombia to eventually attack Venezuela and other socialist-inclined governments in the region. Not a peep about is ominous development from OW.
I faced reality when I saw how OW obseqiously tried to sidel up to pro-imperialist blogers whose habit is gross propaganda, love of the empire, and apologetics for it's on-going and unpunished crimes.
What animates OW is a deep suspicion of any anti-capitalist project that might challenge his. Las and race privelidge. Why else align with documented racist that would support a military attack on the Venezuelan people.
People are incidental--it is the dieased and corrupt capitalist world order that must be protected.
Venezuelan shouldn't fight or resist the low-intensity war waged by the empire and it's comprador allies--to resist means that it is guilty of totalitarianism and fewer we to be overthrown. Similarly, to impinge on the rights of the oligarchy to dissiminate lies in order to destabilize the government proves that the government is dictatorial and against free speech.
Here in the US we have thousands of political prisoners; torture is pat and parcel the 'security' apparatus; thousands die for lack of medical care; and to dissent means losing everything and becoming homeless.
But OW doesn't bother to dwell on these mundane issues--not when there are disobedient client states that need to be brought into line--like Cuba and Venezuela (mission accomplished in Honduras).
Come on, OW, your actions and silences speak volumes-- and Quick and Daniel will never welcome you into there bosoms after you questioned the US terror project (in a moment of impolitic angst?) in Iraq.
Vinz - be honest for once. The opposition which gets all the TV coverage IS the white racist, undemocratic, lying, inbred, acomplejado, hates the chusma, feels superior, "better educated", loves the US Madrid and Bogotá opositores so Eugene is quite right to mention them as he wishes.
However, this is the media opposition. The real opposition are the voters who are waiting to vote against Chavez every chance they get. They do not get interviewed. The media here serves to cause dismay and freak people out with hysterical rantings so much loved by Fox news and whose style is carefully followed by Globo.
In my view a violent armed revolution would have been better for all of us. At least we would have a peaceful existence right now and the people who organized the coup in 2002 and the oil industry sabotage in 2002-2003 would be dead and buried.
And any democratic and patriotic opposition would not be supporting leadership that takes money and operates in tandum with a terror empire that wants to destroy the constitutional governmnt and the nascnt socialist project.
History shows us that independent nationalism is the real threat to empires--as is authentic grass roots, democratic mobilization.
This last point isn't even subject to debate--it is undeniable fact.
Ow, I put a couple of ideas for Venezuela's agriculture here
http://venezuela-
europa.blogspot...griculture.html
There will be more and I will be writing the same stuff in Spanish. If you know of someone who knows about agriculture and knows the situation of Venezuela, tell her ideas are welcome.
Once Hugo is in prison there will be a lot of work to do and we need to be planning now.
Leper, there will be no prison to Chavez and empire facilitated puppeteering in Venezuela. By there could be US supported deathsquads and the murder of tens of thousands of VeneUelans as the people militate to stay free of he empire's grasp.
And more, OW discounts food soverienty in Venezuela--in keeping with the IMF proscriptions for the so called third world.
OW, isn't it telling that your new-found homies on the right are all supportive of overthrowing the constitutional order in Honduras? I was wondering about your studious silence with respect to the current repression. Don't want to let your fans down.
slave
nice fresh supply of weed you received....
Anonomous--And your attempt to impune my person while ignoring my comments is based on what?
Typical rightwing parasite.
Slave,
Have you been hob-knobbing with Steve La Fevre once again?
Your paranoid lunatic rants are more glowing by the day. You and Steve really should reconsider your CHOICE of the country that you currently live and make the move to a friendly “pro-communist” country such as Cuba or Venezuela. I know if I had to live in a country that I despised, I might have to resort to blogging incoherently about “demons” in my mind that were causing my inability to develop any form of a logical point of view.
Really – I’m serious, just pack yo shit and leave!!!
Antonio, you idiot. The millions of people murdered by the empire's fanatical, racist thirst for blood and desire to impose its putrid will on the entire world are not hidden--and only the delusional and the blind will not see them.
They are all necessary, 'collateral damage' in your warped ideology, I am sure.
I have enough love for my country to stay here and fight for a more sane and humane way of living. If you are in the US, and you don't like it, then why don't you leave.
We will defeat the lovers of terror and corporate hegemony.
The history and criminality of the US empire is clear for all to see, Iraq and Afganistan being only the most recent victims. Haiti and Honduras also suffer the white supremacist wrath of the empire.
What is 'illogical' is to view US ramping up military capacities in Colombia as being 'benevolent' and (ugg!) even 'innocent'.
But for the folks cheering the military repression in US client states like Honduras, 'logic' doesn't even enter into the equation.
It's like 'reasoning' with crack-heads that need their next corporate media fix.
So, besides 'get the fuck out!", why don't you attempt to debate my major asserstions?
I know, I know...the crack pipe is talking to you again. Reach for that tv remote and decide which of the 500 channels of corporate propaganda most suites your particular ideological pathology.
And any democratic and patriotic opposition would not be supporting leadership that takes money and operates in tandum with a terror empire that wants to destroy the constitutional governmnt and the nascnt socialist project.
History shows us that independent nationalism is the real threat to empires--as is authentic grass roots, democratic mobilization.
This last point isn't even subject to debate--it is undeniable fact.
"The art of leadership... consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention."
- Adolf Hitler
"The millions of people murdered by the empire's fanatical, racist thirst for blood and desire to impose its putrid will on the entire world are not hidden--and only the delusional and the blind will not see them."
You see Slavo, when you begin with a premise that is so obviously biased with your own backwards, tainted ideology, there is little to no hope in trying to get you to see the flaws in your convoluted mind.
"I have enough love for my country to stay here and fight for a more sane and humane way of living. If you are in the US, and you don't like it, then why don't you leave.
We will defeat the lovers of terror and corporate hegemony."
Actually, you have nothing but a vile distain and a warped sense of reality that has no business in a country like the USA. I would give my own life to defend this country, but I doubt the likes of you would do much more than take a smelly dump on all that this country was founded on.
Listen up closely...THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE IN THE USA DO NOT WANT YOUR CHANGE!!! You have little to no support with your ideology and will be rejected by almost everyone. Period..
"What is 'illogical' is to view US ramping up military capacities in Colombia as being 'benevolent' and (ugg!) even 'innocent'."
Actually this is none of your or Venezuela's business. This is a pact between the US and Colombia and should be respected as such. I can promise you THE USA HAS NOOOO PLANS TO INVADE VENEZUELA. It's not going to happen so just get this paranoid thought from your mental midget of a mind.
The goverment is looking increasingly like a fascist goverment. Those were the tactics of Mussolini black shirts: groups guiding the agression against whoever opposed Mussolini to instigate fear.
And a goverment that gasses opposition marches is not precisely a democratic one.
BTW funny tour the one of Chavez. Celebrating the 40 years (!!!!) of reign of Ghadafy...the libians got rid of a king 40 years ago to get another murderous king...
Vinz | Homepage | 09.02.09 - 4:32 am | #
If God wills it I will be retiring in Venezuela in a few years. I hope to stay as far away as I can from any scenes of rock throwing. I am too old for that and frankly since iIgot hit by a car a couple of years ago I'm just not as spry as I once was.
No doubt many oppos are nice people and on my visit to Venezuela I found the people to be very friendly and open. It seems to me though that Venezuela is under attack in what is a low intensity war being waged from my country and I object to my country doing this and further can't much respect Venezuelans who are allied with the attack.
Now take a chill pill and go somewhere.
Antonio | 09.02.09 - 10:16 pm | #
The leaders of most Latin American countries seem to consider iUS bases in Colombia as their business. As a US citizen it is Slave's business what the US does.
"Allied with the attack" (¿?)
The problem is it's impossible to discuss anything with you because you have no facts and act like a fanatic.
What does "The Empire" mean, for Chrissakes? We can talk and analyze diverse forms of US State intervention in Latinamerica and show how medias are in bed with big corporations. That's the responsible thing people like Naomi Klein or Noam Chomsky do.
But jumping from there to an all-out conspiracy theory involving the Bilderberg Group, the Masons, the White Jews, the Illuminati, the aliens or what have you, is ludicrous.
I get the impression none of you rambling about "The Empire" really know what the hell your talking about. If you ask me, "The Empire" means the level of frustration northamericans experience with their democratic representation, which in turn leads them to believe, in a proportionate amount, the existence of The Skulls pulling the strings and trying to make everyone miserable.
You can believe anything you want.
We can't discuss it, though.
Please explain, though, how an Ama de Casa in Caracas is "allied with the attack" of the "Empire" by watching Globovision and marching because she thinks the State will take away her kids; and a soccer mom listening to Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck and believing there are death panels is not allied with "The corporation" (or fill in the blank).
I guess you propose imprisoning all the midWest of the USA as Class Traitors, then.
You see how ridiculous your arguments get when you try to think them through?
Vinz, hey, you don't know with whom you are dealing. They do think all that.
You are talking to people who believe in all kinds of conspiracy theories. The only conspiracy theory this Eugene guy does not believe in, to my surprise, is that the whole Moon landing is a fake.
But he, an ethnic Jew, wrote this:
"The protocols of the elders of zion came fromsomewhere I don't know where. Whild to some extent history seems to confirm parts of it I do not believe that the overall path of world history is determined by any conspiracy."
I mean: well, he does not trust it (thanks, Eugene) and he does not believe the overall path is determined by any conspiracy...and then he goes into "to some extent history seems to confirm parts of it".
Next time I will ask him if Mein Kampf also confirms some parts of history...
That is a wacko!
Por favor!
An interesting quote:
"...there was an average of 1,314 street protests per year, ranging from road blockades to congregations of people to protest marches, more than 3 per day [2]. This does not take into account both legal and illegal strikes which also disrupt daily life. Many of these protest methods, such as the road blockade, although they have long been utilized by Venezuelans to express discontent, are nonetheless illegal. The protesters are frequently supporters of President Chavez yet the high level of popular mobilization can confound governmental attempts to provide orderly and institutional solutions to volatile political problems."
Eugene:
I sincerely hope you manage to retire in Venezuela. I look forward to the look of utter confusion on your face when you realize how big a puddle of shit you just stepped into.
"Eugene:
I sincerely hope you manage to retire in Venezuela. I look forward to the look of utter confusion on your face when you realize how big a puddle of shit you just stepped into.
revbob22 | 09.03.09 - 2:37 pm | # "
LMAO- That's tha damn truth!!!
Under Chavez:
GDP has grown 13.5 percent annually.
The private sector has grown faster than the public sector.
The poverty rate has been cut by more than half.
Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent (does not take into account increased access to health care or education.)
The percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39 percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.
Real (inflation-adjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998-2006.
From 1998-2006, infant mortality has fallen by more than one-third.
Primary care physicians in the public sector increased 12-fold from 1999-2007.
Huge gains in education, especially higher education, where gross enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999-2000 to 2007-2008.
Unemployment down from 11.3 percent to 7.8 percent. During the current expansion it has fallen by more than half.
Total public debt has fallen from 30.7 to 14.3 percent of GDP. The foreign public debt has fallen from 25.6 to 9.8 percent of GDP.
Source
Center for Economic and Policy Research
(The CEPR advisory board includes Nobel Laureate economists Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz; plus Janet Gornick, Professor at the CUNY Graduate School, Richard Freeman, Professor of Economics at Harvard University; Eileen Appelbaum, Professor at Rutgers University.
http://www.cepr.net/documents/pu...ela-2009-
02.pdf
Eugene,
I can blow up all those statements you said.
First of all: the government had over 1000% increase in the amount of petrodollars it got in 1998 just for higher oil prices. With that money even an idiot can "produce" some growth. The growth is not proportional to the huge amount of extra petrodollars.
This post I made is based on government figures no one reads. In reality school enrollment has decreased. What happened for several years was that a lot of people got the misiones, which is nothing more than a farce: crumbles for pseudo-courses that enable you to do nothing.
http://desarrollosostenibleparav...-el-
fraude.html
So: over 1000% increase in oil prices for nothing and that is what the government got?
Who stole all the rest?
And why did they allowed the murder rate to increase from 19 murders per 100000 in 1998 to 70 now?
And why did the government stop taking part in open evaluation schemes of education? (which do measure somehow quality, not the government's magic numbers)
You lefties really get a hard on with some names: lo dijo chomskyyyyy, bong...
lo dijo Stiglitz".
Yeah, and Einstein praised Stalin for a long time.
All the "great" statistics of progress that Eugene listed and Venezuela is still a piece of crap third world banana republic.
Lefties and commies- have at it....
Oops.
I meant "How did they allow?"
Eugene,
Just a word of caution: do not disconnect your cable when you move to Venezuela. You don't want to pay reconnection fees a few weeks later.
Anonymous. Just fuck off and die. You KNOW NOTHING!!!
Original
OT - rumors about a possible coup or "putsch" in the madrugada of Friday morning.
Others are saying that it could happen at the weekend. Paid traitors in the military are the likely suspects. It just seems too quiet in Caracas tonight.
Original
Antonio just fuck off and go and live in Sweden or Switzerland. Spurios shit faced bastard that you are.
T - rumors about a possible coup or "putsch" in the madrugada of Friday morning.
Others are saying that it could happen at the weekend. Paid traitors in the military are the likely suspects. It just seems too quiet in Caracas tonight.
Right before Saturday's demonstration. How original...
And the paranoid fanatics drinking the kool aid. Anonymous, I assume you'll be sleeping at Miraflores' gate to protect the revolution with your life, won't you?
Whattttt!!!! Yippy, you didn't hear about the plans that we made to attack Friday?? Whoops, I've said too much. Now they are on to us....silly me! I've let the cat out of the bag.
Kepler et al:
The bottom line really is that even when they don't agree with Chavez, most Venezuelans still trust him. They most definitely do not trust your side. I wish things could be better in Venezuela. I saw a million (well, that's an exageration) things I would change if I could, but I can't and further the people seem to trust the leader they've elected over and over and not to trust you.
Eugene, would you not fancy working for a Bangladeshi newspaper? I am sure they need people like you:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south...sia/
8237558.stm
To be honest: most of the people in Venezuela who have had some resources (with this I mean anyone not growing in a very poor environment, but rather people like Hugo or me) have failed the country. The discourse is very superficial, almost as superficial as the one I see being used by PSFs as Tosh.
Now, the people...who are "the people"?
There were 30% of hard-core chavistas some months ago. At least 45% of the population opposed the chavez proposal (they did not count my vote, for one, there were lots of irregularities and the paper trail did not work even for governors).
The masses in Venezuela would follow the tune of whoever provides the sweeties. Oil revenues have been considerably higher now than any time in the 20 years prior to Hugo. People in Venezuela, 99%, are incredibly short-sighted. They would eat from the hand that gives them food now and even if someone else is telling them the feeder is destroying the boat they are all in, they would not consider checking out for themselves...as long as the hand is full of sweeties.
"Antonio just fuck off and go and live in Sweden or Switzerland. Spurios shit faced bastard that you are.
Anonymous | 09.03.09 - 8:24 pm | #"
Wait a minute...I think that post has "Steve La Fevre" all over it. Glad you could join us Stevo!
Antonio - keep speculating a**hole.
Original
Ano, where will you live once the Fat Man is ousted from Palace? Bolivia? cuba won't last long. Belarus?
Girls are gorgeous there, but the place may be too cold for you. Also: Luka won't be all the time there.
What about Iran?
Do you like them hidden apples?
Kepler - zzzzzzzz.........................
"Under Chavez:
GDP has grown 13.5 percent annually."
Where did that come from?!?!?!?
Definitely not true. In fact GDP only reached or exceeded that number in one year so far under Chavez - 2004 during the recovery from the strike/recession when it was about 17%.
I would guess since 1999 GDP growth averages about 5% per year. Not too bad. But not great either. Further, it seems pretty certain it is an average brought up by the oil boom of the past few years and is now very likely over.
The bottom line really is that even when they don't agree with Chavez, most Venezuelans still trust him.
1) What's that supposed to mean?
2) Personal opinion or fact?
3) You don't think that so called "trust" has the word assitencialism written all over it?
Eugene,
I can blow up all those statements you said.
First of all: the government had over 1000% increase in the amount of petrodollars it got in 1998 just for higher oil prices. With that money even an idiot can "produce" some growth. The growth is not proportional to the huge amount of extra petrodollars.
This post I made is based on government figures no one reads. In reality school enrollment has decreased. What happened for several years was that a lot of people got the misiones, which is nothing more than a farce: crumbles for pseudo-courses that enable you to do nothing.
My wife is petty mad at the education system they have in Venezuela, It's one of the things I would fix if I could but I can't. In a sense it hardly matters how many people are enrolled in higher education if they cannot function as professionals. I know they graduate a lot of social workers in Venezuela. IMHO that almost doesn't count unless social workers are quite a different breed in Venezuela than in the US. Chavez joked about importing English teachers from California. Maybe he should also seriously consider math and science teachers. There are probably quite a few unemployed math and science teachers who also are fluent in Spanish in the US right now. Maybe it should not be a joke.
As for the oil money Venezuela is not rolling in dough from oil. Oil is important in Venezuela's underdeveloped and distorted economy but per capita? I'll bet the municipal budget of New York is more per capita than oil ervenues in Venezuela after everything is subtracted like cost of production, virtually free oil for the domestic market, importing gasoline (what a shame!)
As for corruption, I know that there is a lot of it in Venezuela like there is here. I don't envy anyone who takes on the task of getting it in hand. Surely it's much easier to carp about than to work on. Right Kepler?
Eugene,
Indeed, it is easier to nag on it than to work.
The government has being nagging on for a decade now.
I am working to earn my own living as I do not have the dosh Hugo has AND on the side I am trying to make very concrete things happen in Venezuela. I won't go into them here, Ow knows about one of them.
You don't know how long I have been spending on it and I am not an employee payed for doing it, I am not even in the country, I got tired of seeing friends shot at, mugged, beaten, robbed.
Still, I am doing something. Is the government doing something? Are the bloody Venezuelan embassy doing something? The ones I see in those fancy Mercedes going to trendy places here in Europe?
You know what the main hindrance is for the main project I have to come to fruition in Venezuela? The government. It is not interested in the least in better education for the poor children, only in brainwashing. Yeah, there is little interest in the powerful in Venezuela, but I expected that. A big part of the extreme right does not care about public schools.
But the government is the biggest hindrance.
Oh, they may sincerely think, at least a big part of them, that they are indeed interested in improving the awful level of education in Venezuela, but they are not.
It was bad, very bad and it is getting worse.
Real education, knowing how to analyze a text, how to solve equations, how to have an open view of history, not right-minded, left-minded, but a very critical and personal view, knowing about health, about how to produce chemicals, repair things, knowing above all how to learn and implement solutions: those things will always have a secondary or tertiary stage for chavista officials.
I agree the amount of people enrolled in universities is not so important, but go tell that to the government, not me.
Good free primary and secondary schools are the basis and they are a complete disaster in Venezuela. I went to see the school I was in as a child. I got depressed. It is so run down. I just thought: how decent would this shabby school look if they used half the money they use for chavez posters in this town to paint it? And most importantly: how many books could these children have if they used the money they are using now to "help the poor in America" or in the money used by chavez whole court in his current trip across Libya, Algeria, Syria, etc?
And if you talk about corruption before or elsewhere: it is worse now in Venezuela. Anyway: I did my best. Before chavez I went to marches, I wrote to newspapers trying to denounce governors. Texts I wrote were discussed in schools in Venezuela. I went to protest against Pérez. But this is 2009. There is another president. There has been another president for 10 years now.
The only thing in which I let Venezuela down was in leaving, but frankly: I basically got tired, I have survived several times and I have seen people who lost their lives. I do what I can from here on my spare time
Meanwhile, as production at PDVSA declines, Colombia oil production is increasing.
http://www.latimes.com/business/
...0,5091177.story
Kepler, really you are a coward and Venezuela is better off without your ass. You would work with the empire to murder and maim any anti-capitalist, pro-socialist movement toward expanding freedom.
Look at the political programs that you support--aside from the ecocide that is a result of capitalist logic, the wage-slavery that people suffer is obscene. Humans will always work to cast off illegitimate heirarchies of oppression.
Really, your rightwing adgenda is played-out and has been a failure. The diseased results are there for everyone to see.
Democracy and socialism, a more equitable distribution of opprotunity and wealth, is the only sane path in the face of the destruction, perpetual imperialist warmongeringe, and the ecological ruin that is rife the world over.
Please, stay away from Venezuela. This is the best thing you and other vendepatrias can do.
"Kepler, really you are a coward and Venezuela is better off without your ass. You would work with the empire to murder and maim any anti-capitalist, pro-socialist movement toward expanding freedom."
WTF Slave, you take someone that actually gives a shit about progressing and helping his own country by pouring his own time and energy and money into trying to build up an obviously failing system, and the best you can do is to insult him and tell him to stay out of his own country.....my my, what a complete waste of sperm you turned out to be.
What part of expanding freedom have you seen lately? Closing of many radio stations? Threatening Globovision and anyone that speaks out against Chavez or his Government? Nullifying the PEOPLE'S election of Antonio Ledezma? Which freedom or act of democracy am I missing?
You are one sick, demented individual and I hope you can seek professional help as soon as possible.
Kepler | Homepage | 09.05.09 - 9:40 am | #
Chavez' project of helping bring about a multi polar world is something I endorse as being good for Venezuela and for everyone. If that means face to face global diplomacy, then that's what it has to be.
Given the US track record of devastating countries it sets as targets, countries in the bull's eye like Syria and Venezuela have common interests in self defense on all levels. Do you not understand that people like Clinton and Obama would not be above bombing your demonized country to get a bump in the ratings? Do you not see the harm in feeding the demonization? So PDVSA made a relatively small investment in the US in an effort to obtain some public good will. Perhaps this was a loss, as the media machine gives the ignorant US public the crap it wants to see, and hear like "Venezuela traffics in persons" (unlike the whoreuarters of the earth, the USA). Or "Venezuela aids and abets drug traffic" (unlike the narcocapital of the world, the USA) or "Venezuela is buying Russian armaments" (while the USA is hands down arms peddler number one on earth including to narcotraffickers) whatever crap. Would you want to watch Caracas go up in flames on CNN while some ignoprant commentator babbles about Chavez helping terrorists or "we had to destroy it to save it".
Man it's one thing to not agree with the elected president of your country. It's one thing to leave and seek a more comfortable life elsewhere. Fine. Then why not just go about your business in Europe, get rich and leave your country to those who are struggling with its problems?
Eugene, I have seen Keplers before coddle up to the murderous empire: specifically Iraqi expats. They contributed to the hundreds of thousands of murdered and millions of displaced people.
The US terror regime bombed Iraq back to the stoneage.
Given that Kepler is a supporter of US backed terrorism and capitalist world domination, he is the most dispicable of comprador whores: he will engage the footwork and cheer as popular movements in Venezuela are bombed into oblivion and grassroots resistence hunted down as evil terrorists.
No matter how criminal the US political class is, I would never, ever help lay the groundwork for an invasion by foriegn belligerents or a competing imperial power. I would never align myself with counties that engage illegal agression against other countries (as the US has done in particularly savage ways across the globe for hundreds of years).
More, Kepler, you openly cheer the military dictatorship in Honduras and are supportive of the horrendous repression directed against grass roots democratic movements, indigenous groups, unions, etc.
Far from being a genuine supporter of freedom and the expansion of democracy, you are a rightwing stalwart of totalitarian repression and transnational corporate tyranny.
In short, you are one evil fucker, a butt licker of the evil empire and racist genocide.
Eugene,
because chavista thugs are actually destroying the country. I don't care if you believe me, but here it goes: I know people in every possible sector and region in Venezuela and they all tell me of their experience with the boliburguesia, who are
stealing in a more rapacious manner than adecos or copeyanos ever did, which is a lot.
You live in a silly simple world, something as "complex" as the world George W. Bush is in. You don't fucking care about Venezuela, you care about making your pension money last for longer and in a warmer climate. Else, for you everything is just a fight between "The Empire" and the Good. Your world is so fucking simplistic as the one of one of those creationist in the Bible Belt.
The submarines and all those Sukhois and the like Hugo is buying would not help Venezuela at all in any war, the only reason they are bought is because Jesse chacon's brother and a couple of generals are getting extra commissions from the Russians to convince the Fat Man in the Palace.
My plans/hopes for living in Venezuela are totally centered around my wife. I love her very much. When I met her she was a widow, an undocumented immigrant with terrific two young US born kids. When I asked her to marry me I promised that if she wanted to return to Venezuela for a little while or for life I'd be there for her.
In a lot of ways my life is pretty simple, Kepler. I grew up in Housing projects and I live in one now. What I mainly require in terms of a place to live is a place where I can sleep that's not too cold and not too wet. Food. Clothes enough not to get arrested on the streets.
I've done humble work most of my life, and lived in humble places. I don't care if I travel or not. I did once visit Venezuela and met my extended family. They are lovely people. I am a political junkie of course so I do follow world events. I used to be an activist when I was younger and healthier got my whacks from cop clubs and blackjacks and arrests, ate my share of teargas over Vietnam and human rights for Black people. As far as Venezuela goes it's personal now for me. I have family, people I care about over there. Vietnam was personal for me because I lived with the draft and knew people who died and I was drafted too. I grew up mainly in black neighborhoods and a lot of my workmates and classmates have been African American too and I have felt personally close to their situation.
I guess I despise you because you agitate
for my country to attack Venezuela, starve it out threaten it. I have people there and you are trying to fcuk with them.
"you agitate
for my country to attack Venezuela, starve it out threaten it."
On what are you basing that?
Eugene,
The projects I am involved with do not have to do with 'fucking' your people. The current regime, that is what you cannot comprehend, is destroying the economy, making education levels become even worse than before and throwing the little working ethics there was down the drain. Many thousands of professionals have left the country, not just the PDVSA people, but electronic engineers, physicians, etc. That is thanks to Hugo.
Over 14000 people are murdered every year now, against less than a quarter that in 1997.
Venezuelans, instead of improving their education, instead of importing less crap, instead of producing more, are become more and more a parasite state hanging on oil and loans from the chinese (who are no better than the gringos).
I don't think the gringos will invade Venezuela. It is not because I think they are saints, not at all. I am highly critical of a lot of the US foreign policy since they invaded the Indian territories at the start of the XIX century. I think simply because they are too stuck with Afghanistan, Iraq and on top of that invading a mayor country of Latinos would simply backfire in ways you don't imagine. The gringos can try to get Hugo killed. I hope they don't. That would be stupid as well. That would make Diosdado's wet dream come true: a hero dead and he a chance to become El Jefe.
Venezuela should become a highly educated, highly competitive nation. Hugo is doing exactly the contrary to that.
And about your background: that does not impress me. I am what you call an Afro-American (with European and Indian ancestors as well, as most in Venezuela) and the only difference is that I studied, thanks to free education in Venezuela of the seventies and eighties. My grandparents on my mother's side were living in a nearly feudal relationship to the dictator of the time, the other side was not much better off. My people had less of the resources you may have had even in a black neighbourhood in the US.
There is a lot of social injustice everywhere and we need to stand against it, but also stop whining, make a plan or two, work on that, help as we can and move forward, not blame it all on the others and, as the boliburguesia does, steal from the poor one claims to be defending.
Eugene,
your logic is self-contradictory. The US is a military-based economy that rapaciously destroys the world's ressources and opresses other countries. Yet you CONTRIBUTE to it's economy, you pay taxes that are used to build bombs to kill kids in Afganistan. All the money you and your adorable wife make is blood-stained and screams of the suffering of millions.
Must be difficult living in a black-and-white world where you fuel the very thing you despise the most. Yet you have the "tupé" to go around giving moral lessons about how "we venezuelans" should not support "el imperio". But YOU are "el imperio", you milk it dry as much as you can, you accomodate your lifestyle to its genocidal economy (as you would say) and never even stop for a second to think where the money you make comes from. Charming.
I hope you get all your taxes' worth for Plan Colombia and Afganistan. I hope your government manages to kill many more innocent children so you can go retire comfortably in Venezuela.
You're the kind of person Ché Guevara would have had shot first, no wonder why.
Vinz - Don't forget the other hippocrite Slave Revolt and of course our bestest buddy Chronically Clueless. They are just as guilty as Eugene if not more so...I couldn't live with myself if I walked around believing their ideology and living large in "The Empire".
I guess I despise you because you agitate
for my country to attack Venezuela, starve it out threaten it. I have people there and you are trying to fcuk with them.
If that's the case how do they feel about the rising crime in Venezuela. Any of your loved ones been mugged or killed yet? Some of mine have... murdered while picking their kids at school...
How do your loved ones feel when their roads are in shambles while Chavez donates to build roads in Jamaica and Antigua? How do they feel when enrolling your kid in a public school is the same as enrolling him to become a thug?
How do they feel about the rising inflation and the scarcity of products that you could find all the time before?
How do they feel about the lack of respect towards Venezuelans in general? About radio stations and tv stations being closed for reasons that dont make sense... how do they feel about turning on the TV and watching goverment propaganda during EVERY commercial break?
You love Venzuela?
Its personal for you?
So how in the world can you be so blind? so pro-Chavez?
Yeah AD and COPEI were pretty bad... but Chavez has somehow managed to be even worse...
Yeah some of his "ideals" in the international community are "brave". Siding with the dissident world against the "bad" US. But frankly, his fight should be HERE in Venezuela against crime, lack of education, intolerance, poverty, exclusion.. not against the US, the UK, CNN and the BBC.
Its been over 10 years... its been too long.
But don't worry, you will live to regret your support.. the opposition is fairly weak and your president might stay there forever... fighting the good fight... just like Fidel Castro.
"It seems to me though that Venezuela is under attack in what is a low intensity war being waged from my country and I object to my country doing this and further can't much respect Venezuelans who are allied with the attack."
ElTank - The above statement is one that Eugene made earlier. In your reply, you mentioned all of the problems that Venezuela continues to have and Eugene and the other leftopaths or communists here truely believe that the USA is responsible somehow for all of the mentioned problems. They cannot accept that most of the responsibility might actually be because Chavez's policys or lack of are not working.
They will come up with any excuse to try to further the imagined "revolution" that must fill their twisted dreams at night...
I met another expat from Venezuela yesterday and she told us that she had taken a trip to Venezuela last year and it was even WORSE than when she left....I guess that's progress!
ElTank - The above statement is one that Eugene made earlier. In your reply, you mentioned all of the problems that Venezuela continues to have and Eugene and the other leftopaths or communists here truely believe that the USA is responsible somehow for all of the mentioned problems. They cannot accept that most of the responsibility might actually be because Chavez's policys or lack of are not working.
Lets be clear, the USA does influence politics in South America and anywhere they see a need to. They have intervened in other countries a lot of times trough history...
However, blaming the problems of our society on a foreign power is plain stupid, but it is the easy way out for politicians and even for some intellectuals.
Neither the Americans, Europeans or the members of any other developed nation have stopped us from educating our own people, following our own laws, spending our money on our development.
Nobody but ourselves is to blame for our mismanagement, for our crime rate and our corruption. Until we accept our responsibility we will just keep going in circles... Right-Left-Right-Left...
Vinz, don't be so hard on Eugene (and the others). Yes, he's (they're) probably part of the Empire and therefor part of the problem. But hey, coming to this blog pretty much every single day to show how much they worship Hugo Chavez and telling us Venezuelans to get away from our own country because we are not part of their same cult has got to count for something. You gotta cut him (them) some slack, man.
Thing is, I know Northamericans who abhor their foreign policy and are outright ashamed of their government. But they live as illegal immigrants in other places and even renounce their pensions because they feel it's war money.
I may not agree with all their points, some of which I find frankly misinformed or questionable, but these guys have my utmost respect and I admire their coherence.
But to come here and accuse Kepler, who only wants to explore better education proposals for my country, of being a "class traitor" and to do it from the comfort zone of a country with free media that publishes Chomsky and the other champions you uphold; to cheer Iran, a country where Chomsky would've been shot long ago; to smile as Chávez hugs Al-Bashir while women in Sudan are stoned for trying to do 5% of what Naomi Klein does; to not see that but even worse, to pay taxes and earn a salary in a country you feel is deeply misguided by a war-oil-fueled economy, is completely hypocritical.
You can walk the walk -I have friends who have done it and starved on the streets of Barcelona and Marrakesh just because they didn't want to touch their "empire" dollars. But you can't have it both ways, you can't apply a loose standard to yourself and crucify others by a strict one.
Hypocrisy and chavismo go hand in hand man. Otherwise how can you explain their hearts bleed when a Palestine dies but don't give a rat's as about people like Neda?
this cartoon illustrates how their "logic" "works":
http://img.noticierodigital.com/...ar/
0907weil.jpg
"Under Chavez:
GDP has grown 13.5 percent annually."
Where did that come from?!?!?!?
I would guess since 1999 GDP growth averages about 5% per year
ow | Homepage | 09.04.09 - 4:57 pm | #
Well OW, if you actually clicked on the link in the post you replied to you could see where that data came from. But since there is probably little prospect of you doing this I will briefly explain. The data is based on an analysis of total inflation adjusted GDP growth in the years since 2003 (you know, since the oil strike and systematic economic disruptions carried out by the opposition ended). The total amount of GDP growth is than divided between the years in question to obtain AVERAGE GDP growth per year. Thus, the 13.5% is in fact correct. You can also find year by year GDP growth estimates online as well.
These show that yearly GDP growth was:
2009 -2.40 (For the first six months of 2009)
2008 4.04
2007 8.19
2006 9.80
2005 10.29
2004 19.42
Note that this year's economic contraction is substantially LESS than the economic contraction that is occuring in the US. (The unemployment rate in Venezuela is also lower, you can look this up as well). Contrary to your constant proclamations about imminent Venezuelan economic collapse or crisis, the reasonble conclusion is that the Venezuelan economy is being managed at least as well or better than the US economy and that no economic catastrophe, or even a severe downturn, is imminent.
If Kepler was about improving education in Venezuela and reducing crime I'd have no beef with him. My problem with him is his pushing the propaganda line that is used time and again by the powers that be in my country to attack other countries.
Yes crime is too high in Venezuela. Yes education needs to be improved. Yes you can believe these things and make proposals and organize to improve those situations without chiming in on "Chavez is a dictator" etc. because that is very dangerous talk and it can lead to tragedy.
I didn't tell Kepler to leave Venezuela, Kepler left Venezuela without any advice from me.
There are political parties in Venezuela that do not act to get the US to attack while not subordinating themselves to Chavez or the PSUV. One that comes to mind is PCV. They also criticize Chavez and if I'm not mistaken say he isn't doing enough about crime.
It's well and good to be personally pure. I don't know how starving in Barcelona slows down imperialism. I prefer to agitate and militate against it. I'm born in the US and rightists have been telling people like me to leave for decades. I'll leave when I am good and ready to leave. Me being a low earning public housing resident they'd also tend to describe me as a "tax eater" and not a "tax payer." That's how they describe people who don't own property anyhow.
I don't come to this website even nearly "pretty much every single day" and weeks go by without my presence or comments.
Kepler dishonestly confuses my anti US interventionism and my opposition to lies being propagated that would tend to be used to justify military intervention as being "so pro Chavez." I wish there were a viable alternative to Chavez that would be more progressive or that he'd change in quite many ways but he is what he is Venezuela is what it is and Chavez has not done nearly so badly as the propaganda says. And I do allow that he knows a hell of a lot more about both politics and Venezuela than I do. Politics is the art of the possible.
ps-
Kepler says a couple of times that I am among the minions of Noam Chomsky. I think he is knowingly pushing a button of mine so if only for entertainment's sake I'll reply:
Noam Chomsky is an official dissident in the USA. He's been a virtual well paid Pentagon employee. (MIT is for all intents and purposes a Pentagon think tank and the Pentagon has used his work.) Chomsky has fought against boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and is an apologist for the role of the very well off and influential Jewish Lobby saying that it is not responsible for US slavishness towards Israel. Chomsky actively opposes, campaigns against telling the truth about US history, that is 9/11 and the political assasinations that have shaped the US into what it is.
Happy now?
Anonymous45 | 09.07.09 - 2:11 pm | #
Your calculus seems wrong:
GDP in 2003: 35652678
GDP in 2008: 57927000
With average growth of 13.5%, 2008 would have been: 67153935, which is not the case.
Average growth between the dates you stated is slightly less then 10.4%.
Also, starting from 2003 but excluding the "oil strike" cannot be serious analysis as the high growth rates after 2002 were just a catchup after the economic contraction following the "oil strike". So, to have a serious indicator for average GDP growth you either include the oil strike or take take 2001 as base to start from.
Taking 2001 as base, you get about 4.6% annual growth which is rather meagre given the greatest oil boom in history.
There are political parties in Venezuela that do not act to get the US to attack while not subordinating themselves to Chavez or the PSUV. One that comes to mind is PCV. They also criticize Chavez and if I'm not mistaken say he isn't doing enough about crime.
So you're basically saying that for someone who opposes this government to not be called a traitor by you they have to become chavistas who make very filtered and neutered criticism every now and then. That's a pretty fucked up vision of pluralism and dissent you got there.
And on you not telling him to leave, here you pretty much tell him to stay away from his own country which is basically the same:
It's one thing to leave and seek a more comfortable life elsewhere. Fine. Then why not just go about your business in Europe, get rich and leave your country to those who are struggling with its problems?
What the fuck gives you that right, gringo colonialista de mierda?
What the fuck gives you that right, gringo colonialista de mierda?
Yippy oh Yippy eh | 09.07.09 - 10:50 pm | #
So you're basically saying that for someone who opposes this government to not be called a traitor by you they have to become chavistas who make very filtered and neutered criticism every now and then. That's a pretty fucked up vision of pluralism and dissent you got there.
Well, what would be analogous in most countries to a loyal opposition would be the PCV and PPT . "Loyal Opposition." I think that's the stand a patriot who has important differences with the government of a besieged country would take.
And on you not telling him to leave, here you pretty much tell him to stay away from his own country which is basically the same:
It's one thing to leave and seek a more comfortable life elsewhere. Fine. Then why not just go about your business in Europe, get rich and leave your country to those who are struggling with its problems?
Nowhere does that say he should not return to Venezuela. He left Venezuela, I didn't even know of him when he left Venezuela, and he has a right to leave and return as he sees fit What I do suggest whether does or does not intend to return to his country is to have the decency not to align with those who would attack and harm it and to leave the solution of its problems to those who love Venezuela and live there. Given though that Venezuela is his country of birth and origin and being that Venezuela is besieged and beset with problems and being he chooses to be absent from this situation, it would be even more becoming to him if he did not cheer the besiegers on.
And I have a right to be very pissed about Kepler and others who add to the atmosphere of potential attack both as an US citizen who would like for my country not to be brought into still another adventure in killing third world people and destoying a third world country and as a person who has relatives and friends in Venezuela who I would dearly not want to see get "liberated" like the Iraqis were.
And I've said it before and will say it again. I have no plans to try to "advise" Venezuelans about Venezuela or impose my ideas of what Venezuela "ought " to be onto the situation in Venezuela.
Back to the jerk who wants me to go starve in Barcelona:
Venezuela like almost any other country would probably appreciate a foreigner who brings foreign currency to the country and who obeys the laws and respects the country its process and its decisions even if he does not quite understand it sometimes. That to me is "win win". I get to live on the pension and social security I've earned (at least as long as the powers that be here allow for that,) and I do not forfeit those hard earned payments that amount to the end result of decades of working to the likes of Michael Bloomberg. On top of that the money gets spent in Venezuela.
Well, what would be analogous in most countries to a loyal opposition would be the PCV and PPT . "Loyal Opposition." I think that's the stand a patriot who has important differences with the government of a besieged country would take.
Important differences? are you kidding me?
PCV and PPT opposition? what are you on man?
You fanatics think than subtle differences among chavistas are more than enough pluralism. Again, that's pretty fucked up vision of pluralism and dissent.
And I have a right to be very pissed about Kepler and others who add to the atmosphere of potential attack both as an US citizen who would like for my country not to be brought into still another adventure in killing third world people and destoying a third world country and as a person who has relatives and friends in Venezuela who I would dearly not want to see get "liberated" like the Iraqis were.
Prove Kepler (or anyone else here) is asking for the US to attack Venezuela. Other than your prejudice against anyone who doesn't belong to your cult you got nothing.
The fact that (1) you feel compelled to call someone a jerk and (2) you go to lengths to justify your hypocritical double-standards is what in academia is called pragmatic proof of my point.
Not that you'd understand anything about academia, seen as it is that you advance wacko conspiracy theories with no base and discredit anyone who criticizes the Venezuelan government, a subject you seem to know very, very little about.
Just to bring you back to reality, and put it in terms you USA-centric short-sighted people understand:
1) Would it be OK for Obama to name a "super-governor" over the State of New York and take away the money of the elected representative?
2) Would you think democracy is advancing in the U.S. if Obama calls on National Television to have McCain arrested and threatend the Judges to "either jail him" or "resign"?
3) Would you applaud mobs storming Fox News and throwing gas canisters?
4) Did you applaud the Patriot Act?
5) Did you think it was a brilliant idea to jail people for "attacking the police" when there are videos proving they were *helping* the police?
---
You're right, you're better off driving your car full of Iraqui blood and wearing clothes made in Phillipines by 12-year olds than really taking a stand and becoming a real man, not a hypocrite.
Well put Vinz....very good analogies.
Vinz,
I think E.'s neurological processes go like this: neuron says "Hugo = hates". This is activated and sends neurotransmitters that are caught by another one that that says Hugo -> US". Both combined send an electrical impulse that increases the threshold when Eugene's neuron for "human rights" reports to the neuron representing the concept "abuse". Instead, the current is diverted to some pleasure zones.
The "human rights" neuron would be reporting to abuse at any other moment, specially if it is connected to Eugene's real concerns, which lie all in the USA.
As you see, there are some organisms that can represent such concepts as grandmother or human rights with just a couple of connected neurons.
You're right, you're better off driving your car full of Iraqui blood and wearing clothes made in Phillipines by 12-year olds than really taking a stand and becoming a real man, not a hypocrite.
Vinz | Homepage | 09.08.09 - 8:50 am | #
I don't own a car. When I drove a taxi I didn't own it but operated it as an employee and gassed up at CITGO whenever possible. I wear clothes as necessary and I have to buy what's for sale. Your side destroyed the garment workers' union. Where do you get your clothes? What gasoline do you use in your car?
By the way as for who Che would shoot first, Che met with US anti imperialist activists and praise them (us). So have Castro and Chavez. They never suggested we leave the US and go starve somewhere in Europe. And revolutionaries are humane. That's why the soldier who shot Che got his eyesight saved for free by Cuban doctors. A really forgiving lot when there is no threat. It was always the racists and war mongers who screamed that if we did not love "it" (genocide) we should leave the country. They hate any obstruction to their actions.
I spent years as an activist against capitalism and US interventionism. I'm older and not in the best of health but I try to keep going at least by blogging which I know is very little.
1) Would it be OK for Obama to name a "super-governor" over the State of New York and take away the money of the elected representative?
I think the US Constitution is an ancient slaveowner's code and if I could I'd wipe it away and see a new one written. I think Obama is as much a problem or more than is the governor of the State of New York. If I had my rathers I'd abolish the states, have the country governed by logical regions (for example "New England" would be a region) have self governance for predominantly "minority" communitites and institutions that would be backed by reparations for slavery and other indignities. I'd abolish the Mexico-US border controls and the Canadian ones too. I'd crack down hard on today's secessionists in the Red States and put the former regime on trial for crimes including 9/11, Iraq, torture, Afghanistan, election stealing and aiding and abetting Wall Street's looting of the global economy. Not to worry Obama isn't anyhwere near close to doing any of these things.
2) Would you think democracy is advancing in the U.S. if Obama calls on National Television to have McCain arrested and threatend the Judges to "either jail him" or "resign"?
"
McCain got shot down over Vietnam while doing criminal and murderous and unauthorized acts. A trial sounds like a good idea, maybe followed by a commuted sentence given his advanced age and poor health. Something Obama would never try.
3) Would you applaud mobs storming Fox News and throwing gas canisters?
Yes. I'd applaud even more the government taking the airwaves back from the corporate zionist lie machine.
4) Did you applaud the Patriot Act?
No.
5) Did you think it was a brilliant idea to jail people for "attacking the police" when there are videos proving they were *helping* the police?
That all depends. I haven't heard of something like that happening. Here cops shoot black people in the back, rape intoxicated women in their homes, and plant drugs on innocent people. One also arrested a black Harvard professor in his living room for being "uppity" (and then got invited to the White House for a beer.) Anyone helping them do things like that ought to be arrested. Cops also direct traffic sometimes, which is a useful thing for them to do. So if someone was trying to help them direct traffic (let's say during a power failure) and got arrested for his troubles that would be wrong.
Your replys to #1,#2 make no sense... the question is not what you think about the topic or what you would. The question is, "would" you support those actions?
In regards to #3: So its ok with you to go and shoot and harm the workers at Fox News.. maybe gas up the janitors, scare the admin workers and insult the news anchors... they are doing their jobs.. if you have problems with at the channel you can openly voice your opinion, sue them or peacefully protest. Violence is not a solution.
#4: So you are against the patriot act but you are good with the current situation in Venezuela?
Hypo... sounds like double talk to me.
PS: You ignored my reply.. but oh well, thats what I kind of expected.
I'd presume the attack would be symbolic, not when the place is busy. I would not advocate, plan or execute it but I'd dig it.
Close all corporate propaganda radio and television.
The dissemination of information must be scupulously democratic and pluralistic, as well as proportional.
When the rich control information democracy and buman freedom do not exist--and what you/we have is sophisticated perception management, propaganda and soft brainwahing.
The rich and upper middle class sevants for oligarchy in Venezuela are entiltled to a nice 20
Percent of the action of the public airwaves: but the have to agree to help keep the studios cleaned and the buildings maintained.
But the rich hate to pick up a broom, so I doubt it would work out. The would rather whine that they are being repressed to the great pimp-daddies in the empire.
Slavo,
Why don't you take a shot at answering Vinz's questions. I'm curious to know where you stand.
PS: You ignored my reply.. but oh well, thats what I kind of expected.
ElTank | 09.08.09 - 5:57 pm | #
Don't confuse me with the chronic. I don't have a lot of time to spend on this blog and I've already gone way above and beyond. see you in a couple of weeks. Maybe.
That all depends. I haven't heard of something like that happening. Here cops shoot black people in the back, rape intoxicated women in their homes, and plant drugs on innocent people. One also arrested a black Harvard professor in his living room for being "uppity" (and then got invited to the White House for a beer.) Anyone helping them do things like that ought to be arrested. Cops also direct traffic sometimes, which is a useful thing for them to do. So if someone was trying to help them direct traffic (let's say during a power failure) and got arrested for his troubles that would be wrong.
Here cops torture people as a standard method. They use electricity, beatings and plastic bags wrapping their heads to get information. And the ones usually suffering from that treatment are the poor, and guess what, your beloved heros haven't done shit to stop it. The CICPC, the National Guard and the PM are the worse torturers in this country, all controlled by chavismo.
Police also commonly execute people, whether they are criminals or not. If you live in a slum and you have problems with a cop you're pretty much dead, and no one can do anything about it. On one afternoon last year the PM and Policia de Caracas (controlled by your comerade Freddy Bernal) executed 15 people in Nueva Tacagua. Most of them underaged, all of them poor. The homes of the people who live around were looted by the police. This is the police of the regime you support. The "Defensoria del Pueblo" won't do shit about it, neither the Fiscalia, because they won't do anything that makes the Government look bad. Those are the institutions and the loyal dissent you advocate for.
In Venezuela there isn't a law that specifically punishes torture as a felony. Do you know what your comerades at the Asamblea Nacional respond when human rights NGOs ask them to write a law about it? "We can't make a law about torture, that would mean admitting torture is common in Venezuela and that's bad for the Government's popularity". That's how your heros care about the suffering of the poor, and I personally witnessed that because I used to work for one of those NGOs.
So please don't come here to tell us about how bad the police is over there. You have no idea about what a real abusive police is like.
Antonio--in short: challenge and dismantel all structures of power, habit, and tradition that impede human freedom, imperil all life and structures of life (ecological relations). Such heirarchies must be able to justify their continued existence. If authority cannot justify itself then it should be abolished, and something more congruent with authentic freedom should be devloped.
Fox News and Ruppert Murdock (oligachy) should b challenge and destroyed.
Murdock would not b murdered--just prohibited from being a parasite and a fetter.
You really need to think through the consequences of what you propose. It's a great recipe for totalitarianism, based on fact-less racist logical jumps: "the corporate zionist lie machine" (?), what does that mean? So they're jewish. I guess we should have the Weinstein brothers thrown in jail for Inglourious Basterds, then. Not all jews are "zionists" (I'm really curious to know if you even know what that means or if to you it's just "evil-evil jew"), not all muslims are Kamikazes, *not all Ven opposition is for a coup*, etc.
I'd tell you to read Etienne Balibar's work on history and totalitarianism in order to understand what lies at the end of that road.
And yes, I think Fox News is preposterous but I also think people are smart enough to follow a discussion and understand the arguments. Shutting down Fox or jailing Murdoch is the perfect way for *eliminating* such discussions in the public sphere and constructing a martyrized extreme-right wing underground movement. This eliminates all discussion and makes kids adhere to the party based on emotions. It's a really bad idea.
I know it might be hard to understand but Freedom of Speech is not hearing exactly what you want. Actually, Freedom of Speech means being able to tolerate the other side's arguments peacefully and oppose them in a discussion, not by fisticuffs. Neither you or chavismo has understood this. You should read some Jürgen Habermas and figure it out.
Last question:
a) I oppose the Cuban embargo and think it makes the people, not the State, suffer. Chávez also opposes it. So why are we promoting an embargo against Colombia? Why should the Colombian people at the border suffer because of Uribe's stupidity? Why should Venezuelans at the border suffer because of Chávez' childish approach to diplomacy?
Funny thing is, by cheering Chávez, you cheer authoritarian right-wing actions and policies you completely detest. Number (5) up there referred to Richard Blanco, who is in jail for protesting. Ah, you guys really had it easy, in the States, manifesting against Bush and screaming "oppression" while breathing the clean air...
Vins, your answer shows that you are unaware of the extrme political repression here in the United States and your idea of "free speech" denies the context of Imperialism.
Certainly Eugene's facile use if the term "zionist" is problematic a d takes away from the more viable part of his argument, however. But US imperialism and that rouge nation's threat to the region define the context that frames the discussion. Oppo nents of Chavez are most all from the far right of the political spectrum, and the colonial-era comprador relations remain quite potent.
Please, the intellectuals you cite did make some marginal contributions to academic though. I would also consult left. Criticisms of each of these thinkers.
What are the conditions required for "free speech"?
I would say that when nondemocratic corporations dominate the means to control and frame information, then free speech doesn't reAlly exist.
He health non-debate in the US and the illegal invasion of Iraq are evidence of this contention.
Suffice it to say, the ecocide and repression of indigenous, the working class, and the poor in most of the world is also evidence of how imperialist Western powers have contempt for democracy and the democratic control and flow of informTion
Seriously, these points are mere truisms, and arguing with most subjects of empire is like trying to convince poor US Republican folk (folk) that Obama isn't a Muslim. LOL
Hi to everyone,
I don't come down here so often now... too much work. I want to add some things to this discussion.
Take a look at the former informatics chief at DAS talking about the wiretapping scandal here in Colombia as well as the relationship between the Colombian government and the paramilitaries opperating in Venezuela along the so-called "Bloque Democrático" that unified the opposition some years ago. The Venezuelan media whores made fun of the paramilitaries caught in Finca Daktari and named the event the "paracachitos".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h...h?
v=haVR7rC5ark
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2...h?
v=2SQqegm5xJA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4...h?
v=4yxAY0ya1dY
The videos (in spanish) give some clues on how much of Venezuela's violence is deliberately imported from Colombia, Not only as part of drug cartels expansion plans but to simply destabilize the Venezuelan government, as some of us have been pointing out for quite a while.
So no... it is not as simple as Vinz calls it "A Colombian embargo... because of Chávez' childish approach to diplomacy?". It is money financial support given to a country that actively works to screw you. How many paramilitaries have Cuba sent to the US in the last 40 years?
Colombia's plan to put up US military bases in the country was probably one of the best things that happened to Venezuela lately. For one part the government found the perfect excuse to exercise big control some of the many irregularities happening in the border, including through the (apparently) legal and illegal bi-national trade. It is very telling that Colombian exports to Venezuela fell 28% just in July and I expect to see many major reductions as months go by.
http://deportes.eluniversal.com/
...3A2694969.shtml
But the late news have revealed many other interesting facts:
Take a look at Colombian meat exporters talking about their woes (the same meat exporters that are one of the staunchest supporters of the paramilitary)
http://lta.reuters.com/article/
b...E58309720090904
The article reads that meat consumption in Venezuela is 24 Kg/per-capita/per-year whereas in Colombia it is 17 Kg/per-capita/per-year.
If there is such a big shortage of meat in Venezuela compared to Colombia and Venezuelans are doing so bad, the fact that each Venezuelan eats 7 more kilograms of meat a year than one of their Colombian counterparts is a good example of some of the misrepresented issues that affect the availability of food in the country - increased consumption being one of them. This other article - Rice counterfeiting exceeds 250K tons - explains that "the big worry comes from the side of smuggling since 250 thousand tons of rice enter the country from Venezuela at a very low price.
http://www.vanguardia.com/econom...tal-de-las-
farc
250 thousand tons! Venezuela, the "net importer" of food is satisfying Colombia's rice demand...
Those two issues: Smuggling to Colombia and increased consumption have never been acknowledged by our oppo friends who always bitch about scarcity in the country. It will be nice to see in the next few months how food availability evolves in Venezuela.
Last two weeks have been tough for the right worldwide. I have to say that the victory of the center-left coalition in Japan put a smile on my face. http://www.milenio.com/node/280505
Some of the measures taken by Obama's government also did (some other didn't of course but nobody is perfect). I imagine the Latin gusanera revolving in their angst when they heard about the tightening of sanctions to Honduras and the easing of sanctions to Cuba. The worsening of the Afghan situation and all the "collateral damage" that's coming out of it is bringing big preasure to some of the members of the coallition, particularly the British. I also thought it was very interesting the global "No more Chavez" experiment some Colombian guys tried to pull off through Facebook and Twitter and how it failed misserably: Not only it didn't have much reception save midly in some Colombian, Venezuelan and Honduran cities but it served as a good prelude for Stone's "South of the Border" premiere in Venice.
But what has really caught my attention is the way how the dollar has continued to devaluate which coincides with the fear of a "W" shaped recession.
http://finance.yahoo.com/
echarts...ource=undefined
I just read this interesting article which describes some of the trends:
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2...ing-out-
of.html
Now, take a look at how the devaluation of the dollar - which is the result of deliberate fiscal and monetary policies by the US governments since many decades ago - affect a country like... let's say Colombia:
- They receive less real money for their exports.
- They reduce the amount of pesos it gets any time someone sends money to the country.
- It makes exports less competitive compared to imports (And you have to thank that the FTA with the US hasn't been approved because otherwise the local industry would be even more wrecked).
The US along with other foreign rip off Colombia of its natural resources through the give-away conditions the government has put to investment. Some of them even pay paramilitary organizations to take care of labor unions, NGO's and such.
But the US is an ally... and Chavez is a childish wanna be dictator that wants to impose a mean embargo on them. Give me a break.
Colombia is a country that has a 1.4 trillion COP budget deficit for this fiscal year, that according to DANE has done nothing to attack poverty (extreme poverty has risen in the last 8 years, not counting 4MM+ refugees that end up in Venezuela and Ecuador) and yet it destines more than 6% of its GDP to the war.
And Vinz is complaining about Venezuela limiting commerce with Colombia?
You have to consider starting getting serious with your convictions man.
A salute to my fellow friends and foes here at OW... I say to you: See you in a couple of months. Keep an eye on the trends that really matter:
- The false premise of an stabilizing US economy (last time I read there were 89 closed banks this year and some 400 in the tight spot) with another slump in the bourses posibly on the way. September, october and november will be tough months since unemployment benefits are running out and people are having even less money to spend in the US.
- The devaluation of the US dollar and the increase in commodities (I found interesting that even Portafolio.com.co - part of the Prisa Media Group - published an editorial a couple of days ago titled "the dollar against the ropes")
- The re-election process in Colombia. The right has put all the eggs in the basket of Uribe's third run and they even posponed inner elections for the conservative party. There are some tough obstacles that the initiative has to go through yet and I'm anxious to see how the goverment manages to handle the daily corrution scandals, the insane increase of insecurity levels, the wreastling with the courts and the economic pressure that Venezuela and Ecuador are putting on the country.
- The Afghan / Pakistani / Iraki quagmires.
- The shift in the war against drug policies worldwide. See what happened in Mexico and Argentina and today the Colombian courts emited a sentence ruling that personal dosis can't be penalized)
http://www.elespectador.com/noti...-dosis-
personal
So long...
6 posts.. Domingo do you really expect someone to read all that when it doesnt even relate to the original post?
wtf?
6 posts.. Domingo do you really expect someone to read all that when it doesnt even relate to the original post?
wtf?
With this comment you have addressed his posts. So, either reflect on their content or don't mention them at all and shut the fuck up about it.
"I'm anxious to see how the goverment manages to handle the daily corrution scandals, the insane increase of insecurity levels, the wreastling with the courts and the economic pressure that Venezuela and Ecuador are putting on the country."
The government? You mean the Venezuelan government? It is managing things all right:
Arne is now billionaire in dollars. Diosdado, I am sure, has more money than you would believe.
The Hugo clan is thriving.
Oh, you mean our neighbours?
1) I'm well aware of the problems with the media in the US and Venezuela. All I'm saying is shutting them down is a very bad idea that has disastrous political consequences and creates underground, extreme-right movements. What you need to do, in Ven and U.S.A., is let them talk freely, produce fines when people invent stories ("death panels"?) and defeat them on the rethoric level. Jürgen Habermas, the last marxist from the Francfort school, tells us as much (BTW: I keep on quoting people over here, I haven't read any thinker who values "freedom" proposing to shut down or curb the media. Please enlighten if you will. And no, no Stalin, Mao or Pinochet, thank you very much).
2) Domingo shows us what relativism is: It's bad for Cubans to starve from an embargo, it's a great idea to do it to poor Colombians. The fact that you had to post 6 times to justify yourself is the same trend chavismo engages in, when they have to go to lenghts to explain ilogical moves ("el dedo del pueblo") and try to bend reality.
3) For the record, I'm well aware of all the points you make and you are right on most of them. OTOH, history shows that making people starve doesn't affect the country's policy, so if it didn't work with Cuba why should Venezuela's embargo do anything more than make poor Colombians miserable. Also, if the military bases are American, why don't we just stop sending oil to the States. Your right-wing approach (solving political problems with economic embargos -Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman would've been happy) should attack the problem, not the messenger.
4) It's completely un-true that "left wing" thinkers applaud Chávez. You can't really be left wing, in the sense of libertarian and freedom for all kind of things (broad brushstroke), and applaud a guy who cheers Iran and Al-Bashir, where reporters get whipped for using jeans. Any left-wing militant that understands women's rights (a typical left-wing movement) would be shocked.
5) Chávez has a right-wing authoritarian, military government. He speaks like the left, thinks like the Center and acts like the Right. The left -last time I checked-, doesn't go around quoting the Bible all the time, spewing misogynistic ("Condolezza, you haven't been f*cked right") and homophobic ("the US ambassador seems to like men") insults, takes control of what you drink or wear (prohibition during Semana Santa, billboards saying, "don't provoke rape" with a bikini), and closes newspapers and radio stations. That's pretty right-wing to me. No wonder Hans Dieterich said Basta y se echó a andar.
6) Recently, we coordinated a reflection (in spanish) on this subject, where professionals, teachers and academics wrote on the subject "The left in the XXIst Century: Power and politics". Carlos Delgado Flores, a very critical chavista, makes a great point, as do the other thinkers, all identified with "the left". It's no wonder the Venezuelan anarchists from "El Libertario" have
...It's no wonder the Venezuelan anarchists from "El Libertario" have called Diosdado a traitor and an enemy of the people and state their case wonderfully in an interview. Read their text, it'll clear up a lot. These guys are real barrio militants, not preppy saloon conversationalists. They walk the walk, did before Chávez and will after, and if someone has legitimacy to state their case it's them. Here's the link: http://www.moebius77.com/revista/ You can either download it or read it online.
Greetings to all and thanks for staying away from the insults. It's already a huge improvement in this conversation.
2) Domingo shows us what relativism is: It's bad for Cubans to starve from an embargo, it's a great idea to do it to poor Colombians.
Hahahahaha, Vinz, try not to be such a dishonest hack job okay? Colombia can still trade with any other country on the face of the planet. Venezuela cutting off trade is hardly comparable to the total economic embargo that the US has maintained on Cuba for 50 years.
Colombia will mostly lose an export market. Imports will hardly be affected. Seriously, grow a brain.
history shows that making people starve doesn't affect the country's policy, so if it didn't work with Cuba why should Venezuela's embargo do anything more than make poor Colombians miserable.
More stupid nonsense. The purpose of cutting off trade with Colombia is not to make poor Colombians miserable. (a totally stupid claim in the first place because Colombia is open to trade with any other country on the planet and the Colombian poor will hardly be affected).
The purpose is to show Colombia that there will be consequences for their actions, and that Venezuela will not sit idly by as their sovereignty is threatened by foreign military bases. I wonder what the US would do if Mexico allowed Rusia to build 7 military bases on their Southern border???
4) It's completely un-true that "left wing" thinkers applaud Chávez.
Oh, sure, left-wing thinkers don't applaud Chavez. Except for, you know, almost all of the most well-known leftist thinkers on the planet. You're right Vinz. Could you possibly make a dumber statement?
5) Chávez has a right-wing authoritarian, military government. He speaks like the left, thinks like the Center and acts like the Right.
Given that you don't know what a left-wing intellectual is, this opinion of yours is pretty meaningless.
...It's no wonder the Venezuelan anarchists from "El Libertario" have called Diosdado a traitor and an enemy of the people and state their case wonderfully in an interview. Read their text, it'll clear up a lot.
A lot of people inside Chavismo criticize Diosdado and see him as the endogenous right-wing within Chavismo. But I'm not sure I get what your point is. These people still support Chavismo, and agree with its objectives. The fact that they have problems with some of the people inside the movement doesn't mean they agree with you about anything.
These people still support Chavismo, and agree with its objectives.
Or they are making too much cash to even care. The beauty of a revolution!
Or they are making too much cash to even care. The beauty of a revolution!
ElTank | 09.10.09 - 4:56 pm | #
Yeah TAnk, the people of EL Libertario are getting rich. Try to grow a brain.
Thanks for completely destroying what was, up till now, a civilized discussion. Further yet, you fail to make any points and don't even address any of my issues apart from (wait for it) some attacks (here it comes!) of ad hominem type.
I link to a 40 page document exploring the left that honestly advances viewpoints. You take cheap petty shots.
No wonder the word "Clueless" is in your nick.
In order to stay completely clueless, don't read anything. Don't read the anarchists side. Don't read what the left is about in the 21st century.
It's way over the head of somebody so insecure and arrogant he's incapable of putting words together in a sentence without recurring to stupid, tired insults.
Do not expect to engage me on those terms.
I don't insult people.
I just let them ridicule themselves by posting attacks that show their desperation at trying to masquerade their ignorance of the subject with two-syllable words that wouldn't even convince the most brainwashed globovisionario hojillero.
Just to throw you a bone: the fact that you claim El Libertario supports chavismo indicates (1) you've never read their free online magazine or (2) you have serious comprehension problems. The anarchists are completely against chavismo. Try reading it again, Félix Gonzalito. They've understood chavismo is counter-revolutionary and right-wing. You obviously haven't.
The purpose is to show Colombia that there will be consequences for their actions, and that Venezuela will not sit idly by as their sovereignty is threatened by foreign military bases.Hmm... Last I checked Colombia isn't part of Venezuela and thus can make it's own decisions. If Chavez doesn't want anymore Colombian exports, that's fine. I'm sure there are plenty of other countries that will fill the void for higher prices. Who's the real loser here?
I don't insult people.
I just let them ridicule themselves by posting attacks that show their desperation at trying to masquerade their ignorance of the subject with two-syllable words that wouldn't even convince the most brainwashed globovisionario hojillero.
Thanks for admitting (in such ridiculous fashion) that you can't refute any of my arguments.
Hmm... Last I checked Colombia isn't part of Venezuela and thus can make it's own decisions.
And so can Venezuela.
If Chavez doesn't want anymore Colombian exports, that's fine. I'm sure there are plenty of other countries that will fill the void for higher prices. Who's the real loser here?
Colombia clearly is. Anyone who argues otherwise is clueless.
Oh, and no, its not exactly easy to find export markets, let alone in the middle of the worst economic crisis in nearly a century. Try to grow a brain before making more retarded comments.
ust to throw you a bone: the fact that you claim El Libertario supports chavismo indicates (1) you've never read their free online magazine or (2) you have serious comprehension problems. The anarchists are completely against chavismo.
I never said what El Libertario's position on Chavismo is, and frankly, I don't give a rat's ass. They are completely insignificant, and, as most anarchists, their proposals for real change are totally unrealistic. (And, btw, not all anarchists are against Chavez. Some very well known anarchists have expressed support for him. Try again.)
My point is that simply because many people criticize Diosdado, that doesn't say much about Chavismo as a whole.
Hey clueless, have you finally read these two books you fucking lazy tit?.
And so can Venezuela.They sure can. However to say that Colombia has threatened Venezuela's sovereignty is silly.
Colombia clearly is. Anyone who argues otherwise is clueless.It will create some short term heartburn for large Colombian companies. Venezuela will now have to buy more expensive alternatives. The average Venezuelan will feel this the most.
Oh, and no, its not exactly easy to find export markets, let alone in the middle of the worst economic crisis in nearly a century.
Chronic Spinner
Hey, what about some spin on the Andorra checking accounts? Or the visit to all the tyrants of the world (minus Mugabe and Kim)? Or the current repression and judicial double standard where chavista filmed beating down folks are free after a few days whereas opposition caught screaming is sent to murderers jail? What about the fancy Airbus that has not been used by Chavez in months while he travels on older and less advanced Russian flying junk?
I can add much more but I really would enjoy your "objective and fact laden" point of view on these questions. I need a good laugh. Do not worry, I will not even reply top whatever argument you post unless of course it is just too gross and obvious.
They sure can. However to say that Colombia has threatened Venezuela's sovereignty is silly.
Oh right, silly. Except when you consider that the US throughout history has engaged in overt and covert activity all over the continent to overthrow governments that they do not like.
The only thing that is "silly" is anyone who would think the US should have the right to military bases in countries around the world. Especially when the US has the worst record of intervening, invading and overthrowing governments.
I suppose it would also be "silly" then if the US were to get upset about Russian military bases being built on their border? Don't worry! The Russians just want to help "stablize" the region! So silly!!!
It will create some short term heartburn for large Colombian companies. Venezuela will now have to buy more expensive alternatives.
So now you are an expert on Colombian-Venezuelan relations and the business climate in Colombia? Not only are you clueless, but ridiculous at the same time. Export markets aren't easily replaced in a short time. Especially with the current global economic conditions. Imports, however, are much easier to replace since everyone is looking to expand their market share. But I wouldn't expect you to understand any of this.
Daniel,
I know it is hard, but try to actually make an argument about something instead of simply listing insignificant details without tying them to any real argument.
I could sit here all day and list every minute detail about the opposition (what about the recently revealed proof the the Venezuelan opposition's connections to Colombian paramilitaries?), but unless you can actually put together an argument about something specific (I know its hard when you don't understand anything about politics) then I can't possibly respond.
You call your insults "arguments"?
Nice try at squeezing by and showing you can't quote, link or refute any of my claims made prior to your childish rant.
Calm down. Take a valium. When you learn decency and respect, feel free to try and write a coherent question or argument. Saying "that's so stupid it needs no refutation", doesn't qualify as an argument.
I will continue this discussion with Eugene, the original dialoguer, if he shows up.
I will not address you again.
You lack manners and minimum civilized discussion rules.
It must be really lonely, around you.
I suggest: let's avoid chris. He is a fanatic. He would praise Hugo even if he saw Hugo murdering his mother
Oh right, silly. Except when you consider that the US throughout history has engaged in overt and covert activity all over the continent to overthrow governments that they do not like.You're assuming that some outside force will threaten Venezuela's sovereignty.
The only thing that is "silly" is anyone who would think the US should have the right to military bases in countries around the world. Especially when the US has the worst record of intervening, invading and overthrowing governments.I never said the US has the "right" to have military bases where ever it wants. However I see little problem with two countries coming to this agreement.
I suppose it would also be "silly" then if the US were to get upset about Russian military bases being built on their border? Don't worry! The Russians just want to help "stablize" the region! So silly!!!How about you calm down a bit and try and think of a more apt comparison? How about Russian ships using Venezuelan ports? Shouldn't you be as up in arms about that?
Export markets aren't easily replaced in a short time.It depends on many factors, however these aren't long term problems. They are short term. Colombian businesses that export to Venezuela aren't going to all go out of business because of this.
However the Venezuelans will be the ones to have to pay higher prices due to less competition.
Well, so be it if Vnezuelans pay a by More bcause Colombia allows a rouge, criminal power to develop bases for agression on he region. The short and long-term history of the US and it's corporations speaks clearly.
The analogy of Russia misses the mark on several levels--for one, the US record of agrssive crimes against innocent civilians and democratic movements is far, far worse.
Really, if the empire and it junior partners in Europe were held to post- WW11 standards, the. Re. A of thousands among the ruling classes would be in prison.
But that is not how power is configured at this moment.
Again, pay attention to the context: Colombia is a major human rights abuser, and it is teaming up with the indisputably most criminal. Terror nation on earth to exert "control" in the region.
But it is oh so fashionable for the victimizer and his comprador adjuncts to frame the victims of agression as in some way guilty.
Only folks brainwashed in the indoctrination centers of the US cannot see the reality that states everyone in the face.
I love it when elites aligned with the mafia empire bemoan and hate on the popular classes that will not obey the script. Especially, when they talk about being "civilized" as Uncle Sammy's cum is trickling off their chins.
Sorry, but this is the most apt metaphor for vendapatrias that support the anti-socialist, pro-empire adgenda with respect to the left movements in the Americas. Simply sorry people that need to be driven to Miami or put in jail for their traitorous crimes.
You're assuming that some outside force will threaten Venezuela's sovereignty.
And during the Cuban missile crisis, the stupid Americans were just "assuming" that Russia might launch a missile at them. So silly!!!
Try not to be such an idiot Anon. Any country would be concerned (and all of South America has shown concern) about US bases on their border, especially when US and Venezuela have recently had very unfriendly relations. This isn't that hard to grasp. And the US has a long history of doing this very thing to destabilize leftist regimes.
I never said the US has the "right" to have military bases where ever it wants. However I see little problem with two countries coming to this agreement.
That's because you're a moron. I suppose you also would have said the same about Russian military bases in Cuba? After all, Russia and Cuba came to that agreement. What was the problem???
How about you calm down a bit and try and think of a more apt comparison? How about Russian ships using Venezuelan ports? Shouldn't you be as up in arms about that?
Apt comparision??? We're talking about military bases, not ships using ports. Your comparison is retarded. US ships already use Colombian ports, as well as ports of islands along the coast of Venezuela. Why should Russian ships not be able to do the same?
However the Venezuelans will be the ones to have to pay higher prices due to less competition.
Anonymous | 09.11.09 - 9:08 am | #
???? This makes no sense at all. You obviously don't know how imports work in Venezuela. Once again, you are clueless Anonymous.
Hey clueless, have you finally read these two books you fucking lazy tit?.
Charly | 09.10.09 - 11:57 pm | #
Hey Charly, are you going to tell me how these books of yours refute my evidence? Or are you going to keep hiding behind this pathetic argument of: "go read these books, they refute what you are saying, even though I can't tell you how."
Chalk up Charly as another of the chronically clueless oppo morons.
You call your insults "arguments"?
Nice try at squeezing by and showing you can't quote, link or refute any of my claims made prior to your childish rant.
Calm down. Take a valium. When you learn decency and respect, feel free to try and write a coherent question or argument. Saying "that's so stupid it needs no refutation", doesn't qualify as an argument.
I will continue this discussion with Eugene, the original dialoguer, if he shows up.
I will not address you again.
You lack manners and minimum civilized discussion rules.
It must be really lonely, around you.
Vinz,
Your holier than thou attitude is really annoying. CC has responded to your posts albiet with some name calling. Your too sensitive. If you can't respond to what he has written than at least have the balls to say so. Hiding behind the "You lack manners and minimum civilized discussion rules" shit is very ridiculous on the internet. Any ways, I would really like to read your response to his response. Especially your claims about all anachists being against Chavez. Thanks.
It must be really lonely, around you.
Also you oppos always resort to this psuedo-psicoanalices shit. Can you please refrain from this stupid practice. You don't even know the poster personally or anyone here for that matter.
Aliva, isn't this the same shit these twits have been pimping for years.
Too bad OW, like a coward, has to intermitantly blow some smoke up their asses and given them a collective hard-on.
Imperialism and the history of US support for rapacious tyranny IS the context that defines the Venezuelan political reality.
But the oppos, like sick pedophiles, always have to act like their pimp is simply a generous old, rich uncle.
Come along kiddies, Uncle Sammy has some candy for your asses....errr...I mean your little, succulent mouths....errr...I mean your sweet tooths...damn!
The true nature of the vendepatrias cannot be hidden--and wage-slavery and ecocide cannot be hidden from anyone not totally brainwashed.
Notice how Kepler, Daniel, Quico, Bruni and others were all about supporting the coup in Honduras?
Of course, they understand that it is prudent to play it down--but don't think for a moment that they don't cheer the repression of the popular mobilizations against the coup.
Sick bastards.
OW and Flanker: why the complete silence on the Honduras issue? Are your middle class, rightwing proclivities keeping you from saying anything about this. What about military bases in Colombia?
I know, I know, not as glamorous as getting your panties in a wad over the possible closure of oligarch, corporate media.
And, to think: Flanker always had a fixation on phallic-like military 'hardware'. LOL The bigger, the more awesome and better. (wink, wink)
(Not that there is anything wrong with that--as long as these phallic symbols aren't used on people actually fighting for their independence from the evil empire and its technocratic quislings.
CC has responded to your posts albiet with some name calling.
Yeah, sorry for the name calling but anytime anyone is such a dishonest hack as to try to compare the US embargo of Cuba to Venezuela's cutting off Colombia's exports, then I simply can't resist calling them what they are.
These oppo morons are so dishonest that they can't even be honest with THEMSELVES to recognize when their arguments are just stupid. Look at Tank and Anon trying to justify increased US military presence in the region. Trying to make the claim that Venezuela should not be concerned about US military bases on their border. Or look at Charly telling me to go read a book, instead of simply admitting that he cannot refute my evidence. The oppos version of events surrounding the 2002 coup is for me the perfect example of how they are simply too dishonest to accept the facts that disprove their claims.
My, my Slavo, you really should take a break from your pornagraphy fixation...This is a list of references from your last couple of posts...
"Uncle Sammy's cum is trickling off their chins."
"blow some smoke up their asses and given them a collective hard-on."
"Uncle Sammy has some candy for your asses....errr...I mean your little, succulent mouths...."
"Flanker always had a fixation on phallic-like military 'hardware'. LOL The bigger, the more awesome and better. (wink, wink)"
I mean DAMN, maybe you have some talent for coming up with dialogue writing porno scripts or maybe you just like to sit around in you underware and wack off while thinking of your "revolutionary heroes". In any case, I think you should take a break before you go "blind". LOL
Any country would be concerned (and all of South America has shown concern) about US bases on their border, especially when US and Venezuela have recently had very unfriendly relations. This isn't that hard to grasp. And the US has a long history of doing this very thing to destabilize leftist regimes.Sounds like a whole lot of opinion.
If anything the US has been ignoring Venezuela. Chavez has been the only one running his mouth.
I suppose you also would have said the same about Russian military bases in Cuba? After all, Russia and Cuba came to that agreement. What was the problem???That was a completely different situation involving two countries at the brink of a nuclear war. Again, try to find a better comparison because you're not convincing anyone with your current.
Why should Russian ships not be able to do the same?I never said they shouldn't. If that's what they want, that is what they can have. Simple as that.
???? This makes no sense at all. You obviously don't know how imports work in Venezuela.Very basic economics. Less competition does not benefit the consumer.
chronically spinning
that is all you can come up with? boy! your side is in trouble when even you cannot come up with a routine insult...
as for your extremely lame attempt at striking back, i have two words for you: geovany vasquez.
Sounds like a whole lot of opinion.
No, its not an opinion that almost every country in South America has shown concern about the US military bases. It is a fact. Try again.
If anything the US has been ignoring Venezuela. Chavez has been the only one running his mouth.
Just last year the US was discussing placing Venezuela on its list of state-sponsors of terror, which means economic sanctions. They also funnel millions of dollars to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela. I would hardly call that "ignoring" Venezuela.
You really make a habit of being wrong don't you?
That was a completely different situation involving two countries at the brink of a nuclear war.
Regardless of whether or not nuclear weapons are involved, the fact of the matter is that the US would be equally concerned if Russia/Iran/Venezuela or any other "unfriendly" country wanted to build military bases on the US-Mexican border. You know that, but you are simply too much of a dishonest hack job to admit it.
Very basic economics. Less competition does not benefit the consumer.
Anonymous | 09.11.09 - 4:45 pm | #
Hahaha, again, hilarious. You are clueless as to how imports work under import quotas. Only a certain amount of money is approved for imports to cover demand. So competitors from different countries are not free to import at will and compete on the free market. Imports from another country will simply be approved to replace the Colombian imports. Besides that, price controls on most basic goods make prices standard across the board. And in addition to that, it is widely known that many of the Colombian imports were actually wildly more expensive than they should have been due to rampant speculation. So the reality is that the Venezuelan consumer could very well stand to benefit by replacing these imports.
Try not to be such a raving idiot. Think before saying stupid shit that is obviously false.
Yeah, sorry for the name calling but anytime anyone is such a dishonest hack...
By all means carry on. I have no problem with it.
that is all you can come up with? boy! your side is in trouble when even you cannot come up with a routine insult...
Daniel, thanks for so clearly proving my point that you cannot even put together an argument.
I am always here to debate anyone, and I always address the arguments being made. But it is extremely obvious that you are incapable of debating me about anything, or even making a coherent argument about anything.
Antonio, yeah, I can get carried away at times. LOL
But, really, imperialism and oppression are simply pornographic. Why use simple, good words to describe something dehumanizing and extreme?
chronic spinner
I think there was something missing in your statement above
"I am always here to debate anyone, and I always address the arguments being made as long as I chose these arguments and we both accept that you are a moron"
There! Does that not sound much more like you?
No, its not an opinion that almost every country in South America has shown concern about the US military bases. It is a fact. Try again.No, it was mainly Chavez and his cohorts - hardly "every" country in LA.
Just last year the US was discussing placing Venezuela on its list of state-sponsors of terror, which means economic sanctions. They also funnel millions of dollars to anti-Chavez groups in Venezuela. I would hardly call that "ignoring" Venezuela.All you're saying here is that they discussed something and some opinions of your own. You need more proof than that if you expect people to believe you.
Regardless of whether or not nuclear weapons are involved, the fact of the matter is that the US would be equally concerned if Russia/Iran/Venezuela or any other "unfriendly" country wanted to build military bases on the US-Mexican border.It sure would, and sanctions against Mexico would be wrong, especially since the US would be the bigger loser. Where are you going with this?
Only a certain amount of money is approved for imports to cover demand. So competitors from different countries are not free to import at will and compete on the free market. Imports from another country will simply be approved to replace the Colombian imports. Besides that, price controls on most basic goods make prices standard across the board. And in addition to that, it is widely known that many of the Colombian imports were actually wildly more expensive than they should have been due to rampant speculation. So the reality is that the Venezuelan consumer could very well stand to benefit by replacing these imports.Wow, then there should be no shortages then, right? Looks like that theory went out the window.
Price controls are only inside Venezuela, not outside. You can't fix global prices just because you decide to. The government is the one eating the costs on those price controlled goods. And now those costs will be higher. Again, it's all simple economics.
No, it was mainly Chavez and his cohorts - hardly "every" country in LA.
Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, and Venezuela all voiced concern about it. Apparently you didn't follow the recent UNASUR meetings. You're really making a habit about being wrong about everything aren't you?
http://english.peopledaily.com.c...52/
6724941.html
http://news.xinhuanet.com/
englis...nt_11962563.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/
wp...9082803768.html
All you're saying here is that they discussed something and some opinions of your own. You need more proof than that if you expect people to believe you.
There isn't any opinion of mine in the above statements. Both are very well-known facts. It has been proposed in the U.S. to put economic sanctions against Venezuela, and they keep sending millions of dollars to opposition groups. These are facts. How you could mistake them for opinions is beyond me. But I suppose when you are desperately looking for a way to refute the irrefutable, you will say anything.
And it was you that made the absolutely retarded statement that the U.S. has been "ignoring" Venezuela. Wrong again my friend.
http://www.venezuelaawareness.co.../
resolucion.pdf
It sure would
Finally you admit that Venezuela is correct in being concerned about the US bases.
and sanctions against Mexico would be wrong, especially since the US would be the bigger loser.
What would be the correct approach towards Mexico if they were allowing Iranian military bases on the US border? Ask them nicely to stop?
Wow, then there should be no shortages then, right? Looks like that theory went out the window.
Uh, hello? Why would import quotas prevent shortages? Seriously dude, you are clueless.
Price controls are only inside Venezuela, not outside. You can't fix global prices just because you decide to.
Now what the fuck are you talking about? Who said anything about fixing prices outside of Venezuela? Seriously dude, you should stop wasting your time here digging yourself in to a hole, and you should go read something. Try to learn something instead of repeatedly looking like a fool here.
The government is the one eating the costs on those price controlled goods. And now those costs will be higher. Again, it's all simple economics.
???? This is so stupid that I can't even respond. Goods like those that came from Colombian were usually imported by the private sector. How the government would be eating the costs on private sector imports makes no sense at all. But neither does most of what you say.
I think there was something missing in your statement above
"I am always here to debate anyone, and I always address the arguments being made as long as I chose these arguments and we both accept that you are a moron"
There! Does that not sound much more like you?
daniel duquenal | Homepage | 09.12.09 - 5:41 pm | #
Daniel, thanks for demonstrating once again that you are utterly incapable of debating me.
Chronic spinner/mediadrone
The circle of virtue is an alien concept for you, is it not?
The circle of virtue is an alien concept for you, is it not?
daniel duquenal | Homepage | 09.13.09 - 12:02 pm | #
Debating real issues is an alien concept to you is it not?
Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Chile, and Venezuela all voiced concern about it.They voiced concern, but only Chavez' cohorts were adamantly against it.
Finally you admit that Venezuela is correct in being concerned about the US bases.I never said that.
Why would import quotas prevent shortages?They are the cause of them.
But I'm done with this conversation now. It's telling when all you keep repeating is your opinions and insults.
OT - Andorra accounts.
Interesting that no names have been given from any official sources in Andorra about the names behind the accounts allegedly frozen.
It could be anyone from Manuel Rosales to Freddy Bernal. no one knows but people like Duquenalk sodomize the truth at every opportunity.
They voiced concern, but only Chavez' cohorts were adamantly against it.
Way to change your statement instead of admitting you are wrong.
My original statement was always that a majority showed concern. You tried to deny that by saying it was only Chavez' "cohorts". You were wrong, and now you're playing semantic games to try to save face.
So not only are you wrong, you're dishonest.
I never said that.
Oh, I see. So your point is that the US would have a right to be concerned about foreign military bases on its border but Venezuela doesn't. Another brilliant argument.
They are the cause of them
Hahahahahaa!!! Up above you implied that import quotas were used to PREVENT shortages. Now you're saying they are the cause of them.
It is increasingly obvious that you have no argument.
But I'm done with this conversation now. It's telling when all you keep repeating is your opinions and insults.
Anonymous | 09.13.09 - 2:08 pm | #
Actually, i think it is pretty obvious that you have nothing, and that you make a habit of being wrong over and over and over again.
You would have been smart to have stopped a long time ago before making such a fool of yourself.
It could be anyone from Manuel Rosales to Freddy Bernal. no one knows but people like Duquenalk sodomize the truth at every opportunity.
Anonymous | 09.13.09 - 4:33 pm | #
But Anonymous, don't you get it?? This information came from the US Treasury, and the US government never lies or engages in propaganda campaigns against leaders they don't like by fabricating evidence and creating false "intelligence".
We should just believe whatever comes out of the US government as pure fact. This is Daniel and Quico's idea of "objectivity".
@Aliva
It's not my fault if you can't even understand what a link is or how to click on it. All the information you ask me for has been provided -twice- in my posts above that are ignored by your champion bluffer time and time again.
You don't like my respectful tone?
Well fuck you, then.
Learn how to read. Learn how to click. I can't school you idiots.
Here's my last argument, in a CC style you'll surely understand: If you ever say I'm wrong it's because you're a moron. Actually, I'm so right I don't even have to write anything. I'll just call you a jackass and call all this rant an argument.
Have fun, kids, and yeah, you're right, the internet is entertaining: Fuck you, again. Great debate.
OW,
Here is something you need to read and consider.
William Hinton, a well-known US leftist and expert on China, wrote the following about China and the export-model in his book The Great Reversal, published in 1990:
In regard to the world economy the strategy of the reforms is to build China into a genuine NIC (newly industrialized country) by following the path pioneered by South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore--that is, by taking advantage of the country's cheap labor to solicit foreign capital and start up large-scale manufacture of labor-intensive commodities--primarily textiles but also electric and electronic appliances--for the world market. To this end China created free-trade zones, invested billions in infrastructure, borrowed billions more, and entered the export arena full of hope. But so far China has failed to consolidate an appropriate market share.
This failure has two main causes. First, the expansion of the world market, which once soaked up most offered goods, is now slowing up. As the 1980's wind down, glut not scarcity plagues the globe. The window of opportunity that South Korea and the other "tigers" leaped through is closing fast. Furthermore, they never would have been in a position to make that leap without the economic muscle provided by two protracted American wars for mainland staging grounds against China, wars that called forth decades of heavy American spending on China's open flanks. While many Chinese now look with envy at Taiwan and South Korea and conclude that China took the wrong road, what they fail to understand is that without the challenge which the Chinese revolution posed to the American Century there would be no "tigers" on the Pacific Rim today.
Second, even if the window were still open, even if the market was as lively as ever, it could not hope to absorb the output of a country the size of China. It is one thing for small countries with workforces numbering in single digit millions to tool up for labor intensive exports, but quite another for a Chinese workforce numbering in tens, even hundreds of millions to do the same. It never was reasonable to expect that China could duplicate what small Pacific Rim countries had done. Only a few ever succeeded at it and even those are now moving toward crisis. Other contenders, such as Brazil, Mexico, and India, have run into serious problems without finding any viable road to solvency.
Continued...
The World Bank strategy of opening third world economies to international market forces by privatizing, liberalizing, making concessions to foreign investors, and concentrating on exports has sharply escalated their dependency on world markets and foreign bank loans. Unable to service their rapidly mounting debts, most of the countries involved have frozen wages, devalued currencies, and cut spending, including spending on vital inputs. Living standards have dropped precipitously. At the same time the cutbacks undermine the economies of the exporting countries, deepening the glut on the supply side of the market. The entire strategy is now clearly bankrupt.
In the final decade of the century the only viable strategy for the third world is to reverse the whole process, diversify, develop internal markets for domestic goods and services and thus reduce dependence. To do this third world countries have to carry out land reform, set up progressive taxation, guarantee workers' rights--all things China did, was doing, and was doing well prior to the reform. Yet China's leaders still harbor illusions about the NIC model of development, and pin their hopes on a strategy whose time has passed and which for China, given the size of the country and labor pool available, never could provide an adequate framework for development.
I think Hinton brings up some very good points, and says many of the things I have been saying here for a long time.
Sure, China is still growing at a fast rate. But, remember, economic growth is not the same as economic development. Who is benefiting the most from the growth? The new class of Chinese billionaires, or the millions still living in poverty?
Has economic development ever really taken place in the midst of such enormous inequality??? And can China really depend on a world market that is already suffering from a severe glut in production to pull all of its hundreds of millions of people out of poverty?
(And I won't even go into the problems inherent to capitalist development. Even if they could succeed in taking the capitalist road, would the result of that process leave a society that anyone would want to live in?)
anonymous
so, a little bit of homophobia to spice up this dull discussion?
clueless
andorran banks need not reveal the names until the investigation is complete. justice over there works and is not submitted to the wishes of the US treasury or the two co-princes. venezuela judicial mess is not the norm, you know......
geeeez! and you want me to debate you when you are already so lacking on the basics!!! educate yourself first and come back to me.
andorran banks need not reveal the names until the investigation is complete. justice over there works and is not submitted to the wishes of the US treasury
The investigation is being led by the US Treasury, and the accounts were frozen after agents from the US Treasury went to Andorra with that purpose.
La investigación en Estados Unidos comenzó después de la detención de un ex funcionario del Ministerio de Finanzas en Florida que habría revelado el entramado de los movimientos financieros de algunos venezolanos y oficiales gubernamentales.
LA USB se había negado a entregar la lista, pero debió ceder ante presiones del Departamento de Estado. Primero envió 4500 cuentas y el resto se cumplió esta semana. Agentes del Tesoro Americano están ahora en Andorra.
http://www.entornointeligente.co...hp?
items=945351
Hmmmm, not submitted to the wishes of the US Treasury??? Actually, it looks like that is exactly what happened. The US pressured them.
geeeez! and you want me to debate you when you are already so lacking on the basics!!!
Hahahaha!!! This statement couldn't get any more ironic. The first time you actually discussed an issue instead of engaging in childish insults, and you are dead wrong right off the bat!!! Now I think everyone can see why you refuse to debate me. You are a raving ignoramus.
andorran banks need not reveal the names until the investigation is complete. justice over there works and is not submitted to the wishes of the US treasury or the two co-princes. venezuela judicial mess is not the norm, you know......What's amazing is how no one really cares that these people stole billions of dollars.
I see Daniel decided to not come back after he was proven wrong.
Good choice.
I think Daniel has other interests these days. You may want to read his two latest posts, and this one in particular.
http://daniel-venezuela.blogspot...and-
others.html
Maybe you should go and harass him there. He deserves it, that asshole.
Well Oscar Perez has been driven out of the country over this.. I didnt like im.. but still..
and guess whos back to a position of power?
FREDDY BERNAL
Who announces it?
Chavez himself.
Has he no shame?
These people still support Chavismo, and agree with its objectives.
and then later...
I never said what El Libertario's position on Chavismo is
Why people keep wasting their time on this poor psychotic mythomaniac is one of this world's mysteries.
Anyway,
Meanwhile, in the real world...
http://www.eluniversal.com/2009/
...m_1574464.shtml
Now, what I find interesting about this sad episode is that I still have fresh in my mind the Government refuting last year Provea's report which stated pretty much what the 21st Century messiah has "recently discovered". In fact, the MinPopó de la Salud y las Ciencias Ocultas said Provea's report was false because "hoy se encuentran prestando servicio sanitarios en las barriadas, pueblos y caseríos de nuestro país 29 mil 996 médicos cubanos"... "(Provea) no refleja los intereses de una Organización No Gubernamental que supuestamente lucha por los derechos humanos y la libertad."
http://www.abn.info.ve/noticia.p...lo=161276&
lee=4
Even the greatest symbol of "integrity" in Venezuela's journalism (for the chavistas), called Provea liars and said everyone should doubt all of their data even in other areas, not just in health care, because "you can't trust a liar even when he's saying the truth".
http://www.aporrea.org/imprime/a...ime/
a68708.html
Now, using Eleazar Díaz Rangel's own logic, what can we say about the information produced by the Government, which some people here follow like the Bible?
clueless
oh sweetie, it takes much more than that to prove me wrong.
of course andorra revealed the names becasue the u.s. asked them. there was no pressure except the expected legal one when fraud is supposed to take place. andorra could have well decided not to give the names. would the u.s. have bombarded andorra in such case?
but let's assume for the sake of the argument that indeed the nasty u.s. did force andorra, and that i made a fool of myself.
and what is wrong with that? is international cooperation or obligations a bad thing when crime is investigated?
or must we interpret that you actually support the corruption in venezuela and that the andorran accounts are used to help iran develop weapons against the west?
some piece of work you are....
PS to anonymous
yes indeed, my blog addresses pertinent issues, not irrelevant issues to try to find desperately something positive about chavez .
very eloquent silence, isn't it?
Suddenly the men of "facts" have nothing to say about the irrefutable fact that at least one of the Ministries of "Truth" has been blatantly lying to "el pueblo soberano".
Talking about hacks, huh?
http://fatoldjewishguywholivesin...aden-
tapes.html
These people still support Chavismo, and agree with its objectives.
and then later...
I never said what El Libertario's position on Chavismo is
Nice try moron. In the first statement I was referring to those people inside Chavismo who criticize Diosdado (as can be clearly seen by reading my whole comment, and not just cherry-picking one statment). I was not referring to El Libertario, because I don't even know, or care, who they are.
But thanks anyway for clearly demonstrating how you will resort to dishonest hackery in an attempt to prove me wrong.
of course andorra revealed the names becasue the u.s. asked them.
You said that Andora was not "submitted to the wishes of the US Treasury". I just showed that they clearly are, as they were forced to hand them over when the US pressured them.
You were wrong.
there was no pressure except the expected legal one when fraud is supposed to take place.
How do you know what kind of pressure was used? Or are you just pulling this out of your ass?
andorra could have well decided not to give the names. would the u.s. have bombarded andorra in such case?
Laughably naive. The US, being the largest economy in the world, and excersizing undue power in all kinds of international bodies, has a plethora of ways to pressure countries into doing what they want. A simple look at how they pressure countries into voting how they want in the United Nations is a good demonstration.
but let's assume for the sake of the argument that indeed the nasty u.s. did force andorra, and that i made a fool of myself.
No need to assume. I posted the proof up above. And, well, as far as you being a fool.... we've all known that for a long time.
and what is wrong with that? is international cooperation or obligations a bad thing when crime is investigated?
You apparently don't understand the argument at all. The whole point of the matter is whether or not a crime really was committed, and whether or not these accounts really do belong to people close to Chavez. That is the whole point Einstein.
Since the US government is leading the investigation, since they won't release any of the details, and since the US government has a long history of propaganda campaigns against governments they don't like, those of us with brains don't just easily swallow anything that comes out of the mouth of the US government like you do.
or must we interpret that you actually support the corruption in venezuela and that the andorran accounts are used to help iran develop weapons against the west?
Nice try. Grow a brain.
Whoops.....exercising
Now, what I find interesting about this sad episode is that I still have fresh in my mind the Government refuting last year Provea's report which stated pretty much what the 21st Century messiah has "recently discovered".
Dude, I only had to look at your argument for 3 seconds before realizing that it is false and retarded.
The fact that many Barrio Adentro modulos are empty does not prove Provea right in saying that 70% of Cuban doctors have deserted (something only a complete idiot would believe in the first place).
Cuban doctors rotate in and out of these modulos. They come and go from Cuba. Many only sign 2 year contracts, and then go back to Cuba afterwards. This is why many modulos are left with no doctor after their contract expires. The idea is to replace them with Venezuelan doctors, or bring another Cuban doctor over, but this does not always take place immediately, especially if the local bureaucrats aren't paying attention to these things (which to be a very common occurance).
This is why Chavez called it a "descuido de todos".
If you really are stupid enough to think that 70% of Cuban doctors (which would be about 27,000 people!!!), you might try to explain why only a few hundred have applied for the US's Cuban Medical Professional Parole program, which gives them automatic asylum in the United States.
The fact that only a few hundred out of nearly 40,000 Cuban doctors have applied for asylum in the US actually demonstrates that the rate of desertion is extremely low.
Try again genius.
The fact that many Barrio Adentro modulos are empty does not prove Provea right in saying that 70% of Cuban doctors have deserted (something only a complete idiot would believe in the first place).
Shit, you're not only a psychotic mythomaniac, you are also either too lazy or too stupid.
Have you even read Provea's report?
Please find me the quote about 70% Cuban doctors deserting. You are the only idiot who's ever mentioned that.
Seriously, if you are actually a paid PSF, whatever they're paying you is too much. You are too lazy/stupid to even do the most basic homework. Go read Provea's report so you can come up with a coherent response, because you are just making up your arguments.
I'd also recommend you to read the MinPoPó de la Salud y Ciencias Ocultas' Memoria y Cuenta, but that might be too much effort for your lazy ass.
BTW, Chronically Lazy, you have just proved that you just make up arguments and don't know shit about human rights situation in Venezuela. Hence, discussing with you the topic is a total waste of time.
You are not just childish and uninformed but also intellectually dishonest by using arguments you know are false beforehand and expecting other people won't notice it.
Have you even read Provea's report?
Please find me the quote about 70% Cuban doctors deserting. You are the only idiot who's ever mentioned that.
I haven't read their report. I'm just quoting from the link you provided. Here's what it says:
En su informe anual sobre derechos humanos asegura que en Venezuela se cometieron 10.606 homicidios entre enero y septiembre. Más adelante, el informe se ocupa de "la deserción" de los médicos cubanos, que desde hace años trabajan en la misión Barrio Adentro, pese a una campaña que inició la Federación Médica denunciando que no eran graduados y llevó el caso a los tribunales. Según el informe, un diario anunció que de 27 mil médicos cubanos que trabajaban en la MBA sólo quedan ocho mil, y según otro, la deserción fue de 70%. Esa es la verdad de Provea.
Go read Provea's report so you can come up with a coherent response, because you are just making up your arguments.
I'm not trying to respond to Provea's report. I'm just reponding to what appears to be your argument. Perhaps if you made it clear just what you are trying to say I could respond to it. Otherwise we are just playing games.
I'd also recommend you to read the MinPoPó de la Salud y Ciencias Ocultas' Memoria y Cuenta, but that might be too much effort for your lazy ass.
Yippy oh Yippy eh | 09.24.09 - 8:45 pm | #
If it says something that you think disproves anything I've said, then by all means let me know. Otherwise you're just diverting the conversation.
BTW, Chronically Lazy, you have just proved that you just make up arguments and don't know shit about human rights situation in Venezuela. Hence, discussing with you the topic is a total waste of time.
You are not just childish and uninformed but also intellectually dishonest by using arguments you know are false beforehand and expecting other people won't notice it.
Yippy oh Yippy eh | 09.24.09 - 8:58 pm | #
In other words, when you can't win the argument you might as well end it with a desperate ad hominem attack on the other person.
Another $5.7 billion in hard currency debt:
http://www.aporrea.org/imagenes/
...reo_orinoco.jpg
Also, they borrowed $2 billion from Russia to buy weaponry and the China loan for oil deal was increased by I think another $4 billion.
That is almost $12 billion in debt in just one month. Lets hope they don't keep this up for long.
Maybe Chavez wants to show he can't keep up with Obama when it comes to putting his country in hock.
Oops, the above should be "can keep up with Obama"...
I haven't read their report.
So you admit you are arguing on a topic you know nothing about. Nice.
I'm not trying to respond to Provea's report. I'm just reponding to what appears to be your argument. Perhaps if you made it clear just what you are trying to say I could respond to it. Otherwise we are just playing games.
You're the only one who's playing games here. If you re-read my post (and had half a brain) you'd figure out by yourself that I posted that link to highlight the Government response to Provea's report. I didn't mention the Medical Federation in my post in any way. It's quite clear actually.
If it says something that you think disproves anything I've said, then by all means let me know. Otherwise you're just diverting the conversation.
You're the one who diverts the conversation, in a discussion about Provea's report (which you don't even know what it's about) and the Government responding with false information refuted later by your own messiah, you focus on not related info about the Medical Federation. In other words, you were uncapable on refuting my argument (backed with undeniable facts) so you focus on the non-related part of the link to divert the main point expecting nobody will notice.
The MinPoPó also admits Provea info although not as blatantly as your messiah. Both Provea's Report and Estado y Cuenta are accessible online. I've read them both so I don't need to prove anything, if you're the one who doubts then you should check them out, as simple as that. I won't use my time to educate you just because you are lazy.
*continued below
*continued from above
In other words, when you can't win the argument you might as well end it with a desperate ad hominem attack on the other person.
win? I dunno about you but I'm here to discuss, not to "win" anything. I used facts to prove my point and you patheticaly try to distort my point by focusing on obviously irrelevant information to divert the discussion from the main point which is (in case your pea brain hasn't got it by now) a Minister (read The Government) produces false information in order to hide serious problems in one of the Government's main social programs.
That's why the last sentence in my post was:
"Now, using Eleazar Díaz Rangel's own logic, what can we say about the information produced by the Government, which some people here follow like the Bible?"
In case your tiny little brain didn't understand what Eleazar Díaz Rangel meant in the aporrea link, he basically meant that if someone is proved as a lier then we should doubt always them from now on.
BTW, I don't think you just do that diversion only because of your pathetic fanatism and stupidity. There's also the intention to create misinformation by diverting inconvenient truths about the Government and I'm not interested in wasting my time on that game. If that makes you feel like a "winner" so you'll feel better about your inferiority complex, be my guest, I don't mind helping you out with that. I guess today I'm in a helping-the-disadvantaged kind of mood.
ad hominem... moron... ad hominem... moron... ad hominem
There's a psycho I've read in another blog who whines about ad hominem attacks right after he insults people. Are you that same psycho or is it that all psychos behave the same?
That is almost $12 billion in debt in just one month. Lets hope they don't keep this up for long.It looks like Chavez is content with selling Venezuela's future since $60-70/barrel can't support "the revolution."
chris,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=v...feature=related
chronic spinner
and that is your answer? a rephrasing?
for your information, any country that protects criminals becomes a accomplice of those criminals. the u.s. did not need to put that much pressure on it. not to mention that neither france nor spain, the co-princes, were going to defend andorra on that one.
i suspect that what you need to start with is to inform yourself on where andorra functions.
and yes, i restate it, you are an accomplice of chavista criminals, except that your US passport will allow you to bail out of dodge when the time comes.
In other words, you were uncapable on refuting my argument
Correction. I am apparently incapable (not uncapable) of even understanding what your argument is. So I won't waste anymore time on it.
for your information, any country that protects criminals becomes a accomplice of those criminals. the u.s. did not need to put that much pressure on it. not to mention that neither france nor spain, the co-princes, were going to defend andorra on that one.
Apparently you didn't read anything I said. The whole POINT is that we don't have enough information about this to know if any crimes were committed, who committed them, etc. etc.
i suspect that what you need to start with is to inform yourself on where andorra functions.
This statement doesn't make any sense, and therefore I cannot possibly respond. Try to make sure your rambling nonsense doesn't get the better of you.
and yes, i restate it, you are an accomplice of chavista criminals, except that your US passport will allow you to bail out of dodge when the time comes.
??? What does this have to do with what we are discussing? Are you like 12 years old or something?
Correction. I am apparently incapable (not uncapable) of even understanding what your argument is. So I won't waste anymore time on it.
HA
This is even a sadder post.
You won't read the report because you know you can't refute it so know you get to decide what my point was. The kiddy got upset so he won't play anymore.
Again, how old are you? 15?
And picking on my english (which is not my native language) is just you becoming even more pathetic. I'd be glad to have the discussion in spanish if you find my grammatical and spelling errors so offensive. After you read the report, of course. 'Cause it would be a complete waste on time discussing with you about something you know absolutely nothing (as in zero, nada) about, wouldn't it?
You won't read the report because you know you can't refute it so know (sic) you get to decide what my point was.
No, I won't read the report because I don't care to.
As I said above, if you have read the report I'm sure you can tell me if it says something that would disprove anything I've said.
If you cannot do that, why would I waste my time?
No, I won't read the report because I don't care to.
Then why have you been wasting my time in the first place?
Then why have you been wasting my time in the first place?
Yippy oh Yippy eh | 10.03.09 - 1:05 am | #
That's a good question. I'm actually not sure why I've been wasting my time on an argument that you yourself cannot even seem to articulate.
But, once again, I'll ask you to point to anything in the Provea report that refutes anything I've said. If you can't do it, then reading it would be a waste of my time.
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