babble home
rabble.ca - news for the rest of us
today's active topics

Topic Closed  Topic Closed


Post New Topic  
Topic Closed  Topic Closed
FAQ | Forum Home
  next oldest topic   next newest topic
» babble   » current events   » international news and politics   » Praise for Hugo Chavez from Nobel Economics laureate

Email this thread to someone!    
Author Topic: Praise for Hugo Chavez from Nobel Economics laureate
Doug
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 44

posted 10 November 2007 09:27 AM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
You don't see that every day!

quote:
Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel economics laureate visiting Venezuela, said developing nations must strike a balance between public and private control of the economy.

After meeting in the presidential palace with Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, Stiglitz praised the South American country's success at distributing its oil income among citizens. He urged the government to ensure its economic policies are leading to sustainable growth.

``What's fundamental is to have a balance in the role of the market and the government in the economy,'' Stiglitz said at a forum on emerging markets sponsored by a local bank. ``We have to realize it's not just about setting interest rates, but also about supporting growth.''


http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aqop3ptj2ktg&refer=latin_america


From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 10 November 2007 11:03 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:
You don't see that every day!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aqop3ptj2ktg&refer=latin_america


You could also read it as a warning: "Don't go all the way to socialism. Stick with the mixed economy." Even Stephen Harper has joined his voice to that chorus.


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 10 November 2007 12:28 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
We should note that Stiglitz also had praise for Cuba's achievements in health care and educationa few years ago. Similar comments were made by James Wolfensohn, another former head of the World Bank.

Low income countries can have these things now if they could shed the IMF's neocolonial shackles. These are things that should never be left to a free market economic long run. Hugo Chavez is the strong leadership they've needed for a long time.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Doug
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 44

posted 10 November 2007 12:59 PM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The King of Spain doesn't have the same opinion. Oh well, can't please everyone.

Juan Carlos tells Hugo Chavez to shut up


From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 10 November 2007 01:18 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Doug:
The King of Spain doesn't have the same opinion. Oh well, can't please everyone.

Juan Carlos tells Hugo Chavez to shut up


Chavez is now an official enemy of the anti-communist league of fascists. The Savoy family, their mafia connections and the neocon cabal want his head on a platter.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
The Wizard of Socialism
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2912

posted 10 November 2007 04:26 PM      Profile for The Wizard of Socialism   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
King of Spain by The Secret Police? Good song, great video.
From: A Proud Canadian! | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 10 November 2007 04:33 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
This sort of thing was what worried me back in early January when I saw Chavez was embarking on even bolder steps than before; he seems to be moving towards confrontation as the preferred course of action regardless of whether or not his target might not be better as an ally, rather than an enemy. I mean, he went and hacked off Zapatero, not just Aznar.

(EDIT to remove brain fart)

[ 10 November 2007: Message edited by: DrConway ]


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 10 November 2007 04:49 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I thought Aznar was Popular Party, the ones who sent troops to Iraq, and the ones who tried to blame 3-11 on the socialist Basques? Remember Pablo's Guernica
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
laine lowe
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13668

posted 10 November 2007 09:00 PM      Profile for laine lowe     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Maybe Chavez should have been more "diplomatic" but I have no disagreement with what he said. As for Juan Carlos, he is a pompous ass who revealed his own racist tendencies:

quote:
Mr Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, despite his microphone being turned off. The king leaned forward and said: "Why don't you shut up?"

According to reports, the king used a familiar term normally used only for close acquaintances - or children.


This is the same rule as in French when you use "tu" or "vous". It is very condescending to use the familiar with an adult who is not a close family member.


From: north of 50 | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Ken Burch
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8346

posted 10 November 2007 11:50 PM      Profile for Ken Burch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
And Chavez was correct: Aznar, as the leader of the Popular Party, the successor party to the Falangist Party of Francisco, is a fascist or at least in the fascist political tradition.
From: A seedy truckstop on the Information Superhighway | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Geneva
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3808

posted 12 November 2007 12:59 AM      Profile for Geneva     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Ken Burch:
And Chavez was correct: Aznar ... is a fascist or at least in the fascist political tradition.

yes, a "fascist" who left power after the ballots were counted and his party was defeated

this cheapening of vocabulary helps no one


From: um, well | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323

posted 12 November 2007 03:13 AM      Profile for unionist     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Geneva, under your very strict terminology, was Franco's regime fascist?
From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
nister
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7709

posted 12 November 2007 03:16 AM      Profile for nister     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
King Juan Carlos is superior to Chavez by dint of arriving through the right birth canal..all Chavez can point to is his accomplishments.
From: Barrie, On | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 12 November 2007 03:20 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Geneva:

yes, a "fascist" who left power after the ballots were counted and his party was defeated

... but only after having transformed Spain into a poorer cheap labour cousin of the EU with high levels of unemployment. When Aznar introduced new labour laws to force the unemployed to accept jobs many kilometres from where they lived, a general strike swept the country that made the PP backoff temporarily. And then Bush's illegal war on poor people in Iraq produced the largest anti-war protests in history. And so supporting it was another bad move for Spanish fascistas.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Mercy
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13853

posted 12 November 2007 03:34 AM      Profile for Mercy     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I think Chavez was making a reference to Aznar's links to the Franco regime.

I think the media glommed onto this so they wouldn't have to wrote about Chavez's negotiations to free hostages and prisonners in Colombia. It's a good news story that makes Chavez look like a hero. Not good if you're CNN.


From: Ontario, Canada | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
Geneva
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3808

posted 12 November 2007 04:44 AM      Profile for Geneva     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by unionist:
Geneva, under your very strict terminology, was Franco's regime fascist?

yes

and my terminology is not strict at all; if a party leaves power after losing the popular vote/seat count in national elections, they are not fascists, who by definition entirely dominate the public sphere and hold on to power by violence

and, to look at a party's pedigree 40 years on is no help either; there are now middle-class, mildly left-of-centre reform parties in Italy that can be traced back to the Italian Communist Party

... what remains of that link today? nothing;
would it make any sense to refer to them in 2007 as Leninist ?


.

[ 12 November 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]


From: um, well | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 12 November 2007 05:23 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
...and King Juan Carlos is singularly responsible for restoring democracy to Spain. He is a hero. Franco groomed him for years to carry on the fascist regime. But the moment Franco died, Juan Carlos called for democratic elections and turned his back on the fascists in Spain. When the Francoists tried to stage a military coup in 1981 - Juan Carlos went on national television and denounced the coup and called for Spain to be democratic forever and tghe coup collapsed.
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Le Téléspectateur
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7126

posted 12 November 2007 09:01 AM      Profile for Le Téléspectateur     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
and King Juan Carlos is singularly responsible for restoring democracy to Spain. He is a hero. Franco groomed him for years to carry on the fascist regime. But the moment Franco died, Juan Carlos called for democratic elections and turned his back on the fascists in Spain. When the Francoists tried to stage a military coup in 1981 - Juan Carlos went on national television and denounced the coup and called for Spain to be democratic forever and tghe coup collapsed.

Yes of course, it was only the King who did anything about fascism in Spain. The people should be grateful that they have such a benevolent ruler. Long live the King of Spain! Defender of freedom and democracy!


From: More here than there | Registered: Oct 2004  |  IP: Logged
Geneva
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3808

posted 12 November 2007 09:45 AM      Profile for Geneva     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
what exactly do you want ? another civil war? the King fulfilled his symbolic role, and usefully

anyways, the point is that Aznar was a European right-wing politician, but there is a distinction between that and a fascist

all major unions, teachers and youth groups, liberal newspapers, left parties etc, acknowledged that in France in 2002, when they urged voters to support imperfect conservative candidate Chirac vs a real fascist

[ 12 November 2007: Message edited by: Geneva ]


From: um, well | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 12 November 2007 10:34 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Yes of course, it was only the King who did anything about fascism in Spain.

The King was the only one who did anything SUCCESSFULLY about fascism in Spain. Franco's role went unchallenged from the end of the Civil War in 1939 to his death in 1975.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 12 November 2007 10:49 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Ken Burch:
And Chavez was correct: Aznar, as the leader of the Popular Party, the successor party to the Falangist Party of Francisco, is a fascist or at least in the fascist political tradition.

I think he also supported the short-lived coup against Chavez in 2002.


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 12 November 2007 11:01 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Chavez hits back.
From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Geneva
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3808

posted 12 November 2007 11:15 AM      Profile for Geneva     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
that's a good one: "there are no Latin American monarchs"

really?


From: um, well | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Tom Vouloumanos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3177

posted 12 November 2007 11:28 AM      Profile for Tom Vouloumanos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
The King was the only one who did anything SUCCESSFULLY about fascism in Spain. Franco's role went unchallenged from the end of the Civil War in 1939 to his death in 1975.

Well this is a completely different debate but the fall of Fascism in Southern Europe in the 70's (like its victory in the 1930's) had more to do with the Great Powers (then lead by Britain later by the US) than the Monarch.

After having neutralized the popular radical movements via opressive regimes in Spain, Portugal and Greece, the US (with support from Western Europe) began to change its policy of support for local dictators. (The Portuguese case being different since there was a Left-Wing Militatry Coup before the restoration of democracy). Anyway, the point is that Franco had done his job and neutralized the left and (in my point of view had succesfully destroyed the world's best organized anarchosyndicalist movement - the true enemy of both liberal democrats and Stalinists). Having neutralized popular radical forces, the existence of Military Juntas was becoming an embarassing liability which angered Europeans who organized awarness campaigns lead by various political exiles.

But again this is a completely other debate. In fact wasn't the original post about Stiglitz's praise of the Chavez government?


From: Montréal QC | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
Geneva
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3808

posted 12 November 2007 12:08 PM      Profile for Geneva     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Franco had done his job and neutralized the left

I am sure elected post-1975 Spanish Socialist Prime Ministers Gonzalez and Zapatero agree ...


From: um, well | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 12 November 2007 01:46 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Geneva:

I am sure elected post-1975 Spanish Socialist Prime Ministers Gonzalez and Zapatero agree ...


Well, maybe he neutralized the "far left"....


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Tom Vouloumanos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3177

posted 12 November 2007 05:46 PM      Profile for Tom Vouloumanos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I am sure elected post-1975 Spanish Socialist Prime Ministers Gonzalez and Zapatero agree ...

The Left I was referring to was not the social democratic reformist left, which does not challenge capitalism but the radical left i.e. the anarchosyndicalist CNT and FAI which lead one of the most far reaching worker revolutions history had ever seen. I would include the UGT and the POUM as well, which did not call for reformism but the abolishment of capitalism and its replacement with a new order run directly by worker committees and peasant assemblies i.e. genuine participatory socialism. This was neutralized. The modern Left in Spain no longer espouses revolution. PSOE under Gonzalez was quite centrist and it has only moved moderately more to the left under Zapatero. So yes, the Left has been neutralized not erased, it has become reformist and moved toward the liberal centre. As for the CNT's anarchosyndicalist inheritors the larger CGT and more radical CNT/FAI/AIT grouping, it no longer has the influence and popularity it once boasted of. This is what I meant by neutralized, the Left was made safe for capitalism, it was not erased.


From: Montréal QC | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 12 November 2007 06:53 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
the abolishment of capitalism and its replacement with a new order run directly by worker committees and peasant assemblies i.e.

Sounds like a scary recipe for mass starvation and Stalinist concentration camps. Spain is better off as the prosperous liberal democracy ruled by social democrats that it is today.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 12 November 2007 07:24 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:

Sounds like a scary recipe for mass starvation and Stalinist concentration camps. Spain is better off as the prosperous liberal democracy ruled by social democrats that it is today.


Yes, unless the world is owned and controlled by corporations rather than democratically and for profit rather than for the benefit of people, starvation and mass slaughter are bound to ensue. Long may they rule over us! Happy and glorious! God save capital!

[ 12 November 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 12 November 2007 07:34 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
In every single solitary case in world history - eradication of capitalism and "workers councils" and "peasant committees" = mass starvation and usually mass murder.
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 12 November 2007 07:48 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
In every single solitary case in world history - eradication of capitalism and "workers councils" and "peasant committees" = mass starvation and usually mass murder.

1) What are your units of measure? What exactly constitutes a "case"? It's hard to argue the point without this kind of information.

2) Starvation and executions/death/war have been in large measure attributable to the aggression (military and economic) of capital.

3) There has never been a revolution or a change in political and economic organization that was without considerable violence and death. That includes the revolution(s) whereby capitalism and liberalism displaced feudalism. Consider capitalism in its beginnings: the forcible expropriation of land and displacement of people, the brutal working conditions, the extreme poverty, the famine (often deliberately induced), the slavery, genocide, colonial exploitation, etc. (Then there's its recent history ....)

4) "In every single solitary case in world history" - capitalism = mass starvation and usually mass murder.

ETA: argh. I'm fighting with Stockholm again Somebody come and help me!

[ 12 November 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]

[ 12 November 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 12 November 2007 07:52 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
4) "In every single solitary case in world history" - capitalism = mass starvation and usually mass murder.

The following countries have NOT eradicated capitalism (to name a few):

Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Finland
Iceland
Netherlands
Belgium
Germany
UK
Canada
Japan
Singapore etc...etc...etc...

If there is any mass murder and mass starvation currently happening in any of those places - please tell us all about it.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 12 November 2007 07:54 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:

The following countries have NOT eradicated capitalism (to name a few):

Denmark
Norway
Sweden
Finland
Iceland
Netherlands
Belgium
Germany
UK
Canada
Japan
Singapore etc...etc...etc...

If there is any mass murder and mass starvation currently happening in any of those places - please tell us all about it.


No, they're beyond the mass murder and starvation phase in their own countries. (That was in the beginning.) Now they depend on starvation and murder elsewhere in the world. And they have done so for several centuries. (see points 1, 2, and 3 above)

[ 12 November 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 12 November 2007 08:00 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
are you a member of cult or something?
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 12 November 2007 08:02 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
are you a member of cult or something?

That's not an argument. It's just an insult.

I have to go to bed now but I'll be back tomorrow


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Aristotleded24
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9327

posted 12 November 2007 08:19 PM      Profile for Aristotleded24   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
In every single solitary case in world history - eradication of capitalism and "workers councils" and "peasant committees" = mass starvation and usually mass murder.

Cut the hysteria Stockholm. Basically what workers councils mean is that if you work for a factory, instead of just going there to do your job without any real say in anything you have a direct stake in running the factory. What's so scary about that? One of the advantages is that these councils don't constantly blackmail governments into handing over whackloads of corporate welfare while workers get the shaft in the end. You might want to see what the auto industry is doing to your province. One of the key reasons labour unions began was to eventually accumulate enough capital to buy out their bosses and run the plants themselves.

If you're referring to the former Soviet Union, Communist Bloc, and China, what you see there was a large centralised state apparatus that controlled everything and made all economic decisions. The actual workers had no sway at all. That's not at all what we're advocating.


From: Winnipeg | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 12 November 2007 08:31 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
[QB]

The following countries have NOT eradicated capitalism (to name a few):QB]


You shouldn't forget the USA. That country still has enough market-based ideology in reserve to almost be considered a capitalist economy. We say almost. The only thing stopping the hawks from redoing 1929 all over again is fear and disbelief in laissez-faire capitalism itself.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Tom Vouloumanos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3177

posted 13 November 2007 08:51 AM      Profile for Tom Vouloumanos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Sounds like a scary recipe for mass starvation and Stalinist concentration camps. Spain is better off as the prosperous liberal democracy ruled by social democrats that it is today.

It was in fact Stalinists who initially destroyed the Spanish Libertarian movement by returning the factories taken over by the workers to their former owners, they did away with the peasant assemblies and broke up the voluntary agricultural collectives. As for concentration camps, scores of Spanish Anarchists and independent leftists (such as the members of the POUM, of which George Orwell was a member of during the Civil War) were arrested and executed. Stalin had a visceral hatred for all things socialist (i.e. authentic worker and popular control).

On this the Western powers agreed with Stalin, that the greatest danger to Elite run societies whether Capitalist or Stalinist is authentic popular participation (i.e. genuine democracy).

As for the survival of social democracy in light of the neutralization of radical socialism (of the libertarian kind of course), has more to do with the resilience of the Spanish Left rather than with Franco having saved social democracy from a libertarian dictatorship or any such nonsense. Such conclusions can only be drawn by some great mystical feat of intelectual gymnastics - one would think.

Spain could not have been kept under dictarship forever (like any society in my opinion). European agitation against the dictatirship of southern Europe grew stronger, local antipathy and resistance against despotic regimes was also gaining ground. Franco and other Juntas were a liability by the mid-seventies and were only useful in fostering discontent against the US and NATO. The situation was embarassing and since the back of the popular movements were broken, the controls could be eased to allow these countries to elect their own leaders.

The world might have been better off had the Spanish libertarian revolution spread to other parts of Europe, a real possibility at the time, and fought fascism head on in both Germany and Italy. A different history could have been possible. Unfortunately, this did not come and popular revolutionary socialism was destroyed; but to paint the libertarian left with the brush of Stalin is ludicrous.


From: Montréal QC | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 13 November 2007 10:30 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Well, you people have managed to be a little calmer than I was I'm just so tired of this argument. But I guess I'd better get used to it.
From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
kropotkin1951
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2732

posted 13 November 2007 11:02 AM      Profile for kropotkin1951   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
In every single solitary case in world history - eradication of capitalism and "workers councils" and "peasant committees" = mass starvation and usually mass murder.
Strange when I read about the Russian revolution it was not capitalism that controlled the country but the feudal Tzar and his minions. So Stockholm is it true that everytime an authoritarian feudal society collapses it leads to mass starvation and mass murder.

From: North of Manifest Destiny | Registered: Jun 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 13 November 2007 11:14 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by kropotkin1951:
Strange when I read about the Russian revolution it was not capitalism that controlled the country but the feudal Tzar and his minions. So Stockholm is it true that everytime an authoritarian feudal society collapses it leads to mass starvation and mass murder.

That's related to what I was trying to say, in part. The collapse of feudalism and the rise of capitalism in various parts of the world was characterized by mass starvation (frequently deliberately induced), mass murder, expropriation of land, slave labour, etc.


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 13 November 2007 11:21 AM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses. How many times do these so-called "socialist revolutions" have to end in millions of deaths and complete economic collapse before you admit that revolutionary socialism has been a complete flop every time its been tried and it invariably turns into some nightmarish totalitarian bureaucratic regime.

The only political system in human history that comes close to working is liberal democracy when elections are won by moderate social democratic parties.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Geneva
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3808

posted 13 November 2007 11:25 AM      Profile for Geneva     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
as usual, dittos Stockolm;
we should stand by the northern Europe social democracies as the most decent human societies yet

Spain is trying to join that humanist club, largely by dumping the insane ideological politics that proved so futile and disastrous in its past


From: um, well | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312

posted 13 November 2007 11:25 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
How many times do these so-called "socialist revolutions" have to end in millions of deaths and complete economic collapse before you admit that revolutionary socialism has been a complete flop every time its been tried and it invariably turns into some nightmarish totalitarian bureaucratic regime.

It turns into capitalism?

How many people has capitalism killed while nice, white so-called social democracies put smiley faces over the corpses? Anyone know?

If we start counting at the Spanish American war, what will the final tally be?


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 13 November 2007 11:29 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:

The only political system in human history that comes close to working is liberal democracy when elections are won by moderate social democratic parties.

Yes, and democratic capitalist India alone has managed to put more skeletons in its closet every eight years like clockwork than China did in all its years of shame, 1958-62. Without nukes, Liberal Democracy wouldn't stand up in a windstorm, and they know it.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 13 November 2007 11:37 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
How many people has capitalism killed while nice, white so-called social democracies put smiley faces over the corpses? Anyone know?

Just between the years 1947 and 1979 in capitalist India, Nobel economist Amartya Sen's figures put the death toll from capitalism in that country alone at around 100 million. Noam Chomsky adds that if all the countries under tutelage of the west were brought to account, the number of dead and tormented due to a remorseless invisible hand becomes truly breathtaking.

[ 13 November 2007: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312

posted 13 November 2007 11:43 AM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
we should stand by the northern Europe social democracies as the most decent human societies yet

See what I mean, about smiley faces.

Suddenly European countries are exempt from the wreckage wrought by the so-called global economy of which they are beneficiaries.

One example:

quote:
Kenya has some of the largest flower
farms in the world, employing up to
10,000 workers. They usually live on the
farm where they work. Approximately
65% of Kenyan flower workers are
employed as casual workers. This
means that they are not entitled to
benefits and can be fired at any time.
Women workers are likely to lose their
jobs if they become pregnant. Many
workers are paid wages of just £1 a day. The flowers are grown mostly
around the Rift Valley lakes, which supply water for the farms.
Millions of flowers are flown from Nairobi to Europe every year. The peak period for export is in early
February around Valentine’s Day.

http://www.learningafrica.org.uk/downloads/casestudy_flowers.pdf

And, of course, the lake is almost dry. But no worries! Europeans are there to provide water ... if poor Africans fired for being pregnant can afford it.

Maybe next we can talk about Lake Victoria and Europe's appetite for fish. Break out smiley faces as there will be corpses to stick.


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1258

posted 13 November 2007 12:17 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
How many people has capitalism killed while nice, white so-called social democracies put smiley faces over the corpses? Anyone know?

Silly fellow don't you know that slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism don't count, that isn't genocide it's trade.

The whole sale carnage and slaughter amongst capitalist nations known as World war 1 actually was due to noble reasons beyond the comprehension of us commoners.


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 13 November 2007 12:33 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Just between the years 1947 and 1979 in capitalist India

During that entire period, India was a pseudo-socialist bureaucratic command economy with close ties to the Soviet Union and an almost non-existent rate of economic growth. Nehru and his daughter Indira Gandhi were hardly free-marketeers. It was only in the 90s when India started to liberalize its economy that they suddenly started having double digit growth rates every year and an explosion in the size of their middle class.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Max Bialystock
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13870

posted 13 November 2007 12:45 PM      Profile for Max Bialystock     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
The only political system in human history that comes close to working is liberal democracy when elections are won by moderate social democratic parties.

So you're saying the U.S. and Canada aren't functioning democracies? I'll agree with that!

What about Chile under Allende (a democratic socialist not a social democrat)...I guess since he was overthrown and murdered that's going too far!

Or Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales today...I think they go beyond "moderate social democracy."

[ 13 November 2007: Message edited by: Max Bialystock ]


From: North York | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312

posted 13 November 2007 01:04 PM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
It was only in the 90s when India started to liberalize its economy that they suddenly started having double digit growth rates every year and an explosion in the size of their middle class

HURRAY FOR DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH AND MASS CONSUMPTION ECONOMIES!!!!

How is India doing for water?

quote:
“Your whole day goes just planning how you’ll get water,” a weary Mrs. Prasher, 45, recounted one morning this summer, cellphone in hand and ready to press redial for the water tanker. “You become so edgy all the time.”

In the richest city in India, with the nation’s economy marching ahead at an enviable clip, middle-class people like Mrs. Prasher are reduced to foraging for water. Their predicament testifies to the government’s astonishing inability to deliver the most basic services to its citizens at a time when India asserts itself as a global power.



NY Times

Capitalism is so efficient at converting life into death.


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Tom Vouloumanos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3177

posted 13 November 2007 01:10 PM      Profile for Tom Vouloumanos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
revolutionary socialism has been a complete flop every time its been tried and it invariably turns into some nightmarish totalitarian bureaucratic regime.

I don't think that the point was addressed. You don't seem to want to answer the Libertarian point of view. From the Libertarian point of view those totalitarian bureaucratic regimes started as such. Lenin and Trotsky swiftly destroyed the incipient soviets (worker's councils) and concentrated power into their hands. So it depends what one calls revolutionary socialism. If it is equated with command economies and totalitarian states that I would say no not for me. If on the other hand socialism means a participatory democratic economy and polity, then yes. In fact, historically it meant the latter. But the term socialism itself has been destroyed. Noam Chomsky put it poignantly (Socialism, Real and Fake, What Uncle Sam Really Wants):

quote:
The world's two major propaganda systems did not agree on much, but they did agree on using the term socialism to refer to the immediate destruction of every element of socialism by the Bolsheviks. That's not too surprising. The Bolsheviks called their system socialist so as to exploit the moral prestige of socialism.

The West adopted the same usage for the opposite reason: to defame the feared libertarian* ideals by associating them with the Bolshevik dungeon, to undermine the popular belief that there really might be progress towards a more just society with democratic control over its basic institutions and concern for human needs and rights.

If socialism is the tyranny of Lenin and Stalin, then sane people will say: not for me. And if that's the only alternative to corporate state capitalism, then many will submit to its authoritarian structures as the only reasonable choice.


quote:
One can debate the meaning of the term "socialism," but if it means anything, it means control of production by the workers themselves, not owners and managers who rule them and control all decisions, whether in capitalist enterprises or an absolutist state.

To refer to the Soviet Union as socialist is an interesting case of doctrinal doublespeak. The Bolshevik coup of October 1917 placed state power in the hands of Lenin and Trotsky, who moved quickly to dismantle the incipient socialist institutions that had grown up during the popular revolution of the preceding months -- the factory councils, the Soviets, in fact any organ of popular control -- and to convert the workforce into what they called a "labor army" under the command of the leader. In any meaningful sense of the term "socialism," the Bolsheviks moved at once to destroy its existing elements. No socialist deviation has been permitted since.


The foregoing makes it quite difficult to have a debate regarding the revolutionary left. Libertarian socialism was once a force to be reckoned with, it of course has been destroyed by both the liberal and stalinist traditions.

Of course social democracy in a liberal representative democracy is better than any despotic regime no matter how benevolent the self-appointed leaders are. Humans need political freedom as much as food, health care and work.

The questions though are:

Did Franco do a service to the Spanish people by destroying the Spanish libertarian movement? (I think it was distastrous for humankind)
Would the libertarian social revolution have lead to Stalinism - If so how and why? (I think such as conclusion is absolutely ludicrous)

But then again this all so crazy to even contemplate, because Franco attacked a social democratic republic in 1936 in the first place. The error of Republican liberals was not to arm the population since they were afraid of the rabble. Had the unions been allowed to take arms in preparation for the "surprise" attack and had the Republican liberals not panicked as workers took over workplaces and peasants took over land, things may (and I stress the may) had turned out differently. The survival of social democracy was not due to Franco saving it from some sort of libertarian-Stalinist mutant, it was due to the resiliency of the left.


From: Montréal QC | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 13 November 2007 01:13 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
quote: It was only in the 90s when India started to liberalize its economy that they suddenly started having double digit growth rates every year and an explosion in the size of their middle class


HURRAY FOR DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH AND MASS CONSUMPTION ECONOMIES!!!!


Do you prefer people continuing to live in squalor and starving to death? If a growing proportion of Indians are living more comfortably and not worrying about famine - how can it be anything but good news?


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Geneva
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3808

posted 13 November 2007 01:18 PM      Profile for Geneva     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Do you prefer people continuing to live in squalor and starving to death?

actually many people , right and left, WILL accept that as the price of ideological purity:

down with those call-centre and IT jobs!

let's all hail the New Millennium of worker-run coops! coming, er, any minute now ...


From: um, well | Registered: Feb 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 13 November 2007 01:35 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:

Do you prefer people continuing to live in squalor and starving to death? If a growing proportion of Indians are living more comfortably and not worrying about famine - how can it be anything but good news?


350 million of them go to be hungry every night. They still have leprosy in India for Christ's sake. Free markets will not solve these issues anytime soon.

25 years ago, there were 500 million chronically hungry people around the world. Today it's 800 million. There are an estimated 35 million 'food insecure' Americans. Anywhere from 6,000,000 to 13, 000, 000 children die of the capitalist economic long run around the world each and every year like clockwork. Beware Dickens' allegorical orphans, Want and Ignorance.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 13 November 2007 01:49 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
India is getting richer and richer and richer. Back in the days of Nehru and Gandhi - people starved in famines. Now the proportion of Indians living in those conditions is at an all-time low.

If you want proof of how revolutionary communism is a flop, while liberal democracy is a success - all you have to do is compare north and south Korea.

In North Korea, hundreds of thousands die of starvation, the country is an environmental apocalypse and if you go there as a tourist, you will see people discreetly picking leaves off trees in city parks and eating them just to keep their bellies full. Meanwhile in South Korea they have a standard of living that is similar to Japan.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Merowe
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4020

posted 13 November 2007 02:12 PM      Profile for Merowe     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Eh, India. It's still a dyed-in-the-wool feudal state; on it's current path its poor won't be disappearing anytime soon, quite the opposite. Somebody has to do the laundry and clean the shoes of the burgeoning middle class, for about a buck a day. I wouldn't be holding it up as a model of anything inspirational.

A good look out the train window as it pulls into Bombay of a morning, with thousands clearing their bowels along the right-of-way a few meters away from the breakfast tea perched on the carraige compartment table at your elbow should quickly sort any illusions about it's evenhanded development.


From: Dresden, Germany | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 13 November 2007 02:15 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
India is a very poor and very over-crowded country. But they are making enormous progress. The proportion of the population living in poverty is falling fast and the proportion who are middle class is soaring. There is no magic bullet - but things are moving in the right direction. Which is more than can be said for Burma after 40 years of the "Burmese Road to Socialism" or North Korea.
From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 13 November 2007 02:26 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
If you want proof of how revolutionary communism is a flop, while liberal democracy is a success - all you have to do is compare north and south Korea.


I'd be amazed if anyone here were advocating what they have in North Korea.

In any case, if you want to compare two systems you can't just take a snap-shot of two selected countries. You have to consider history and the global economy.

It's a little bit like what's happening with our health system. First, they destroy it. Then they say, "See? It doesn't work." (And, of course, they suppress any knowledge of the horrors of the alternative.)


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 13 November 2007 02:29 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
In any case, if you want to compare two systems you can't just take a snap-shot of two selected countries.

They are two halves of the same country. Its a perfect controlled experiment.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 13 November 2007 02:30 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
India is getting richer and richer and richer. Back in the days of Nehru and Gandhi - people starved in famines. Now the proportion of Indians living in those conditions is at an all-time low.

In 1949, China was behind even capitalist India wrt mortality rates. By 1976, China's infant mortality was better than democratic capitalist India's IM rate today. I for one am not impressed with capitalist India's poverty reduction occurring at glacial speed.

quote:
In North Korea, hundreds of thousands die of starvation, the country is an environmental apocalypse and if you go there as a tourist, you will see people discreetly picking leaves off trees in city parks and eating them just to keep their bellies full. Meanwhile in South Korea they have a standard of living that is similar to Japan.

Congratulations, you've just described three countries which have socialized medicine. Don't forget, North Korea's population is less than half of South Korea's and a fraction of Japan's, two countries which enjoy geographical advantages over North Korea, which is mainly a mountainous country about the size of Mississippi.

A CitiBank report to the Pentagon last year decribed the reforms underway in North Korea. It said the special economic zones are about where China was in the 1980's. The monetary policies are at a stage of Chinese reforms comparable with the 1990's.

The American military occupation on the peninsula represents division among the Koreas. Like empires before, the goal is to maintain division among the barbarians. I think what's got the Yanks miffed is that the Asian Pacific Rim of countries are not so divided as they once were when the U.S. was both the largest military threat as well as economic power. Those countries: Japan, Taiwan, Koreas, China and Singapore are now the largest generators of capital wealth in the world. And now Russia is agreeing to push electrical power through North to South Korea in expanding trade and commerce with the peninsula.

Stockholmer, North Korea, with its policies for universal health care and literacy, is in a position to leave those parts of the democratic capitalist third world in the dust, especially those Central American countries like El Salvador, and Haiti, the "freest trading nation in the Caribbean" according to Washington. The Koreas should be united and American military clap trap pulled out of that country and more. One South Korean said they could afford to pay for free post-secondary schooling if it wasn't for paying the cost of US military occupation. The Yanks don't want another Asian tiger economy to compete with. That's why you're reading cold war era nonsense about North Korea still. Our news agencies are oftentimes about 20 years out of sync with what's actually happening on the other side of the world. Heck, they're not very good at covering the news here in an unbiased manner.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8312

posted 13 November 2007 02:34 PM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Do you prefer people continuing to live in squalor and starving to death?

Isn't that what capitalism delivers? Where Indians living in squalor and starving to death prior to the same degree they do no prior to the age of colonization and western concern for their welfare?

Throughout the world people do live in squalor and poverty. Thousands of children die every day due to a lack of clean water. But you live well and that's all that counts.


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 13 November 2007 02:39 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:

They are two halves of the same country. Its a perfect controlled experiment.


A perfectly controlled experiment requires that confounding variables be eliminated. It's absolutely ridiculous to make that sort of claim with respect to North and South Korea. Perfectly controlled experiments require careful design, control, and measurement. They don't happen by accident on a massive scale - and that's more or less what's wrong with your whole line of argument.

ETA: However, I must go. I have to attend a cult ritual tonight

[ 13 November 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 13 November 2007 02:41 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

Isn't that what capitalism delivers? Where Indians living in squalor and starving to death prior to the same degree they do no prior to the age of colonization and western concern for their welfare?

Throughout the world people do live in squalor and poverty. Thousands of children die every day due to a lack of clean water. But you live well and that's all that counts.


Yep! Well said.


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
B.L. Zeebub LLD
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6914

posted 13 November 2007 03:33 PM      Profile for B.L. Zeebub LLD     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:

They are two halves of the same country. Its a perfect controlled experiment.


Yeah, I've always wondered how they breathe in a vacuum...


From: A Devil of an Advocate | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 13 November 2007 04:11 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
It's a controlled experiment where a country the size of Mississippi is littered with mountains except for about 13% of arrable land by the sea which may or may not be flooded by typhoons in a given year.

And then on top of it they've had to deal with trade embargos not unlike the one waged on Cuba or a desert nation of Iraq or Libya for decades. This is how the real invisible hand works its "magic"

And they are still arrested in South Korea for giving communist speeches or for organizing laboour strikes. They aren't free either. The Yanks need to pull the military out of Korea once and for all and let democracy rein free. Nuclear weapons have no legitimate purpose.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1258

posted 13 November 2007 05:17 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
actually many people , right and left, WILL accept that as the price of ideological purity:

down with those call-centre and IT jobs!

let's all hail the New Millennium of worker-run coops! coming, er, any minute now .


Well those are the great myths of Western Capitalism, that western liberal democracies are somehow non-ideological, that the prosperity of the west is dissassociated from the exploitation of the global south, that the byproduct of 500 years of colonialism is not ongoing exploitation and impoverishment of the majority of citizens of the world.

It is an ideological slight of hand that always references Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot anytime, the crimes and accountability of western capitalims are raised. The goal is obviously deflection and obfuscation and disingenous to the core when it is implied that any critique of capitalism is equated with an endorsement of totalitarian communism.

There is also a deep thread of good old fashioned eurocentric white supremism suggesting that the benign western corporations are engagng in acts of supreme benevolence in providing jobs( IT or call centres) to the backwards savages. In the narrative of Chinese and Indian "success" anything positive is attributed to capitalism anything negative obviously is due to other factors. The globalization success meme ignores the increased impoverishment of the global south, and the increase in economic disparity both between and within countries. Growth and GDP is always sited despite the fact that it says little about the increase in global poverty in line with increased concentration of wealth in the hands of the few.

WHICH BRINGS US TO THE WHOLE CENTRAL POINT OF THIS THREAD IN WHICH STIGLITZ IS PRAISING CHAVEZ FOR HIS WILLINGNESS TO CHALLENGE THE TREND TO INCREASED INCOME DISPARITY AND ACTIVELY ENGAGE IN WEALTH DISTRIBUTION AND INCREASED EQUALITY OF BOTH CONDITION AND OPPORTUNITY. To pretend that these goals are any part of Capitalism planned or accidental is pure gibberish, every small or large movement towards increased social justice and equality has been the result of ongoing struggle it is not the byproduct born out of the psychotic delusion of an invisible hand.

It is out of Latin America that we are once again seeing a concentrated and carefully articulated opposition to the neo-liberal market fundamentalism that has been reeking havoc around the globe. The governments of Venezuela and Bolivia are asserting that they can actually act in the interest of their citizens and the citizens of the world rather than in the interests of global corporations and finance, to equate such actions with Stalinism is just beyond moronic.


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273

posted 13 November 2007 05:24 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:
It is out of Latin America that we are once again seeing a concentrated and carefully articulated opposition to the neo-liberal market fundamentalism that has been reeking havoc around the globe. The governments of Venezuela and Bolivia are asserting that they can actually act in the interest of their citizens and the citizens of the world rather than in the interests of global corporations and finance, to equate such actions with Stalinism is just beyond moronic.
Or, as Naomi Klein put it recently:
quote:
The staunchest opponents of neoliberal economics in Latin America have been winning election after election. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, running on a platform of "Twenty-First-Century Socialism," was re-elected in 2006 for a third term with 63 percent of the vote. Despite attempts by the Bush Administration to paint Venezuela as a pseudo-democracy, a poll that year found 57 percent of Venezuelans happy with the state of their democracy, an approval rating on the continent second only to Uruguay's, where the left-wing coalition party Frente Amplio had been elected to government and where a series of referendums had blocked major privatizations. In other words, in the two Latin American states where voting had resulted in real challenges to the Washington Consensus, citizens had renewed their faith in the power of democracy to improve their lives.

From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Aristotleded24
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9327

posted 13 November 2007 05:51 PM      Profile for Aristotleded24   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
Excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses. How many times do these so-called "socialist revolutions" have to end in millions of deaths and complete economic collapse before you admit that revolutionary socialism has been a complete flop every time its been tried and it invariably turns into some nightmarish totalitarian bureaucratic regime.

Hey Stockholm, take a read from Klein's article posted above:

quote:
Washington has always regarded democratic socialism as a greater challenge than totalitarian Communism, which was easy to vilify and made for a handy enemy. In the 1960s and '70s, the favored tactic for dealing with the inconvenient popularity of economic nationalism and democratic socialism was to try to equate them with Stalinism, deliberately blurring the clear differences between the worldviews. A stark example of this strategy comes from the early days of the Chicago crusade, deep inside the declassified Chile documents. Despite the CIA-funded propaganda campaign painting Allende as a Soviet-style dictator, Washington's real concerns about the Allende victory were relayed by Henry Kissinger in a 1970 memo to Nixon: "The example of a successful elected Marxist government in Chile would surely have an impact on--and even precedent value for--other parts of the world, especially in Italy; the imitative spread of similar phenomena elsewhere would in turn significantly affect the world balance and our own position in it." In other words, Allende needed to be taken out before his democratic third way spread.

From: Winnipeg | Registered: May 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 13 November 2007 06:07 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I approve of people like Allende - DEMOCRATIC socialists who accept the will of the people and govern according to a democratic multi-party constitution and who are prepared to leave office just as democratically as they entered.

I disapprove of totalitarian crackpots like those anarchists in Spain in the 30s who just wanted to institute their own form of dictatorship.


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Lord Palmerston
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4901

posted 13 November 2007 06:25 PM      Profile for Lord Palmerston     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I prefer the term parliamentary socialism to democratic socialism...the latter implies that somehow socialism can actually not be democratic.

Where's your evidence that the Spanish anarchists wanted to set up a dictatorship?


From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1258

posted 13 November 2007 06:32 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I disapprove of totalitarian crackpots like those anarchists in Spain in the 30s who just wanted to institute their own form of dictatorship.

Totalitarian anarchists?

There really is no limit to your capacity for making outrageously stupid comments.


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 13 November 2007 06:38 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
I approve of people like Allende -

And I approve of all U.S.-backed dictators after they've been thrown out of power either democratically or forced to flee the people's justice. It's when the U.S. military and its allies prop up various dictatorships from last century to this one that seems to provide them with staying power. Despots like Musharraf and Uribe must go. Salvadoran presidential candidate slams pro-US stooges Another domino?


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Tom Vouloumanos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3177

posted 13 November 2007 07:41 PM      Profile for Tom Vouloumanos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I disapprove of totalitarian crackpots like those anarchists in Spain in the 30s who just wanted to institute their own form of dictatorship.

???

I guess you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Do you have any knowledge whatsover of libertarian structures and how they were practiced in Spain. Do you have iota of understanding of what occured during the Spanish Civil War and the Spanish Social Revolution?

What the heck is a totalitarian anarchist or an anarchist dictatorship in theory or in practice?

Here's a short crash course on how the CNT which had millions of members functioned.

Factories were made up of a plurality work councils in which every worker participated on the day to day matters of their work team. Smaller councils were better suited than just a general assembly because it would be more participatory to have a small group of 50 workers discussing than a larger group of 300 in the same factory not everyone would be heard.

Each council would elect a delegate that would serve on the factory committee (Junta). Each delegate was recalable and had to return to her or his council to discuss matters that the committee decided on. General Assemblies of tall the workers (Sindicato) were held to vote on the crucial issues **and** to elect delegates that would serve on a local federation (Comarca) of factories (i.e. the factories of the town or city).

Delegates to the local federations were responsible to the factory committee which was made up as explained of recallable delegates that had to discuss their decisions with their respective worker council. Follow so far.

Now, the local federations would send one of their own to a Regional federation that would merely coordinate the activities of the local federations of factories in a given region. Hence, the Regional federation was basically made up of a mandated delegate sent from a local federation. The local federation was autonomous and was made up of delegates elected from respective factory assemblies, these delegates were responsible to a factory committee made up of members that were directly elected by small groups of workers. Every one being recallable at each stage.

Each Local Federation would call general assemblies of all workers in order to elect delegates to a Regional congress of the various local federations as well as to the National Congress of the whole CNT, both of which were held once a year at different times.

Assemblies and congresses were not rubber stamping affairs; some National congresses would last ten days in which delegates would actively debate within their regional caucuses within the confines of their mandates and then choose a spokesperson amongst them. Consensus and compromise were strived for but that was not necessary, decisions were taken by majority votes. Agendas for all congresses were prepared in a participatory manner between the individual union, as well as the local, regional and national structures to safeguard that a congress was not skewed one way or the other from on top. The amount of delegates was proportional to the number of workers per Local Federation and their mandates were decided by the plenary assemblies that elected them. Mandated delegates at the National congress would elect a National Committee The role of the National Committees was primarily correspondence, the collection of statistics, aid to prisoners and coordination of the regional levels respectively. The mandates of the National and Regional committees were decided during their respective congresses and all committee members were subject to recall.

So to recap:

Tom is a member of a factory that has 300 workers broken up into 6 teams of 50 workers. These teams of 50 workers elect a delegate. I Tom was elected to sit on my factory committee. We coordinated the activities of the factory, I still worked in my factory but my time was shared doing coordinating work. I had to meet about once a week with my group of 50 workers in my team and discuss their specific concerns. I brought these concerns to the committee. The committee held an assembly of all the workers once a month in order to discuss general factory issues. During one of these general assemblies, delegates would be elected to a Local Federation of Factories.

Let us say Stockholm got elected (one delegate per 300 workers) they would sit on the Local Federation which would discuss local issues. Our delegate had to return and discuss with our 6 person committee. Each of us was a member of a 50 person team and any major decision was put to a vote by the whole factory.

Now the Local Federation which was comprise of maybe 16 delegates (representing almost 5000 workers) would send a peer, let us say N.R. Kissed, to a regional federation. They would decide on a date for a regional congress. Each factory would send delegates according to its numbers. They would elect a recallable Regional “Steering” Committee. Now, N.R. Kissed would still meet to with the Regional Committee and would report back to the Local Federation. Stockholm who sits on the same Local Federation as N.R. Kissed would report back to the Factory Committee made up of the 6 members (including Tom) elected by individual groups of 50 workers.

Now each Regional Committee would send a peer to a National Confederation meeting. Let us say that RosaL was mandated by the Regional Committee she sits on to go to the National meeting. The National meeting would decide on a date for the National Congress. The Regionals would send delegates according to their numbers. Delegates would again be elected by the individual sindicatos of each factory. The National Congress would elect a National Committee.

RosaL would still be the contact between the National Committee and the Regional Committee she was elected to. N.R. kissed would meet with RosaL and her Peers on the Regional Committee. N.R. Kissed would then report back to the Local Federation he was elected to and on which Stockholm was also elected to. Stockholm would meet with his Factory Committee on which Tom sits on with 5 other members. Tom and his 5 peers would discuss issues with the 50 workers they represent. All decisions would be subject to votes by the factory general assembly. The Local Federation would hold Local assemblies twice to three times a year. The Regional Federation would hold a regional congress once a year and the National Confederation would hold a National Congress once a year.

Of course modern technology would allow for less face to face meetings but these seems to me to pretty elaborate and ingenuous for a bunch of crackpots. A very advanced form of participatory democracy that is the furthest things from totalitarianism I know of.


From: Montréal QC | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
laine lowe
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13668

posted 13 November 2007 10:02 PM      Profile for laine lowe     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:

WHICH BRINGS US TO THE WHOLE CENTRAL POINT OF THIS THREAD IN WHICH STIGLITZ IS PRAISING CHAVEZ FOR HIS WILLINGNESS TO CHALLENGE THE TREND TO INCREASED INCOME DISPARITY AND ACTIVELY ENGAGE IN WEALTH DISTRIBUTION AND INCREASED EQUALITY OF BOTH CONDITION AND OPPORTUNITY. To pretend that these goals are any part of Capitalism planned or accidental is pure gibberish, every small or large movement towards increased social justice and equality has been the result of ongoing struggle it is not the byproduct born out of the psychotic delusion of an invisible hand.

It is out of Latin America that we are once again seeing a concentrated and carefully articulated opposition to the neo-liberal market fundamentalism that has been reeking havoc around the globe. The governments of Venezuela and Bolivia are asserting that they can actually act in the interest of their citizens and the citizens of the world rather than in the interests of global corporations and finance, to equate such actions with Stalinism is just beyond moronic.


Some very good posts by Tom Vouloumanos and others on the ongoing failure of capitalism's ability to deliver social and economic justice. But the above bears repeating.

Chavez has managed to make some very bold changes that I doubt any social democrat in the "first world" would dare make. He has, for one, taken major steps to undo privatization that has run rampant in the "third world" thanks to the World Bank and IMF. Can you imagine any Canadian party re-nationalizing former crown corporations? It would be nice but I doubt that would happen. All we are left with is trying to fight the privatization of what public assets are left and its a losing battle.


From: north of 50 | Registered: Dec 2006  |  IP: Logged
Doug
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 44

posted 14 November 2007 04:48 AM      Profile for Doug   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:

Totalitarian anarchists?

They did get innovative with psychological torture, though.

The surrealist prison


From: Toronto, Canada | Registered: Apr 2001  |  IP: Logged
B.L. Zeebub LLD
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6914

posted 14 November 2007 05:10 AM      Profile for B.L. Zeebub LLD     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:

Well those are the great myths of Western Capitalism....



That was a fine post. Particularly poignant is the reminder that the gains in social goods in Western countries - including the Scandanavian countries - were most often achieved in spite of the wishes of the most powerful capitalists, traditional upper classes, and other ruling elites. It also good to remember that it was these same socialists who fought for increased and/or universal suffrage in many Western states. That is, "democracy", as we know it (one person, one vote) far from being a natural offshoot of laissez-faire capitalism, was the product of social agitators and organisations firmly on the left. These people were highly ideologised, as most of us are.

You might find Zizek's, Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? interesting.

[ 14 November 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]


From: A Devil of an Advocate | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
B.L. Zeebub LLD
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 6914

posted 14 November 2007 05:37 AM      Profile for B.L. Zeebub LLD     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stockholm:
I approve of people like Allende - DEMOCRATIC socialists who accept the will of the people and govern according to a democratic multi-party constitution and who are prepared to leave office just as democratically as they entered.

I disapprove of totalitarian crackpots like those anarchists in Spain in the 30s who just wanted to institute their own form of dictatorship.


It's funny, after all the nonsense you've spouted in this thread you've been beaten back to saying "voting is good and I like it and I think other people should like it, too".

If that was your point, then all I have to ask is, "SO WHAT???" To link to the actual topic of the thread, Chavez is, and was, elected in free elections monitored by international observers who reported no wrong doing.

His opponents, on the other hand, have attempted to subvert the democratic process by military coup, assassination attempts, and probably all kinds of other methods we don't even know about, if history is any guide.

Stiglitz notes that Chavez is following a model of mixed private and public economy in order to relieve the pains of primitive exploitive capitalism imposed, in part, by an imperial/colonial power - i.e. the United States. Perhaps you are one who likes to think that exploitation and colonialism left with the Spanish, whereas the tale-of-the-tape is that it had only just begun. There has been a concerted effort by the United States to ensure that Latin America did not progress past a certain point in its economic and social development and to crush any attempt to organise the self-same "social democracy" that you laud as a panacea for Europe - indeed the whole world. And what was the propaganda line every time a left-of-centre movement won at the polls? "Stalin killed millions and Pol Pot was bad and these lefty guys are ALL the same."

The "balance" Stiglitz mentions was a huge part of how the "Western democracies" overcame the deficiencies of laissez faire capitalism. From Keynesian economics, to Roosevelt's make-work projects, to the renewed socialist movements across Europe in the interwar and postwar period of the 20th century, mixed economies have been a very important tool for producing both sustainable economic growth and a measure of social justice - for some white people.

In Venezuela, there are no killing fields, no Stalinist purges, and yet you bring those into issue. You attempt to slight and malign Chavez' project - without addressing Stiglitz' point in the slightest, mind you - but have nothing but glowing reports for supposed corporate benevolence in India, despite the damning evidence against a lot of corporate activity there. Your evidence? "Well, a lot of Indian people are doing better, so it must be good." If that's the only criteria, what's wrong with what's happening in Venezuela? Why the need to conjour up Stalinist bogey-men? Whose side are you on?

[ 14 November 2007: Message edited by: B.L. Zeebub LLD ]


From: A Devil of an Advocate | Registered: Sep 2004  |  IP: Logged
Lord Palmerston
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4901

posted 14 November 2007 06:20 AM      Profile for Lord Palmerston     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Stockholm should rent the Ken Loach film, Land and Freedom.
From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 14 November 2007 01:51 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Stockholmer should pay undivided attention to
The War on Democracy Pilger, a YouTube video It's very bad but true.

From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Tom Vouloumanos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3177

posted 14 November 2007 03:02 PM      Profile for Tom Vouloumanos   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
They did get innovative with psychological torture, though.

The surrealist prison


This article originally appeared in the guardian and has been simply reproduced elsewhere. Same article with minor editing to fit the column.
The "surrealist prisons" story's **sole** source was the courtroom confession of the anarchist Alphonse Laurencic. Franco's courtrooms were filled with as many confessions by Republicans, social democrats, communists and anarchists as Stalin's courtrooms - with the exception that the latter had fascist, imperialist ,trotskyist as well as anarchist confessions.

The "confession" of Alphonse Laurencic in Franco's military cortroom cannot be taken too seriously and this story does not sound too credible especially since it is based solely on the confessions of one man in a fascist court.

SEE LINK FOR MORE


From: Montréal QC | Registered: Oct 2002  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 15 November 2007 01:46 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by B.L. Zeebub LLD:
Why the need to conjour up Stalinist bogey-men? Whose side are you on?

Stockholm's on the side of the "Ontarians who butt in on BC Politics threads". It fits with his desire to introduce irrelevancies.

[ 15 November 2007: Message edited by: DrConway ]


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
mudman
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14620

posted 15 November 2007 03:33 PM      Profile for mudman        Edit/Delete Post
Back to Chavez: It looks like another dictatorship in the works.

http://tinyurl.com/yomx37

Are there any reports of people leaving?

Also, should we be giving moral support to the students who do not wish to lose their freedoms?


From: toronto | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 15 November 2007 03:41 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I think the Warshington Post is jealous of Venezuela's constitutional democracy and freedoms
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
mudman
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 14620

posted 15 November 2007 03:48 PM      Profile for mudman        Edit/Delete Post
Fidel: You surely realize that constitutions are just documents and are rarely adhered to in practice.
From: toronto | Registered: Oct 2007  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 15 November 2007 04:28 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Is there substantiation to the allegations made in the article?

quote:
Originally posted by mudman:
Fidel: You surely realize that constitutions are just documents and are rarely adhered to in practice.

PS. Nice to see you have such confidence in Canada's constitution. Unless you believe the rights listed in it are only for some kinds of people and not others.

[ 15 November 2007: Message edited by: DrConway ]


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 15 November 2007 04:52 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by mudman:
Fidel: You surely realize that constitutions are just documents and are rarely adhered to in practice.


And that's what people are saying about Venezuela, that Hugo Chavez has strengthened the collective rights of Venezuelans and using his country's constitition to guarantee those rights to basic necessities of life.

In the U.S., Gore Vidal has written extensively about how the U.S. constitution was deliberately ignored and trampled on by various administrations over the last 45 years, and especially these crooks and liars in Washington today. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president alone cannot declare war on another country. Only Congress has power to declare a war. Those Constititional guidelines have been abused by various U.S. governments for several decades, and especially by these particular chickenhawks.

Threatening another sovereign country with war is also against international law since some time after the Nuremberg trials and formation of the United Nations. So I guess what you're saying is that these wild accusations against Chavez are about as meaningless as the U.S. Constitution. Because I think if anyone is losing rights in this hemisphere, it is Americans themselves who have lost ground wrt liberty, human rights and free speech since the end of the cold war. Most American news journalists are just going through the motions today. The WP has lowered itself downward a peg or two since Bernstein and Woodward, imo.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13921

posted 15 November 2007 05:45 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Chavez responds to some criticisms.

It's the one titled, "Chavez: Reform Strengthens Venezuelan State in Fight against Neo-Liberalism".

[ 15 November 2007: Message edited by: RosaL ]


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 15 November 2007 06:32 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Wow! Thanks, RosaL.

quote:
The neoliberal idea of autonomy of the Central Bank was imposed in Venezuela, Chavez said. He pointed out that although the Central Bank is formally constituted as a public institution, it is not accountable to the any of the constitutional public powers including the legislature, the judiciary, the electoral power, the citizen power or the executive.

"Who is it accountable to then?" Chavez asked.

In reality, Chavez continued, the Central Bank in Venezuela has never been autonomous; "rather it was managed from Washington, through the International Monetary Fund as the financial and political arm of North American imperialism."

However, Chavez declared, "The reserves of the country do not belong to the Central Bank, they belong to the people of Venezuela."


This is what the imperialists are afraid of: an example, a predecent being established for democratization of banking and money supply in one country. This is revolutionary!


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 17 November 2007 09:56 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
"Big Day for Venezuela"
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
a lonely worker
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 9893

posted 17 November 2007 10:50 PM      Profile for a lonely worker     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Dr Conway from that article you linked:

quote:
"We are witnessing a seizure and redirection of power through legitimate means," said Alberto Barrera Tyszka, co-author of a best-selling biography of Chávez. "This is not a dictatorship but something more complex: the tyranny of popularity."

So I guess the neo-libs are complaining because Venezuela is too democratic but when it comes to Cuba the same neo-libs are complaining because it isn't "democratic"?

They should just cut through the BS and say they will oppose any government that refuses their exploitive neo-lib system.


From: Anywhere that annoys neo-lib tools | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Giggity
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10772

posted 19 November 2007 11:54 AM      Profile for Giggity     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Chavez' policies, and his popularity, would be more credible if he were not enriched by oil wealth.

Was the central bank not already accountable to government on a six-year cycle? Chavez wants to be able to print money, which he can afford to do with his petro-euros. Not just print money, but print money wherever, whenever, and to whomever he, personally, feels. He's a demagogue but his people have lucked into vast oil wealth.

I wish them well and hope their leader stays sane.


From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 19 November 2007 02:51 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The majority of Venezuelans were desperately poor, illiterate and without access to health care when corrupt U.S.-backed leaders and wealthy elite were running the country into the ground.

Today Venezuela's poor are learning to read and write, and many are seeing family doctors for the first time in their lives. This is the kind of socialist appeal the American shadow government and CIA have worked so hard to asassinate, blow up, bomb and sabotage throughout Latin America during the cold war. The shadow government and powerful right-wing lobby in the U.S. have been fearful of an idea for several decades and ongoing still. Canada's largest trading partners are also a vicious empire.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
The Wizard of Socialism
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2912

posted 19 November 2007 03:02 PM      Profile for The Wizard of Socialism   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post
And all they had to give up was their freedom...
From: A Proud Canadian! | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273

posted 19 November 2007 03:08 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oh, yes. Venezuelans were so fucking "free" before nasty old Mr. Chavez came along and turned them into zombie androids.

Starving, yes, but free. Ah, those were the days!


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594

posted 19 November 2007 03:32 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by The Wizard of Socialism:
And all they had to give up was their freedom...

You should get out of that basement apartment at your parents' place and do some travelling. Because the people on this site don't seem to be getting through to you at all. I suggest a road trip down to Texaw, thru Maico and keep truckin south on the Pan-Americano highway until your ass hurts from driving over pot holes and washboard roads. And tell that machine-gun toting guard at the Belize-Guatemala border in the middle of nowhere that Fidel said to vaya jodase.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Stockholm
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3138

posted 19 November 2007 04:13 PM      Profile for Stockholm     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
"Rebels are we! Born to be free! Just like the fish in the sea!"

Oh brother...


From: Toronto | Registered: Sep 2002  |  IP: Logged
Red Partisan
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13860

posted 19 November 2007 04:58 PM      Profile for Red Partisan        Edit/Delete Post
There is good in everybody. Hugo Chavez wears socks, and I wholly endorse socks.

The whole thing is about the Chavez cult of personality, whose adherents even seem to be on this board. Nikita Krucshchev saw this as a problem in the Soviet Union, after the death of Stalin, who had caused millions to starve to death, and exporting his (not the peoples') agricultural produce to pay for the development of his heavy industry. Some agricultural produce was retained for the use of Communist Party dictator boot-lickers, and of course Stalin himself.

Like most demagogues (and like the Communist Party system in the Soviet Union), Chavez will create a coterie of people who benefit greatly from his personal largesse, and cut the rest of his country off from the trading world, dooming them to poverty and death.

So if you are especially good at licking Hugo's boots, you will get your own hacienda on the beach, the equivalent to the Daschas enjoyed by Soviet apparatchiks.

Having lived during the latter part of the 20th Century, I have seen this all before, and stochastics tells me there is an extremely high probability that it will end in much the same way.

If you are a Communist Party Dictator boot licker, why don't you take a trip to Venuzuela, and report on how wonderful things are there for the people. And don't bother posting articles from other Communist Party Dictator boot lickers.



From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
Lord Palmerston
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4901

posted 19 November 2007 05:10 PM      Profile for Lord Palmerston     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Except Chavez, whatever you think of him, has been repeatedly re-elected in what observers have been free and fair elections.
From: Toronto | Registered: Jan 2004  |  IP: Logged
Giggity
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10772

posted 19 November 2007 06:06 PM      Profile for Giggity     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Many on this board might like Chavez's politics but what of democratic pluralism, freedom of assembly and expression, judicial independence? Doesn't anyone get a bit antsy seeing this litany of group and individual rights restrictions?

http://hrw.org/doc/?t=americas&c=venezu

Who was the last dictator to willingly cede power in free elections?

What happens when the oil runs out? I guess whether or not you think it is a good thing depends on whether you believe Cuba is a model society.

Where does admiration for Chavez's politics run into concern for those human rights not protected by simply having access to grain and healthcare, i.e. assembly, expression, etc?

How do you reconcile your opposing values? Do they oppose?

Anyways, this is off-topic. I just find effusive praise for Chavez to be a bit much.


From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1258

posted 19 November 2007 06:19 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
If you don't have anything intelligent or insightful or even mildly relevant to say just mention Stalin.

Makes the game of spot the idiot sort of easy though.

Is there an equivalent of Godwin's law for those who are compelled to mention Stalin anytime socialism is being discussed?

[ 19 November 2007: Message edited by: N.R.KISSED ]


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Red Partisan
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13860

posted 19 November 2007 06:20 PM      Profile for Red Partisan        Edit/Delete Post
Democratic pluralism, freedom of assembly and expression, and judicial independence, are anathema to States run by strongmen dictators like Hitler, Stalin, Castro and Chavez.

A guy like Michael Moore would never be allowed to exist by Castro.


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2007  |  IP: Logged
Giggity
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 10772

posted 19 November 2007 06:21 PM      Profile for Giggity     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
quote:"We are witnessing a seizure and redirection of power through legitimate means," said Alberto Barrera Tyszka, co-author of a best-selling biography of Chávez. "This is not a dictatorship but something more complex: the tyranny of popularity."

So I guess the neo-libs are complaining because Venezuela is too democratic but when it comes to Cuba the same neo-libs are complaining because it isn't "democratic"?

They should just cut through the BS and say they will oppose any government that refuses their exploitive neo-lib system.


The potential for democratic societies to forge their own fetters has always been a weakness of our system. Hence, the separation of powers in its various implementations. I think the author may be referring to this phenomenon. The rapid restriction of rights (Noted by HRW and others) is telling. When you see the Dictator-for-Life Playbook being called out (shut down media, shut down the judges) you tend to assume it'll end up badly, or at least end up looking like Belarus.


From: Toronto | Registered: Oct 2005  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1258

posted 19 November 2007 06:56 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
When you see the Dictator-for-Life Playbook being called out (shut down media, shut down the judges) you tend to assume it'll end up badly, or at least end up looking like Belarus.

Since this narrative has been repeated ad nauseum for the last 10 years it has become just slightly tedious and predictable.

You and your friends at Imperial Interests Watch might wish to pay a little closer attention to democracy in your own back yard or the actions of alleged democracies that continue to engage in building of empire.

[ 19 November 2007: Message edited by: N.R.KISSED ]


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Boom Boom
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 7791

posted 19 November 2007 07:24 PM      Profile for Boom Boom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Chavez is a breath of fresh air compared to thugs like Bush.
From: Make the rich pay! | Registered: Dec 2004  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 22 November 2007 12:59 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Thousands rally for Chavez's reforms; opponents plan march

quote:
CARACAS, Venezuela: Tens of thousands of President Hugo Chavez's supporters filled the streets to back his proposed constitutional changes, while anti-government student leaders announced a bold plan to march on the presidential palace.

The demonstrations have grown as a Dec. 2 referendum nears on reforms that, among other changes, would let Chavez run for re-election indefinitely, create new types of property to managed by cooperatives and lengthen presidential terms from six to seven years.


By "revolution" he usually means the so-called "Bolivarian Revolution" he has sometimes mentioned in speeches.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273

posted 22 November 2007 01:03 PM      Profile for M. Spector   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Good article, Doc. Thanks for the link.

I especially liked this:

quote:
Some pro-Chavez marchers said they particularly like one proposed reform that would give students and university workers the power to choose administrators by direct vote. Chavez called it a change to "take out the embedded elites who took over many of our universities."

When this thread gets closed for length, join us over here.

[ 22 November 2007: Message edited by: M. Spector ]


From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
M.Gregus
babble intern
Babbler # 13402

posted 22 November 2007 09:51 PM      Profile for M.Gregus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Closing for length. You can follow the link posted by M. Spector above to continue the discussion.
From: capital region | Registered: Oct 2006  |  IP: Logged

All times are Pacific Time  

Post New Topic  
Topic Closed  Topic Closed
Open Topic    Move Topic    Delete Topic next oldest topic   next newest topic
Hop To:

Contact Us | rabble.ca | Policy Statement

Copyright 2001-2008 rabble.ca