Is this the end for Venezuela Socialism?

You're welcome.

 

Bureaucratic Big Bad Government always serves the interest of the corrupt ruling political class that creates it.

Marxists used to know that.

"'The eradication of state power' which as a 'parasitic excrescence'; it's 'amputation'; it's 'destruction'; 'state power is now becoming outmoded'; these are the expressions used by Marx about the state when appraising and analyzing the experience of the commune." All this was written a little less than half a century ago; and now it is like having to carry out excavations in order to bring a knowledge of undistorted Marxism to the broad masses." "The State and Revolution", VI Lenin, Penguin, 1992p, p. 49.

They were wrong about 1 big thing - there will always be a state. Human beings always have and always will need government to survive. Alas.

 

Socialism blah blah blah Socialism blah blah blah Socialism duuurrrr....

 

Chavez and Maduro ate their seed corn. Norway has a $1t fund saved from its oil industry--and a lot less oil per person than Venezuela.

 

Here's the man who is of a dying breed of true investigative journalist.....where you can get the other side of the story:

https://www.gregpalast.com/avoiding-regime-change-in-venezuela/

 

Worker collectives have been around for a lot longer than Marxism.

I suggest you explain why worker collectives are not the answer for many types of businesses, especially those requiring large amounts of capital per employee.

 

The only baggage that exists is in the propaganda that drenches the American public with fear and loathing for something they do not understand and have been conditioned to reflexively hate - a state of affairs that serves the military/industrial/corporate/intelligence complex that rules America in it's own interests well and which they will never willingly give up.

If we hold extreme, right-wing dictatorships and the legacy of unfettered capitalism without strong and vibrant social programs to mitigate it's contradictions, excesses and tendency to vast inequality the and undermining of democracy itself, to the same standard that we hold socialism in all it's forms from Scandinavia to Canada and China and even the great failures of the Soviet Union which was socialism only in name, how would they stand up?

I would suggest that unfettered capitalism and extreme right-wing regimes all through history have as bloody a record of repression and brutality as those of socialism.

It is just that it serves the interests of a certain segment of the elite power structure to highlight the failures and "baggage" of socialism while never under any circumstances holding that same lens up to the failures and "baggage" of the extreme right or laissez faire capitalism that we are all supposed to worship as the natural order of things.

 

Sure, but you seem to think individual proletariat don't try to get as much for themselves as possible, too. Chavez promised average Venezuelans more than the oil industry could deliver when prices inevitably dipped and he calculated he'd better not cut the take from oil revenues.

 

Democratic Socialists--redistributionists, not collectivists--in northern Europe are getting the hang of it.

 

Yes using Capitalism and not letting government make the decisions for corporations.

 

You're conflating a number of countries, time periods, and U.S. actions. You're propagandizing the forum.

 

Chavez was a socialist, not a fascist.

 

The end is drawing near. Like the socialist regimes in the Communist Bloc who fell before it, socialist Venezuela was doomed from the start. The regime's survival was always a question of how long it would take to destroy that nation's economy and democracy and then how long it could maintain its illegitimate grip on power by force.

Now, the bigger question is whether or not we will see a repetition of what happened in Central and Eastern Europe during the 1980s and 90s take place in Latin America during the next decade?

I certainly hope so...

 

Oh, really? Are you really going into these overwrought cliches again without offering an original opinion of your own?
Spare me.

 

Overwrought cliches?? You mean like the baggage of socialism?

I think you know my opinion but I can reiterate if you would like.

 

When the ship hits the sand they stop being called Socialist and are then called Fascist. Failure is followed quickly by a name change.

 

Thanks for the offer but it's not necessary.

 

Can you clearly explain how Chavez was a fascist?

Here is a brief definition to help you:

https://www.livescience.com/57622-fascism.html

 

LMAO - Talk about drenched in propaganda!

Since the dawn of our Republic, Americans have understood socialism just fine, and if you don't believe me read my signature:

The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional.
-- Samuel Adams

Visionary, impractical, arbitrary, despotic and antithetical to the principles of a nation where power, sovereignty, rights and freedom are invested in and derived from the individual.

Denial is a comfortable refuge for those who can't face uncomfortable truths...



...and denial is primarily responsible for the continued survival of socialism 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

 

You cheering for the corporations M... the problem with corporations making the decisions is they don't give a **** about people.... government is elected to give a **** about people.

There should be a balance... corporations must function within an environment of social conscience and when they don't... you end up with vast inequality the likes of what we are dealing with today.

 

Then why did he?

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106620230​

Note this was on the NPR.

 

You skipped an important part of all of this. While the above was occurring, the elite in the government were busy stealing as much money as possible. Chavez' finance minister had around $10 billion in foreign banks. Chavez' daughter (a civil servant all of her life) had around $4 billion in foreign banks. This was big money, and it didn't go for socialist ideas (like school lunches, etc.), it went to enriching the top socialists. "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

 

I am sure the Americans "understand", these are people who came out of
Europe, Asia and South America where fascism, communism & socialism
are rife. All these lead to oppression. This is why people went to America
in the first place.

 

What do you mean by "big government?" Government that rigs the system so Joe American gets no share of real GDP growth for four decades?



Government that transfers wealth through Social Security? Government that spends $600b on national defense? What?

 

FAKE NEWS ALERT!