patrick.net

jazz_music says

The democratic socialism we had with the new deal made the best country ever all the way up to Reagan's backers with that Powell memo to betray us all.

Reagan was a union leader, unions were the first thing he got rid of. He must have been losing it already during those years and being propped up by greedy donors.

It turns out that capitalists historically take the lives away from the better people, our elementary school indoctrination betrayed us about capitalism being the best way. It most certainly is not. The socialism was the people's part of the rewards of capitalism.

We need to get back there again. Good men are going to once again have to lay their lives down, then the oligarchs will greenlight the thug brigades, then the people will win.

Depends what we define as "socialism". I do not really know hat "socialism" means - what I have seen usually ends in genocide.

Marx himself has said:

They detach the consciousness of certain historically conditioned spheres of life from these spheres and evaluate it in terms of true, absolute, i.e., German philosophical consciousness. With perfect consistency they transform the relations of these particular individuals into relations of “Man”; they interpret the thoughts of these particular individuals concerning their own relations as thoughts about “Man”. In so doing, they have abandoned the real historical basis and returned to that of ideology, and since they are ignorant of the real connection, they can without difficulty construct some fantastic relationship with the help of the “absolute” or some other ideological method. This translation of French ideas into the language of the German ideologists and this arbitrarily constructed relationship between communism and German ideology, then, constitute so-called “true socialism”...

Thus “true socialism” is nothing but the transfiguration of proletarian communism, and of the parties and sects that are more or less akin to it, in France and England within the heaven of the German mind and, as we shall also see, of the German sentiment. True socialism, which claims to be based on “science”, is primarily another esoteric science; its theoretical literature is intended only for those who are initiated into the mysteries of the “thinking mind”.

d6rB says

Yes he was elected.

We're talking about the presidency. That is the legitimate ruler of Venezuela, not the nationalist party. That would be like saying, in this country if the democratic party nominated someone that someone would be the legitimate ruler without a general election to determine that result. Your comment was disingenuous.

Maduro was elected with major fraud.

False: Henri Falcón was the opposition politician who lost to Maduro, by over four million votes, 47 percent of the electorate. (29) And while there are claims of voter fraud and a “stolen election,” nobody has conclusively shown that any votes, let alone millions of votes, were stolen from Falcón. Also, four different election observers concluded the 2018 election was clean and free of voter fraud.

You won't get an argument from me on the rest of the points you made, although I don't think we should involve ourselves in Venezuela and if there were no sanctions, which are not justified in my opinion, then we would know with certainty how bad socialism has been for Venezuela.

WillPowers says

Your comment was disingenuous.

Your statement was imprecise. Furthermore, both Pres and National Assembly (introduced by Chavez btw) are legitimate ruling powers. Maduro and his cronies created "Constituent national Assembly", which usurped power from National Assembly, since NA has majority of opposition. I do not think that in US pres creates Congress/Senate replacements if his party loses respective elections.

Eric Holder says

I doubt it's possible in any significant numbers.

The numbers of agitators are small, 50, to 100 people causing all the violence.

d6rB says

Constituent national Assembly", which usurped power from National Assembly

Propaganda. That is the point of my article. You don't know what is going on there and you can't trust the mainstream media on this issue. You may be right. You may be wrong, but how do you know what to believe? The people of Venezuela don't even know whats going on in their own country. CBS interviewed a guy who said he was confused because most reliable media he turned to was shut down by the government.

Don't believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.

WillPowers says

The people of Venezuela don't even know whats going on in their own country.

.... and have nothing to wipe their butts with.

Given America's track record in South America (or anywhere else in the world), I side firmly with Venezuela and Maduro whether or not he is wise, just or socialist. Name one country the US where the US has installed a democracy (outside of the liberated nations of Western Europe after WWII and that exclude Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy).

You would have to be a delusional, moronic patriot to believe a single things any cunt in DC says about anything south of the border.

WillPowers says

Propaganda. That is the point of my article. You don't know what is going on there and you can't trust the mainstream media on this issue. You may be right. You may be wrong, but how do you know what to believe? The people of Venezuela don't even know whats going on in their own country. CBS interviewed a guy who said he was confused because most reliable media he turned to was shut down by the government.

Don't believe half of what you see, and none of what you hear.

I don't accept whatever MSM says, I talk to Venezuelans here in SE TX, There are quite a few of them in my classes and we have a few family acquaintances from there as well. Their information is more reliable than so-called MSM or Russia today.
It is just as bad to believe MSM as it is to uncritically accept mantra "everything US does is bad and designed to oppress the rest of universe".

Expat01 says

Name one country the US where the US has installed a democracy (outside of the liberated nations of Western Europe after WWII and that exclude Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy).

Japan, S. Korea, indirectly (not under occupation, but under heavy influence) - Taiwan. All are extraordinary success stories.