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Tony_Montana posted:JB is living proof of why aggressive leftists in general should be avoided -especially foreign ones-. I wonder what people like Oliver Stone and Sean Penn think of their beloved regime now. They probably support it out of a mix of cluelessness and loyalty to their theoretical ideals. I think the only non-hypocritical figure in history that comes to mind as a respectable, balanced figure of XX century Socialism is George Orwell. There've been a good number of socialists who were respectable and balanced. Olof Palme is a good example, so is Bernie Sanders. Given the presence of socialists who were not only successful, but decent human beings as well, it's always struck me as strange that so many far leftists, especially academic leftists, gravitated to Chavez and even Maduro. It's almost as though the ability to successfully implement policies and make a real, positive difference in the world is less important for them than the fiery, hateful rhetoric that characterizes so many of the bad examples of socialists. Of course, many of the supporters of said "bad examples" don't live where they govern, so the actual outcomes of their policies don't matter, whereas extremism and blind opposition to the US do. It's a very childish, very selfish outlook.
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Sep 3, 2015 17:35
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JohnGalt posted:From what I understand, during the last oil boom, Venezuela became really inefficient at drilling wells. Supposedly, an average rig went from 7/year to 3 wells/year. Do you have any insight to the veracity of such claims and/or the reasoning behind the decline (this is precrash numbers). My understanding is that a lot of it was due to the nationalizations and replacing large numbers of professionals with people who had the correct political beliefs.
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Sep 7, 2015 17:30
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M. Discordia posted:Chavez fired half of the oil workers in 2003 to punish them for going on strike, which was an acceptable socialist move because something something CIA George Bush Noam Chomsky something. I'm guessing the replacements were not as qualified. There's socialism, and then there's the "socialism" as practiced by Maduro and Chavez, where they take advantage of legitimate poverty and class issues to use the poor as a springboard to office, then consolidate power while making token gestures and abusing rhetoric. There doesn't seem to be any endgame beyond power and extracting as much wealth as possible for themselves and their cronies.
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Sep 7, 2015 22:19
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ComradeCosmobot posted:Borneo Jimmy is a contrarian anti-American dumbass and an rear end in a top hat to boot, but in his defense (ugh), the closest he's gotten to explicitly "advocat[ing] and support[ing] terror and violence" in the past few threads was when he said He's been here for years. A weird relic of when Chavez supporters filled these threads then left when things had clearly gotten indefensible. It's best not to get worked up over anything he posts. There're much better discussions to be had, especially since you don't really get the perspective here in any American news source that I've ever been able to find. Edit: Seriously, the "Borneo Jimmy gently caress off" posts are something that seem to spring up once or twice a year and they go nowhere except to poo poo up the thread. Just accept him as a weird, easily dismissed part of the fauna or ignore him if he upsets you, but derailing discussion isn't the way to go. Adventure Pigeon fucked around with this message at 05:36 on Sep 11, 2015 |
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Sep 11, 2015 05:30
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Constant Hamprince posted:He's a limp GBS shitposter slumming it in the most easily trolled subforum on SA. It's mostly just strange he only does it here. There're a lot of bad threads to choose from to troll, but this is a good one with a small number of regulars. He's also been at it for years, so who knows what's going on.
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Sep 12, 2015 21:15
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I know a lot of people in Colombia, and from speaking with them I gather the big reason why they don't do anything is they don't want to cause Venezuela to destabilize even further. If the Venezuelan government collapses, a lot of refugees are going to be pouring into Colombia, which is the last thing they want, especially given how much violence is likely to follow. Colombia has a well trained, equipped, and experienced military with a lot less corruption issues than Venezuela's, but there's nothing to gain from a war, even if Maduro does act like a belligerent rear end in a top hat.
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Sep 14, 2015 20:11
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So is it pretty much the opinion that all the Colombia/Guyana stuff is Maduro shopping around for an international crisis before the elections?
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Sep 24, 2015 22:20
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Ardennes posted:The issue is if anything it can be true that the US is financing the opposition and going afters leftist and the current Venezuelan government is startlingly incompetent. The overall issue though isn't it that the Venezuelan government incompetence isn't necessarily is an ideological issue (at least in my mind) but more functional, the government has been very shortsighted in managing its physical resources and the monetary expansion it is utilizing is causing enormous inflation. It is has been framed also an ideological/geopolitical conflict, but in reality, I think it is just rather basic incompetence. Don't forget massive amounts of theft and corruption. Many of the price controls are basically a way to subsidize smuggling by the military. There's also a lot of evidence that the largest drug cartel in Venezuela is basically a subsection of the military. If I remember correctly, Chavez's kids aren't doing too poorly, either.
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Oct 19, 2015 16:15
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Borneo Jimmy posted:Thank you confirming that pretty much all people whining about Maduro and Chavez are white, upper-class gusanos. Please tell me how the poor need to stop being so envious of the wealthy who've worked hard to inherit their fortunes. This was the argument of the American leftist idiots years ago. Most of them had the good sense to leave when it became clear that they were horribly wrong. Why are you such human poo poo that, as an American who's uninvolved in the situation, you'd accuse people who've directly said what they and their families live under of being bourgeoisie? Do you lack that much self awareness? What could possibly motivate you to keep this up when it's clear you're wrong, and, on some level, given your refusal to respond beyond spouting the same tired lies or ad hominem insults, you know you're wrong? This thread has been consistently good and informative for years, aside from your stain. I know it's dumb to respond to Borneo Jimmy, but I can always hope someday he'll have the good taste to gently caress off back to whatever hole he crawled out of.
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Oct 20, 2015 19:31
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Cicero posted:As opposed to those other socialist governments that didn't turn authoritarian, like, uh... Norway and Sweden. If you want to go Latin America, Uruguay's ex-president was socialist as all hell. They're just not the ones screaming about how the US is evil so they don't get the "gently caress you dad" left-wing fringe in America excited.
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Oct 22, 2015 06:21
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Chuck Boone posted:The international war against the Bolivarian revolution continued unabated today as DEA agents arrested two of Cilia Flores' relatives in Haiti after they allegedly conspired to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. Cilia Flores is the First Lady. I read these guys have diplomatic passports. Any chance they can use that to get out of this mess? Either way, it's funny and sad to see connected people like that get arrested.
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Nov 12, 2015 17:22
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So what day do elections start? I'm crossing my fingers they go well for you guys, but I'm pretty worried from all that's been said.
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Nov 21, 2015 00:32
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El Hefe posted:Maduro also threatened to remove the National Guard from parliament and replace them with a colectivo armado even though in the constitution it says it's the national guard's duty to protect public institutions. It's clear that the military aren't going to play ball with the PSUV anymore. The military not playing ball makes me hope that the PSUV won't be able to pull this sort of crap much longer. It really does sound like the elections went about as well as can be hoped, and now the PSUV is just desperate to salvage the situation.
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Dec 17, 2015 21:10
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Just imagine that every Borneo Jimmy post has a bright flashing gif saying "THIS IS WHAT CHAVISTS ACTUALLY BELIEVE" at the top of it, and they suddenly serve a purpose in the thread.
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Dec 18, 2015 18:56
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So how are things going over there? Isn't the new assembly being seated today?
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Jan 5, 2016 18:24
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Even after all these years, I've still never figured out why he posts here. If he's trolling, he's picked a lovely place to do it. If he's serious, it's strange that he only plays the Sean Penn-esque idiot here and nowhere else. It'd be better here without him, but he's never given up that somehow his shilling will somehow change reality. I really hope this isn't the beginning of opposition politicians being assassinated. If it is, what ways out of this are left? Adventure Pigeon fucked around with this message at 01:14 on May 7, 2016 |
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May 7, 2016 01:07
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So I'm seeing a few news articles saying that Venezuela's neighbors are preparing for a potential refugee crisis. It's completely insane to think that there could actually be one in Latin America, not due to war or civil conflict, but primarily because of a complete failure of a government to govern.
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May 9, 2016 02:27
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Also the bit about not having been installed by America. The events that lead to PSUV's rise been discussed before, but not in a while. I remember a lot of it was due to the fact that the poor were getting screwed over. The PSUV took power, instituted a bunch of social reforms but also consolidated their hold on power as much as power as possible. If I remember, scarcity became an issue even before oil started to fall due to price controls and government mismanagement (especially of the oil industry). Then Chavez died, oil fell, and everything turned into a mess. What did I miss? Are there other parts that need more detail?
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May 9, 2016 18:05
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Hugoon Chavez posted:Remember this is not a ideological debate about left or right, Venegoons live in a state of terror and hardship, and having an rear end in a top hat that lives comfortably far away come and start spouting that you're part of a giant conspiracy and that your hardship and state of fear is bullshit, well, anyone would just degrade to insults. Yeah, using this thread and the Venezuela situation as a prop to troll the left isn't too far off from what Borneo Jimmy was doing. Venezuela's situation has a lot of lessons for other countries, like "Don't tie your economy to a single commodity" or "Don't elect strongmen who promise you nice things at the expense of Democracy" or even for the right wing "Don't let the poor's living conditions degrade to the point where a strongman gets elected" and so on and so on. But because there're so many individual lessons that're all important in how this situation came to be, it's really hard to find a decent parallel for the whole thing anywhere else.
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May 15, 2016 14:56
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I dont know posted:Are the photos in that article broadly representative, or at least somewhat cherry picked? I have literally seen footage of hospitals and clinics in active warzones that are less squalid. Involvement in narco trafficking makes leaving the country a risky proposition for some of them. Besides, they still control enough dollars to ensure their preferred clinics are well stocked.
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May 16, 2016 19:34
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In the long run, it's the mass exodus of people that's going to hurt Venezuela the most. Colombia has had issues with educated people leaving for years, but that's nothing compared to what Venezuela is undergoing. They've lost so many educated people it's hard to say when they'll recover.
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May 21, 2016 19:41
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M. Discordia posted:Any reasonable explanation has to be psychological. The purpose of power is power, the purpose of torture is torture. The entire point of communism is sadism -- human suffering is the goal, not the byproduct. The only objection to this fact, which is obvious from any examination of Venezuela or any other leftist government, is caterwauling from wealthy Westerners who paid $400,000 to a private college for their Marxist Studies degree and have no counter-argument but loudly insisting that criticism of such things is ipso facto disallowed. I think there're more pragmatic reasons than that. I think there're some genuine ideologists who're probably so invested they refuse to acknowledge the problems as being a result of their actions, but mostly I think it's the fact the military is a massive smuggling apparatus now. The higher ups in the government are also making massive amounts of money. When people are given a choice between making piles of money or leaving the system and possibly being killed/arrested/exiled as a result, it's pretty easy to see what most of the PSUV have chosen. Left wing idiots defending this government aren't only stupid because of how horrible it is, but also because it's not really a socialist government anymore, it's a kleptocracy. It's a pure test for left wing individuals as to whether they value words or function.
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May 21, 2016 19:58
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M. Discordia posted:Yeah, but the higher-ups are going to stay there until they get executed on live TV on Christmas, rather than just retiring to Switzerland with their billions. They can and will lose all their ill-gotten material wealth because it is only a means to an end and can never satisfy them. Their ultimate goal is their perversions; i.e. the enjoyment they get from exercising power over people to the extent of making them starve and die. The higher ups are terrible people, but the bloodthirsty fantasies are getting a bit strange. I kinda get the impression, and correct me if I'm wrong, that most of the Venezuelans would be happy with them getting away as long as they gave up power and let the country start rebuilding. As to whether they will or not and how this ends, who knows. The best case would be power gets transferred peacefully, Maduro and the other cronies get a fair trial, and Venezuela receives foreign aid and starts rebuilding. Crossing your fingers that people start getting executed on live TV is a bit sick. It may seem like justice, but there'll be a lot of bloodshed getting there, and society would have to degrade to the point where shooting someone before a live studio audience is acceptable. Do you think a government that would allow that would be any better than the current one? Think of the governments that permit stuff like that and whether that would be happy outcome for the people. You should treat people, even the worst criminals, according to humanist principles and the rule of law not for their sake but yours.
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May 21, 2016 20:49
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I don't think the military taking control of Venezuela is a happy outcome. They're one of the largest cartels in South America and have been adding to the misery by skimming large amounts of basic, price controlled goods.
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May 21, 2016 21:17
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M. Discordia posted:I'm just saying it was a historical reference to the concept of dictators hanging on until it costs them, not a specific plan for Venezuela. Unfortunately, I agree with that. I don't see Maduro and company leaving voluntarily in the middle of the night.
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May 21, 2016 21:29
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beer_war posted:This Guardian article seems apropos: If that came from a right wing rag, it would be easy to dismiss as identity politics, but coming from the Guardian hopefully it's a wake-up call to a few people. The better world that so many of these people claim to want is impossible to achieve without clarity of vision, and that means realizing that torture, mismanagement, and corruption is the same under a right or left wing regime.
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May 23, 2016 20:39
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El Hefe posted:The government are running ads that "explain" their so called economic war and one of the examples they give is: a shampoo company who gets the materials to produce shampoo but instead of making shampoo in small and medium bottles the people can buy they only produce big bottles that only rich people can buy and therefore accomplish both of their objectives which are loving the Venezuelan people and earning big bucks. * finishes typing up long, rambling explanation involving shampoo* "Excellent, at last the truth is laid bare. The opposition shall be held accountable. I'm not crazy, I'm uh.. not." *Leans back in chair, watches as a flock of birds go by* "It's Chavez! But so many! Which could be the real one? Is this another opposition trick?" *begins to type up another memo instructing the collectivos to start killing the false Chavez birds* "Lopez must be behind this..."
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Jun 5, 2016 17:59
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