| Venezuela - a reality checks 23:13 - May 21 with 17926 views | jackrabbit |
I don't know if you've been keeping an eye on Venezuela? It is a socialist regime much lauded by Mr Corbyn as an example of what we should aspire to. Well yes, if you fancy hyperinflation, a worthless currency and empty shelves in shops and supermarkets - how do fancy queuing for hours to buy toilet rolls? In short, this socialist paradise is a modern day catastrophe.
Venezuela is yet another example of the folly that is socialism. The thing is, it's nothing new. We were used to hearing these stories in the latter half of last century, when half of Europe was living the 'Socialist Dream' under the Soviet boot heel. The only thing that changes is that yet another starry-eyed generation of young people have to see for themselves and suffer the disillusion that comes from experience. TheVenezuelan experience will never be repeated in Britain because for all its faults the British electorate will never vote into power a pair of Trotskyite zealots like Corbyn and McDonnell. Here's a flavour:
"Many Venezuelans have already left the country, including Francisco Flores.....
The NHS therapist, who now lives in London, says the regime is based on a principle of keeping everyone “equal but poor”.
This way, the state becomes a nanny and everyone loses the power to do anything because they are so dependent on it.
Venezuela is now suffering from the effects of a deep recession and hyperinflation as the government prints money to try to plug a gap between revenues and spending that is on course to hit 25pc of gross domestic product (GDP) next year."
Pure Corbynism. [Post edited 21 May 2016 23:18]
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 23:15 - May 21 with 7453 views | jackrabbit |
Sorry- many to put it in 'non football'. Please move. Thanks | | | |
| Venezuela - a reality checks on 23:43 - May 21 with 7406 views | PozuelosSideys |
I was reading this the other day. Its a sad indictment really of a country which is being built on the best of intentions but will have social problems due to poor investment, corruption and the fact that pure socialism would be difficult to implement succesfully in modern society. A race to the bottom it surely is? | |
| "Michu, Britton and Williams could have won 3-0 on their own. They wouldn't have required a keeper." | | Poll: | Hattricks |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 00:41 - May 22 with 7353 views | Loyal |
Savarese ,,, | |
| Nolan sympathiser, clout expert, personal friend of Leigh Dineen, advocate and enforcer of porridge swallows.
The official inventor of the tit w@nk. | | Poll: | Who should be Swansea number 1 |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 00:45 - May 22 with 7351 views | Jack_Meoff |
The West will not tolerate a country that wants to use their own resources for themselves, and will take measures accordingly. Read some John Perkins. | |
| If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--forever. |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 00:55 - May 22 with 7340 views | PozuelosSideys |
This isnt to do with the oil in the same way it is for the Middle East. This is a socio-political issue for central and south america. Its easy for them to look to the past and blame Western countries for their own failings. Much like the African nations, they just have not been able to sort out the corruption that comes with large national resource wealth.
Venezuela in particular seems to be a hugely paranoid place. A good one i read was how the US Govt were paying off Colombian drug cartels to infiltrate Venezuelan towns and cities to try and ghetto these places even further in order to destabilise and overthrow the socialist government. | |
| "Michu, Britton and Williams could have won 3-0 on their own. They wouldn't have required a keeper." | | Poll: | Hattricks |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 02:55 - May 22 with 7288 views | Humpty |
Thanks for the heads up. I will make sure I don't go to live in the socialist hell that is Venezuela.
The fact that a majority of Venezuelans voted for Hugo Chavez shouldn't come into it. Democracy is great as long as it gives us the results we want.
If it it doesn't a CIA coup is the way to go. Like Chile. And Honduras. And Nicaragua. And all the others.
F*ck off. | | | |
| Venezuela - a reality checks on 14:18 - May 22 with 7030 views | nice_to_michu |
Can you post a link to show where Corbyn holds Venezuela up as an "example of what we should aspire to"?
I'm not particularly a fan of Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party, but your statements here are a little far-fetched.
So your distain for socialism also includes disapproval of having a military, a police force, a social workforce, dustbin men, a single-payer healthcare system or the fire brigade, does it?
America is obsessed with capitalism, as we all know. Should we look to Anerica as a shining example of how to care for its poor or its ill? | | | |
| Venezuela - a reality checks on 15:30 - May 22 with 6980 views | Lohengrin |
You could find acres of print, with no effort at all, that would have Corbyn openly gushing of how Chavez was someone he would aspire to be. Not the same thing, I grant you, but it would give enough of a flavour. | |
| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 15:41 - May 22 with 6965 views | blueytheblue |
I'd link you to his own website, but it seems the relevant page has been deleted.
http://jeremycorbyn.org.uk/articles/venezuela/
Indeed, go to the articles page, search for Venezuela... no results found.
Must have been an administrative oversight / database bug/ hacked by the far right of the Labour party / amended by a crack team of ninja squirrels. | |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 15:42 - May 22 with 6960 views | builthjack |
This sounds like Cameron, greed and corruption.,the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. | |
| Swansea Indepenent Poster Of The Year 2021. Dr P / Mart66 / Roathie / Parlay / E20/ Duffle was 2nd, but he is deluded and thinks in his little twisted brain that he won. Poor sod. We let him win this year, as he has cried for a whole year. His 14 usernames, bless his cotton socks.
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 16:08 - May 22 with 6943 views | Dr_Winston |
Like in the Soviet Union, with special shops and even car lanes set aside for the powerful? | |
| Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or f*cking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back. |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 16:21 - May 22 with 6924 views | Davillin |
to "Nice_to_Michu"
You asked, "America is obsessed with capitalism, as we all know. Should we look to Anerica as a shining example of how to care for its poor or its ill?"?" [p.s. Please learn to spell "Anerica" correctly, and learn that the name of this country is not "America," but "The United States" or "U.S." for short.]
Perhaps you wouldn't have to ask that question if you knew even a dot about American history -- political and social. I have lived it for 80 years. I can walk outside and down any street in my town and see people whose parents or grandparents came here with the clothes on their backs, but with the desire and intention to work hard and be successful in a capitalist system. And were successful. The evidence is everywhere for those who will look.
On the other hand, one of our political parties is not interested in that outcome, but prefers to be a nanny state and give to anyone who will accept it a free ride in life. No need to work, therefore no chance to be successful in the system. But the end result is poverty -- for those who accept that outcome, and others who, for one reason or another, either cannot work or cannot find work in the system being attacked by that same party.
Anyone who believes that the U.S. has or had a bad healthcare system falls for the lie that that same political party uses in order to convert the country against its collective will to what they euphemistically call "a single-payer system" so that they can add to the power they incessantly work to achieve.
It as never been a problem with our "healthcare" system, which has been and is the finest in the world. The problem, on the surface, is our health "insurance" system. Those who were gainfully employed in order to progress in our system were not complaining.
Even those who, for whatever reason, were unable to have a job had the same healthcare available to them. I once posted on here a list of healthcare programs in the States that, between them, provided free care to everyone here who needed it. The list contained over 10 or 15 programs. Of course, now we have "Obamacare," which is clearly turning out to be an abject failure, after having taken away some or most of the systems of insuring or providing healthcare.
Imagine the effect on people who worked and paid for their own health insurance being told that they could no longer have that insurance, but were required by the federal government to take an Obamacare insurer and policy -- one size fits all -- and every year have to pay multiples more than they ever paid for their private insurance. It is now at the breaking point, if not breaking. The clearly stated intentions of Obamacare were to have young people, who neither needed nor wanted that policy, pay premiums used to cover those who couldn't afford it, and to have those who could afford the new premiums do the same. Until the premiums -- required by law, remember -- got too high to pay for some, and are getting too high for the rest.
With regard to "the poor," that same political party has been systematically degrading our economy by several dunderheaded programs. Burdens of taxation and insane rules and regulations on employers large and small are the worst because they drive employers either out of business or out of the country, taking untold numbers of jobs with them. As are the so-called "fair trade" agreements. Don't dare contradict me, please, because I have been observing it happen, as factory after factory close, sit empty for a time, and then are demolished because they were blights.
So, "Nice_to_Michu," you may look to Veneziuela if you prefer. My guess is that you know as little about its history -- political and economic.
Or, on the other hand, to China -- once the most virulently socialist/communist country on the planet -- who has been stealthily allowing capitalism to thrive. | |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 16:24 - May 22 with 6922 views | donkeylabour |
The rich get richer and the poor get richer in capitalism.
The difference is the gap is wider.
So you have a question, would you rather:
The gap was bigger but everyone was richer or the gap smaller but more more people in abject poverty.
Everywhere that socialism has been practiced we have the same outcome, it simple doesn't work. Social democracy is a different thing, but socialism simply doesn't work yet still people cling to it.
If you're happy to be poorer with Mr Rich man less rich than that's an opinion, I simply don't understand it though. China is a perfect example of this, it has moved to a more capitalist economy and poverty has reduced significantly, but the gap has increased between wealth disparity. | |
| My father voted labour and his father voted labour and his father voted labour so I vote labour |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 16:29 - May 22 with 6913 views | Dr_Winston |
China embraced economic reforms opening up their system in 1978.
680m Chinese lifted out of poverty between 1981 and 2010. | |
| Pain or damage don't end the world. Or despair, or f*cking beatings. The world ends when you're dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man... and give some back. |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 16:30 - May 22 with 6912 views | exiledclaseboy |
Unfettered capitalism is equally as inequitable and unsustainable as unfettered socialism.
So there. | |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 16:31 - May 22 with 6910 views | Davillin |
May I add that the poor who get richer in a capitalist system can keep on getting richer, based primarily on their desire, effort, and ability. | |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 16:35 - May 22 with 6905 views | donkeylabour |
Correct, opportunities are far greater.
France is more collectivist than ourselves and as a result has far higher unemployment rates because much of it is structural i.e. it doesn't change no matter if economy is booming or going south.
Capitalism is far from perfect, it needs Government intervention but it's far preferable to the poverty stricken waste land that is socialism. When people were getting shot trying to get across the Berlin Wall they weren't fleeing capitalism. | |
| My father voted labour and his father voted labour and his father voted labour so I vote labour |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 17:28 - May 22 with 6854 views | Lohengrin |
Welcome aboard. | |
| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 17:31 - May 22 with 6849 views | exiledclaseboy |
Aboard what? The Third Way express? | |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 17:33 - May 22 with 6842 views | blueytheblue |
I always find it amusing that some socialist nations are lauded by the great and good on the left yet human rights abuses in those nations are handily ignored. Even worse when zelebs do it.
It was summed up for me when the Manics did their little puff piece abut how wonder Cuba under Castro was. As the intellectual midget that is Nicky Wire offered, "Well, there are human rights issues but we don't really want to talk about them".
I'd suggest that analysis of human rights organisations would see more violations in socialist nations than capitalist ones. | |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 17:36 - May 22 with 6836 views | Lohengrin |
Call it what you like just keep expressing those sentiments and I'll pay your fare.  | |
| An idea isn't responsible for those who believe in it. |
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 17:39 - May 22 with 6829 views | Davillin |
This is a reply to both the ECB post above and the Lohengrin "Welcome Aboard" post in reply.
Every undefined word in ECB's literary penumbra makes the penumbra more opaque; and the only remotely-defined words there are "is," "and," and "as."
Let me show you why: "Unfettered capitalism is not as inequitable and unsustainable as unfettered socialism." [Post edited 22 May 2016 17:39]
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| Venezuela - a reality checks on 17:39 - May 22 with 6827 views | exiledclaseboy |
I don't think we'd find it easy coming to an accord on many policies. And your Mosley posters will have to go. | |
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