Another American backed coup happening in Venezuela

Brian?

markodaly wrote: »

Well, you sure did not bring any attention or blame the primary culprits behind the mess that is current day Venezuela. Instead, you wrote the usual textbook monologue of 'blame the USA', used by would be socialists/communists and every one of that ilk.

No, that's not what I did. I was responding to a poster who said it was nothing to do with the US. That was an incorrect statement. Which I felt needed to be addressed. I did not come along to simply blame the US, I was addressing a very specific point of historical truth.

As for the primary culprits. I don't think that's anywhere near as simple as people are trying to make out. It's a very complex situation that the US is partially responsible. Which the US government is continuing.

Perhaps, but what about Soviet influence and the economic theories that surrounded that regime? Do they get a free pass because they lost the cold war?

No, they don't get a free pass. But no one was trying to say they do. My response was tailored to the post I was responding to. Do I have to include everyone I blame in every post?

Really? Who are these? I suppose the tried and trust Nordic/Scandinavian countries will be used as a retort, who exist in a free market, capitalist economic system?

Yes Scandinavian countries. But most of Europe are functioning social democracies. I'm not sure what your point is. Socialist governments have been in power in most European countries without running them into the ground.

Socialist economies like Cuba or Venezuela cannot exist without authoritarianism. You admitted this yourself even. Capitalist economics however, can. People miss this point.

Again, the problem isn't socialism. The problem is authoritarianism. An authoritarian capitalist society can be equally bad as an authoritarian socialist society. It's not the economic theory that's the problem, it's the system of government that's the problem.

Brian?

markodaly wrote: »

How? China and Russia would block anything like that put forward at the UN Security Council.

Maduro is not about to let UN monitors take away his power. He is all in at this stage.

I explained what I think should happen. I've very little belief it will happen precisely because China and Russia will bloke it.

I blame them as much as the US, maybe more right now, for the worsening crisis. But both countries are run by autocrats who are only interested in benefiting themselves. It goes back to my argument about authoritarianism. Both Russia and China are prime examples of abhorrent systems of government, who use their global influence purely for their own benefit.

markodaly

Brian? wrote: »

Yes Scandinavian countries. But most of Europe are functioning social democracies. I'm not sure what your point is. Socialist governments have been in power in most European countries without running them into the ground.

So, who are these leaders and what countries do they lead or did lead?

It's not the economic theory that's the problem, it's the system of government that's the problem.

Socialism and authoritarianism is like salt and pepper. You cannot have the first without the latter.

Brian?

markodaly wrote: »

So, who are these leaders and what countries do they lead or did lead?

You want me to name every socialist party that was in power in Europe since ww2? Seriously?

Socialism and authoritarianism is like salt and pepper. You cannot have the first without the latter.

That's complete nonsense. Since we are entering the "empty rhetoric" phase of the argument I'll leave it here.

victor8600

hmmm wrote: »

Do any socialists on here ever stop for a minute and ask themselves why there has never been a successful socialist state?

You are very much mistaken. By 1960 and prior to its demise, the USSR was a very successful socialist state. Sure, you can say that there were shortages of toilet paper or what not and you would be right, socialist economies are not designed to flexibly respond to the consumer demand. They are designed to provide people with work and cater for planned needs. Soviet armies were a match to anything in the world. Its science rivaled that of the USA. So all in all, it was a successful state.

Let me give you a personal account of what living in a planned economy meant. My parents bought their co-op apartment in 1981 when there were just turning 30 for approximately one year of their combined salary. The state sponsored creche (morning to 6PM) was 100 meters from their house. The combined primary/secondary school was 200 meters in another direction, accidentally the school provided free lunches for all pupils. The apartment itself had free running cold and hot water and a subsidized heating during cold periods. My parents started working straight after finishing their diplomas and had expected to work for the same places until their retirement.

So if everything was as wonderful as I said, why did the USSR fail? It did not fail because of the USA outspending it in military terms, or because of any economic problems.

The USSR failed because it was one huge lie. It was founded on lies and those lies kept piling up until nobody knew what is right and what is wrong.

Franz Von Peppercorn

markodaly wrote: »

How? China and Russia would block anything like that put forward at the UN Security Council.

Maduro is not about to let UN monitors take away his power. He is all in at this stage.

Would they? Its not certain. In any case the US has no more right to interfere here than China or Russia has.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Brian? wrote: »

That's complete nonsense. Since we are entering the "empty rhetoric" phase of the argument I'll leave it here.

He's right about that one, in general, at least for communist countries. In fact theres no way to transition a capitalist economy to a fully socialist one without some level of violence, as people are not going to hand over their wealth.

However communist economies were pretty successful in fact, albeit authoritarian. All of the Eastern Europe countries were richer than most of the world, including most of Africa, Asia and South America.

And China is in no sense a neo liberal country following the Western script.

LuckyLloyd

Brussels Sprout wrote: »

There's been some really bad takes given regarding the situation in Venezuela.

Right-Wing American take (over the past few years)
Democrats are trying to increase taxes, increase "entitlements" and socialise medicine. See how that worked out for Venezuela...

Left-Wing (today)
Here we go. Another US-led coup in Latin America. They're just after Venezuela's oil wealth. Maduro is the democratically elected president who's only crime was to try to help the poor. This is an outrage...


The reality is that both of these are wide of the mark. I've been following the situation in Venezuela since the coup attempt against Hugo Chavez back in 2002. Discussion of the Chavez years are beyond the scope of a single post. Needless to say that he did a lot of good redistributing oil wealth in a fairer manner but also the seeds were sewn that weakened domestic businesses and led to an over-reliance on exports purchased with oil money. Also he got extremely lucky with high oil prices to pay for his social programs.

Upon his death in 2013 Nicolas Maduro was suddenly thrust into power. An ex-bus driver, his main qualification for leadership appeared to be his blind loyalty to Chavez. Firstly he was highly unlucky. When he came to power oil was > $100 a barrel. Within 3 years it had plunged to <$40. This led to a collapse in the income of the state. How Maduro dealt with this crisis was a sequence of events where he kept doubling down on bad decisions:

1. With a loss of income from selling oil he started printing new currency to try and continue government spending
2. This, of course, led to massive inflation and the collapse in the value of the local currency (the bolivar)
3. Since domestic production had been decimated in the Chavez years most products were imported.
4. Maduro created laws preventing businesses from increasing prices on staples such as rice, medicines and toilet paper
5. this would mean that businesses would lose money by selling these items so they either went out of business or stopped selling price-controlled items
6. This led to massive queues at any shops that were still selling staples. This also led to rationing of these items
7. ignoring the real value vs the US$ of the bolivar Maduro created an official exchange rate (seemingly out of thin air). Access to dollars at this rate was only available to political cronies. The blackmarket value that most people had to go by was orders of magnitude higher.
8. As well as inflation unemployment and crime skyrocketed. People took to the streets in many protests which were put down by the police
9. A mass exodus of people has occurred - >3 millions have left the country, swamping Columbia and other neighbours.
10. The average person in Venezuela is so undernourished that they have lost large amounts of weight – dubbed “The Maduro diet”
11. In parallel with the economic ruin that he was inflicting upon the country Maduro was also eroding democracy at the same time.
12. He stuffed the supreme court with loyalists and arrested opposition leaders
13. When the opposition won power in national assembly elections in 2015, Maduro's party stripped power from the body before they left (a trick since used by the Republican party in some states in the USA)
14. He also used the supreme court to remove power from the assembly in 2017
15. He created a new constituent assembly stuffed with loyalists in order to write a new constitution (the previous one had only been written in 2009)
16. All of this allowed him to win an election in 2018 that most of the opposition boycotted

Basically the only thing Maduro is competent at is clinging on to power. If he had gone out to try and ruin the country he couldn’t’ have done much worse than what he has actually accomplished over the past 6 years.

What has occurred in Venezuela cannot be used to bash democratic socialism since it’s basically nothing but a dictatorship at this stage. At the same time the fracking boom in the USA has meant that they are now self-sufficient in hydrocarbons and have little use for the particular crude oil that the Venezuelans produce (a particularly dense form that is difficult to refine). The fact that most of Venezuela’s neighbours have weighed in on the side of the opposition also goes against the theory that this is some sort of CIA coup. The only countries in the region who are backing Maduro or communist Cuba and Bolivia and Mexico who both have populist left-wing leaders.

The best outcome for the people of Venezuela is that the army choose to back the opposition and free and air elections can be held so that someone competent can come in and clean up the mess that has been made of the country (be they left or right leaning so long as they understand the basics of economics).

Thanks for that post - good to get insight on the actual topic at hand as opposed to inane ideological point scoring

blanch152

Brian? wrote: »

Yes Scandinavian countries. But most of Europe are functioning social democracies. I'm not sure what your point is. Socialist governments have been in power in most European countries without running them into the ground.

Again, the problem isn't socialism. The problem is authoritarianism. An authoritarian capitalist society can be equally bad as an authoritarian socialist society. It's not the economic theory that's the problem, it's the system of government that's the problem.

Nonsense, there is no socialist state in the EU.

Sharing the fruits of capitalism is the principle of social democracy. Socialism rejects capitalism. There is not a single government in the EU that rejects capitalism as a social system ergo there are not socialist states.

There may well be governing parties that have the ultimate aim of abolishing capitalism, but socialism as an economic system has failed every single place that it has been tried. The problem with socialism is that ultimately it always leads to authoritarianism and oppression of the proletariat. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, there is the stupidity of the economic model which spends the money that others create without allowing those who create the money to keep creating it. Secondly, the potential for corruption and nepotism is much much higher in a socialist state than in a capitalist state. Thirdly, the socialist mantra results in the suppression of free media and free speech. So when the money runs out, there is an elite in power which uses oppression to maintain itself without any vocal opposition.

Socialism is doomed to failure very quickly and every single time it has been tried, it hasn't even lasted a decade.

Palmach

Brian? wrote: »

I'm not sure what your point is. Socialist governments have been in power in most European countries without running them into the ground.
.

The only socialist governments were in the old Eastern bloc and yes they all ran their countries into the ground.

James Brown

hmmm wrote: »

We can add Venezuela to that ever-growing list of socialist countries who have resorted to shooting their own starving people.

Do any socialists on here ever stop for a minute and ask themselves why there has never been a successful socialist state? Before they head out with their yellow jackets to demand the overthrow of capitalism etc?

Ireland does reasonably well except for when it becomes too reliant on private business to solve social problems created in no small part by private business.
Any successful capitalist society needs an element of socialism and vice versa.
By the way, what part of socialism condones shooting starving people? Is it the same part of capitalism that condones shooting people for private profits?
It's convenient to view things in such a simplistic way and helps to point to such examples when cutting minimum wage or benefits to the poor I suppose, but it's not really truthful.

James Brown

Palmach wrote: »

The only socialist governments were in the old Eastern bloc and yes they all ran their countries into the ground.

Stalin was a socialist? Bertie claimed he was too.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

I see Venezuelans begging on the streets every day. Millions have voted with their feet against Maduro. It's incredible that people in Ireland are still defending him.

loyatemu

Stephen Collins article in the IT, largely having a pop at Sinn Féin's support for Maduro, I thought this factoid was interesting:

back in the early 1990s the United Nations development index, which measures the standard of living for all the countries of the world, ranked Ireland in 23rd place and Venezuela in 43rd. The latest UN index puts Ireland in fourth place and Venezuela in 78th.

Palmach

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Stalin was a socialist? Bertie claimed he was too.

Yes Stalin was.

James Brown

Palmach wrote: »

Yes Stalin was.

I disagree. Maybe in his youth. Do you think China is socialist too?

Franz Von Peppercorn

Palmach wrote: »

The only socialist governments were in the old Eastern bloc and yes they all ran their countries into the ground.

They were fairly successful in fact. The USSR was a super power. And the second largest economy in the world.

Franz Von Peppercorn

Matt Barrett wrote: »

I disagree. Maybe in his youth. Do you think China is socialist too?

Clearly.

The definitions here are off. My take.

Social democracy - capitalist with large welfare states and (most often) free health care. Housing often state provided or subsidised.

Socialist. The state owns the commanding heights of the economy - banks, large industry, utilities etc.

Communist. The state runs everything including shops and even farms. Housing is generally state owned as well.

China be in the middle.

James Brown

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Clearly.

The definitions here are off. My take.

Social democracy - capitalist with large welfare states and (most often) free health care. Housing often state provided or subsidised.

Socialist. The state owns the commanding heights of the economy - banks, large industry, utilities etc.

Communist. The state runs everything including shops and even farms. Housing is generally state owned as well.

China be in the middle.

Yep. I'd suggest China is run by a cartel.
You can't have a democracy without elements of socialism. It's tiresome to read 'look at [insert - generally a dictatorship]' from the same folk complaining about minimum wage and welfare rates like they are equatable.

blanch152

loyatemu wrote: »

Stephen Collins article in the IT, largely having a pop at Sinn Féin's support for Maduro, I thought this factoid was interesting:

Don't worry, there will be somebody along any minute to declare that Leo will single-handedly reverse this statistic in a matter of months.

The countries that have successfully reduced poverty all have capitalism as their economic system. Like Ireland, the most successful have a social conscience as well, hence our over-developed social welfare net that allows a lifetime of benefits with a forever house. No country based on socialism was ever that successful. The best you would have got is a grimy apartment in a soulless block in a dismal suburb with a manual job.

Homeless? Send them to a gulag. We spend over €100m a year on homeless charities.
Unemployed? Send them to a work camp. We provide unlimited benefits.
Children? Get a licence if you want more than one. We have the most generous child benefit in the world (apart from some Middle-Eastern oil countries) and you can have as many as you like.

Surely Sinn Fein should be cheering Leo's inauguration.

Franz Von Peppercorn

blanch152 wrote: »

Don't worry, there will be somebody along any minute to declare that Leo will single-handedly reverse this statistic in a matter of months.

The countries that have successfully reduced poverty all have capitalism as their economic system. Like Ireland, the most successful have a social conscience as well, hence our over-developed social welfare net that allows a lifetime of benefits with a forever house. No country based on socialism was ever that successful. The best you would have got is a grimy apartment in a soulless block in a dismal suburb with a manual job.

You keep saying that but the USSR was a super power. China is clearly still socialist if not communist.

blanch152

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

You keep saying that but the USSR was a super power. China is clearly still socialist if not communist.

China is an oligarchy, as is modern-day Russia. At best, China is a benevolent dictatorship, but they are not socialist.

One of our resident socialists, I think in this thread, said USSR was only a socialist state for about a decade after its foundation. For the rest of its time it was a cruel totalitarian regime, and I don't think any real socialist is claiming it anytime soon.

Franz Von Peppercorn

blanch152 wrote: »

China is an oligarchy, as is modern-day Russia. At best, China is a benevolent dictatorship, but they are not socialist.

An oligarchy isn’t really an economic system in itself, if China is even that. The US is an oligarchy. The Chinese economic policy clearly deviates extremely from free market ideology. In fact if you examine economic history probably of states became rich without following classical economic orthodoxy - including the US which was behind a protectionist wall for most of the 19C. It’s still protectionist. Europe from 1940-1975 was Keynesian and had high tax rates on the rich. I’m talking 99%.

One of our resident socialists, I think in this thread, said USSR was only a socialist state for about a decade after its foundation. For the rest of its time it was a cruel totalitarian regime, and I don't think any real socialist is claiming it anytime soon.

Sounds a definition of utopian socialism that you would dismiss otherwise. Brian? is a libertarian socialist so he would dismiss statist socialism. I don’t know how libertarian socialism works either by the way.

I wouldn’t like to live in a communist country, empirically though the USSR did pretty well. Also by the end it was more authoritarian than totalitarian.

I’m just trying to dismiss the capitalism is the only system that any way works. It only makes sense as an argument if you call any system that has some free market economy, no matter how small, capitalist and ignore the USSR and satellites who while weren’t as rich as the west, did ok.

Jeff2

Some years ago vulture funds bought up billions of Dollars of Venezuela bonds at a low price.
They then took a court case to make Venezuela pay full price on time rather than come to some arrangement for lower price or longer plan.

IMO some greedy rich people cause a lot of problems in the world.

na1

Eric Cartman wrote: »

this may be the first time in a long time that US intervention would actually help the people on the ground and get them out from a legacy of tyranny.

This is like stealing money from the family, and once the family starts starving offer them food in exchange for oil family jewelry

na1

hmmm wrote: »

We can add Venezuela to that ever-growing list of socialist countries who have resorted to shooting their own starving people.

What about Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet?

Did you see any protests/sanctions from USA or UK about mass tortures and murder of own people?

na1

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

Venezuela has been in an economic crush this whole decade, it's not some result of something Trump did.

Remove US owned multinationals and IMF subsidies from Ireland, and you'll get Northern Venezuela in this country.

na1

markodaly wrote: »

Ah come here, a day will come when people won't be able to blame America for all the ills of a nation.

.

Pentagon proposed Pretexts for Cuba invasion 1962
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//news/20010430/index.html

. Incidents to establish a credible attack (not in
chronilogical order):

(1) Start rumors (many). Use clandestine radio.

(2) Land friendly Cubans in uniform "over-the-fence"
to stage attack on the base.

(3) Capture Cuban (friendly) sabateurs inside the
base.

(4) Start riots near the entrance to the base (friendly
Cubans).

(5) Blow up ammunition inside the base; start fires.

(6) Burn aircraft on airbase (sabatage).

(7) Lob morter shells from outside of base into base.
Some damage to installations.

(8) Capture assault teams approaching from the sea
of vicinity of Guantanamo City.

(9) Capture militia group which storms the base.

(10) Sabotage ship in harbor; large fires -- napthalene.

(11) Sink ship near harbor entrance. Conduct funerals
for mock-victims (may be lieu of (10)).

b. United States would respond by executing offensive
operations to secure water and power supplies, destroying
artillery and mortar emplacements which threaten the base.

c. Commence large scale United States military operations.

3. A "Remember the Maine" incident could be arranged in
several forms:

a. We could blow up a US ship in Guantanamo Bay and
blame Cuba.

b. We could blow up a drone (unmannded) vessel anywhere
in the Cuban waters. We could arrange to cause such incident
in the vicinity of Havana or Santiago as a spectacular result
of Cuban attack from the air or sea, or both. The presense
of Cuban planes or ships merely investigating the intent of
the vessel could be fairly compelling evidence that the ship
was taken under attack. The nearness to Havana or Santiago
would add credibility especially to those people that might
have heard the blast or have seen the fire. The US could
follow with an air/sea rescue operation covered by US
fighters to "evacuate" remaining members of the non-existant
crew. Casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful
wave of national indignation.

s7ryf3925pivug

The USSR was not Communist. It was ruled by the Communist Party which was supposed to guide the country to becoming a Communist utopia.

sophiexyz

Complain about non existing foreign interference in US elections, yet push hard for regime change in Syria and Venezuela, its scary that some people believe CNN report the news.