http://realclearpolitics.com/Comment...0_4_05_CM.html

I say it's better to nationalize some companies than letting the bloodsucking IMF, make a huge national debt, and privatize public companies creating monopolies of foreign capital...

Chavez was elected democratically, and let's not forget that USA backed up, a few military overthrows that were allready tried, I think he's much better than Pinochet style dictatorship...

That site isn't what I'd call impartial. Real Clear Politics my arse.

As for the Venezuelian situation, it was clear that land reform was necessary, it remains to be seen what will happen next. In my opinion, the land should be spilt up equally between the rural population and aid such as tools be provided to the farmers.

All I'll say is:

There have been legaly elected presidents... and left wing presidents in Latin America, yet US kept overthrowing them - installing some right wind militarists...
Nicaragua (among others)...

I think now almost whole South America has left winged presidents, what IMF
did there is a crime (Argentina, anybody?) they were/are trying to do the same thing in Eastern Europe...

I always enjoy how such articles ignore the fact that the Soviets had far superior jet technology and implementation than the west had. And how, now that democracy and capitalism is in place former "communist" nations, the populations there are now saying they were better off before.

Edit: Or at least certain demographics say that

Whatever THAT has to do with the situation in Venezuale or any other country today... :blink:

@ topic: Well, I never read anything about the booming economies in south american states were the US had installed some US-friendly puppet-dictator after overthrowing legally elected socialist governments... So I'd say at least let 'em try for themselves this time. It won't get much worse anyway.

Well, the general thrust of the article was that everything related to socialist governments was inferior, when in fact the major reason for the fall of the USSR was better advertising, no matter what the propaganda says. The fall of "communism" was then used as a justification for the removal of a socialist government because of its inate inefficiencies and inability to provide for people, even though in general the South American socialist governments generaly don't take the top down management principles, which it could be argued are inherently inefficient, used in the USSR.

Err...
Maybe you haven't realised, but the "inate inefficiencies and inability to provide for people" were not there because of the system, but because of the people that siezed power.

The real problem was, that a lot of money (way too much) was being put in the military. On one hand to compete in the arms race, on the other hand, to keep the military content. The key poeple that should do the analizes and should at least suggest the changes had to lie, otherwise the military and secret police forces would eliminate them (because giving less money to armed forces would lower their status and they didn't want that). Simple and rotten! And that's the real reason why the communist regimes collapsed. People were put on their functions according to their political views (and more importaintly - on their willingness to support certain state oraganizations that were able to perform executions).

South America has no such problems (at least not with its left wing politicitans), so their socialist parties are not even remotely comparable to the Soviet socialist party. But then again - I doubt you'd know anything aobut that...

And yes, many people claim that it was better under the communist regimes - and in many cases they are correct. There were things that were better then. But there were many reasons (some very complex) for that!

Communism is superior in every way to capitalism, but people are the ones that made it look so bad, because of the corrupt leadership...
Human race is just not "good" enough for communism, however what's going on in Venezuela isn't pure communism, but fight against becoming a "banana" republic, or in Venezuelas example "oil" republic...
And the man who wrote that article is IMNHO an idiot...

Yeah. Exactly. As much as I would love to live in a world where everything was shared, it just goes completely against human nature.

Most communist countries really fell because the Americans (who had a lot of money but are now in astonishing debt due to their leader's abject idiocy) basically just bought everything they could, stripping comunism of its assets which fed the people and paid for everything. Once you get to a stage that communist countries don't have any industry then it's obviously going to fail. The American Government basically just go around interfering with whoever or whatever the current leader doesn't like.

Some of them didn't like communism, so communism was attacked. The 70's going well for the USA and USSR was because the American government had other problems and also that the presidents didn't really care about communism so much. In the 80's conservative governments (including that bitch Thatcher) got into power and started putting pressure on the USSR again. That's what led to its failure. Capitalists holding vendettas against communism for no reason other than that it got them votes.

It's the same with Iraq, but my views on that are heard far too often anyway, so I'll shut up.

I'm sorry, I thought my first post made it clear that I feel the same as all three of you Tulac, Sebatianos and PrejudiceSucks, and that my second post was an explanation of how exactly my comment about jet technology fit in by showing, at least in some small way, how the authors logic is flawed. I just tried not to throw in any capitalist dog comments because I don't feel that they're helpful :ok: .

@ Sebationos: please read my posts thoroughally before deciding to criticize what I do and don't know.

Well your previous post (except for the mentioning of the top down management) gives no points to what you know about communism. And even that statemant isn't really true. The "ultimate" leader of a communist regime would be the head of the communist partry (the general secretary), but there was also the president... They didn't share power, they were officially keeping each other at check The real power didn't come from the above, but from the behind (usually the high ranking military people and people in charge of the secret police - they had no official political power, but they were pulling the most strings - usually they were also the closest advisers to the both political figures). So this isn't TOP-DOWN management.

But we're getting :ot: here. If you want to talk about commnism - I'd be more then happy to talk with you about it (just remember, there are many people here - including me - who actually lived and do remember those communist regimes; and didn't just read about them. Don't know your background, but so far haven't given me enough hints to make me believe you really understand communism).

Hehehe...
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-0...obertson-_x.htm

Yeah, but he's just a tit. I think that's Pat Robinson is the one that should be killed myself. He should be strung up off a lamppost and people should get to punch him to death for being a right-wing prick.

Being a critic of Bush doesn't make you a saint and that guy clearly has something wrong with him

Feminism makes women into child-killing, witchcraft practising lesbians my arse. I know plenty of bisexual girls (it's close enough for my argument) that do neither of the two. I don't know their views on capitalism though.

I always thought it was funny how the only piece of Soviet propaganda the west ever bought into (and in fact encouraged quite a bit) is that USSR was a communist country.

There's no way you could call Chavez a communist. He has made a number of progressive reforms, and because of that he's well-liked by the poor and hated by the rich. But at the end of the day, Venezuela is still a capitalist country. It will be exciting to see if it will remain so.

Anyway, that website is biased beyond belief, and I wouldn't put any stock in anything it says.

Edit: It's a bit late for that I'd say. There has already been one coup against Chavez, which the CIA knew about beforehand (and probably supported).

If one would google articles about Venezuala, you would see how many of the US ones are similar to this one, most of the western media is trying to portrait Chavez as an evil dictator, although he was democratically elected...
Hmm mayne that's got to do with him raising taxes on oil...

Well, I haven't tried googling it. I get my info from this website. Sure, it's just as biased, but I trust it more than most other sources. It also happens to report specific things, instead of just ranting on about how evil socialism is. :D

Truth. But this can be said of *any* system: it is only as good or bad as the people who run it. And of course, they want you to buy into the system, because that helps keep their followers in line, believing themselves to be the annointed heirs.

The problems associated with Communism have to do with the fact that Bolshevism made itself a one-party government in early 20th century Russia, and set about a bloody destruction of all political opponents. That pattern has been repeated in all subsequent Communist governments. If Communism can ever become a strictly economic approach to governing, without latching onto power in a manner that jails, tortures, and/or kills all dissent, then it could end up forming parties to take periodic control in parliamentary democracies, such as those of Europe. But short of changing its nature completely, will the Communist ideologues ever agree to this?