Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has hired 200 people to help him tweet as part of his account “chavezcandanga,” which has more than 237,000 followers. He has much to tweet about as inflation has now reached 30 percent in the country, which Chavez blames on the “bourgeoisie.”
Chavez’s twitter account is now slightly larger than his rival Globovision, the only critical TV channel remaining in the country after Chavez’s crackdown on journalists and free speech.
For the twitter story, click here.
The 30.4 percent inflation rate is now the highest in Latin America and, in his signature style, Chavez is now blaming the hidden hand of the United States and the wealthy and punishing no punitive measures: “We need to stop this right now. The bourgeoisie do not listen to appeals to their conscience. Let’s act with a firm hand.” Totalitarian tweets in 140 characters or less.
For the full story, click here.
I’m still waiting to hear how socialism stagnates free enterprise, Joe. Considering how my assertion was that it doesn’t and you provided excellent examples that it does anything but create stagnation and rather results in a robust private sector. What it does is creates a stable base population who are better, healthier workers. Part of why Sweden’s businesses are so successful is their businesses are not shouldered with the extortion payments to private insurance companies for what is considered a right (health care) in most Western countries. You know. Insurance companies like AIG that fight tooth and nail to NOT provide the exact service they are being paid for. Because it cuts into their profits.
Come on.
Spin some more. Just like a dancing monkey chained to unrestricted capitalist calliope. It’s funny.
There’s a lobbyist job for you yet.
Answer the question.
About the mittens that is.
The rest of what you say is spinning drivel.
Joe,
Because the French decided where to build the city, you simple creature. You can blame me for hurricanes and the founding of New Orleans all you want though. It’ll look good on my resume that people are stupid enough to think I personally control the weather or the placement of cities built 200 years before I was born. Time travelers and weather controllers can name their own salary in any economy or economic model.
You don’t want to pay for New Orleans? Fine. Stop paying taxes. See how well that works out for you. And when wherever you live is blasted by natural disaster, I hope you’re left with your dick in your hand and no assistance from the Federal or State government until it’s waaaaay too late. Then let’s see how you feel about your fellow citizens helping you out and when they do, they try to force you to buy toxic trailers to live in and do a half-assed job of the rest of the salvage effort. Will you be saying “Heckuva job, Brownie!” Or will you and your type be the first bitching about not getting value from your tax dollar – “Where’s FEMA!” – despite your every attempt to avoid paying any kind of taxes. You know, taxes. Those things used to build roads and bridges and highways and, oh yeah, LEVEES.
You don’t like my true examples of socialism in action (the economic model, not your continuing to confuse political versus economic models)? Too goddamn bad. Socialism works in Canada, Sweden and the UK. Whether you believe that or not. If you can’t distinguish socialism (as in Sweden has socialized medicine AND free markets) from their political system? That’s your problem as well, Forest. I explained it in small words. It is what it is no matter how you protest or try to change the definitions. Socialism is by definition a limited command economy combined with free markets. I gave you a perfect example. You don’t speak English? That’s your problem. Byron does this all the time too: when he can’t refute he starts making up his own definitions. Like that Nazis were socialists and not fascists. But war is peace, isn’t it George? I already said it was a combination of private and public trust ownership, which you yourself bolstered yet again by showing how good Sweden’s socialist economy fosters free enterprise in open markets. Funny how you keep doing that, troll. You tell me how wrong I am then prove me right. That’s special.
Does your mom make sure your mittens are tied together so you don’t lose them?
Buddha:
I also want to know why I have to blame the French and not you. The French aren’t the ones that are requiring me to pay more taxes for the rebuilding of New Orleans, that would be you and the Congress of the U.S. Progressing towards what? Please answer the question.
Buddha I almost forgot yes the folks in the netherlands build better below sea level than the A.C.O.E. But only because when their fore fathers were imperialists they couldn’t grab enough land to live comfortably above sea level.
Again with the personal attacks what a small mind you must truly have. The point was and still is these are all examples of mixed economies. So your premise that socialism works just fine is incorrect.
And your examples suck:
Sweden is an export-oriented mixed economy featuring a modern distribution system, excellent internal and external communications, and a skilled labour force. Timber, hydro-power, and iron ore constitute the resource base of an economy heavily oriented toward foreign trade. Sweden’s engineering sector accounts for 50% of output and exports. Telecommunications, the automotive industry and the pharmaceutical industries are also of great importance. Agriculture accounts for 2 percent of GDP and employment.
The 20 largest companies registered in Sweden are Volvo, Ericsson, Vattenfall, Skanska, Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB, Svenska Cellulosa Aktiebolaget, Electrolux, Volvo Personvagnar, TeliaSonera, Sandvik, Scania, ICA, Hennes & Mauritz, Nordea, Preem, Atlas Copco, Securitas, Nordstjernan, and SKF.
Sweden’s industry is overwhelmingly in private control; unlike some other industrialized Western countries, such as Austria and Italy, publicly owned enterprises were always of minor importance.
NOT A SOCIALIST ECONOMY! Just a capitalist country with a mixed economy that is small enough to pay for it’s social programs.
The Chinese are another great example, they are going to implode only they are coming at it from a different side of the table as us here in the USA. No government can sustain the growth they are exhibiting with three classes of citizens operating at different speeds. Remember that speed does not kill differential speed kills!
Thanks for your input, fascist apologist.
Since you can’t differentiate between a system of governance and an economic system, I’ll say it in small words:
Sweden.
Government = Constitutional Monarchy.
Economic Model = Socialist.
____
Socialism is an economic model, not a political model.
Capitalism is an economic model, not a political model.
Communism is an economic model, not a political model.
Fascism is a political model, not an economic model.
Authoritarianism is a political model, not an economic model.
Constitutional Representative Democracy is a political model, not an economic model.
____
Socialism is in reality where certain markets are run by public trusts (NOT A CORPORATION) for the public good (NOT THE PROFIT OF THE GREEDY SHAREHOLDERS).
Socialism allows free markets when combined with capitalism (Sweden), just not for the things integral to national security like health care and energy policy. This is not so when the economics of socialism are combined with pure authoritarianism (which is as big a joke as your version of anything goes capitalism combined with institutionalized graft). If you doubt this, ask the founder of Ikea. The Swedes did nothing to keep him from becoming rich as Croesus.
And you want to talk New Orleans? Take it up with the French. Many cities across the world are built in shit locations because in the past people were ignorant about weather (and hydrology and plate tectonics and vulcanism and etc.). You deal with the cities you have, inconvenient or not. You don’t abandon citizens because someone long ago looked at a high spot in the swamp and said “This is a good place!” You don’t abandon citizens because it’s inconvenient to help them. Otherwise? They weren’t really citizens to start with as the community they supposedly belong to abandoned them in a time of need and natural disaster.
The Dutch can build seawalls to keep out the ocean from cities just as low as New Orleans. Are you saying the Dutch are more competent builders than the US Corps of Engineers? That America lacks the skill to reasonably secure that low city? How about you take your crutch and prop it up where your head is, Joe. The bottom line is you don’t want maintaining civilization to cost you anything. You just want all the rewards.
That simple enough for you?
All you fascist are alike: Government is economics! Well, you’re simply a pant load. Government is government. Economics are economics.
China is ostensibly a Communist oligarchical dictatorship. Their economics are a blend of socialism, free markets and the old style communism.
And they’re sooooo unsuccessful.
You don’t read much do you? I take that back. It’s obvious you can and do read. Understanding? Not really your strong suit.
Buddha:
Sweden is a constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government.
Canada functions within a framework of constitutional monarchy and a federal system of parliamentary government with strong democratic traditions.
NOT SUCCESSFUL SOCIALIST GOVERNMENTS
Talk about checking your premises, try again! and FYI – Just because those people are satisfied with socialized medicine doesn’t mean they would be satisfied with an out and out socialist government, it means they simple don’t know what else to do, like most progressives. What exactly do you think you are progressing towards. Socialism leads directly to only two other forms of government. When the haves get tired of paying they create a fascist and seize control, some times the fascist goes all dictator on the people that put them in charge and we see (Stalin) all over again and when the have nots get tired of being stepped on they create communism and seize control, killing the progressives that lead them to this place originally.
You have still not provided an answer?
I believe it is good and right to be altruistic and to help your fellow man. I do not believe you have the right to tell me how and where to be altruistic and that really is where the rubber meets the road in the conservative v. progressive debate in this country. Take any argument a liberal and neocon can have and at the end of the day it comes down to who gets to decide.
If you truly believe that progressives are moving us all towards something grand and noble then tell me at what point does your altruism (help) become a crutch and then an entitlement. i.e. The City of New Orleans is built below the elevation of the surrounding bodies of water, how many times do we rebuild it before you would say let’s just move everyone to higher ground.
It wasn’t the hurricane that caused the damage it was man’s hubris in building a city where one should not exist. You cannot build a new community under those conditions (elevation of New Orleans in relation to the flood zone) anywhere in the country, yet that’s exactly what we have done, that is until the hurricanes come back. What if hurricanes of that severity hit every year for the next ten years do we keep rebuilding the city, every year?
and what about Greece, you think the rest of the EU didn’t know they were mismanaging there money and over spending
Since the restoration of democracy the party system is dominated by the liberal-conservative New Democracy and the social-democratic Panhellenic Socialist Movement
The 1975 constitution, which describes Greece as a “presidential parliamentary republic”,
This is what social programs with unchecked spending lead to, please pass this info to your friends in the White House.
“who think he’s more equal”
Pardon the sloppy typing. I blame the lunch I’m eating as I deal with the nonsense of greedy people justifying their greed.
“banking crisis like the EU”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/15/sweden-canada-outrank-us_n_539310.html
That answers #1. That and the fact that most of Europe has some degree of socialism which works just fine. That story linked to mirrors the testimonials of both British and Canadian posters here who have been most vocal that they are satisfied with their SOCIALIZED medical care. Most of Europe’s current problems are the trickle down of our market meltdown. Which was indeed totally caused by capitalist greed and overreaching in selling made up bullshit like derivatives. Add to this the fact they’ve managed the roll out and implementation of the Euro poorly – so poorly it’s led to valuation fluctuations which combined with Greek overspending when on top of the bubble created their current situation. The money the Greeks spent wasn’t real money and now it’s coming back to haunt them. Much like our crippling war spending will come back to haunt us. A war, need I remind you, started by capitalists (truthfully fascists) for a personal profit motive, not to get those responsible for 9/11. If that’s why we went to war? We should be in Saudi Arabia. End of story.
The reason Canada hasn’t been hammered by our domestic banking crisis is like the EU is Canada has tighter regulations on banks and always have. OOoooo. More of that nasty regulation you greed pigs are so afraid of.
Did I mention Sweden?
As to #2, civilization is a cooperative effort unless you’re one of the pigs you thinks he’s more equal than the other pigs.
Oink.
Feel free to wallow more, apologist for personal greed.
The world is what we make of it, genius. Thanks for bolstering my point. Right now? Unfettered capitalism is turning it into a cesspool with America leading the race to the bottom. Because greedy people are making it that way.
Buddha:
Well it’s nice to see you are all still quoting what you were taught and not what is thought.
“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.”
Recognize these two quotes (Buddha) look around at the world, go ahead and take a long hard look. Now, please don’t go with the first thought that pops into your head, go ahead and look deeper. Do you really like what you see? Do you honestly think capitalism did all of this? You attack Byron on a personal level but you never offer an honest alternative. The defense of a system that you seem to hold dear is always based on quotes from people that had vested interest in defending their way of life. Yet you personally never offer evidence of the success of any form of socialism. So if socialism is the answer then why don’t you ever answer these simple questions:
1. Where/when does/has socialism worked? (In the entire history of man, where is your shining example?
2. At who’s expense?
Argument by verbosity. You taking lessons from badtroll on the birther threads? Say more doesn’t make you right. It just means you’re long winded. And . . .
That still doesn’t make you not a fascist in your statements and actions defending corporatists, Byron.
Planned Parenthood and Nazis? That’s cute. Absurd, but cute. You’re all about the false analogies these days. Just like when you were a troll. Here, in case you couldn’t understand the words the first time:
“False analogy is an informal fallacy applying to inductive arguments. It is often mistakenly considered to be a formal fallacy, but it is not, because a false analogy consists of an error in the substance of an argument (the content of the analogy itself), not an error in the logical structure of the argument.
In an analogy, two systems are shown to have common sub-functions and/or properties and therefore additional corresponding sub-functions and/or properties are proposed and shown to exist. This is repeated for all sub-functions until the analogy ultimately fails.
More specifically the assumption of an analogy runs like this: if some system A has some function X and also some function Y, and some system B has a function X’ corresponding to A’s function X, then the system B should also have a function Y’ that is analogous to A’s function Y.
For instance, a popular analogy is between plumbing and electrical circuits. In plumbing there are sub-functions and properties such as valves and fluid flow rate. These functions and properties have corresponding analogs in electronics such as transistors and electrical current.
Another analogy concerns the gravitational force between two masses and the electrical force between two charges (both are governed by inverse square relations). One might be tempted to create a further analogy between plumbing and the gravitational force. It is difficult to say whether this would be a false analogy since the definition of a true analogy is equally difficult to define. The usefulness of any analogy must lie in the number of analogs it can establish between the functions and properties of two systems.
An example of a false analogy between energy and mass would be to assume that since E=mc2, then energy and mass must be identical. Energy and mass are not identical, energy can travel at the speed of light while mass cannot. Analogies should never be mistaken for establishing an equivalence. Not recognizing the misapplication of analogy can be as potentially disastrous as not recognizing a misapplication of logic.” from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_analogy
I’m guessing you never read that link the first time I posted it. Probably because you know you’re committing that fallacy on a regular basis. So I pasted the relevant parts so there would be no misunderstanding. You saying an orange is an apple isn’t going to make something an orange that isn’t an orange. Nice try though. And by “nice” I mean “pathetic”.
And I’ve already told you what’s wrong with your take on Jefferson. He was talking about natural people, not the corporations you so robustly defend. Hear that sound? It’s Jefferson rolling in his grave again as you misquote him to justify your unmitigated greed.
I used to think you were a good guy with bad ideas. Now I see the ideas make the man. Again, you can take the boy out of the troll park, but not the troll park out of the boy.
You want to justify your greed? You’ll need to do better than that. That was a weak display and hardly worth addressing except to dismiss for its absurdity and to point out your seemingly preferred method of arguing. Which is by fallacy, to be clear.
Buddha:
“You can think you’re the “capitalist” hero of the story all you want.”
Actually I don’t. I just disagree with socialism and I am a big believer in individual rights. But apparently trying to explain individual rights to a group of “progressives” is like herding cats.
I could also say that you are the “Marxist” hero of the story. But I wont because there is no such thing as a Marxist hero, it is an oxymoron, an anti-concept, a false premise.
Buddha:
“Hitler said he was cleaning up the gene pool. He and his boy Reinhardt Heydrich were in fact committing mass industrialized murder. Word versus actions.”
You mean like Margret Sanger the founder of Planned Parenthood?
Margaret Sanger
Founder of Planned Parenthood
In Her Own Words
“The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race
(Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923)
Copyright © 2001 Diane S. Dew http://www.dianedew.com
Margaret Sanger (1883-1966)
On blacks, immigrants and indigents:
“…human weeds,’ ‘reckless breeders,’ ‘spawning… human beings who never should have been born.” Margaret Sanger, Pivot of Civilization, referring to immigrants and poor people
On sterilization & racial purification:
Sanger believed that, for the purpose of racial “purification,” couples should be rewarded who chose sterilization. Birth Control in America, The Career of Margaret Sanger, by David Kennedy, p. 117, quoting a 1923 Sanger speech.
On the right of married couples to bear children:
Couples should be required to submit applications to have a child, she wrote in her “Plan for Peace.” Birth Control Review, April 1932
On the purpose of birth control:
The purpose in promoting birth control was “to create a race of thoroughbreds,” she wrote in the Birth Control Review, Nov. 1921 (p. 2)
On the rights of the handicapped and mentally ill, and racial minorities:
“More children from the fit, less from the unfit — that is the chief aim of birth control.” Birth Control Review, May 1919, p. 12
On religious convictions regarding sex outside of marriage:
“This book aims to answer the needs expressed in thousands on thousands of letters to me in the solution of marriage problems… Knowledge of sex truths frankly and plainly presented cannot possibly injure healthy, normal, young minds. Concealment, suppression, futile attempts to veil the unveilable – these work injury, as they seldom succeed and only render those who indulge in them ridiculous. For myself, I have full confidence in the cleanliness, the open-mindedness, the promise of the younger generation.” Margaret Sanger, Happiness in Marriage (Bretano’s, New York, 1927)
On the extermination of blacks:
“We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,” she said, “if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members.” Woman’s Body, Woman’s Right: A Social History of Birth Control in America, by Linda Gordon
On respecting the rights of the mentally ill:
In her “Plan for Peace,” Sanger outlined her strategy for eradication of those she deemed “feebleminded.” Among the steps included in her evil scheme were immigration restrictions; compulsory sterilization; segregation to a lifetime of farm work; etc. Birth Control Review, April 1932, p. 107
On adultery:
A woman’s physical satisfaction was more important than any marriage vow, Sanger believed. Birth Control in America, p. 11
On marital sex:
“The marriage bed is the most degenerating influence in the social order,” Sanger said. (p. 23) [Quite the opposite of God’s view on the matter: “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” (Hebrews 13:4)
On abortion:
“Criminal’ abortions arise from a perverted sex relationship under the stress of economic necessity, and their greatest frequency is among married women.” The Woman Rebel – No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.
On the YMCA and YWCA:
“…brothels of the Spirit and morgues of Freedom!”), The Woman Rebel – No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.
On the Catholic Church’s view of contraception:
“…enforce SUBJUGATION by TURNING WOMAN INTO A MERE INCUBATOR.” The Woman Rebel – No Gods, No Masters, May 1914, Vol. 1, No. 3.
On motherhood:
“I cannot refrain from saying that women must come to recognize there is some function of womanhood other than being a child-bearing machine.” What Every Girl Should Know, by Margaret Sanger (Max Maisel, Publisher, 1915) [Jesus said: “Daughters of Jerusalem, weep… for your children. For, behold, the days are coming, in which they shall say, Blessed (happy) are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the breasts which never gave suck.” (Luke 23:24)]
“The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.” Margaret Sanger, Women and the New Race (Eugenics Publ. Co., 1920, 1923)
Wasnt she also a fan of the Nazi’s so I think she was a socialist, fascist or whatever you want to call it as well.
Buddha:
Let me see if I remember my history, um England, the once great British Empire, didn’t they nationalize a bunch of industry as well? Aren’t they socialist now?
You don’t get it do you? A command economy is a command economy it doesn’t matter whether it is a democracy or a dictatorship. It doesn’t matter if an industry is appropriated by government through force as in Chavez’s case or by legal means as in Britain’s case it is still owned by the government. Someones individual rights have been trampled. Or as Jefferson so eloquently said:
“The right to procure property and to use it for one’s own enjoyment is essential to the freedom of every person, and our other rights would mean little without these rights of property ownership. It is also for these reasons that the government’s power to tax property is placed in those representatives most frequently and directly responsible to the people, since it is the people themselves who must pay those taxes out of their holdings of property.”
Thomas Jefferson
Since you seem to think Locke and Jefferson are so far afield on property rights what is your defense? The works of Marx or Mao? 🙂
And out of curiosity what country does socialism work so well in beside Greece? Portugal, Spain, Italy, the EU where is it working? Bolivia? Let me know I have an active mind and I am certainly willing to entertain the possibility that I am wrong.
Oh and what about Cuba?
Mike I was reading the comment section on another thread and a poster said he saw your recent comments as a sign you are doing well. I sincerely hope this is true.
We won’t mention names cuz he’s no my favorit pertson rye now. 🙂
When those enraptured by the conservative/liberal (left/right)paradigm manage to open their eyes to see the real world, they might grasp that the ills of political systems lay in the psychology of many of the players and not the methodology they use. At that point they might awaken and have something useful to say. Until then it’s like rooting for their hometown football team and believing their support has any effect on the games outcome. This leaves them merely sheep to be shorn and those hometown jerseys cost a bundle.
Maybe.
But at least I don’t need mouthwash.
U so nasty, you need a true clensen