Stratfor's step by step guide to taking a dump on Venezuelan sovereignty

I'll actually note that my objection to socialism/communism IS philosophical more than economics, a subject about which I'm fairly ignorant about. But come on, Mathloon. Communism has not been well implemented enough to make an assessment? Seriously? Don't play the "It would have worked in the Soviet Union if it wasn't for Stalin" card on me.

 

The main problem I have there, Mathloon, is that you keep consistently conflating socialism/communism when the two are not the same. My problem with the two are very different, but your constant usage of the terms interchangeably makes it fairly difficult for me to quite understand your viewpoints. This is all the more so because while I can understand arguing socialism might work, I cannot fathom at all how you can look back at the history of the 20th century and think Communism would work.

I will note, however, that citing OWS as an example of social change to me is bluntly hilarious. OWS had no possibility of change, as at the end of the days it was massively disorganized and largely compiled of the one social group which are the most irrelevant in these sorts of protests, students. I have no doubt that you believe that if it wasn't for the media and system, you think OWS would have done something...somehow, by sitting around in parks. I disagree.

 

Then why do you keep switching back and forth on the terminology? You're using the words "socialism" and "communism" interchangeably, as you did in your earlier longish post and the fact that when I asked how you could possibly think Communism didn't get a fair shake, you began talking about socialism. You don't do that unless you think they're the same, so I'll admit it just plain confuses me.

Correlation does not imply causation. Of course there will be future movements against the system of different sizes, types and ideologies That's what people do, they seek change in the result of various injustices, regardless of how important they truly are. OWS, however, hasn't sparked and isn't going to spark anything because of how disorganized it was and via that how disreputable it came to be.

 

I personally doubt it. Not because it's not plausible, but because cancer is a hard thing to "fake". I do, however, find it interesting to think back on Chavez' progression from socialist savior to dictator to borderline-lunatic. I'd argue there are underlying factors in that timeline, most of which are not altogether surprising given the history of said locale.

 

Only an idiot would believe that. You're welcome.

 

Your persona as of late is rather unpleasent. Makes it hard to read your posts.

 

Sorry, but it's totally idiotic to insinuate that someone "infected Chavez with cancer".

 

Well yes...and it seems implausible that the Venezuelan government would say cancer if they had any reason to say "poison/nano-robot-death-army".

I was speaking more generically.

 

Actually all or almost all of the regimes the US supported have transitioned to democracies. Soviet sponsored states are one and one I guess with Nicaragua and Cuba.

As for Stratfor, we shouldn't forget that here in the US foreign companies can spend to influence elections (although it's hard to believe they were so stupid as to write some of this stuff in emails, lol). Sounds like a level playing field. Besides Chavez went out of his way to be a pain in the ass. He didn't have any problem invoking Citgo to influence US opinion.

 

I cannot express my level of "what the hell are you talking about" adequately.

 

Reported

 

Don't forget the post after that one!

 

That's in response to the conclusion that historically, US interventions didn't leave room for optimism. I said that all the US sponsored states transitioned from dictatorships to democracies, so that's not so bad compared to those regimes that were communist, Nicaragua and Cuba. Further, there have been other interventions such as with Haiti where we've intervened to prevent strongmen (Namphy IIRC) from stopping elections.

Whether or not you might be optimistic depends on your data set, I guess.