Venezuela to nationalize food distribution
Source: AFP
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has promised to nationalize food distribution in the South American nation beset with record shortages of basic goods, runaway inflation and an escalating economic crisis.
During a rally Friday, on International Workers' Day, the socialist leader allowed a union activist to ask for the nationalization of food and essential-item distribution.
Citing new decree-making powers recently granted by the National Assembly, Maduro said he would carry out such a measure "in the coming days and weeks."
Maduro had pledged earlier in the week to announce economic reforms.
Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/venezuela-nationalize-food-distribution-191734377.html
That should fix the shortages.
christx30
(6,241 posts)clearly isn't working. I'm open to new ideas. Hopefully they can pull themselves out of what's going on down there. I wish them luck.
hack89
(39,171 posts)elections are the solution.
MyNameGoesHere
(7,638 posts)Try to keep up.
hack89
(39,171 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)However, Maduro keeps arresting opposition leaders.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)No, this is the result of incompetency and govt corruption.
salib
(2,116 posts)Let's try again.
It is so obvious that the U.S. Is the gazillion pound gorilla (maybe guerrilla as well) in Latin America. It is also obvious that ther has been a full court press to try to undermine in any way possible the revolutionary government of Venezuela.
Ridiculous to deny it.
EX500rider
(10,839 posts)US 34.3%, India 15.9%, China 14%, Netherlands Antilles 8.4%, Singapore 6%, Cuba 4.9% (2013)
Because the US govt isn't responsible for the shortages of basic goods in VN, nor the near collapse of the electrical grid, rampant crime, out of control inflation, massive govt corruption, jailing of opposition figures, etc.
So show us the proof that this is all orchestrated by the US.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Beauregard
(376 posts)What do you call that? Chopped liver?
Economic sanctions are trying to undermine a nation's economy.
Many references here:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/venezuela-sanctions/
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)not against the country.
Do try to keep up.
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/news/obama-slaps-seven-venezuelan-officials-with-sanctions-for-cracking-down-on-dissidents-7530896
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)But then, they also tried to claim global warming was an Al Gore thing.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)lay out your proof of the US causing the problems in VN.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)I asked for proof, not innuendos.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)One of them is to see to it there are no successful Latin American examples of even semi-Socialism.
They own the media and set the metrics for "success".
By their reckoning places like Columbia are successful countries. Labeling union organizers as "communists" worked well for them in the 80s.
Venezuela will be considered a failure until a guy gets in there that is willing to sell out his own people for a bargain rate bribe.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)the near collapse of the VN economy.
Do you or do you not have proof?
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Do you ever watch / listen to those?
http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/10/obama_faces_latin_american_opposition_to
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Blaming the US for the massive corruption and ineptness seems to be the Maduro govt's answer for the problems instead of fixing the underlying reasons.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)But if that's what the people of VN ultimately decide, then good luck to them, because right now, the system in place sure ain't working.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)he too has zero proof that the US is undermining the VN economy, it's all conjecture, but if he has solid proof, or if you do, then by all means, please post it here for all to see.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)All you posted was conjecture, innuendos, and speculation, which, last time I looked, isn't evidence.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)In another there is the comment that we are "steering them in the "right" direction". (IOW: "right-wing" direction)
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)So, again, fail.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)corruption and a host of other reasons, not the country, VN can still import all the food and goods they need from us, problem is that the Maduro govt's monetary policies make it impossible to be able to pay for them, that is not the fault of the US.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)to cover up their incompetence and corruption with the economy, even the state run stores are bare, lines run around the block, it reminds me of the old Soviet Union and their price controls and centralized planning of their economy.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)It reminds me of the old Soviet state run stores, when word of items would spread, lines would form no matter what the item was.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)And for all you know that's right wing propaganda.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)it's the insane monetary policies of the Maduro govt.
hack89
(39,171 posts)because they cannot get the dollars to import parts and materials. People are dying because there are no dollars to buy and import medicines. It is not a distribution problem.
spoutinghorn
(8 posts)If the outcome of a specific economic policy is so easily susceptible to "sabotage" how strong is it really in the first place?
If a few capitalists can so easily wreck this system, maybe it's the system itself?
Recursion
(56,582 posts)Seems like an odd paranoia to have...
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Recursion
(56,582 posts)I really don't know how people will react to this.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Eventually, the entire planet will get it right.
Recursion
(56,582 posts)madokie
(51,076 posts)the oily boys who chavez ran our of his country and took over their operations because they were fucking the people want their oil wells and rigs back. As long as this is the case until they do get their shit back, what really isn't theirs to begin with, it belongs to the people not an oil company, but anyway until they get a yes man in office they are in for more of the same shit as whats being dealt to them for a while now.
Scratch the surface of their problems and a rich ass hole will emerge
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Long before Chavez was elected President.
Their oil industry is now in a shambles due to Chavez running out the companies that knew what they were doing and then keeping the equipment, basically stealing it.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)Help the 1% that is.
When any country leaves the bankers' plantation, they let loose the economic dogs until they tree them or tear them to pieces. If that doesn't work, they send the jackels.
If that doesn't work, they find some right wing thug in their military to stage a coup. Attempts to remove Chavez showed their military is tired of being the bad guy, so that option is likely off the table.
Archae
(46,318 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)And he's got "extraordinary powers" too--dictatorial in scope.
This ain't gonna work, EITHER. Nationalizing everything just makes the people who do the work up and leave. It's why the country is in the toilet.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)And Capitalism doesn't create abundance.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)in any system, which is what's happening in VN.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Maybe in the future we'll find out.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)He could have caused murder sprees on a national level with a "go" order.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)I don't listen to any of those asshats.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Try this:
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)running a farm is hard, tiring work and sometimes my humor meter is on the fritz.
Now that pic is funny.
FBaggins
(26,728 posts)Venezuela is not at all like a European socialist model... unless you look much farther east and a few decades back
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)FBaggins
(26,728 posts)Of course they're a threat. They're a threat to spiral out of control and destabilize the entire region. They're a huge threat to their own citizens...
... and they're running out of people to blame for their own mistakes.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)As an added bonus it gave Maduro an excuse to run around telling everyone the United States is planning to invade.
Now THAT'S stupid.
FBaggins
(26,728 posts)Did you think that they had to have nuclear weapons to be considered a threat?
As an added bonus it gave Maduro an excuse to run around telling everyone the United States is planning to invade.
One of his citizens waking up on the wrong side of the bed is enough of an excuse for him to do that.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)FBaggins
(26,728 posts)I already told you. The country is destabilizing the region. Their bond ratings imply an impending default. Human rights abuses abound. They're a major oil supplier with huge reserves... if they fall further into chaos they cold harm the global economy.
How is that not a threat?
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)FBaggins
(26,728 posts)Venzuela is a much larger threat to the US than Greece could ever be. Among other things, our trade with them is tiny by comparison.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)You should be happy. There wont be any more excuses.
ChangoLoa
(2,010 posts)No more excuses now, as they took over the last remaining parcels of the distribution chain. The govt is the only player left in that game now.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Maduro will find a scapegoat for his failure, it just remains to be seen who it'll be.
FBaggins
(26,728 posts)Socialism doesn't create shortages... but price controls do.
You need to stop pretending that anything this side of communism is "far right." Even were we to agree that a command economy can work... the people running it would be to be far more capable than what we've seen.
Certainly there are U.S.corporate and governmental interests that want to see regime change in Venezuela... but their current economic woes are almost entirely of their own making... and entirely predictable.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)They need to offer more.
Ever see the movie "Bananas" where it's listed what San Marcos has to offer? (Besides bananas)
FBaggins
(26,728 posts)It's the government's reliance on oil sales to fund the government... along with incredibly bad fiscal and monetary policy.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)You really can't picture the formerly rich crowd there that lost an election would try to sabotage the economy to make the government look bad?
FBaggins
(26,728 posts)The "sabotage" is in plain sight. Bad economic policies.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)FBaggins
(26,728 posts)Any economist who passed even the most basic econ course.
creeksneakers2
(7,473 posts)create shortages.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)EX500rider
(10,839 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)Last edited Sun May 3, 2015, 05:23 PM - Edit history (1)
it is not complicated.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)The impact of price controls in a high inflation economy is basic economics.
Here is the problem for Maduro: when every warehouse is emptied out in a month or two, what then? Who is going to refill them? He has no dollars to import what he needs.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Just not as MUCH since oil prices fell.
This was addressed by Chomski in the clip I posted. The nation needs to diversify their exports as a single product like oil makes one a slave to the market fluctuations. This was a place that was practically OWNED by Big Oil and they got all the focus.
hack89
(39,171 posts)This is not a new problem. There have been shortages of basic goods for nearly three years.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)Thereby saving VZ a shit ton of money. He then severed all ties with the IMF and World Bank. That was 8 years ago
I have no fucking idea what you are talking about.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)hack89
(39,171 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Chavez paid the World Bank off in 2007, and VN hasn't taken a loan out with the World Bank or the IMF since, so I have no idea what loans you're talking about.
You really need to know what you're talking about before posting.
hack89
(39,171 posts)All he did was turn the country from a net exporter to a net importer. They use to be self sufficient in food- now they have to import food to feed the population.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Half of Venezuela's wealth has been spirited out of the country by his and his predecessor's cronies.
There's nothing "socialist" about what is happening in Venezuela.
Good grief.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Argentina?
MADem
(135,425 posts)and elsewhere.
It's the dough that has taken wing, the wealth of the nation.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)They got rich, paid off their debt and now are trying to live off their current income.
Do you have a link that shows the leaders looted the treasury?
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)The asshole across the street just had his hair catch on fire.
...........again.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)He won't be able to complain about private industry after this. When this solution fails spectacularly, then he can always use the ol' standby and blame the US.
Igel
(35,300 posts)It's been done and failed so many different times--always enriching just the "right people" along the way while providing political points and supportive outrage--that the responses to failure, whole or partial, are scripted. He might even have already pre-recorded them so as to not have to interrupt meetings or whatever his hobby is.
Growing pains, with requests for patience as they catch those who are denying those in line what is already rightfully theirs.
Internal saboteurs. Dissidents. Provocations. Impediments thrown up by the bourgeoisie. With calls to root out the internal class enemies.
External enemies. With calls to root out the internal class enemies who are pawns of the external enemies, and the classy external enemies who are the prawns of internal dissident saboteurs.
Natural disasters. Shortages caused by internal puppet dissidents, provocations, and sabotage. Shortages and natural disasters caused by external enemies. Internal class provocations caused by external class sabotage. Natural shortages caused by growing provocateurs undergoing internal bourgeoisie external pains. Whatever.
String the words together randomly and even mangled and they usually have as much validity, once you've sat through enough philosophy of ___________ism classes to make sure that whatever's said is already pre-known and spinning at the proper angular velocity. What matters is that you hate the person/group/ideas/beliefs/entities currently en vogue for hatred so that your loyalty isn't doubted if you're in the "correct" party. Party is mother, party is father.
ChangoLoa
(2,010 posts)And Venezuela is soon going to become an orphan.
Unless there's another oil boom before the end of the year... which won't happen.
salib
(2,116 posts)Next, we will hear about "personal responsibility" or some othe such phrase co-opted into a canard.
Venezuela is in a dire situation, one made most terrible by our own countries actions.
Is it really "bad policy" to radically raise the education rate, truly equalize the economic differences, increase economic opportunities for the forgotten vast majority who languished in miserable living conditions when thoe wonderful "free market" was working its magic.
hack89
(39,171 posts)What is laughable is the notion of the government taking over food distribution. There is nothing to distribute because there are no dollars to import food to distribute.
salib
(2,116 posts)This is disaster capitalism and Maduro is boxed in and forced to choose among downright lousy options and realities.
Nationalization of distribution is likely a better choice than for the large majority in Venezuela given the crash in oil prices and the near embargo conducted by the U.S. and most multinationals. It is not a good one and not anything that would have been expected before the crash in oil prices.
So, what are these wonderful free market proposals that you or any of the others posting here have to offer instead? What would you do to keep the revolution alive and improve the situation of the 99% in Venezuela?
hack89
(39,171 posts)We are their largest trading partner. We buy more of their oil than any other country.
Their problem is moronic currency laws that have made dollars impossible to get. Which means no money to import goods.
salib
(2,116 posts)Because, due to punitive sanctions upon sanctions, we only trade with them what our oligarchs have invested in the most dearly (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/venezuela-sanctions/)
Now, it is "moronic currency laws" that are the problem, huh?
Again, what would you do that would maintain the revolution and benefit (truly) the 99% in Venezuela? They are bleeding and need our help, not our snark, our destabilization, our support for attempted coups, nor do they need our punitive sanctions simply because they wish to maintain their revolutionary, and liberal direction and action.
hack89
(39,171 posts)there are individual sanction against a handful of government officials complicit in political violence. You should actually read your links.
salib
(2,116 posts)E.g, http://caracas.usembassy.gov/mobile//business-faq.html#6.
The previous link was not intended to be a complete report on sanctions, just an example of punitive sanctions.
From the one in this post you may see that because Venezuela is considered the "enemy", the excuse of "weapons" is used to restrict what Venezuela can do through its nationalized oil company. The most critical portion of their economy. With appropriate loopholes of course so those who have invested the big bucks can still make a killing.
Still, this is off the point. Venezuela is as much our mess as it is the oligarch's mess.
The people and government of Venezuela are trying to keep the revolution alive.
hack89
(39,171 posts)That list is trivial and has absolutely no impact on the importing of food and other consumer goods. Nor does it impact their ability to sell oil.
ChangoLoa
(2,010 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Maduro isn't forced to do anything, he's the one fucking up the country.
salib
(2,116 posts)It is not ridiculous. What is rediculous is ignoring the elephant in the room that is the U.S. Policy Againts any attempt at true revolution on the left, and always brutally in favor (and likely directed by) the monied interests.
To blithely ignore that is the ridiculous part.
Be real.
cstanleytech
(26,283 posts)a food shortage and not the decisions of the people who are actually running the country?
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)but they've also arrested political opposition figures on trumped up charges, so I don't for a second believe anything coming from the corrupt Maduro govt.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)The near failure of their oil industry due to corruption and mismanagement, the highest inflation rate of all LA countries, the highest violent crime rate of all LA countries, the chronic shortages of basic goods, the arrest and jailing of opposition figures on trumped up charges.
Need I go on.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)BTW: All Venezuela did as far as their oil was expect to get PAID for it.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)We are the biggest importer of VN oil, they get paid market price for their oil, which is crappy heavy crude, hard to refine, they send it to us to refine because their infrastructure is shit due to neglect and corruption, misappropriation of funds to modernize the wells and refineries.
The story is the same with the electrical grid, it's near collapse due to the same corruption and misappropriation of funds for modernization.
And what about the Maduro's policy of arresting opposition figures with trumped up charges?
Notice you didn't address that.
Or how about the National Police shooting and killing a number of opposition protesters?
Think that's the fault of the US also?
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)Most noted economists agree that the state of affairs in VN is due to corruption and mismanagement, not the fault of the US.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Like here. Look at OUR electrical grid some time.
EX500rider
(10,839 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)he wouldn't have fallen into that deep hole. The VZ oil industry has been nationalized for almost FORTY years--it's impossible to blame "outside forces" for it.
The problem with the VZ oil industry nowadays is that the people running it QUIT, and now they have no one competent to manage the oil fields. The rank and file workers are not called to account, and no one is buying replacement parts for the oil rigs because, since VZ doesn't pay their bills, no one will extend them credit anymore (part of the reason you can't fly to Caracas except with great difficulty).
You can't hire people and not PAY them!!! Well, you can...but don't expect 'em to stick around!
Maduro has given half of VZ's oil to CHINA....THAT's another problem with their "oil industry." They don't OWN it anymore! So much for "socialization!"
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)So, how are they going to pay for those weapons? Why, by exporting more oil to China, instead of buying more food to feed the citizens, or modernizing the failing electrical grid, or modernizing the oil infrastructure.
MADem
(135,425 posts)EX500rider
(10,839 posts)Since Venezuela has price controls on most commodities there is no "jacking up the price" .
There is "I don't want to sell products under cost so I'll warehouse it till something changes or I can smuggle it across the border to sell".
Price controls with 60%+ inflation is a guarantee shortage producer.
Igel
(35,300 posts)Then there's disaster socialism, often terms socialist disaster.
Post 1991 a lot of Russian economists were busy showing that their disasters had been of their own making. It was only really in 2000 that Russian economists decided that it was more important to show that their disaster was caused by external countries--precisely the time when Stalin's purges became a subject for increasing silence and the USSR was resurrected.
Then the papers on Khrushchev's corn policies, GULag population versus GDP, inefficiencies of production, silly policies against bourgeois sciences, suddenly fell into disrepute.
A lot of Americans tried to ignore the research in the '90s. What was said in the 2000s resonated with what they had always known, in their heart of hearts, to be true.
salib
(2,116 posts)So, it must have resonance.
So, now Venezuela is just like Soviet Russia, and somehow in their introspection they realize they were just so wrong all along. So the point?
Venezuela is NOT the enemy. The Cold War is over. Give it up and step out of that box.
Now, if we were actively supporting what has been a highly democratic and egalitarian revolution in Venezuela instead of madly trying to stamp it out, and even more desperately try to deny and cover up the attempt.
All because they are "the enemy". And because savy disaster capitalists have convinced those who wield power in this country, including the current president, that it is critical to the geopolitical game, they make poor decisions that are simply taken advantage of by those same capitalists.
Vultures of another stripe.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)christx30
(6,241 posts)if your country has the money to back it up.
"I want to give everybody 35 cent gas!" Ok, well, can you afford that?
And if you want to equalize the economic differences, what does that mean? Free money for everyone? Where does the money come from? Who gets it?
It doesn't seem like any of his goals, while laudable, were not well thought out. I could tell my kids that I'll buy them 12 Xbox games a week. But I sure as hell can't afford that.
salib
(2,116 posts)What a country can "afford" (better steed as what they can accomplish) has nothing to do with a family and what it can afford. Again, that is a right wing meme.
Please, step out of these.
christx30
(6,241 posts)If the country doesn't have the money to do something, and no one will give them loans, they have to live within their means. We're seeing what happens when a country isn't living within its means. Things cost money. Whether it's a bomber, or a paperclip, discounted gas. If the country can't afford it, it can't provide it.
salib
(2,116 posts)Or a company, or any entity like that.
See http://fair.org/blog/2012/02/14/abc-and-the-family-budget-fallacy/.
There is a wealth (not intensional) of evidence and good economic discussion on this point.
Please google it with something like "why a country's economy is not like a family".
As an example here, the right wing TP is that we cannot "afford" social security as it is defined. If we buy into that concept of "afford" then we have lost the argument, and the savvy disaster capitalists make their killing by convincing people (in a panic of how to "save" it) to allow them to privatize it.
Clever toads.
christx30
(6,241 posts)has worked out SO well for Venezuela.
salib
(2,116 posts)Yeah, because thinking that a country is like a family has done so much for all the countries being pirated, dragged through the shit, and otherwise tortured with austerity.
How's that workin out for them.
How's that for snark?
christx30
(6,241 posts)But it doesn't address the situation at hand. Venezuela needs to get more money comeing in. That's the #1 priority here. If they can't, nothing else is going to matter. But anyone with any real money has already bolted for the border. That leaves everyone else to deal with the country as is.
clg311
(119 posts)Is not genuflecting to Neo-liberal thugs who want to exploit Venezuela for its' oil.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)EX500rider
(10,839 posts)Unfortunately for them when the price goes under a $70-$80 a barrel they run a deficit.
And it's not because they nationalized their oil back in 1976.
"According to consulting firm PFC Energy, only 7% of the world's estimated oil and gas reserves are in countries that allow private international companies free rein."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization_of_oil_supplies
clg311
(119 posts)Would prefer US client states like the Neo-liberal thugs in Honduras,who came into power by a coup supported by Obama and Hillary, who oppress peasants and boast a 64.5% poverty rate. (compared to the reduction of poverty in Venezuela under Chavez and Maduro) Or Columbia, who receive massive aid by the US to prosecute a bloody drug war and murder labor activists with impunity. Or Mexico with their drug cartels murdering thousands. I doubt the Maduro haters even know anything about these countries beyond whatever drivel the corporate media tell them to think.
Well then, you would be woefully wrong.
Maduro is a fucking clown who's in over his head,
the economy is in the shitter, inflation is the highest in LA at over 60%,
violent crime is rampant,
chronic shortages of basic goods due to govt corruption and insane monetary policies,
electrical grid on the verge of collapse,
oil infrastructure is near collapse,
govt agents killing opposition protesters,
govt arresting opposition figures on trumped up charges.
Yeah, we don't know much about VN.
Get a clue, VN is a mess due to govt corruption and mismanagement, and don't even try to blame the US, Maduro is doing a fine job of fucking up the country all by himself.
clg311
(119 posts)American should be more concerned about police violence, the racist drug war, bloodthirsty foreign policy, destruction of the inner cities. high incarceration etc. in their own country than interfering in the affairs of other countries. In other words what the Venezuelan people do is none of your gd business.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)I'll thank you to not tell me it's none of my GD business.
Zorro
(15,740 posts)Maybe you should take your own advice and STFU on this topic.
clg311
(119 posts)That you would typically see on the yahoo message board.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)but the truth.
Zorro
(15,740 posts)What evidence do you have to back up that bold assertion?
clg311
(119 posts)Zorro
(15,740 posts)God the ignorance indeed!
You really don't have to continue demonstrating your cluelessness, you know.
GGJohn
(9,951 posts)God, the ignorance.
She's a paid shill for the Ven. govt., nothing more.
How about a legitimate source for your allegation?
EX500rider
(10,839 posts)http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch.ca
Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)We've posted them from right after the coup, consistently, every year. There's no doubt whatsoever you are right, of course.
(You've been shown what happens when too many right-wingers have far, far too much time on their Cheetos-stained pudgy hands!)
Here are a few useful "takes":
Those Kids Crossing the Border from Mexico Wouldnt Be There if Obama Hadnt Supported a Coup the Media Doesnt Talk About
By Ted Rall, , www.rall.com
July 13th, 2014
If youre reading this, you probably follow the news. So youve probably heard of the latest iteration of the crisis at the border: tens of thousands of children, many of them unaccompanied by an adult, crossing the desert from Mexico into the United States, where they surrender to the Border Patrol in hope of being allowed to remain here permanently. Immigration and Customs Enforcements detention and hearing system has been overwhelmed by the surge of children and, in some cases, their parents. The Obama Administration has asked Congress to approve new funding to speed up processing and deportations of these illegal immigrants.
Even if youve followed this story closely, you probably havent heard the depressing backstory the reason so many Central Americans are sending their children on adangerous thousand-mile journey up the spine of Mexico, where they ride atop freight trains, endure shakedowns by corrupt police and face rapists, bandits and other predators. (For a sense of what its like, check out the excellent 2009 film Sin Nombre.)
NPR and other mainstream news outlets are parroting the White House, which blames unscrupulous coyotes (human smugglers) for lying to parents, telling them that if they put their kids in the hands of traffickers and get to the United States that they will be able to stay. True: the coyotes are saying that in order to gin up business. Also true: U.S. law has changed, and many of these kids have a strong legal case for asylum. Unfortunately, U.S. officials are ignoring the law. The sad truth is that this crisis at the border is yet another example of blowback.
Blowback is an unintended negative consequence of U.S. political, military and/or economic intervention overseas when something we did in the past comes back to bite us in the ass. 9/11 is the classic example; arming and funding radical Islamists in the Middle East and South Asia who were less grateful for our help than angry at the U.S. simultaneous backing for oppressive governments (The House of Saud, Saddam, Assad, etc.) in the region.
More:
https://www.popularresistance.org/obama-supported-honduras-coup-root-cause-of-border-crisis/
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Hillary Clintons Honduran Disgrace
By Matthew Rothschild on March 05, 2010
Matthew Rothschild
Hillary Clinton continues with her hawkish ways, making Obamas foreign policy less distinguishable from Bushs every day. She just met with Honduran President Pepe Lobo, shes notified Congress that the Obama administration is restoring aid to Honduras, and shes urging Latin American nations to recognize the Lobo government in Tegucigalpa. The democratic opposition in Honduras boycotted lobos election, since hes allied with the forces that overthrew Manuel Zelaya last June. But for the longest time, Hillary Clinton stubbornly refused to call the June takeover a coup, even though her boss, the president of the United States, immediately denounced it as such. She systematically dragged her feet when it came to pressuring the coup leaders to hand power back over to Zelaya. And when Lobo won the election, Hillary rushed to heap praise on him. Now she wants full relations with Honduras restored all around. Other countries of the region say that they want to wait a while, she said on her Latin American trip. I dont know what theyre waiting for.
- See more at: http://www.progressive.org/wx030510.html#sthash.Eu6v140g.dpuf
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The high-powered hidden support for Honduras' coup
The country's rightful president was ousted by a military leadership that takes many of its cues from Washington insiders.
July 23, 2009|Mark Weisbrot | Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. (www.cepr.net).
Powerful special interests have flexed their muscles and confronted President Obama on the most important legislative priorities of his domestic agenda. But this kind of politics-by-influence-peddling doesn't stop at the water's edge. And in foreign policy, the consequences can be more immediate, violent and deadly.
Meet Lanny Davis, Washington lawyer and lobbyist, former legal counsel to President Clinton and avid campaigner for Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential bid. He has been hired by a coalition of Latin American business interests to represent the dictatorship that ousted elected President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras in a military coup and removed him to Costa Rica on June 28.
Davis is working with Bennett Ratcliff, another lobbyist with a close relationship to Hillary Clinton who is a former senior executive for one of the most influential political and public relations firms in Washington. In the current mediation effort hosted by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, the coup-installed government did not make a move without first consulting Ratcliff, an unnamed source told the New York Times.
Davis and Ratcliff have done an amazing public relations job so far. Americans, relying on media reports, are likely to believe that Zelaya was ousted because he tried to use a referendum to extend his term of office. This is false.
More:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jul/23/opinion/oe-weisbrot23
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The Honduras Coup: Is Obama Innocent?
by Michael Parenti
Published on Wednesday, July 08, 2009
by CommonDreams.org
Is President Obama innocent of the events occurring in Honduras, specifically the coup launched by the Honduran military resulting in the abduction and forced deportation of democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya? Obama has denounced the coup and demanded that the rules of democracy be honored. Still, several troubling questions remain.
First, almost all the senior Honduran military officers active in the coup are graduates of the Pentagon's School of the Americas (known to many of us as "School of the Assassins" . The Honduran military is trained, advised, equipped, indoctrinated, and financed by the United States national security state. The generals would never have dared to move without tacit consent from the White House or the Pentagon and CIA.
Second, if Obama was not directly involved, then he should be faulted for having no firm command over those US operatives who were. The US military must have known about the plot and US military intelligence must have known and must have reported it back to Washington. Why did Obamas people who had communicated with the coup leaders fail to blow the whistle on them? Why did they not expose and denounce the plot, thereby possibly foiling the entire venture? Instead the US kept quiet about it, a silence that in effect, even if not in intent, served as an act of complicity.
Third, immediately after the coup, Obama stated that he was against using violence to effect change and that it was up to the various parties in Honduras to resolve their differences. His remarks were a rather tepid and muted response to a gangster putsch.
Fourth, Obama never expected there would be an enormous uproar over the Honduras coup. He hastily joined the outcry against the perpetrators only when it became evident that opposition to the putschists was nearly universal throughout Latin America and elsewhere in the world.
Fifth, Obama still has had nothing to say about the many other acts of repression attendant with the coup perpetrated by Honduran military and police: kidnappings, beatings, disappearances, attacks on demonstrators, shutting down the internet and suppressing the few small critical media outlets that exist in Honduras.
More:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2009/07/08/honduras-coup-obama-innocent
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The US Role in the Honduran Coup of 2009
September 9, 2014
The Civil Democratic Union of Honduras, a network of Honduran NGOs funded by the US Agency for International Development, voiced public support for the military coup that overthrew the democratically elected government of President Manuel Zelaya on June 28, 2009. The group described the military ouster of a democratically elected President as democratic regime change, and welcomed the removal of the President as essential for the protection of the Honduran constitution. Meanwhile, the US State Department under President Barack Obama refused to legally classify the regime change as a coup detat.[ii] Instead, State Department officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, argued that both the Honduran military and the ousted government of President Manuel Zelaya shared blame for the events leading to the removal of the Honduran head of state.[iii] The US preference was for a mediated solution to the political crisis, led by President Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, who urged both parties in the conflict to accept a power-sharing arrangement in the months leading to the next presidential elections in Honduras. While the Organization of American States condemned the military coup as a blatant violation of international law, and insisted on the return of President Zelaya to power without conditions, the US government negotiated with the coup leaders and Zelaya over the terms of Zelayas return to power. The Obama Administration also supported the disbursement of $70 million of assistance to the Honduran government in the aftermath of the military coup, over twice the amount of money that the US had suspended.[iv] These events pose questions about whose interests are being protected by the Honduran military, the US government, and the largest US-funded NGO network in Honduras?
The US role in the aftermath of the Honduran coup illustrates the politics of deep intervention that has guided US foreign policy strategy from the early 1980s to the present. While publicly criticizing the coup as a violation of democratic norms, US foreign policy makers have worked closely with Honduran political and economic elites through an NGO network that is closely linked to transnational business interests. In fact, the Civil Democratic Union is an umbrella group of NGOs that includes Honduran business associations long funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID), including the Honduran Council of Private Enterprise and the National Federation of Commerce and Industry. The same NGO groups that applauded the coup against Manuel Zelaya include representatives of telecommunications firms and export assembly companies that are members of the Civil Democratic Union of Honduras.[v] The Honduran opposition to Zelaya is based on his support for policies that threatened the political agenda of significant sectors of Honduran and transnational capitalists represented by this NGO network, which opposed Zelayas decisions to raise the minimum wage, to block the sale of the state-owned telecommunications sector to private transnational firms, and to take control of foreign-owned petroleum storage facilities in an effort to check profiteering and to lower the price of gasoline.[vi] As a justification for the coup, Honduran coup leaders were joined by the US-funded coalition of NGOs, the Honduran Supreme Court and the Honduran Congress, in charging Zelaya with violating the Honduran constitution by going forward with plans to have a referendum placed on the November ballot. The referendum in question would have asked Honduran citizens whether or not they supported the convening of a National Constitutional Assembly to change the current Honduran constitution. Opponents of the referendum characterized it as an unconstitutional power-grab that would have extended the presidency of Manuel Zelaya beyond the four-year term limit specified in the Honduran constitution. Defenders of Zelaya contend that the referendum was non-binding and only sought to authorize a constitutional convention after Zelaya left the office of the Presidency.
President Zelaya was moving toward political alliances with the governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica and Cuba, epitomized by his decision to join the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas (ALBA), a regional trade group formed in 2004 that has sought to counteract the corporate friendly regional trade agreements supported by the United States.[vii] Prior to the coup, Zelaya was in the process of organizing the removal of the US military presence from the Soto Cano airbase, using a fund from the ALBA countries to convert the Pentagon base into a commercial airport. These moves threatened the US-Honduran strategic relationship, and the stability of the Honduran constitution that had been drafted by the Honduran military under US direction in 1982. The US role in crafting the Honduran constitution was central to US geostrategic objectives in Central America during the 1980s, including the use of Honduran territory by the CIA and the Pentagon to finance paramilitary missions against the left throughout the region. At the same time, the constitution provided the Honduran government with a political legitimacy that allowed the dominant Honduran parties to share power within an institutional framework that discouraged the emergence of populist or leftist coalitions that might otherwise challenge the political and economic interests of the Honduran elite.[viii] As sections of the Honduran elite became more closely tied to transnational firms with strong links to the US State Department, the US Agency for International Development began supporting a network of NGOs that have long advocated a neoliberal agenda in Honduras, defined as a deeper integration of the Honduran economy with sectors of transnational capital supported by the US government.[ix]
The US-financed NGOs in Honduras were opposed by a grassroots Honduran NGO network that consisted of labor unions, teachers organizations, farmer associations, and professional groups that supported Zelayas populist policies. These grassroots organizations were largely cut off from international funding and access to the foreign media enjoyed by the US-sponsored NGOs, which orchestrated an international propaganda campaign on behalf of the provisional Honduran government and in support of the coup. In US newspapers, the pro-Honduran coup supporters were given much more editorial support than their domestic counterparts in Honduras that opposed the coup. Reports by international NGOs such as Amnesty International, which condemned the violence perpetuated by the coup government, were given very little attention in the US media, which focused instead on what US columnists called the illegality of the actions of President Manuel Zelaya, whom coup supporters insisted had violated the Honduran constitution and left the government little choice but to react strongly to his transgressions.
More:
http://www.viewfromleftfield.com/the-us-role-in-the-honduran-coup-of-2009/
[center]~ ~ ~[/center] There are tons of articles we can bring to bear on this subject. They lack that dirty spin which has been spewed relentlessly from our corporate media for years. You are dead right to call trolls on their propaganda echo here. Any Democrat by character can smell it a mile away.
Zorro
(15,740 posts)Rall? Weisbrot? Commonscreams? Really? Talk about dirty spin.
FYI Democrats generally approve Obama's foreign policies; haven't seen you express any such support ever, so you're hardly one to characterize those who do as right-wing trolls.
And Maduro's still an idiot and now a dictator. Only commie symps would defend a policy of nationalizing food distribution in a country with such a wealth of natural resources.
Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)George Bush was despised throughout the Americas for his anti-Democratic actions, just like Richard Nixon.
Your attempt to label me a "commie symp" since I don't support the right regarding exploiting, controlling these countries is out of place. Why would you start shooting off your "commie symp" label gun, anyway?
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Poor Republican Joe McCarthy.
He wasn't entirely well, you know, before he died of alcoholism.[/center]
clg311
(119 posts)Judi Lynn
(160,516 posts)You'll discover there are actually Democrats here! They just don't throw fits like the trolls.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Will they be able to pay the workers, in wages or other renumeration (with costs offset with housing, or a share of what they grow, as a communal group - which isn't that desirable, Libertarians love that idea - it's called cheap labor) to make them anything more than peons again?
Will they have rights?
Of course, if the first question is not addressed in fairness to all, the rest is just horseshit and will not succeed.
In a truly socialist society, the ownership of things essential to the public good is assumed. So this should be no surprise as a solution. The problem I have learned is that Maduro is running a system that is not what many of us believe a socialist government to be.
Instead of being a crony capitalist system, it is a crony system with huge wealth being transferred to individuals and others who are becoming the new oligarchs, or boligarchs, hiding under the rhetoric of socialism for people who will buy that brand without thinking in the larger context of what is going on there, where the power really is.
Like Putin, now a billionaire from his time in government, but we may have fantasies he is against Western evils, that is horseshit. He's an oligarch. Maduro and his cronies appear to be working fast and furious to become the nouveau riche.
It is not even a liberal society in terms of human rights:
Abortion is illegal in Venezuela. This is not a sign of a liberal nor a progressive political environment. It has one of the top rates of HIV infection and underage pregnancy and is reportedly anti-semetic. This is not the record of say, a state like Norway, Sweden, etc. If half the people are kept to second rate status by culture, that country does not believe in human rights. There is no place to hide or any rhetoric to hide behind. No ands, ifs, or buts. EOM.
I favor these things in any government:
a robust health system without profit funded by strong government as Scandinavian nations have had;
public systems of water and electricity and less parasitic feeding on those which is happening in various degrees now, where people use the public system but extract profit which degrades the system by virtue of privatization or other less obvious schemes;
and nationalization of extractable energy sources that are often managed with profit being the prime interest, while degrading water, land, air, health and all the other evils that people have traditionally turned a blind eye to because they have this blind faith that business and people they have no control over whatsoever, will take care of them. Pull my other finger!
So it ain't a socialist paradise by any means and I refuse to accept history as the cause of that. No one is making them behave in the way that the government there is doing. We're not talking even remotely talking of what Bernie would approve. I approve of him, but not the grinding on and on of anti-Obama and anti-HRC -- not my first choice and she was my last choice in 2008-- rhetoric. The cheap shots have the PUMA stench or 'Party Unity My Ass.' That is not from him, but those who, like the PUMAs, turned many of us off from HRC for many years.
Yes, I am a heretic and a rebel and can think very well for myself.
Every nation, every culture, is different. I'd be glad to live in any of the Scandinavian or European countries who have benefited their population. Not Venezuela, as it has ignored everything but economic theory.
No, I do not fit in the boxes some are trying to force some of us into at DU, because:
seveneyes
(4,631 posts)The CIA has lit the fuse and gotten away.
name not needed
(11,660 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)NobodyHere
(2,810 posts)Maduro's done such a great job in Venezuela that he deserves even more power. /sarcasm
Of course I *hope* this works out in favor of the public but I just see a dictator grabbing more power.
MADem
(135,425 posts)Little Tich
(6,171 posts)The problems in Venezuela were not unexpected, and things will only get worse.
quadrature
(2,049 posts)the food industry employs thousands.
all those jobs will go
to Maduro supporters
Bacchus4.0
(6,837 posts)and the overall largest trading partner of Ven. Venezuela is the largest corn and soy meal market in South America for the US.
Venezuela is the USA's largest wheat and rice market in South America.
"Though Venezuela was a net rice exporter as recently as seven years ago, the country currently relies on imports for nearly 40 percent of its rice consumption."
http://www.fas.usda.gov/data/venezuela-prospects-us-agricultural-exports
EX500rider
(10,839 posts)GGJohn
(9,951 posts)They don't even try to google and learn that those sanctions are against 7 govt officials for their role in the repression of opposition protesters.
If the US has an economic embargo against VN, this has to be the world's worse embargo or sanctions.