Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Of course you "love old Hugo." You don't live under his rule. You live under the protection of the working class you claim to support but actually disdain. You're free to snark day and night. Jesus, why stop at "old Hugo"? Why not slobber over Mugabe or Mahmoud? Privileged snot-noses like you should actually have to spend a year in one of your paradises.

Mahmoud is SMBIVA-approved. Shouldn't you know that already, TKT?

This is our paradise, Milton. It needs a little work, but beggars can't be choosers. You move. I recommend Iraq.

"You live under the protection of the working class you claim to support but actually disdain"

a near perfect product
of pretzel think

Hot damn diggety; I'm loving this. Between nationalizing the oil industry, providing free heating oil to the freezing and financially-strapped of New England, kicking the oligarchist media's ass -- and now this -- I'm digging Hugo more and more every day. You go, Hugo!

Last I read, Drudge and his acolytes' heads were exploding over this -- but actually, what I enjoy more than watching Rightists crap their drawers when Chavez does something is watching Liberals crap their drawers when Chavez does something.

I'll never forget that speech he gave at the UN three or four years ago, right around the peak of the '06 midterm campaign. Basically, the guy said what needed to be said the way it needed to be said -- but, man oh man, you should've heard the shrieking. And, dig this, the Liberals were shrieking the loudest. Most fucked-up shit I'd ever seen -- a bunch of supposed Lefties in the USA pissing themselves over a real Leftist leader in South America bitch-slapping the US for its hypocrisy and greed.

I had a ringside seat for this shrieking, too; I was in the car with my wife, on our way to a party or something, listening to a report on All Things Considered about Chavez's butt-kicking speech at the UN, and, maa-aan, you should've heard my DW pitching a fit, raving on and on about how this was going to hurt the Democrats' chances in the '06 midterms. I could almost smell the loose stool puddling in her panties. I pointed out to her that Chavez didn't say anything that wasn't the plain raw truth, and that he didn't have any obligation to give half a rat's ass about some goddamn' piddly-assed off-year election in the USA. P'wah ha ha ha ha. Man, you should've heard her when I said that; it was like World War IV breaking out, right there in the driver's seat. Then, I pointed out that it wasn't Hugo Chavez's fault that the Democrats and US "progressives" were a bunch of pussies. At that point, World War V broke out.

.

Of course you "love old Hugo." You don't live under his rule. You live under the protection of the working class you claim to support but actually disdain. You're free to snark day and night. Jesus, why stop at "old Hugo"...?

Hey, now, look who's back? It's our new Special Friend. Should be pretty obvious that Little Milton here is definitely not related to Karl -- or even Groucho.

Why not slobber over Mugabe or Mahmoud? Privileged snot-noses like you should actually have to spend a year in one of your paradises...

Hugo Chavez = Robert Mugabe?

D'ahh ha ha ha ha ha. Epic fucking FAIL.

Dude. Give it up.

Mike, take your bong and your banjo to Chavez Land. Your wife, who obviously knows the difference between freedom and tyranny, can stay.

By the way, I actually, in a fucked-up way, kind of agree with you about Hugo's speech. This is a FREE country, where you can say whatever the hell you want. Even you, hippie. When you're down in Venezuela, try giving a speech about how Hugo is the "diablo" and see what happens, flower child. What would happen to your woodstock ass would make Chicago '68 look like an afternoon at a Cubs game.

Vaya con Dios!!

Yo, Milty, you are getting confused. North Korea is on the other side of the Pacific. Check these out, you fucking dumbass:

www.elmundo.com.ve
www.el-nacional.com
www.eluniversal.com

Just a few of the anti-Chavez newspapers, of varying levels of virulency. There are a few more, and four or so anti-Chavez TVs.

I am always deeply impressed by the way in which certain Yanks manage to mix smugness with utter ignorance without diminishing either ingredient. They tend to be liberals, too - right wing loons generally lack the intellectual self-confidence, so there is usually a bit of a flinch to them when they spout off.

Oh, I'm the dumbass. Fine, papi, whatever. The only reason Hugo is worth anything is because his sorry tyrannical ass is sitting on oil. Period. All he knows how to do is spread the money around. He makes nothing. He has built no infrastructure for the future. Just tap the wells till they run dry or pray to Dios that demand for oil doesn't collapse.

His Socialist Paradise is as good as his oil reserves. Nothing else going on. Nada. He's a two-bit tyrant who buys off his population with delusions, and gets guilty Janquis like you to get all hot and bothered about the idea of La Revolucion. This is so damn predictable. I have seen this damn movie so many times. "Fidel" is the longest-running show in the hemisphere. Great country that is, if you want to live in squalor and aren't a homo.

No wonder MJS hates teachers. He spends his time hosting complete morons like you, papi.

When you're down in Venezuela, try giving a speech about how Hugo is the "diablo" and see what happens, flower child. What would happen to your woodstock ass would make Chicago '68 look like an afternoon at a Cubs game.

Milton Marx. You're no poet but perhaps you're of the devil's party without knowing it.

Let me use your own words against you.

You said this in a previous thread:

The remarkable thing about unreconstructed hippies is your self-aggrandizing self-involement. You imagine that The Power is out to get you and that the brown shirts lurk just around the corner, waiting to round you up. I've got news for you: The Power doesn't care about you. They don't even know who you are. You pose no threat whatsoever.

Now I've never been to Venezuela and I'm no expert on Chavez, but something tells me that if I went to Caracas and set up a soap box on a street corner somewhere and gave speeches against Chavez, I'd probably be laughed at or ignored.

I'm just not that important.

When you're down in Venezuela, try giving a speech about how Hugo is the "diablo" and see what happens, flower child. What would happen to your woodstock ass would make Chicago '68 look like an afternoon at a Cubs game.

...and your evidence for this nightstick fantasy is what? I can't count on two hands and two feet the number of close friends and family members--included myself--who've been brutalized by American cops while committing no crime. If I included strangers, I'd run out of hairs for the tally.

Police brutality occurs everywhere, and you could get your ass handed to you by a cop for any reason or no reason any time here in the good ole US. But I'd love to see proof they'd kick your head in for criticizing Chavez in Venezuela.

I have to say that I was endeared to Chavez more than ever after seeing him in South of the Border. I admit that he is a bit of an authoritarian and probably should turn down the bluster a bit, but I recognize that he is serious about changing things for the better not only in Venezuela, but in Latin America in general.

By the way, in response to MM above...

MM writes, "Oh, I'm the dumbass. Fine, papi, whatever. The only reason Hugo is worth anything is because his sorry tyrannical ass is sitting on oil."

- This is a very different argument than the one you started out with. Some consistency would be nice.

MM writes, "All he knows how to do is spread the money around. He makes nothing. He has built no infrastructure for the future."

According to research by CEPR, Chavez seems to be managing the economy quite well, despite substantial external and internal shocks to the economy. The dramatic fall in oil prices following the recession did not bring Venezuela to its knees:
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_2008_11.pdf

In fact, after ten years in power Chavez seems to have much to boast about (http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela-2009-02.pdf ):

- The current economic expansion began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003. Since then, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has nearly doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.
�
- Most of this growth has been in the non-oil sector of the economy, and the private sector has grown faster than the public sector.
�
- During the current economic expansion, the poverty rate has been cut by more than half, from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the end of 2008. Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent. These poverty rates measure only cash income, and do not take into account increased access to health care or education.
�
- Over the entire decade, the percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39 percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.
�
- Inequality, as measured by the Gini index, has also fallen substantially. The index has fallen to 41 in 2008, from 48.1 in 2003 and 47 in 1999. This represents a large reduction in inequality.
�
- Real (inflation-adjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998-2006.
�
- From 1998-2006, infant mortality has fallen by more than one-third. The number of primary care physicians in the public sector increased 12-fold from 1999-2007, providing health care to millions of Venezuelans who previously did not have access.
�
- There have been substantial gains in education, especially higher education, where gross enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999-2000 to 2007-2008.
�
- The labor market also improved substantially over the last decade, with unemployment dropping from 11.3 percent to 7.8 percent. During the current expansion it has fallen by more than half. Other labor market indicators also show substantial gains.
�
- Over the past decade, the number of social security beneficiaries has more than doubled.
�
- Over the decade, the government’s total public debt has fallen from 30.7 to 14.3 percent of GDP. The foreign public debt has fallen even more, from 25.6 to 9.8 percent of GDP.
�
- Inflation is about where it was 10 years ago, ending the year at 31.4 percent. However it has been falling over the last half year (as measured by three-month averages) and is likely to continue declining this year in the face of strong deflationary pressures worldwide.
____

My question to you is how you propose that such poor countries, which have been systematically underdeveloped by colonialism and neo-colonialism for centuries should move ahead? The chronic lack of physical capital has caused an acute lack of human capital. Chavez is using the capital generated from the sale of oil and gas in order to increase the country's human capital. It's not easy and it's a slow and painful process. Putting aside questions of socialism and Marx's associated production (things that I support) the only way to achieve so-called development in the capitalist world-system is for the state to heavily intervene in the economy, as rational developmental economists like Ha-Joon Chang and Alice Amsden have amply demonstrated in their numerous articles and books. In the run-up to the G20 meeting Chang reminded how the Korea went from underdeveloped backwater to an almost-first world dynamo (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/09/time-to-reject-washington-seoul-g20/print ):

"Korea of course did things that most people agree are important for economic development, such as investment in infrastructure, health and education. But on top of that, it also practised many policies that are now supposed to be bad for economic development: extensive use of selective industrial policy, combining protectionism with export subsidies; tough regulations on foreign direct investment; active, if not particularly extensive, use of state-owned enterprises; lax protection of patents and other intellectual property rights; heavy regulation of both domestic and international finance."

MM writes, "'Fidel' is the longest-running show in the hemisphere. Great country that is, if you want to live in squalor and aren't a homo."

Cuba undoubtedly has its problems (one of the biggest being the U.S.' 50 year embargo - which was almost like a blockade for much of it), but even the UN's Millennium Development Corporation was forced to report recently that Cuba had some of the best human development scores in the world:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/30/millennium-development-goals-cuba

certainly if one is looking to meet human development goals in poor countries, cuba seems to offer many good examples:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/06/comment.cuba/print

And I don't think the relevant question is whether I would want to live in Cuba vs the US, but whether other people in Latin America would rather be live in "squalor" in state socialist Cuba or in one of the region's numerous state-capitalist hell holes. As Kinzer pointed out a while back ago (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/22/cuba-communism-human-rights):

"The social safety net that protects ordinary Cubans is considerably more reliable than the one protecting people in most of the rest of the region. According to United Nations statistics, five times more Guatemalan children die before their fifth birthday than Cuban children. Four times more Jamaicans than Cubans die before reaching the age of 40. A poor Cuban who becomes ill may be taken to a hospital where conditions are unsanitary, doctors are underpaid and medicine is scarce. A poor Dominican might not be taken to a hospital at all. Cubans also have a decided advantage when it comes to security – or, to put it differently, the right to life. There are no death squads in Cuba. Rogue police units do not exist. Violent crime is rare. Cubans do not fear to walk alone at night; many in the rest of the region do."

Lastly, while Cuba had an admittedly abominable policy towards homosexuals (adopted from the Soviet Union along with the economic policies), it has gotten much better in recent years:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/jul/11/transformistas

and Castro has publicly stated that he takes full responsibility for it:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/09/castro-interview-gay-persecution.html

Great pic MJS!

I have to say that I was endeared to Chavez more than ever after seeing him in South of the Border. I admit that he is a bit of an authoritarian and probably should turn down the bluster a bit, but I recognize that he is serious about changing things for the better not only in Venezuela, but in Latin America in general.

By the way, in response to MM above...

MM writes, "Oh, I'm the dumbass. Fine, papi, whatever. The only reason Hugo is worth anything is because his sorry tyrannical ass is sitting on oil."

- This is a very different argument than the one you started out with. Some consistency would be nice.

According to research by CEPR, Chavez seems to be managing the economy quite well, despite substantial external and internal shocks to the economy. The dramatic fall in oil prices following the recession did not bring Venezuela to its knees:
http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela_2008_11.pdf

In fact, after ten years in power Chavez seems to have much to boast about (http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/venezuela-2009-02.pdf ):

- The current economic expansion began when the government got control over the national oil company in the first quarter of 2003. Since then, real (inflation-adjusted) GDP has nearly doubled, growing by 94.7 percent in 5.25 years, or 13.5 percent annually.

- Most of this growth has been in the non-oil sector of the economy, and the private sector has grown faster than the public sector.

- During the current economic expansion, the poverty rate has been cut by more than half, from 54 percent of households in the first half of 2003 to 26 percent at the end of 2008. Extreme poverty has fallen even more, by 72 percent. These poverty rates measure only cash income, and do not take into account increased access to health care or education.

- Over the entire decade, the percentage of households in poverty has been reduced by 39 percent, and extreme poverty by more than half.

- Inequality, as measured by the Gini index, has also fallen substantially. The index has fallen to 41 in 2008, from 48.1 in 2003 and 47 in 1999. This represents a large reduction in inequality.

- Real (inflation-adjusted) social spending per person more than tripled from 1998-2006.

- From 1998-2006, infant mortality has fallen by more than one-third. The number of primary care physicians in the public sector increased 12-fold from 1999-2007, providing health care to millions of Venezuelans who previously did not have access.

- There have been substantial gains in education, especially higher education, where gross enrollment rates more than doubled from 1999-2000 to 2007-2008.

- The labor market also improved substantially over the last decade, with unemployment dropping from 11.3 percent to 7.8 percent. During the current expansion it has fallen by more than half. Other labor market indicators also show substantial gains.

- Over the past decade, the number of social security beneficiaries has more than doubled.

- Over the decade, the government’s total public debt has fallen from 30.7 to 14.3 percent of GDP. The foreign public debt has fallen even more, from 25.6 to 9.8 percent of GDP.

- Inflation is about where it was 10 years ago, ending the year at 31.4 percent. However it has been falling over the last half year (as measured by three-month averages) and is likely to continue declining this year in the face of strong deflationary pressures worldwide.
____

MM has given us an excellent yardstick:

"He has built no infrastructure for the future. Just tap the wells till they run dry or pray to Dios that demand for oil doesn't collapse."

Who wouldn't wish for the downfall of all elites who act thusly?

Police brutality occurs everywhere,

I think the key is not what country you're in, but how much money and privilege you have within the class system of whatever country you live in.

If I'm a rich party member, I have a lot of freedom in China. If I'm a member of the Saudi royal family I can get all the whores and Jack Daniels I want.

On the other hand, if I'm a homeless guy in New York, I have as much freedom to sleep on the subway as Mike Bloomberg does, but that's about it.

I think what upsets so many "conservatives" about Chavez is that he's reversed the usual direction of the cop's nightstick ever so slightly. Venezuela is one of the few countries in the world where the rich are afraid of the government.

If Chavez were denying civil liberties to the poor, I don't think Milton would be quite so worried. After all, there are plenty of places in Latin America where the poor have no civil liberties, Columbia, Peru, the slums of Rio.

I probably have more civil liberties here in the USA than I have in China or Saudi Arabia. I can download all the porn I want. I can stand in the street and hold up a sign making racial slurs about Obama.

But if I suddenly turned my house into the headquarters of the "Protest the Democratic National Convention in 2012 Committee" I'm betting the feds might take a little more interest in me than I'd be comfortable with.

My question to you MM is how you propose that poor LA countries, which have been systematically underdeveloped by colonialism and neo-colonialism for centuries should move ahead? The chronic lack of physical capital has caused an acute lack of human capital. Chavez is using the capital generated from the sale of oil and gas in order to increase the country's human capital. It's not easy and it's a slow and painful process.

Putting aside questions of socialism and Marx's associated production (things that I support) the only way to achieve so-called development in the capitalist world-system is for the state to heavily intervene in the economy, as rational developmental economists like Ha-Joon Chang and Alice Amsden have amply demonstrated in their numerous articles and books. In the run-up to the G20 meeting Chang reminded how the Korea went from underdeveloped backwater to an almost-first world dynamo (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/09/time-to-reject-washington-seoul-g20/print ):

"Korea of course did things that most people agree are important for economic development, such as investment in infrastructure, health and education. But on top of that, it also practised many policies that are now supposed to be bad for economic development: extensive use of selective industrial policy, combining protectionism with export subsidies; tough regulations on foreign direct investment; active, if not particularly extensive, use of state-owned enterprises; lax protection of patents and other intellectual property rights; heavy regulation of both domestic and international finance."

MM writes, "'Fidel' is the longest-running show in the hemisphere. Great country that is, if you want to live in squalor and aren't a homo."

Cuba undoubtedly has its problems (one of the biggest being the U.S.' 50 year embargo - which was almost like a blockade for much of it), but even the UN's Millennium Development Corporation was forced to report recently that Cuba had some of the best human development scores in the world:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2010/sep/30/millennium-development-goals-cuba

certainly if one is looking to meet human development goals in poor countries, cuba seems to offer many good examples:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/jun/06/comment.cuba/print

And I don't think the relevant question is whether I would want to live in Cuba vs the US, but whether other people in Latin America would rather be live in "squalor" in state socialist Cuba or in one of the region's numerous state-capitalist hell holes. As Kinzer pointed out a while back ago (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/jan/22/cuba-communism-human-rights):

"The social safety net that protects ordinary Cubans is considerably more reliable than the one protecting people in most of the rest of the region. According to United Nations statistics, five times more Guatemalan children die before their fifth birthday than Cuban children. Four times more Jamaicans than Cubans die before reaching the age of 40. A poor Cuban who becomes ill may be taken to a hospital where conditions are unsanitary, doctors are underpaid and medicine is scarce. A poor Dominican might not be taken to a hospital at all. Cubans also have a decided advantage when it comes to security – or, to put it differently, the right to life. There are no death squads in Cuba. Rogue police units do not exist. Violent crime is rare. Cubans do not fear to walk alone at night; many in the rest of the region do."

MazingerZ sez on 11.30.10 @15:33:
Yo, Milty, you are getting confused. North Korea is on the other side of the Pacific. Check these out, you fucking dumbass:

Just a few of the anti-Chavez newspapers, of varying levels of virulency. There are a few more, and four or so anti-Chavez TVs.

This reminds me of a couple of years back, when Chavez ordered one of the pro-US, coup-supporting oligarchist TV networks shut down, for basically doing what Fox News was doing back in '00 -- spreading disinformation and aiding in a coup.

Jeezus, you should've heard the howling from the US media when he did that. What was hilarious about it was that Chavez didn't do anything different from what the FCC should be doing with Fox News -- and pretty much 95% of US electronic media -- which is to revoke their licenses for failing to serve the public interest (as I recall, the "public interest" is mentioned quite a lot in the FCC's mandate, or mission statement, or whatever the hell it's called).

Yeah, that's right; the Chavez government shut down a pro-US/CIA, pro-oligarchist, pro-coup TV outlet for failing to serve the public interest -- and the goddamn' Liberals were screaming their butthurt louder than anybody.

Yeah, that's right; the Chavez government shut down a pro-US/CIA, pro-oligarchist, pro-coup TV outlet for failing to serve the public interest -- and the goddamn' Liberals were screaming their butthurt louder than anybody.

True enough. But to be precise, Chavez didn't shut down the station. He merely failed to renew its license when it came up. The station in question is still free to broadcast over cable, just not over the open airwaves. In either case it is well within the reasonable rights of any government to shut down a station that has been involved in a foreign-backed coup d'etat and continues to act as a propaganda conduit for that same foreign power.

Destroying the media is a virtue, not a sin.

Chavez has the Crow endorsement. Me likey when the war machines eat the state machines and turn the state on itself, even in only on the run up to being suckerpunched by other war machines.

Venezuela is allegedly so repressive, but I can't recall ever seeing any U.S. politician allowing his picture to be taken with a woman breast feeding her child in public.

I admire him for keeping eye contact. I kept staring at the boob.

After all these years, there's never a shortage of useful idiots. Chavez is the cause celebre tyrant of the moment, most celebrated by those who live furthest away.

"Chavez didn't shut down the station. He merely failed to renew its license when it came up."

I almost spit my unfair trade coffee onto my laptop from laughing so hard. Nice try comrade. Imagine if Obama did that to NBC.

Imagine if the sainted NBC supported an Iranian-backed coup to overthrow the US government and impose Islamic law. You think NBC's executives would be walking the streets as free men?

But thanks for dodging the question requesting some evidence of the police state in Venezuela you allege. It's about what I expected.

"Chavez didn't shut down the station. He merely failed to renew its license when it came up."

...Imagine if Obama did that to NBC.

Read the human-rights reports, Sean. I can't do your homework for you. And try to read them objectively and analytically, not while pleasuring yourself over dreams of Hugo's revolucion.