Chavez, Champion of the Common Man

[monty of ll]

Villin221, you said: "Communism cannot coexist peacefully with anything; its philosophy is one of violence and intolerance. It's a system of left-wing fascism. It shouldn't be confused with Socialism which has its roots in freeing people from corporate oppression. In America, Socialism and Capitalism already coexist. The way I see it, anything that is meant to benefit the common good and is also controlled by the government falls into the category of Socialism; things like unions, public schools, welfare, social security, etc. To simplify things, just look at every public policy and government program that the Bush administration has tried to wipe out to get an idea of where Socialist ideas can be found in America."

No. you're quite wrong. You are probably an American and you are parroting the paranioa that most Americans still feel for the communism which was practiced by the former Soviet Union. Otherwise, if you knew the definition of communism you wouldn't make such a statement. Here's how dictionary.com defines communism:

"com·mu·nism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kmy-nzm)
n.
A theoretical economic system characterized by the collective ownership of property and by the organization of labor for the common advantage of all members.
Communism
A system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy and a single, often authoritarian party holds power, claiming to make progress toward a higher social order in which all goods are equally shared by the people.
The Marxist-Leninist version of Communist doctrine that advocates the overthrow of capitalism by the revolution of the proletariat."

You see, the socialist policies that you applaud are inclusive in the definition of communism. Many of your fellow Americans will simply put down all socialist policies because they assocciate socialism with communism and they are unable to separate the good from the bad. Or perhaps, they consider all socialist policies as bad. You on the other hand are able to accept that some socialist policies can do a tremendous amount of good, as most Canadians also do. So what I am saying is that we are able to take a few pages out of the communist's book and apply them for the good of the people.

But what I attempted to say is that communist (socialist) policies can't survive peacefully alongside capitalism simply because the capitalists won't allow it in many cases. We would need to involve some hardline conservatives in this topic to illustrate how they feel about socialist policies but suffice to say, they for the most part do not want to see Canadian socialist policies survive alongside U.S. hardline capitalism. Our Canadian universal healthcare system would be a good case in point to discuss with them. And of course there are many more Canadian socialist policies that are annoying to the right in America and I can point out to you and others how the right deems it impossible for those policies to work in close relation to U.S. capitalism.

Now if you take the definition of communism above and apply it to policies that Chavez is attempting to implement in his country, and in fact in other countries with his interference with the U.S. capitalist system, you will see how the U.S. is going to have to prevent socialist policies from becoming popular with the American people. And that is pretty much what I have said. As surely as the Canadian policy of selling drugs back to needy Americans is something that is causing problems within the U.S., so too would Chavez's attempt to sell cheap gas to American consumers. The capitalist system requires defending from within and in the case of Chavez's maneuvering, it will most likely require a Cruz missile or an assassination of Chavez to stop him. Especially if he is successful in bringing other S.American countries on board with his policies. And especially if he ever has any intentions of denying the U.S. the oil which they are already providing.

[righthand]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica I came across this article that seems to be looking at Chavez in a logical fashion. Take a look at the link and tell me if you think it is spot on or way off. http://goinside.com/04/9/chavez.html

God is way off, not even on the same pitch.

Australia-based Chinese journalist Yap Chonyee also writes for China View in Beijing.

Vietnam-Iraq show that a small but determined nation can maul a bigger bully!
http://mail.google.com/mail/?auth=DQ...v8Bk6Vjs6Sb4Pl
Thursday, August 25, 2005

The people of the People's Republic of China and overseas Chinese from the great Chinese Diaspora hail President Hugo Chavez Frias as the leader who beams his shining light of great wisdom and spread his call to the peoples of Latin America to rise up and fight for Freedom and Democracy. Hail el Presidente Hugo Chavez ... the people of the world find common purpose with you in standing up to the cleansing of all our people from the evil influence from the United States of America. America today is not the superpower that it has self-styled itself to be. The USA is weak and is too fragile to last too long; America will crumple into dust and their greatest weakness is the vulnerability of the US economy. Like the saying goes, "the bigger they are the harder they fall." The USA is like that; and the USA only looks good but it is all hollow inside (too heavily eaten by white ants) or is it that the USA has reached its normal circle of growth and decline; is the USA in decline? This strategy is in within grasp because if Venezuela, Iran ... and with no oil coming out of Iraq ... and with the co-operation of Russia and China we already have more than 60% of all oil transactions in the control of these nations.

After you get passed the exalted rethoric, is all of this propaganda?

It's very hard for Americans to judge as they do not have access to the FREE media that the rest of the world has easy access to.

[Villin221]

monty of ll,

I understand the basic concept of communism; I just don’t think it can be imposed without a great deal of brute force and bloodshed, especially if it happened in America. Also, it requires leaders to take on an end-justifies-the-means mentality which usually leads to a madman ruler like Stalin totally losing track of why he was killing so many people to begin with. So yes, in that sense I always think of Stalinist Russia or even China’s “Cultural Revolution” when I see the word communism. Those are two perfect examples of popular communist movements turning into fascist-like regimes at the hands of a small group of corrupt people. Centralizing power too much will almost always result in corruption and a dysfunctional bureaucracy. It also leads to a betrayal of the poor people who were supposed to benefit the most from these systems. But I think you also make a good point about America and its hard-line capitalist policies, the people of this country are conditioned to think only of themselves which makes social programs very unpopular in general.

I can’t defend our country’s foreign policy, they say they don’t assassinate people or organize coups and that simply is not true. They do that all the time. The wrong kind of people have seized control of this country and things will probably get worse. A year ago I would have said the Righthand’s post about America crumbling into dust to be completely ridiculous but now I’m not so sure. There is no way to know what our masters at the White House and in the board rooms have planned for us, but I do know that it will not be in our best interests. I hope Chavez really does try to bypass our oil barons. He was probably just trying to provoke them, but I really want to see what would happen. Maybe it would rally some of those hicks in the Midwest to the good side. Nah, they would probably rather pay triple for gas than allow heathen commie stuff like that to happen here.
.

[monty of ll]

Villin- I don't think your country is going to crumble into dust, mainly because I think this war is just a temporary setback and a learning experience as the Vietnam war was. But there was a part of righthand's quote that seems to be right on the mark IMO:

"This strategy is in within grasp because if Venezuela, Iran ... and with no oil coming out of Iraq ... and with the co-operation of Russia and China we already have more than 60% of all oil transactions in the control of these nations."

I don't know if that's essentially true or not or even what control of oil transactions has to do with the situation but I do believe that control of the world's oil resources is certainly the issue for the U.S. As Pat Buchanan said in a recent article, future wars will be fought over the resources of the world as opposed to reasons given during the cold war. For this reason I personally feel that the U.S. is engaged in a conflict that needs to be settled in the U.S.' favour. Of course that doesn't mean that the war can be justified on that basis, only that one can come to an understanding of the reason why the U.S. is interfering in the M.E. when it is so damaging to your country.

A question on what you said: "But I think you also make a good point about America and its hard-line capitalist policies, the people of this country are conditioned to think only of themselves which makes social programs very unpopular in general."

Can you explain why you think that Americans are conditioned to think only of themselves? I wouldn't have thought that Americans were any more guilty of doing that than Canadians or any other nationality. And furthermore, if Americans were gulity of doing that, wouldn't you think that they would be in favour of mild socialist policies such as our universal healthcare for instance?

FYI Canada taxes cigarettes and alcohol very heavily, making those goods much more expensive than they are in the U.S. My own feeling is that I think it's a great idea, first because it puts taxes on others, especially heavy users, (selfish reason) and second, it has to be discouraging the heavy use of those drugs to some extent. These are mild socialist policies and it's my understanding that Americans are very much opposed to these kinds of measures. Mainly because Americans seem to be very much against taxes of any kind. Could you comment on this from your perspective? And any other American who feels like commenting please do so.

Oh and BTW, I don't think there's a hope in hell of Chavez succeeding in getting cheap gas to Americans. That would be equivalent to driving a stake into the very heart of capitalism. In any case I don't think that Chavez is serious about it, he just knows that he's going to score some big political points with Americans be even suggesting that he's entertaining the idea.

[monty of ll]

And now this!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4181528.stm

The people's friend Hugo is going to sell 22,000 barrels a day to Jamaica at $40/barrel, $20 less than market price. And that's just for a start! I'm afraid that our friend Hugo is toast if he thinks he is going to undercut the oil industry and especially, interfere with the workings of capitalism.

[Redbeard]

Ahoy, no way will the global elites allow Cha'ez t' do this Aye, me parrot concurs.

[monty of ll]

Whale oil, beef hooked Redbeard!

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: monty of ll 22,000 barrels a day to Jamaica at $40/barrel, $20 less than market price.

Watch out, Hugo! You're messing with $440,000 a day of the oily club's megabucks! How much does it cost to dial "M?"

[rcne]

Quote by: PatrickHenry Watch out, Hugo! You're messing with $440,000 a day of the oily club's megabucks! How much does it cost to dial "M?"

Very good point PH, but what if its his own people who take him out? Doesn't matter much - Americans will still get the blame.

[deedee]

Quote by: GodBlessAmerica Chavez is a communist last I heard, you would not like a communist as President, including Hillary.

So does he support communism?

[Villin221]

In answer to Monty; my theory on why Americans are conditioned to be so selfish:

I hate to sound so cynical; I really like America and the ideals our country is supposed to represent. But there is an underlying selfishness that has permeated our culture for a while. The emphasis on individuality, while psychologically healthy, gets taken too far. A lot of parents teach their kids that being better than other people is way more important than being nice to them. Nobody wants their kid growing up to be a dork. Sounds stupid, but I believe it goes back to the John Hughes movies of the 80s. No parent wants their kid to grow up to be like Anthony Michael Hall from Sixteen Candles, or even the meek Molly Ringwald character. That movie was supposed to make us sympathize with the weak, but what it really made us do is become more intolerant of “nerds”. I know it sounds ridiculous, but consider the fact that the most popular name for a newborn boy in America today is Jake, also the name of the jock from that movie. I don’t believe any child is being named Nature or Sunshine anymore. Everyone wants their boy to be Jake the Jock, the toughest and most popular kid in school. You can really see that in a lot of kids today, especially with well-to-do families. Children are more arrogant and selfish than ever and it’s because they are being raised that way. Their parents expect them to be better than everyone else at any cost. I definitely don’t see this appalling attitude when I visit other countries. Also, our pop culture, the true mentor of every child, really emphasizes mean-spirited selfishness. Ever watch a rap video lately? Every song is about how tough, rich, and promiscuous they are while drinking Congac in their Luxury Yachts that they paid for with drug money. Not exactly the same jump-on-the-peace-train message that was so cool in the 60s. Don’t get me wrong, we still have people who care about the human race as a whole, but most of them grew up poor and work in restaurants, they’re not sitting in board rooms deciding everyone’s fate.

Yeah, Chavez is probably just wallowing in attention right now more than anything else. At least Pat Robertson, nutcase that he is, got people talking about it. I had totally forgotten about Chazez until this week.

[monty of ll]

Point taken Villin and I won't speculate on it further, other than to say that I didn't think there was much difference in American kids and Canadian kids. I do however see this arrogance, selfishness, and even mean spirited attitude amongst Canadian kids too. They're even ganging up on some of their peers and killing them for sport in my country but I suppose that's happening in the U.S. too.

[PatrickHenry]

Quote by: rcne what if its his own people who take him out?

You think it's more likely for Venezuelans or the "jackals" to dial "M?"

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Trotsky Massive difference between a communist and a socialist mate!

In the years 1960 - 1962, Fidel Castro also used to say that he was not a communist.
Chavez is quoted as saying that the Bolivarian Revolution is ''not communist but humanist''. I think the best way to define Venezuela now is as an oil rich global south protocapitalist state governed by a left nationalist pro cuba government.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Villin221 In answer to Monty; my theory on why Americans are conditioned to be so selfish: Yeah, Chavez is probably just wallowing in attention right now more than anything else. At least Pat Robertson, nutcase that he is, got people talking about it. I had totally forgotten about Chavez until this week.

Hi V., I totally agree that what Robertson said was bad, not so much a nutcase as just plain stupidity perhaps driven by older age.

Regarding Americans being conditioned to be selfish.
IMO it certainly doesn't help that kids grow up with TV and Movies showing kids having lots of money, sex and expensive lifestyles/cars. Obviously this is NOT real life, but being kids, they don't have the common sense to get this fact.

In America you have the right to LIFE, LIBERTY and the "PURSUIT of HAPPINESS", nothing said you were "guaranteed happiness", only that you could go for it...

I think there are all kinds of Americans.
The selfish IMO are the ones who expect things to be handed to them without working for it. If you don't work for things in this country, you have far less as your reward.
Because a person doesn't want to work, or are unwilling to work for minimum wage when that is all they are worth is no reason to be awarded other people's money IMO.
If a person believes they are worth more, they are always free to go to the marketplace and see if someone values them enough to pay more. If they get more, they are worth it, if they don't they were not.

[GodBlessAmerica]

Quote by: Villin221 In answer to Monty; my theory on why Americans are conditioned to be so selfish:.

Hi V.,
I failed to include an important point before. That a great education and money is not a necessity for becoming well off in this country. (It could exclude you from advancement at a major company though)

Many uneducated poor people in America have made something great out of their lives through personal inspiration, hard work and at times taking risks in their own business.
Many have in fact have become happy and even rich.

That would IMO be more about achieving the American dream and not selfishness though.

[Villin221]

From GodBlessAmerica

Many uneducated poor people in America have made something great out of their lives through personal inspiration, hard work and at times taking risks in their own business.

It's like Morgan Freeman said in Bruce Almighty, how there is freedom in hard work; "Some of the happiest men on earth come home stinking to high heaven." A far cry from men who jump off of buildings because the stock they inherited from their dad will no longer buy them any more cocaine.

Hmm, I'm getting further and further off subject and now Chavez is no longer in the news. This disaster on the Mississippi coast is like a gift from Santa Claus to our news agencies. They were starting to run out of ideas on how to scare the public into watching them.